5 Ways To Instantly Improve Your Job Search Results

5 Ways To Instantly Improve Your Job Search Results

By now you’ve probably learned that the traditional ways of job searching don’t work anymore. A few years ago, you could put your resume up on multiple online job boards and wait for the phone to ring. Those days are gone.

If you want to land your dream job, you have to be proactive.

Here are five basic strategies to follow that will help you improve your job search results:

Scan Your Resume For 15 Seconds

Recruiters read hundreds of resumes on a daily basis. They only have time to skim the top of them, so if you don’t give a clear message about what you can do for them, then it is not a good resume. Since this is the most important document in your career, you need to give it the attention it deserves.

Focus On The High-Return Job Efforts

Businesswoman makes a series of networking calls

Job boards have less than a 5% effectiveness rate while networking has over a 50% effectiveness rate.

Start by selecting your bucket list of companies where you would love to work. Do a company search on LinkedIn and identify the decision-makers and their staff. Then, see who you know who might know someone who can then make an introduction for you. Follow the company and connect with people on LinkedIn, join their groups and conversations, comment on their blogs, and become known.

This is how you move from a passive job search, waiting for the right job to appear on the job boards, to a proactive one where you’re an active job seeker targeting the kinds of positions you really want.

Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile

Young professional works on optimizing her LinkedIn profile on her laptop

If a recruiter was searching through LinkedIn to find people for the position you are seeking, would you show up? Try it and if you are not on the first or second page, go back to your profile and optimize it with the right keywords to get yourself a higher ranking.

Review Your Online Presence

Businessman looks for a job on his laptop

Many employers will Google your name to learn more about you. Make sure you look good on LinkedIn and review your activity on Facebook, Twitter, and any other online accounts. Take down or change any comments that reflect poorly upon you. Use your own blog, online exchanges, and testimonials to showcase your professional knowledge. Your social media plays a huge role in the job search process.

Create Measurable Goals

Businesswoman looks over her job search goals for the day

Searching for a job is like any other project and you must stay disciplined, so set firm goals for yourself. For example, “I will make 10 networking calls and have two meetings per week.”

Make sure you are focusing on high-impact efforts like networking versus job board submissions. Keep a record of your efforts so if an employer calls, you can quickly determine when and how they were contacted.

Need more help with your job search?

We’d love it if you joined our FREE community. It’s a private, online platform where workers, just like you, are coming together to learn and grow into powerful Workplace Renegades. More importantly, we have tons of resources inside our community that can help you find a job and advance your career.

It’s time to find work that makes you feel happy, satisfied, and fulfilled. Join our FREE community today to finally become an empowered business-of-one!

This article was originally published at an earlier date.

How To Improve The Efficiency Of Your Help Desk

How To Improve The Efficiency Of Your Help Desk

Does your help desk support team feel like it’s “Groundhog Day” and they’re answering the same questions over and over again? Yes, that’s what they do, but is there a way to make this process more efficient? What if we enable the end user to be more self-sufficient which will make them more efficient? This will also reduce the number of “basic” tickets so the help desk team can focus on the “complex” tickets and do more proactive tasks.

How To Make Your Help Desk More Efficient

Help desk graphic

The process starts with the end users so give them the information they need to be more efficient and self-sufficient, which will help them resolve their “basic” issues faster. Here are four things you can do:

1. Create a knowledge base of common issues with resolutions so the end user can try to troubleshoot and resolve basic issues themselves.

2. Give end users the ability to reset their own password once authenticated. There are tools to do this such as the self-service password feature within Microsoft 365.

3. Teach end users how to submit a “good” ticket, which details important information such as specific error messages, providing screen prints, etc. This information helps the help desk team troubleshoot more efficiently, which translates to a faster resolution.

4. Make it easy for end users to submit issues/problems:

  • Give the end users different ways to submit an issue such as via a phone call or a portal to the ticketing system.
  • Create and distribute a small handy card that describes the different ways they can submit an issue and also includes the link to the ticketing system as well as the phone number of the help desk team (including hours).
  • If the end user calls the help desk team with an issue, have the help desk member enter a ticket on behalf of the end user. It’s important to always create a ticket so that you can track the activity and mine the data.

