The days of wondering if social media is going to become an issue in the work place are far behind you. If you don’t take swift action now to establish a social media policy that’s fair to all, your company could face some serious social media blowback. This isn’t a problem that’s limited to big business. Any business that has employees needs to adopt a strong social media policy.

The bottom line is that your employees represent your company—even when they’re off duty. Having an effective social media policy not only insulates the company, to some degree, from blow-back, it also gives them grounds for dismissing employees who cause the company problems (including bad publicity) due to their own social media contributions.

Walking the Tightrope

Unfortunately, there’s an up and a down side to creating an explicit social media policy. When used wisely, employee’s social media contributions can actually do a lot of good for businesses. However, the situations we hear about in the media almost exclusively focus on social media gone wrong rather than all the wonderful ways it can be used for the greater good. In other words, the policy is needed, but you should make an effort to not make your social media policies stifling. Social networks, after all, are places where the average person turns to let his or her hair down and unwind.

Get Employee Input When Creating the Policy

Your employees are the perfect source for information about the specifics you should put into place in your company’s social media policy. Find the employees that have the most active social media lifestyles and bring them in to serve as consultants for the policy. This also helps all staff members understand that they aren’t being singled out by management with the social media policy.

Focus on Positive Language

Any policy is easier to take when it’s phrased in a positive way. Focus on what they can do and what you encourage them to do in their social media activities. Request that employees include disclaimers and provide full disclosure that they are, in fact, employed by your company, when they post. Also ask them to let their circle of friends know that they are stating their own opinions and that those opinions do not represent the thoughts or opinions of the company.

Social media policies are, first and foremost, about protecting the image of the company. While it takes all kinds of brilliant minds attached to varying opinions to make your company tick, these diverse thoughts and opinions can cause public relations nightmares for the company without a social media policy in place to harness them. Be fair. Be appropriate. And, be consistent in your enforcement of these social media policies.

Learn more about HR policies and management concepts by talking with the experts at Davis Staffing today!

The most recent recession may be on the mend, but the effects of the recession have remained in the country’s job market. Job seekers are now experiencing the many differences in how employers are recruiting employees, and how difficult it is to get a good job, even when they are completely qualified for it. There is not only more competition, but employers are using different tactics for recruiting. Therefore, the job search has changed dramatically for everyone involved. Many of the changes in recruiting employees and searching for employment are thought to be permanent and will forever change how people look for and get hired for jobs.

Job Seekers Have More Competition

Although the job market is steadily rising following the recession and more jobs are becoming available, there is also more competition than ever before. In order to have a good chance of being hired for the job you are interviewing for, you have to prove to the recruiter or employer that you have more experience, skills, and dedication than your competition. It is becoming exceedingly more difficult to stand out from the crowd and come out on top, making the job search more complicated. You might be qualified for the job position, but chances are, your competition is equally qualified.

Job Seekers Must Have a Social Media Presence

Following the recession, human resource departments are being bombarded with job applications and resumes as job seekers look for employment. This has led to the popularity of using social media for recruiting employees, and therefore requires that job seekers use this to their advantage. Having a social media presence offers you the chance to create a professional portfolio about your experience and skill set that makes you a desirable candidate for the job you are qualified for.

The increase in competition, as well as lack of jobs post-recession, has also made networking that much more important. Job seekers should go through the right networking channels and build professional relationships with individuals in similar industries as the one they are interested in. This allows for optimum success in obtaining the job they want.

Job Seekers Must Leverage Transferable Skills

If you have a unique skill set that is only beneficial for very specific job descriptions, you may find it more difficult to get a job position matching your skills. Nowadays, it is more important than ever to have skills that are transferable and will pertain to many different types of jobs. This gives you more opportunities for advancement and offers skills that recruiters understand will be more beneficial to their company and the positions available. If your job position suddenly becomes obsolete, having transferrable skills may give you the option to stay at your company by switching job descriptions.
Job Seekers Must Customize their Resume and Cover Letters

Generic, cookie-cutter resumes and cover letters are no longer getting job seekers into interviews as recruiters and hiring managers see hundreds just like them. In order to stand out as a potential job candidate, you need to tailor your resume and cover letter specifically for the job position you are applying for; continue to customize it for each job you want. While you can start with the standard resume, you will need to make the resume unique for the position and company you are applying for, including showing skills that pertain to that job position specifically.

