Determining why you canât find a job is easier said than done. For many, itâs a complete mystery that leaves them frustrated and unsure of what to improve on. This list of common reasons why you canât seem to find a job will help you become a more competitive applicant, and ultimately receive job offers. […]
The post 23 Reasons Why You Can’t Find A Job In 2023 (Plus Tips) appeared first on Career Sherpa.
Those interested in career trends probably already know about the importance of making new connections on LinkedIn and optimizing their profiles. However, one thing that many professionals still struggle with is offering value to their professional network.
Offer value to your network? What does that even mean?
This means communicating with your network consistently, not just when you’re looking for a job and need something from one of your connections.
So, how do you offer value to your professional network?
Sometimes opportunities will present themselves where you’ll come across connections that are in need of knowledge or skills that you possess. Make a note of what they are looking to do and ask yourself, âHow can I help this person with their business initiatives? What support, resources, or connections can I offer them?” Once you figure all of that out, you’ll be serving your network in no time.
Here are three SUPER easy ways to offer value to your LinkedIn connections:
This is the easiest way to start a conversation and/or keep in touch with a contact by offering value. Consider this person’s industry, interests, and special projects. What can you find on their LinkedIn profile? What have you learned about them in your conversations?
If you come across an article or video that you think they would find interesting or helpful, don’t be afraid to share it with them. You could say something like, “Saw this article and thought of you! Wanted to share. Enjoy!” That’s itâeasy. They will appreciate the gesture and keep you in mind!
You can also share articles on your feed for your entire network to see, with a message like, “I thought this article made some good points. What do you think?” This could potentially lead to some good exchanges and meaningful conversations with connections that you haven’t spoken to in a while.
Posting content is also a good way to make use of your own profile and stay relevant.
Sharing content works both ways, and another easy way to offer value to your LinkedIn connections is to share their articles and posts with your network.
If you found a blog post from one of your connections really interesting, share it with your network by posting it on LinkedIn with a brief blurb explaining why you’re sharing it. (Don’t forget to tag the author with the @ feature!) They’ll appreciate the gesture, and will likely remember that the next time you share something.
Sharing or commenting on a connection’s article is also a great way to reconnect. It sure beats sending a message that says “just checking in.”
Another important thing to remember is it doesn’t matter if you’re sharing your own content or someone else’s. You’re still being active on LinkedIn and staying in front of people. This is a great way to build your personal brand.
If you think someone in your network could benefit from connecting with one of your connections, you could shoot them a quick message saying something like:
“I noticed you’re looking to break into the entertainment industry. I’d love to introduce you to Jody Smith. She works as a talent agent out in L.A. and I’m sure she’d be a valuable addition to your network. Would you be interested in getting an introduction?”
Just make sure you ask your other connection if the introduction is appropriate before offering him/her up! This is known as super connecting.
Once again, this is something that could come back to benefit you if you find yourself in a position to make a career change and are hunting for a job.
Always be willing to offer value to your network when you don’t need it so that when you actually do your professional connections will be more than willing to help!
Also, the more you network, the better networking habits you develop.
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This article was originally published at an earlier date.
Want to get hired? Of course you do! Employers nowadays are looking for a more holistic group of skill sets in the people they hire. It’s not enough to just deliver on your core skills anymore.
What will make you most valuable and have the most impact at a company is a combination of your core, personal, and intangible (soft) skills.
Here are six intangible skills that can get you hired today and certainly again in the future:
The “relentlessly changing” world we live in requires its workers to be able to flow with change, adapt to change, and navigate change with a can-do attitude. Those who can adapt the best to personal, policy, and leadership change will be valuable assets to their work teams and workplace.
The most successful sports franchises all have a balance of veteran, experienced, and rookie players. Working together with people of different generations, cultures, and demographics is a coveted intangible skill that will become more and more important as the workplace becomes more culturally diverse.
Your “human relations” skillsâbe it developing rapport, listening, motivating others, or delegating with respectâwill be what makes you an important part of any team.
Owning the job you have and making things better and more effective, instead of just showing up daily to do the same thing, is an intangible that will make you stand out. You don’t have to be the “owner,” president, manager, or CEO to show leadership.