When end users are experiencing a problem, they may already be stressed. So, it’s important to make it easy for them to use the ticketing system. It has to be easy to get the data entered (correctly) so that the issue can be resolved as quickly as possible.

1. Default certain fields within the ticket (since the end user is logged in and you know who they are) such as date opened, end user’s name, title, department, location, phone number, etc. Not only will this save time, but this reduces typos.

2. Can default the issue’s criticality (typically high, medium, and low) to medium and the end user can change if needed.

3. Set up the ticketing system so that it sends out automated emails to the end user when the ticket is opened, a technician is assigned, the technician updates the ticket, and the ticket is completed/closed. Keep the end user updated with the status—they will appreciate this.

4. Give the end user the ability to look up their tickets (both open and closed).

  • Let them look up their open ticket(s) to see what the current status is.
  • Let them provide updates to their open ticket(s). For example, if the help desk team requested additional information, the end user can provide an update directly into the ticket. Or maybe the end user was able to fix the issue so let them close the ticket (noting the resolution).

Benefits To Having All Ticket Information In One Location

coding tech graphic

There are multiple benefits to having all of the ticketing information in one central location. One key benefit is the ability to mine the data. Export and analyze the data and turn it into meaningful information! Share the information with the end users to help them be more self-sufficient.

1. Look for trends and try to determine recurring issues. For example, one specific printer that has been repaired three times in the last five months. Or you notice several password resets on Monday mornings.

2. Have the help desk team proactively take that extra step for common process errors. For that problematic printer, figure out if it’s more cost-effective to replace versus continually paying repair bills.

3. Post tips/FAQs on the intranet. List the password conventions for the different systems, which will make it easier for end users when they need to change their passwords. Also, since most systems warn end users that their password is going to expire in x days, have a tip that says try not to change their password on Fridays. This should help reduce the number of end users calling on Monday that they forgot their password.

Making the end users more self-sufficient regarding “basic” issues not only makes them more efficient but also allows the help desk team to focus on more “complex” tasks. It’s a win-win for both sides.

For more information on creating an efficient help desk ticket process, follow me on LinkedIn!


The Process Of Career Management

The Process Of Career Management

Career management refers to the planning, supervising, controlling, handling, and administrating of one’s professional life. It comprehensively covers a detailed view of what you want to be, where you want to go, how you will get there, and ultimately how long you intend to stay.

All these answers are directly related to one’s personal goals and targets. Being able to handle changes in your career will best enable you to avoid mistakes of the past, prepare a confident approach for the present, and implement a positive direction for the future. Overall, managing your career will help maintain and develop your professional growth and direction.

When Should I Begin To Manage My Career?

Successful career management can start as early as the first day you walk into school or college. You should clearly identify your goals before enrolling in a particular degree or course and preparing for a lifelong career. (This saves a lot of money and time later on down the track!)

Be specific with what are you good at and what you enjoy doing; most importantly, think about what you can see yourself doing every day going forward. Being able to answer these questions will help you in understanding yourself better and what areas you are most likely to succeed.

If you find that you have made a mistake, don’t panic. Exhaust your options, understand the valuable skills that you have, and how you can best utilize these existing skills. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Ask yourself if you are capable of performing the task or if you see yourself progressing in a certain area. If the answer is yes, then begin your quest to achieving your targets. Never forget to network and seek out as many people and opinions as possible. You just never know where the next door will open.

How Long Does Career Management Last For?

Professional man smiles at work

Career management is a lifelong exercise. Balancing your work and social life is a juggling act. It is not just confined to one period in your life or a particular profession. In life, many things change so don’t be afraid to change with the times. It is all about adaptability and learning. The ability to learn from every setback will make you smarter in making your next career move.

The employment market may seem crowded and unpromising, but being open to change will help you survive during those dark months. The changing times are not moments of despair, but rather moments of opportunity.


Need more help managing your career?

We’d love it if you joined our FREE community. It’s a private, online platform where workers, just like you, are coming together to learn and grow into powerful Workplace Renegades. More importantly, we have tons of resources inside our community that can help you manage your career so you can achieve your career goals.

It’s time to find work that makes you feel happy, satisfied, and fulfilled. Join our FREE community today to finally become an empowered business-of-one!

This article was originally published at an earlier date.