The recession is over and companies throughout the country are beginning to expand their staff, but this doesn’t mean the job search is going to be easy. In order to be recognized as a potential candidate, stand out from your competition and prove to the employer that you are the perfect person for the job.

Find the right job right here at Davis Staffing – where you will find plenty of part time, full time, temp to perm assignments to launch your career in this new recovery.

Knowing what type of questions to ask a potential job candidate is often the most frustrating part of the recruitment process. While many employers continue to ask the same types of interview questions, the answers given don’t provide you enough information about the employee’s attitude. According to Mark Murphy, as written in his book, Hiring for Attitude, “46% of the people hired will fail in the first 18 months on the job – 89% of the time, it’s because of attitude.” In order to avoid the mistake of hiring an employee based merely on his skills and job experience, evaluate your interview questions first. Including specific questions and instances related to your industry will help you discover if the employee has the proper attitude for the open position.

The Importance of Valuing Attitude over Job Skills

Technical skills can be taught, but attitude is something an individual has naturally developed; this is one of the primary reasons why attitude should be valued over job skills. The attitude of an employee will most likely not change; therefore it is crucial for you to determine a candidate’s attitude during the recruitment process.

There is no right attitude; this will change depending on your company and industry. In order to determine the attitude you are looking for, take the industry, unique company needs, and job title into consideration. For instance, one company may find an employee who is motivated by success to be an excellent attitude to have, while others like to recruit employees who show that they are creative and can solve difficult problems using unique methods.

The attitude of the potential employee must also mesh well with the attitudes of supervisors, management, and other employees. No matter what type of company you have or in what industry you are experienced in, employees need to work together as a team. In order for optimum success, having employees with attitudes that work well together is vital.

Why Typical Interview Questions are Ineffective

The typical questions asked in an interview — “Tell me about yourself,” “What are your strengths?” and “What are your weaknesses?” are all legitimate enough questions.  But the employee is often expecting them and has their answer rehearsed before the interview even starts. Typical and behavioral interview questions aren’t industry-specific and won’t be tailored to your specific company and product. For this reason, more unique and original interview questions are needed to determine the attitude of a candidate.

How to Assess Attitude in Candidates

Choose interview questions that go beyond the typical types of questions asked. They will provide more insight into the individual you are recruiting. For starters, you compile a list of important traits and attitude types that are essential for your company and industry, whether that be someone who is good at problem solving or a quick learner. Reword this list into interview questions that will help you gather what type of attitude the candidate has. For instance, if you ask the question “Could you please explain an instance where you were asked to do a task you were not familiar with?” you have given the employee a chance to explain how well they learn new things and how exactly they go about learning something with little instruction.

Assessing attitude gives you the ability to hire employees who will be a good fit for your company, rather than those who will bring solely experience and a certain skill set. While skills are important, more attention should be paid to the individual’s attitude and answers to your unique interview questions during the recruitment process.

For access to a pool of highly skilled candidates in the Chicago, Northwest Indiana and surrounding areas, be sure to get in touch with Davis Staffing today. We can help you select the right candidates who have the skills and attitude to help your company succeed.

In your job search, networking is an important component to success. However, if you are not doing it properly, all of the networking you are doing may be for nothing. The process of networking involves talking to numerous people and building up the number of people you know within your industry or in correlating industries. The goal is to get your name out there to ensure that if someone knows about a position, they think of you.

Networking Can Go Wrong

There are some cases in which networking doesn’t aid, but actually hurts a person’s ability to find a job. If you are like most people, you do talk to friends and family on a regular basis. But, are you talking to the right people in the right way? Here are some ways networking could be working against you.

• You are not talking to anyone that could hire you. In short, you are spending too much time talking to and getting to know other people doing the job you are doing. If you are not networking with human resource professionals, managers or business owners, you are missing out.

• Are you desperate? It’s obvious if you are. Don’t network in such a way as you end up looking like you are begging for a job. In fact, you should not start networking when you are out of a job, but while you are still employed. You don’t want to be the person thought of as desperate for work.