Just look at all the employees honored for their work in the awesome program “Undercover Boss.” Most of these workers just have a strong sense of personal pride and work ethic, regardless of their personal lives of showing up to do a great job and making a difference every day.
This is pretty simple. The workplace requires people to do more tasks and take on more responsibility than ever before. Expect it and get prepared for it.
Certainly, this should have realistic boundaries. It’s important for you to find work-life balance in whatever position you land. You don’t want to experience career burnout.
Being open and flexible to learning new skills and approaches, interacting with new people, and trying new ways of doing things shows resilience and perseverance to do whatever it takes to do the job and get it done.
Nobody wants to hire someone who’s stuck in their ways. In the interview process, it’s important to come across as open-minded and coachable, especially if the company values a dynamic work environment.
“Whistle while you work.” Nothing is more attractive and powerful than someone who is a bright spot in anyone’s day and shows up with a positive attitude of gratitude. Leave the personal, heavy stuff at home and come to work ready to greet colleagues and customers and make their day brighter.
You can talk about your intangibles through specific personal stories that demonstrate how you used them. Nothing beats a great, real story that gets people to relate to you. This can be a huge competitive advantage in addition to documenting achievement and accomplishment in your core skills.
If you need some help discovering some of your intangibles, think about three jobs where you took on a project, made it your own, and were successful. Ask some of your current or past colleagues to tell you what they think your intangible skills are. If you need to practice, volunteer outside of work or ask your boss to give you a small project that can stretch you!
In today’s job-seeking world, there are your core skills, personal skills, and intangible (soft) skills. More often, if it comes down to you and someone else, the person who has the intangibles usually wins! What are the intangible skills that have impacted your jobs?
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This article was originally published at an earlier date.
How many times does someone use a piece of business terminology which you donât really understand? Everyone else nods sagely, so you think the best thing to do is to nod along sagely as well, instead of asking, âExcuse me, what exactly is a KPI?â
Iâm going to explain what KPIs really are and how they work so that you can discuss them intelligently and make sensible decisions.
KPI means âkey performance indicator.â There are a number of origin stories. The most popular involves public sector management.
In 1980s Britain, where Margaret Thatcherâs Conservative Party were trying to find ways to run government more like businesses, they came up against the challenge of measuring the performance of organizations that donât, and arenât intended to, make money. So, they started using KPIs to do the job.
KPIs often focus on what happens within processes. Businesses realized that they could use them too. Information technology was becoming available to crunch the numbers. It was the perfect breeding ground for KPIs.
KPIs (or âmetricsâ) measure something in numerical terms. Sometimes, organizations try to justify funding requests by âmeasuringâ the unmeasurable. An organization may quantify âengagementâ by counting how many meetings they have with their target audience, how many people were attending the meetings, etc. While this measures âactivity,â does it necessarily measure âengagementâ? How many people pay attention during the meetings? What happens because of these meetings?
When someone presents you with a KPI, ask how itâs calculated or what it is supposed to represent.
âLagging indicators are used to measure what has happened while leading indicators are used to predict what is going to happen. Lagging indicators, which measure what has happened, are often used as leading indicators, to infer what is going to happen.
Average handling time (AHT) is a good example. It measures the average length of time a contact center agent spends working with each customer, including talk time, hold time, and after-call work. It is based on calls that have been finished, so it can rightly be considered a lagging indicator.
AHT is also used to infer how many calls agents will handle in the future. AHT is an integral part of forecasting and planning. In this way, AHT is also a leading indicator.
When someone quotes a KPI you are unfamiliar with, ask if itâs a lagging indicator or a leading indicator. And if they say itâs a leading indicator, ask why.
Aggregated metrics or KPIs are those which donât measure something directly, but instead combine a series of other metrics to come up with an overall score. Performance ratings are a typical example.
A contact center agent gets a quarterly performance rating. Her bonus depends on this. It is a combination of her AHT, how many calls she handled in the quarter (productivity), how many hours she worked in the quarter (attendance), and a quality rating based on one call evaluated per week by her supervisor.