#1 Secret Nobody Tells You About Getting Job Interviews

#1 Secret Nobody Tells You About Getting Job Interviews

Let me tell you a secret that nobody likes to hear about job interviews. I’ve been a career coach for the last 20 years and so many people come to me and say, “J.T., I can’t get any job interviews. It’s so hard to get job interviews.” And the first thing I ask them is, “Well, how do you feel about interviews? Do you like going on them?”

Change Your Mindset To Get More Job Interviews

@j.t.odonnell What nobody tells you about getting job interviews… #jobinterviewtips #interviewtips #jobinterview #jobsearch #jobsearchtips #careertiktok #jobtok #careeradvice #jobhunting #jobhunt #jobhunt #dreamjob ♬ original sound – J.T. O’Donnell

Every single person responds with something like: “No, I can’t stand interviews. I dread them. I’m terrible at them. They stress me out.”

But here’s the secret nobody tells you about getting job interviews…

When we don’t like to do something, we’re not going to work really hard to make that thing happen. And so while there are techniques you can learn to attract more job interviews, you won’t actually get more job interviews until you change your mindset about them. You’re not going to attract more job interviews until you’re good at them, until you’re comfortable with them and don’t fear or dread them anymore.

Interview prep is vitally important. And, of course, they didn’t teach us proper interview techniques in school and it’s not a skill we just naturally have, but it’s not rocket science or brain surgery either. Once you learn how to prep for interviews properly, then you’ll actually be ready to go out and get interviews (or they’ll come to you!).

Need more help getting job interviews?

I’d love it if you joined my FREE community where professionals like you are learning how to become empowered in their careers so they can finally find career happiness and satisfaction. More importantly, I have tons of resources inside this community that can help you get and prepare for your next job interview.

Sign up for my FREE community and become a Workplace Renegade today! My team and I are looking forward to working with you soon.

“Tell Me About A Time You Went Above & Beyond” (Answers)

“Tell Me About A Time You Went Above & Beyond” (Answers)

“Tell me about a time you went above and beyond” is an interview question that should excite you when you hear it. It’s the perfect chance to showcase your skills as well as work ethic. But unfortunately, it stumps countless applicants. This guide will help you prepare and approach this question effectively so you can […]

The post “Tell Me About A Time You Went Above & Beyond” (Answers) appeared first on Career Sherpa.

Onboarding And Becoming A Nurse With Passport USA

Onboarding And Becoming A Nurse With Passport USA

As health care needs expand, the U.S. will require more RNs. The growth in the number of patients as well as the need for more nurses is likely to blame for the shortfall. It is projected that 70,000 registered nurses retire each year due to the fact that about half of the workforce is over […]

The post Onboarding And Becoming A Nurse With Passport USA appeared first on Jobacle.com.

Does The Board Really Know What You’re Doing?

Does The Board Really Know What You’re Doing?

At times during my career, I’ve wondered if my concerns were adequately communicated to the board of directors or whether they appreciated my sense of urgency related to specific business issues within my function. I’m not alone in this. It is not just a data or analytics issue—many of my peers in the C-suite have wondered the same thing.

(Note: While this posting describes my experiences as a CDO or CDAO, the action steps I’m suggesting are relevant to all functions.)

Upon completing my Ph.D. in 2018, my career took me overseas to Thailand, New Zealand, and Bahrain. I observed many business practices that were culturally different from that with which I was familiar. I want to share my experience in Commonwealth countries (the UK, New Zealand/Australia, and others) and highlight a practice that I believe would enhance alignment, transparency, and speed-to-decision between management and the board.

With primarily U.S.-based experiences, the business culture shift I saw in the Commonwealth was very apparent. Regularly (this was not a one-off), the board actively engaged with additional levels of business managers rather than being “gatekept” by the CEO. In the U.S., as a direct report of the COO, I presented to the CEO but never to board members. It was rare that members of the C-suite regularly did so, except for the CFO and a few select others. My experience in the Commonwealth has been those various levels of management—general managers, other C-level execs, “Heads of,” and sometimes even those in the lower ranks—presented papers and updated the board.