• You love to add names but you are not building any relationship with those you are speaking to through your networking. It is not about quantity. Often, there’s talk about how many people you have following you on your favorite social media platform. The problem is, if you are not engaging the right people often enough, they will not remember you.

• Do you have goals? If you don’t have goals for your career or know what type of position you are looking for, those you are networking with will not know either. That’s the problem with networking – you have to work to define the career path you are taking.

• You aren’t talking to the right people. Ask yourself if the person you are networking with has connections to the people you want to work with in the future. Too many dead-end contacts will hurt you in the long-term and they definitely will not help you to find the job you want.

How are you networking? Is it paying off? If not, now may be the time to take some significant steps to make changes.

Ask yourself what you could be doing to better your network of people, such as building your network in a different way or better engaging the individuals you are networking with. There’s no doubt you need to talk to people to find a job. However, it’s all about talking to the right people in the right way to get the results you need.

Any government agency that uses a set of initials in place of its name makes most ordinary citizens a bit nervous. They can spell bad news for people who don’t tow the line and follow the rules they set forth. The same holds true with the National Labor Relations Board, otherwise known as the NLRB. This organization was created as part of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935.

The NLRB is supposed to be a completely independent agency of the government, and is in charge of overseeing labor union elections as well as investigating and eliminating unfair labor practices in union and non-union businesses. That’s the part that many business owners fail to realize.

With no union members on their payrolls, a lot of small business owners and managers are under the mistaken assumption that the rules set forth by the NLRB aren’t meant for them. That isn’t the case at all. In fact, most decisions made by the NLRB board impact all union, non-union, private-sector, and non-profit companies that employ one or more people. Very few of their decisions are limited to union employees alone.

The Impact of the NLRB on Your Business

Sadly, this is an instance where the things that you don’t know really can hurt you – a lot. First of all, congressional approval isn’t needed for the rulings of the NLRB board to become law. While the board itself is supposed to be apolitical, it tends to rule according to the political affiliations of the members. A Republican-leaning board tends to side with the companies more often than not, while a Democrat-learning majority often rules in a pro-union manner.

Here’s where things can get a little confusing. It’s common practice for the NLRB to reverse the decisions of previous boards. This means it’s up to the business owners to stay on top of what’s going on with the NLRB. Whether you’re privy to decisions or revisions, you’re ultimately still responsible for upholding the rulings sent down from the board.

How can you stay out of trouble with the NLRB?

• Carefully monitor new rulings. How are they going to impact your workplace as they are being considered? (you can generally tell how a ruling is going to go by who is on the board at the moment).
• Avoid any illegal activity, including discrimination against hiring union members.
• Be aware of any previous NLRB rulings that are on the chopping block at any given moment and how those changes will impact your business as well.
• Educate your employees and strictly enforce policies that are designed to promote the NLRB rulings in place.

Your best defense against serious legal troubles with the NLRB is to stay on top of things. Avoid even the slightest appearance of wrongdoing. Keep your business on the straight and narrow and the NLRB shouldn’t find any fault with you or how you operate your business.

Having a winning employment history will help you to land your next job. Your employment history, you may be thinking, is anything but winning. It may be sorted, hectic and lack enthusiasm. You may even call it a lackluster description of the past few years. If you want to land that big job, though, you’ll need to ensure your employment history has something amazing to offer. It should tell the company what you’ve done and why you are worth hiring based on what you’ve accomplished thus far.

Tips for Making Your Employment History Stand Out

What will make your next employer read through your employment history and think you are a winner? It often depends more on how you write it than on what you include. In other words, the way you word your employment history on a job application or resume will have a direct impact on your future employability with any company. These tips will help you through the process.

• Don’t write a job description. Most hiring managers don’t read the job description anyway. They don’t want to hear what you did on a day to day basis. It is not enough to really draw them in.

• Allow your employment history to show your value. What did you have to offer the business? The value you present should be in things like the type of worker you are or the way you can consistently provide results. You will want to put more attention on your accomplishments here. Show what your potential value is to the company that hires you.

• Be specific and use numbers. Just saying you grew the company’s customer base is not enough. Show numbers. Show specific data that can easily transfer into worth. Show how you helped your previous employer improve using measurable results whenever it is possible to do so.

