New Year, New Rules! Five Tips on Achieving Your Career Goals in 2018

Does the thought of going back to the daily grind fill you with dread? Or maybe you’re craving greater job satisfaction, career progression, higher salary, more challenging projects or better corporate culture? With the new year just around the corner, now is the time to reflect back on the year that was. It’s a time to set goals and reset the rules, fill in your skill gaps and prepare for the most effective approach to take the next step in your career. Take a read of our five top tips to making 2018 your most successful year yet:

Set goals for the New Year

2018 is days away, which means it’s the perfect time to reassess what you want and need to ensure a successful year ahead. Goal-setting is one of the most effective ways to achieve results and a great time to explore what you want the year ahead to look like. Your goals should act as the catalyst to help direct you where you want to be, both in the short-term and long-term. Sit down to think about what you want in the new year, this means self-reflection, both personally and professionally. It also means asking yourself some important questions, such as; what is your intention? Is it the job role or the company you’ve outgrown? What do you need from your employer? What role do you desire? Based on your goals, start outlining a plan of action.

Use the Christmas season to network

Networking doesn’t come easy to some. However, the festive season allows for a slightly more relaxed vibe where people are winding down and are more socially available for meet and greets, therefore your approach doesn’t need to be a formal introduction. This time of year is great to send out a few emails, check in or catch up with old colleagues, fellow students, school and university alumni and industry contacts. According to a Linkedin report, 43% of quality hires come through professional social networks; employee referral programs account for 32%. Perhaps you’re looking for a new role with your current employer? In our last blog, we talked about why attending the work Christmas party was a great networking opportunity. For bigger companies, it’s a time CEO’s and other C-Suite profiles make their rare appearances. Be confident, know your worth and start up a conversation, have your voice heard and your name remembered.

Use the holiday period to up-skill

The Christmas break is a great time to reflect and think about the skills you have gained over the last year and the skills that might be missing. Consider new accomplishments and notable contributions you’ve made at your current job as well as any projects you’ve been apart of outside of the workplace. Then, strategise ways in which you can seek experience to fill any gaps you might have. Take a read of last month’s blog where we gave tips on how to up-skill fast, effectively and for free!

Decide what you want from an employer

You don’t want to be spending the holiday period using all your time and resources applying for jobs that vaguely tick some of your boxes. If you’ve set goals, (refer to tip one!) you have already identified what motivates you, what your passions are, what your values are, and what you need from a job role and an employer. This sets you up to be more strategic with your approach, and ultimately frees up your time (for your 3^rd serving of Christmas pudding, right?). When it comes to your current employer, stay true to your goals and be sure you are employed by a company that is aligned with what you want in 2018 and beyond.

Be time-savvy

When is the best time to apply for a job? Many believe it’s January – new year, new roles, right? Wrong, according to Executives Online who analysed ten years of hiring data. Results saw candidate registrations surge in January, which could impact the chances of getting hired in January as so many people launch new job searches at the beginning of the year. It may be better, when applying, to wait for a calmer month. Statistically, according to the data, February is one of the best months in which the number of new jobs exceeds the year average.

Follow these tips to help transition smoothly into your new role in the new year. Here’s to a happy, successful, goal-smashing 2018!

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How to Optimise Your LinkedIn Profile in 20 Steps – Part 2

Updated for 2017/18

This is the second in a 2 part series on How to Optimise Your LinkedIn profile. It is specifically targeted at job seekers but these tips will help anyone wanting to make their profile really stand out. Click on each point for more details.

11. Use Status Updates to Stand Out!

12. Comment on Updates from Other People and Companies You Follow

13. Join Relevant Groups and Discussions 

14. Get Involved in Volunteer Work and Causes

15. Be Specific About Your Education

16. Network and Connect Actively

17. Extend LinkedIn with Mobile Apps

18. Become a LinkedIn Power User

19. Showcase Your Achievements

20. Write a Summary of Your Career

Marketo.com found that up to 94% of recruiters use LinkedIn to find candidates but only 36% of job seekers are active on LinkedIn. This presents a huge opportunity if you use LinkedIn well and make sure your profile is up to date and well optimised.