In my view, this transparency and collaboration increased the sense of being heard throughout the organization and ensured that critical strategic business issues were raised and understood. The board’s engagement gave a sense of importance to the work and was connected to the larger organizational vision, a problem often raised in employee feedback surveys. CDAOs (and others) want to feel connected to the broader picture and serve the business. The linkages to the board and top management are often the glue that makes the role successful. Further, as a CDAO, this is an essential experience—as ever more investment is needed in AI, big data, and the technology that enables data analytics, more interaction with boards, will be required, as many readers of my posts have alluded to.

So, How Did The Board Increase Its Engagement With Management?

Executives talk to board of directors in a meeting

To have engagement, all parties must speak the same language. As a CDAO, I had to understand how to communicate with the board and educate them in my functional area. To do so, I attended training (entitled How to Present to the Board of Directors) which included how to present to the board, how to write a good board decision paper, and what was called a “paper for noting,” an updating document for the board on critical initiatives.

My initial reaction was that this was just an academic exercise—but no, I soon realized that it created a higher level of business transparency and helped engender more trust across the business, knowing that strategic concerns and observations could be discussed and calibrated with the board. What a refreshing change from my previous experiences!

How To Present To The Board

Man presents to the board of directors

1) All general managers and executives had to undergo this training. Importantly, this session was held by the chairman of the board and the CEO.

a. When writing board papers, assume no content knowledge by the board of the paper to be presented; therefore, provide context on the problem frame.

b. Decide up front if the paper (primary way of communicating in addition to in-person meetings) was for updating/education (paper for noting) or a decision (decision paper).

c. The board also conducted education days, where presentations and progress reports were given on critical initiatives that were part of the firm’s strategic plan.

d. The board also hosts The Board Unplugged informal meetings over drinks, where they actively encourage feedback on what is working and how to improve the business. BTW, the managers of the participants were not invited! From my POV, this was an excellent way of behaving and mirrored the ‘servant leadership’ role that experts like Simon Sinek and others suggest.

[If this level of interaction and transparency exists elsewhere, I would like to hear more about it from my readers.]

e. Several times a year, the board invited both C-level and non-C-level executives to board meetings to receive updates, indeed an inclusive approach.

Tips When Presenting (Especially To The Board!) – Remember To Be Brief, Brilliant, And Gone!

Woman talks to executives and board of directors in a business meeting

1. Bring the audience, i.e. the board, along the journey from the beginning of an initiative.

2. Give the problem statement and context for what you want the board to know.

3. Avoid using technical jargon(!) and explain things in simple business terms.

4. Know where you stand: If you mention any numbers or KPIs in a paper, be prepared to be asked about the status of these metrics. No theoretical KPI discussions; if you say a KPI make sure you can discuss your KPIs, define them, and present them, and they are consistent if the same ones are referenced multiple times in the same document.

5. Quantify the benefits and outcomes. Come with impacts and discuss the results.

This training is outstanding, especially for CDAOs. We, as domain experts, need to learn the language of board members, especially that related to running the business and P&L drivers. The board can also benefit from data analytics literacy programs, which will be the subject of a different post.

I hope this post outlines tips on how CDAOs and others can communicate with the board of directors to increase transparency, alignment, and speed-to-decision.

I look forward to your thoughts.


5 Things To Ask In A Job Interview

5 Things To Ask In A Job Interview

“Do you have any questions for me?”

This is typically the final question you will be asked in a job interview. Ask the wrong questions and you might look like a bad fit. Ask no questions and you might look indifferent, inexperienced, or uneducated about the position.

Asking the right questions—aside from proving yourself to the hiring manager—is one of your best (and last) chances to determine whether the job and company are a good fit for you. Here are five questions to consider:

Why Is The Position Open?

This is actually an extremely important question that should be asked during every job interview because the answer will provide important insights that, should you get an offer, will play a major role in your decision to take the job.

Jobs open up for a variety of reasons—some positive, some negative. Was the job created because the company is expanding? Was the previous person promoted? Or did they quit or get fired? Are you replacing a high performer, or a poor one?

The employer’s answer will help you determine whether the job has room for growth or a high turnover rate, and give you a better idea of how to manage expectations.

What Is A Typical Day Like For This Position?

A job seekers asks the recruiter a question during a video interview

Most job postings list the position’s responsibilities without saying how much time is allocated to each responsibility. You want to know this information for two reasons.