• Focus on the outcomes you brought to the table. In other words, talk about the result before you mention the problem. Allow the most important, most valuable or the most compelling aspect of your accomplishments on the job to be the leading factor when writing your employment history.

In addition to these tips, ensure your employment history uses action words and delivers information in a clear, easy to read manner. You want your employer to immediately see the value in what you are writing without having to read long, drawn out paragraphs of content. They just will not do so.

Even if your employment history doesn’t seem as stellar as you think it should be, by using these tools, you’ll be able to showcase your value and what you can offer to the company. At the end of the day, employers want to know what you can offer them and what they can expect from you.

Temporary workers are those who come in, do the job at hand and leave. They go from one position to the next, from one company to the next, filling in where there is a need. What you may not realize is that many employers are turning to these individuals and hiring them on instead of letting them go. This could be a sign that employers are gaining more confidence in the recovery of the economy and are more willing to open the door to new employees.

Test Temporary Employees Out

While employers are hiring, many are turning to temp agencies as a way of vetting those they do bring in. Instead of bringing in fresh, off the street talent they have to vet and feel out on their own, they are letting temp agencies handle that process on their time. As a hiring manager, you may be realizing the true benefits of doing just this.

• Instead of going through a lengthy interview process and hiring process, some employers are cutting to the chase and hiring employees from temp agencies after those temps come in and work for them.
• Employers can thus save money by not wasting it on employees who may look good on paper, but don’t work out in person. They can simply let the temporary go without any repercussions on their side.
• All of the time doing background checks, interviewing and screening these applications is done for the employer, on the dime of the temp agency. That makes it far more affordable to bring on new employees without having to do all of the leg work themselves.
• Often times, employers can pay temp staff lower wages than they would have to pay someone who was coming in for an interview off the street. Flat wages continues to be a big factor in the hiring market, but some are happy to just land the job.
• Temps allow companies to expand and contract as they need to. This is often due to the increasing or struggling economic factors many businesses are experiencing. They can bring on staff and let them go easier without putting too much at risk.

Hiring is broadening as more employers are willing to take on new employees. According to some reports, the staffing sector added 45,000 jobs in February, after good January and December numbers. 1.86 percent of the US labor force is made up of temps, according to Reuters.

As a hiring manager, the use of temp agencies may be necessary to ensure enough staff is on hand at all times. Hiring through temp agencies is not anything new, but it is an opportunity for some companies to find key workers without as much risk. That’s what many employers are counting on.

Social media is all the rage these days – for many reasons. Businesses, of all shapes and sizes, need to incorporate social media into their business plans. With that in mind, however, there are certain things you should and should not do with your social media efforts. This is especially true if you plan to use social media as a means to reach out to new and highly qualified candidates for jobs you have available. Here are a few things you should consider when using social media if you want to appeal to a wider audience of potential employees.

What Candidates Wished Employers Posted on Social Media Pages

MiracleWorkers.com conducted a survey of healthcare workers which revealed that 40 percent of workers in the healthcare industry wished companies would post job listings on company pages. They’d also like to see more information about various career paths in their organizations posted on these pages.

WorkInRetail.com conducted a similar survey of retail employees and discovered they would like to similar information on job openings. But they had an additional request. 18 percent of retail employees responding to the survey also want organizations to list something fun about working for them as well as employee testimonials.

IT employees, according to Sologig.com are also looking to learn something fun about working for the company and hearing employee testimonials. 39 percent of workers in the IT industry are also interested in seeing job listings go social by appearing on company’s social media pages. They also want to know what types of products and/or services the company is working on too.

What Companies Should Not Do with their Social Media Efforts

There were several things that workers across the board (in all the industries surveyed above) agree companies should not do. Companies should not be sporadic in their social media updates. Businesses should not fail to respond to questions that are asked of them. They should also avoid company communications that read like advertisements.

The filtering of comments was another thing that really bothered job seekers in these industries. People would much rather hear the good, the bad, and the ugly about a company before deciding if they can live with the perceived negatives.

More importantly, they want to see how the company responds to the negative. An aggressive campaign to respond in a positive manner to the perceived negatives shows that the company is interested in resolving the situation while filtering the content or removing the comments completely will make it look like the company is more interested in pretending it never happened than solving the problem.