Her performance rating doesnât only depend on the four statistics shown above. It also depends on how important the person designing the metric thinks each statistic is. She might have perfect quality scores in all the calls evaluated, but if quality is given a 10% weighting and AHT has a 40% weighting, then her calls being longer than the average will work against her, regardless of her quality scores.
The choice of metrics is also important. Her âperformanceâ depends on AHT, productivity, attendance, and quality. A contact center shift has a finite length, so if AHT goes up, productivity will inevitably go down, so the two metrics are more or less measuring the same thing.
The choice of metrics has an influence on behavior. I am an agent. If I know I am going to lose my bonus spending too long trying to help a customer, then I will rapidly escalate him to Tier 2 if I canât solve his problem quickly.
To understand a metric, you need to know where it sits in the process you are measuring. Traditionally, there are four places where they can sit.
Inputs: They measure what happens to contributing factors before the process starts. Contact center classics are ânumber of calls offeredâ or âright party connects.â On the HR side, they can include âagent churn.â
Process: They measure what actually happens during the process. Most contact center KPIs are “processâ KPIs. Classics in the contact center world include service level (percentage of calls answered within a specified number of seconds) or AHT.
Outputs: This is what the process produces as complete units of finished work. The contact center âclassicâ is âproductivity,â the number of calls handled. Output measures should be hard numbers. If an âoutputâ measure is a fuzzy aggregate KPI like âengagement,â then itâs worth asking what exactly the process produces.
Outcomes: These are intended to measure the consequences of the process. They do not always correlate with outputs. NPS scores are a typical example. High-tech contact centers may use customer sentiment scores. Outcome KPIs are more likely to be aggregated, which means they may be more subject to manipulation or bias. If youâre not sure what an outcome KPI means, try asking what it measures or how it relates to the process itâs measuring.
Wrapping Up
Done right, KPIs are a valuable tool to understand how processes are performing. They do need to be well considered and applied intelligently. If youâre looking to overhaul your KPIs and would like to bounce a few ideas around, why donât we get in touch?
Project management skills are planning, executing, monitoring, and controlling projects of different sizes and scopes. They involve setting clear goals and objectives, defining roles and responsibilities, managing resources and risks, communicating effectively, and delivering quality results.
If you have project management skills, you might think they are only helpful for managing projects. But that’s not true! Project management skills are valuable for project managers and anyone who works on projects or leads teams because these skills are transferable to other job roles and industries. In fact, they can give you an edge over other candidates and help you achieve your career goals.
Let’s jump into what project management skills can help you plan, organize, execute, monitor, and control projects of any size and complexity.
Project management skills are necessary to successfully plan, manage, and execute projects. These skills include hard and soft skills to analyze project performance, manage resources, lead teams, and report progress and results.
Some of the essential project management skills are:
Project management skills are essential because they can help you achieve your professional goals and deliver value to your organization. By applying project management skills to your work, you can:
Project management skills are transferable and applicable to any job role or industry involving projects or tasks with specific goals, scope, time, and resources. Here are a few examples of how you can use these skills in multiple industries:
As you can see, project management skills are versatile and valuable for any job role or industry. They can help you perform better in your current position, advance your career path, or enable you to switch careers altogether. So don’t limit yourself by thinking that project management skills are only for project managers. Instead, embrace them as an asset that can boost your professional growth. So, what are you waiting for? Start applying project management skills to your work today!
Many helpful resources can guide you along the way. A great place to start is the Project Management Institute website, where you can find a wealth of information and tips.
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Advancing in your career can bring higher status, more money, and more personal fulfillment. However, how to achieve this might not always be clear to you, especially if the company where you work doesn’t offer a clear path for advancement. The tips below can help you get ahead. Choose Your Direction First, figure out what […]
The post Follow These Tips to Advance Your Career appeared first on Jobacle.com.
There’s a lot to think about and know when it comes to conducting a job search. Sometimes we just don’t have all the answers or know where to turn. That’s why I curate articles for Summary Sunday – to help provide you with information you may need! In this week’s Summary Sunday, you’ll find: If […]
The post Summary Sunday: Issue #515 appeared first on Career Sherpa.