First, if your typical workday includes spending hours doing something you dislike, you may want to reconsider whether it’s the right job for you. Second, by discovering which job functions are most important to the employer, you can tailor the remainder of your interview to those areas and include them in your interview follow-up email.

How Would You Describe The Company Culture?

Company culture and how well coworkers collaborate with each other are important factors for job seekers

It’s always good to get a sense of a company’s culture and whether you fit into it. The employer’s response to this question will help you understand what it’s like working there day-to-day, what the company values are, how colleagues interact with one another, and so on.

Another good way to get a sense of company culture is to ask this question:

Can you tell me about one of your most successful employees and what makes them successful?

If the answer includes an employee who takes on a lot of extra work and works way more than 40 hours a week, this could be a red flag where the company’s values are only grounded in work. Ultimately, you want an answer where the response includes a combination of hard work, creativity, and character.

If you’re going to spend the majority of your waking hours on the job, you should make sure the company culture is a good fit.

What Are The Company’s Goals Over The Next Five Years?

An HR manager listens to a question from a job candidate during an interview

Actually, a more specific question you could ask is:

What are the goals of the company over the next five years? How does this position and this department factor into those goals?

This question demonstrates your goal-oriented nature and suggests that you won’t job hop right away. An informed response will give you insight into the organizational structure and how your position fits into it. An uninformed response suggests the hiring manager is out of touch with the organization, the organization does a poor job communicating its goals to employees, or the organization is not thinking long term. None of these are a good sign.

Here’s another way to ask this question:

What is the company’s biggest challenge in the coming years, and how does this position help you overcome it?

Do You Like Working Here?

Job seeker asks HR manager about her experiences at the company during a job interview

It’s unlikely the hiring manager will say “no” but you can still infer a lot from their response. A moment’s hesitation followed only by, “Yeah…I do,” might be a red flag. A smile and explanation of why they like working there, on the other hand, signifies a more genuine response.

A few other ways to ask this question include:

How did you come to work here?

What do you like most about working here?

If you interview with multiple employees during your job interview, ask them each similar questions. This is particularly helpful when it comes to subjective questions (e.g. “How would you describe the company culture?” and “Do you like working here?”). Doing so will help you paint a more complete picture of the organization, which will help you make the best decision once you’re offered the job.

Need more help preparing for your next job interview?

We’d love it if you joined our FREE community. It’s a private, online platform where workers, just like you, are coming together to learn and grow into powerful Workplace Renegades. More importantly, we have tons of resources inside our community that can help you prepare for your next job interview.

It’s time to find work that makes you feel happy, satisfied, and fulfilled. Join our FREE community today to finally become an empowered business-of-one!

This article was originally published at an earlier date.

How To Run A Brainstorming Session

How To Run A Brainstorming Session

If two heads are better than one, then how about ten?

The pace of change is speeding up, as is the pace of business. This brings new problems to solve, more of them and faster than ever before. New problems demand new ideas. How do you generate these ideas quickly?

One method is the very old-fashioned but very effective brainstorming session.

People often talk about brainstorming, but not many people know how to run a brainstorming session.

It’s actually pretty straightforward.

A Simple Definition

Woman leads a brainstorming session at work

A brainstorming session is a meeting between two or more people. One person presents a question to be answered or a problem to be solved. Everyone present thinks of many ways to solve the problem in a very short space of time. The organizer collates the ideas, then works with the group to choose the most useful, which are then used to formulate a plan.

The Process

Brainstorming idea, concept

This can be applied to any number of people in any setting. If followed properly, the whole thing can be finished in 20 minutes or less.

Brainstorming is quite a formal process. The formality is there for a reason. The rules make the process go faster.

Make sure that all participants know and understand how the process works before you begin. When running the brainstorming session, make sure all participants stick to the rules.

Step 1: Presenting The Problem

Present the problem to be solved as a question.

The question will usually be: “How do we _____?” or “The situation is _____. Now, what do we do?”

In a face-to-face setting, write the question on a whiteboard or flip chart. In a remote setting, write your question in the chat of your communications application.

Step 2: Generating Ideas

Tell the participants that you want their answers in two or three minutes. The urgency will motivate them to come out with the first things they think of, without their thoughts being filtered by notions of practicality, or by the fear of saying something “stupid” or “inappropriate.”