Social media can be a real boon for businesses today – especially when it comes to attracting the ideal candidate. But using social media for recruitment requires consistent work and a consistent message to really attract the best of the best job candidates. Be prepared to make social media a key player in your company’s plan for recruiting today and in the future.

Resume gaps happen. Stuff happens in life. That’s all there is to it. You must deal with it in order to move forward. How you deal with it, however, can make all the difference in the world when you’re trying to land the job you want in this economy.

While you may have been taught to believe that resume gaps are always bad news with potential employers, it’s no reason to give up completely. One thing is certain. Not dealing with it will make it the elephant in the room.

Keep these things in mind as you work on your resume and go through the interview process.

Be Proactive

If you have a gap in your resume you know the question is coming. Plan ahead and come up with an answer to give potential employers. It isn’t going to go away. You know it’s there. They know it’s there. The question is going to be asked. If not in this interview then it will be in the next. It’s better for you to have an answer planned than to stutter and stammer your way through the answer as you “wing it”.

Tell the Truth

You don’t have to give all the details or tell a long and sordid story. However, if you tell a lie and are caught, that is grounds for dismissal down the road. It’s better to be as honest as possible without over-sharing the details or leaving something off your resume. Most employers understand that life, and even layoffs happen. Tackling the topic head-on shows potential employers that you have nothing to hide.

Don’t Embellish

While it may be tempting to embellish events to make you look as good as possible, resist that urge. Take a “Just the facts ma’am (or sir as the case may be)” approach to the interview and don’t volunteer details or information that doesn’t directly related to your bid for employment. There’s no need to try to make the other person or company involved look bad. It will only reflect poorly on you instead.

Present Your Time off in a Positive Light

Make note of things you did during that time that will make you a better employee. It can be classes you took, events that occurred, and/or life lessons you learned during that period of time.

It’s the little things that will make the most profound differences in your job search. Most potential employers want to like you. It is your job to give them a reason to do so without misrepresenting who you are and the path you took to get there. You want the job but honesty and integrity about resume gaps will get you the job much faster and help you keep it much longer than trying to spin a story that really isn’t yours.

A social candidate is a professional who is able to interact within many social networks properly. A person who can work well with others is often times more valuable than the individual who has all of the technical skills, but lacks the ability to communicate his thoughts, needs and ideas with others. From the overpowering individual who does not realize working as a team is better to the shy person unable to communicate with the group, this lack of social skill can affect any work environment. You should be hiring a candidate who is stellar and that often means that his or her skills off the paper need to be just as good if not better than what their resume has to say.

How to Choose a Social Candidate

If you do not select a social candidate, you could be missing the best person for the job. Some equate hiring a candidate with all of the technical knowledge and no social skills like designing a racecar with all of the power possible but not putting in an effective steering and braking system. Rather, choose a candidate with the right skills – skills that can help the candidate to perform his or her job better. You will need a candidate with the skills to work with others.

What does a social candidate really offer? How can you tell he or she is the right person for the job?

• He or she is self-aware. The candidate understands how the actions taken by the candidate affect others around them.
• This person has a social intelligence. He or she understands the various methods for influencing other people’s perceptions and behaviors.
• He or she has self-control. Even under a significant amount of stress, the candidate does not lose his cool. Rather, emotions and actions remain under control.
• The candidate is sensitive to others. This indicates that the candidate can show sensitivity to others.

To find a social candidate for the job, you will need to ask questions and determine how the person reacted in the situations he or she was in. Is the candidate sensitive to others? You can often tell by discussing the influences on his or her career. Those that answer by including others around them during their career development are more sensitive to others.

You can often see the differences in the social skills of a candidate, too. Set up a luncheon for a group of candidates. Note how each individual interacts with others. Are they engaging or standoffish? Another option is to use personality tests or role-play to get a better ideal of the individual’s social skills.

When hiring a candidate for a job in which the candidate will represent the company, it is critical to choose an individual with social skills. One that is lacking could in fact hurt the company’s image or at the least reduce the productivity of the staff. Choose someone that can better the company through his or her ability to work with and through other people.