In a face-to-face setting, participants can call out their thoughts while a “scribe” writes them down. This favors the more extroverted members of the group at the expense of the rest.

Alternatively, ask participants to write their idea on paper and hand those in. Where your brainstorming session is done remotely, people can write their ideas in the chat.

At this stage, the most important rule is that there is no such thing as a stupid idea. All participants’ ideas are equally as valuable. No one has the right to criticize someone else’s ideas.

This will give you more ideas than you need.

Step 3: Filtering Ideas

Here is one way for the team to filter out ideas that will not be adopted:

Assuming you have 10 ideas on the board/displayed on the screen, ask each participant to rank each idea with a number from 1 to 10, where 1 is for the best idea and 10 is for the worst idea.

Get them to call out their scores. Add them all up. The idea with the lowest total score is the “winner.”

Select a second and third choice as well, in case some external factor prevents you from running with the first idea.

Get the team to vote on the most “creative”/“original” idea as well. This cannot be included in the “top 3” results.

“Creative” ideas may not always be immediately practical but may be possible later. Look at a suitcase from the 1960s. Why did it take so long for someone to put wheels on luggage?

What Next?

Team members brainstorming at work

​Once you have your “top 3,” then it’s up to you to decide what happens next.

Do you ask your team for a plan to bring the idea to fruition?

Do you ask them to write a proposal to pass up to senior management for approval?

That depends on the situation. Like any other conversation with a purpose, there should be a concrete result that is used in some way.

“Training” Your Team

Brainstorming with team concept

If your team has never done brainstorming before, they may find it quite uncomfortable and not produce the best results the first time around.

It makes sense to use it for a less important topic first, like ideas for the next team event, just to get people comfortable with the format.

Benefits

Remote team brainstorms together on a Zoom call

As well as being a great way to generate ideas quickly, it can also be a bonding experience for the team. Participants will see a different side of their colleagues’ personalities and will actually work as a team, rather than as a collection of individuals who do more or less the same thing in the same office.

Over to you!

Your team is your “collection of experts.” Think of your most pressing problem. Can you boil it down into a “how” or “what” question?

Set up the meeting, run the brainstorming session, and tell me how it went!

Boomerang Employees: 5 Ways To Ensure They Come Back Successfully

Boomerang Employees: 5 Ways To Ensure They Come Back Successfully

In today’s candidate-driven job market, employers are looking to the past to fill today’s open roles.

Once considered disloyal because they quit for greener pastures, boomerang employees are now very attractive as hiring leaders struggle to fill job vacancies created by pandemic layoffs, the “Great Resignation/Reshuffle,” and increased production. Some boomerang employees may have retired early during the pandemic, but are now hankering for more to their days than golf and CNN. Finally, boomerangs may have been wrongly dismissed, or a change of leadership has softened the gaze of the new hiring leaders. Whatever the reason, boomerang employees are a growing segment of today’s candidate pool.

As unemployment drops to record-low levels and workers become more selective about their career goals and company mission, sometimes a familiar face is just who you need to see in a hard-to-fill role. It’s time to eliminate the loyalty issue and bring back some institutional knowledge.

What Are The Pros And Cons Of Rehiring Boomerang Employees From An Employer’s Perspective?

Hiring managers look at each other while interviewing a job candidate

PROS:

  • Such workers bring industry and institutional knowledge and experience to the job, including the new skills and training they acquired while at another company.
  • Having experienced other workplaces, boomerangs may be more dedicated to and appreciative of their former employer than they were before.
  • In cases where clients followed boomerangs to their new companies, those clients may well follow the boomerang back.
  • Boomerangs can be a good fit when a company needs to fill a position quickly.
  • If they fit with the employee culture the first time, they will likely fit again.
  • Their work ethic and the quality of their work are known commodities.
  • They can typically hit the ground running. Not much training or onboarding is necessary which saves time and money.

CONS

  • It may cause a morale issue with current staff. Some co-workers resent the rehiring or think it’s unfair. Former teammates need to be part of the conversation before bringing back a past employee, especially if the candidate previously lacked leadership skills or a culture fit.
  • It can also give the impression that one way to get a promotion is to quit. In other words, work elsewhere and then come back for a bump in paygrade and title.
  • Workers might expect their previous years of service to count toward the amount of vacation time or paid time off they receive in their new go-round. Be sure to spell out what will happen in an offer letter, or better yet, have a “bridging policy” in your employee handbook.
  • A boomerang might struggle to learn new skills or form new relationships if the company has changed significantly since they left.
  • The candidate might now be coming back as a supervisor for their former peers which may cause resentment. Hiring leaders need to anticipate how employees will adapt to this change.
  • If the returning employee is retired, returning to work might affect their Social Security payments. They may need to limit their hours or earnings to minimize any tax consequences.
  • Check the terms of any previous severance package, pension plan, or union agreement that might limit the company’s ability to rehire a worker. In those cases, both parties may be able to waive or change the terms of the earlier deal.
  • Security clearance or other certifications may have expired. What is the cost and time involved in reinstating these?

Are You Struggling To Fill Open Roles? Could Boomerang Employees Be An Option For Your Organization?

Manager shakes hands with and congratulates an employee

You likely have former employees’ contact information in your HRIS, but if not, you can try search engines like Trupeople.com or Zoominfo.com, or LinkedIn.com to track them down.

If you do reengage former employees like my clients from the marketing and financial services industries recently have done, be sure you do not skip steps in your typical hiring process as well as:

  • Be clear about what may have changed in the organization since their departure (leadership, reorganization, benefits, pay, technology).
  • Understand more fully why the boomerang left the first time. What was missing in their prior role?
  • Ask what is motivating them to return. Does that align with why you want to bring them back?
  • Ask whether the existing team wants them back.
  • Consider offering a signing bonus paid out in increments as another tool to show a boomerang you want them back to stay—sometimes called a “pay-to-stay bonus.”

Boomerang employees are on the rise; for the most part, it’s a good thing for employers. You can ensure the “sequel” is better than the original by utilizing a thorough rehiring process.

For more information on boomerang employees, please see the World At Work article “Familiar Faces” and listen to my podcast.

Like JoJo Siwa sings, “I’m a come back like a boomerang”—hiring leaders need to be ready.

Creating Quality Standards For Contact Centers

Creating Quality Standards For Contact Centers

COVID-19 had a negative effect on bricks-and-mortar businesses. However, the contact center industry is growing apace.

Where companies adopted a fully online model, contact centers are often the only way that they interact with customers.

For banking, telecommunications, travel, and other services, the “product” they offer varies little from one vendor to another.

Competition happens at the service level. Companies must define interaction standards to satisfy regulators and customers and define their brands.

This is usually done using an evaluation form. Team leaders or quality specialists use it to evaluate recorded calls.

Where Do Standards Come From?

Call center graphic

Quality standards should reflect what matters to the regulators, who can shut the business down, and what matters to the customers, who can vote with their wallets or credit cards.

How Do We Create These Standards?

Call / contact center employees

I use the following 6-stage method:

1. What happens during the call?

To answer this question, I talk to agents. They tell me what really happens on the call in 10 to 15 bullet points.

Flow diagrams showing how the workflow is structured in the CRM system are a poor substitute.

Agents frequently develop their own “workarounds” to address poorly designed workflows rather than submit enhancement requests and wait for a response that never comes.

The list doesn’t have to be meticulously detailed. If the data produced on the back of this call is important, then this also needs to be included as an event in the process.

2. What is “good enough”?

You can’t raise standards until you have defined them. Look at each stage and write down what makes that stage “good enough” for regulators and customers.

Many contact centers do this internally. The drawback here is that your standards reflect the opinions of contact center managers, not the general public.

A customer is standing on the street on a dark, cold, winter evening calling his bank to find out why the ATM won’t accept his card. He doesn’t care how many times the agent used his name in the conversation.

One way to get the customer’s view is to arrange a focus group and ask them. Another way is to look at what customers complain about. A third way is to ask agents what part of the call is most likely to upset customers.

3. Questions

Once you’ve defined what makes each part of the call good enough, then you need to reformulate that as a question.

The question needs to be as specific and as unambiguous as you can make it. Your answers also need to be specific and understood consistently.

If your question is “How well did the agent explain the function of the product?” and the answers are “Excellently,” “Quite well,” “Poorly,” or “Very poorly,” it’s unlikely that any two evaluators will agree on the answer in relation to the same call.

Evaluators find “Yes/No” answers to questions defining a specific standard a lot easier to use.

4. What about behavior?

Most forms have at least one evaluation criterion related to how polite/respectful the agent was on the call.

There may be others related to how clearly or quickly the agent spoke.

There may also be a “bucket” question on how well the agent adhered to compliance rules.

Put these at the end. An evaluator can answer them easily after listening to the whole call without having to scroll back up the form.

5. How much detail do you need?

Contact centers evaluating calls manually will evaluate no more than 1% of calls handled.

It takes longer for a person to evaluate a call than the length of the call itself.

To evaluate all calls manually, the contact center would need more evaluators than agents handling the calls. That is not going to happen.

The faster you can evaluate a call, the more calls you can evaluate, so a shorter form will lead to a better sample size.

It’s a good idea to look at your questions and decide which ones are “necessary” and which ones are “nice to have,” then cut out the “nice to haves.”

Catching enough detail is a delicate balance. Normally, less than 5% of randomly selected calls will have any significant problem at all.

Once you know what a “problematic call” is like in terms of length, which queue it serves, which agent handled it etc., you can focus part of your selection there to catch more of them.

Always select some calls randomly to validate your assumptions, however.

One idea is a 2-stage form. Start with some global questions on script/process adherence, correct information given, and politeness. Only move on to the second stage of the form if there is a problem to be solved in the first stage.

6. Testing

This form may lose people their quality bonuses or even their jobs, so we need to test it to be sure the results are accurate.

The read through

Get someone not involved in the form creation process to read it through. Authors tend to fall in love with their work. An external critical eye may see things that otherwise won’t be seen.

The test-drive

Get evaluators to use it to evaluate some real calls. They will point out how questions need to be changed to be useful

Calibration

Calibration is when multiple evaluators evaluate the same call with the same form. In theory, they should all produce the same results.

Where a question leads to disagreement, you will need to agree on the “correct” answer, then adjust the wording of the question and pre-set answers to lead to this result.

Wrap up

If you’re struggling to create or improve a form. Try following this process. Tell me how you get on! I’d love to hear about it.

Is A Summary Necessary On A Resume?

Is A Summary Necessary On A Resume?

Is a summary required on a resume? The particular short answer is: completely not!

“No paragraph should actually lead your resume! micron warns J. T. O’Donnell, LinkedIn Influencer and founder of Function It Daily. “It will not get read. in This is especially correct if you plan towards write an “objective” assertion about yourself such because: “I’m a high-achieving best performer with outstanding in addition to incredible skills…”

This is a LARGE no-no, according to L. T. “I get this same answers at all times through recruiters—they don’t like [summary statements], ” she states. “In fact, it’s such as double nails on some sort of chalkboard to some recruiter that will see [them]. type

Why A new Resume Summary Turn up useful info

Studies show you have six seconds to find that promotion with your current resume . Based on T. T., recruiters will check out your resume inside a Z-pattern (left to right around the top fold, straight down across the page, and even over). In those 6 seconds, they have so that you can decide if they’re heading to continue reading. So, exactly what are they will be sketched to on a resume?

  • Daring text
  • Text message with white space
  • Simplified text

“I make a face once i see people waste materials valuable space in often the top fold of their own resume with this huge, long summary paragraph, alone says J. T. “Do NOT do it! lunch break

What To be able to Do Instead

Man features your resume while on your laptop

Instead of struggling to help you write your resume, understand how to properly file format it for success. This particular includes varying your leading fold from a synopsis or objective statement for an experience summary, which is usually a listing of 6-8 difficult or transferrable skills required for the specific job you’re applying for. Likewise, make sure you quantify your job experience therefore your resume outshines your competition!

If you want to make sure you learn more about just how to do this, we are able to help.

We’d love it in case you joined our TOTALLY FREE community . It’s a good private, online platform exactly where workers, just like people, are coming together for learn and grow in to powerful Workplace Renegades. A lot more importantly, we have lots of resources inside our community that will can help you create your resume—the right method.

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This article has been originally published at a good earlier date.