If you’re in the market for an IT job, this article will help you stand out to recruiters.

11. Use Status Updates to Stand Out!

“To be considered a Valuable Resource, you have to Add Value.”

This is true of your LinkedIn status updates. If you add value to your LinkedIn profile by not only publishing posts but by providing commentary on relevant topics, your profile is far more likely to get noticed and then shared with other networks. To increase the number of people viewing your profile, you need to be seen to be someone who can add value to the viewer.

It’s not just about sharing your own writing and blog posts, consider sharing other people’s blog posts, articles, videos and anything else that you think might be useful. Adding your own commentary and insights will ensure that your content is unique and you are not simply plagiarising other people’s work. Curating interesting and useful content is currently considered one of the best ways to get noticed online. i-Scoop describe content curation as being “about aggregating/discovering/gathering relevant content and then sharing or presenting it to audiences in a targeted and optimized way.”

Jeff Bullas recommends you update your LinkedIn status daily with new and interesting information that is both original and curated.

Don’t forget to inform those people whose content you have used so they can also share your post among their networks. Most people love to know that their blog post or content was useful and has been shared. Make sure you give full credit and a link back to the original content.

 

12. Comment on Updates from Other People and Companies You Follow

Make sure that you regularly comment, share and follow people and companies who offer relevant, valuable and useful information and content. By sharing their status updates you will add value to your own networks and gain friends and followers. People are far more likely to share your content if you reciprocate and share theirs.

This is called “building social equity” and is described by Juice Marketing as “sharing useful stuff in an unbiased way, whether it’s your own content or not – builds credibility and something I call “social equity.”

It’s very important to maintain the 80/20 ratio for sharing other people’s content to your own. It is important not to over promote yourself or you may find yourself losing followers.

Social Media Examiner has written a great article that demonstrates how and why this strategy is important. According to Social Media Examiner: “It’s all about becoming a valuable resource.  When you can dig up great articles your audience is interested in–regardless of the source–you’ll become more respected and your content will be widely shared”.

 

13. Join Relevant Groups and Discussions

Jeff Haden describes LinkedIn groups as informal communities that are generally built around a profession, niche or industry. Joining groups and discussions on LinkedIn is a great way to develop new connections.

It is important to only join groups that are relevant to you and your career. Make sure the groups are going to increase your chances of better networking, connections or understanding of an industry. It is not worth wasting your time (or the group’s) on joining with people who aren’t interested in what you have to offer and vice versa.

A very simple guide that shows you how to search for and join relevant groups can be found here. According to Sirona Consulting, social media recruitment experts, it is worth joining as many relevant groups as possible. You can join up to 50 groups on LinkedIn at the moment.

Apart from the obvious networking advantages of joining groups, it can give you the opportunity to not only look for a job but to build and foster relationships with hiring managers and other HR executives. Because you can message anyone in your group for free, you can use a group as a great way to network and connect with people who could be very useful for your career.

14. Get Involved in Volunteer Work and Causes

LinkedIn gives space in your profile for any past or current volunteer work you may have done or are currently engaged in. According to a recent survey by LinkedIn, reported by Emily Co, about 41% of professionals consider a candidate’s volunteer work experience when interviewing for a job.

Forbes reports that LinkedIn released the findings of a survey conducted in the US with 2000 professionals and found that, while 89% had experience with volunteer work, only 45% put it on their resume. Considering the number of managers who do look at volunteer work, it is definitely worth including it in your LinkedIn resume.

LinkedIn also provides opportunities to volunteer your “time and talent” to serve on a non profit board of some other type of skills based work. You can also help in online industry based forums where people ask questions and seek the advice of an “expert”. By setting yourself up as an expert in a particular field, you will increase your chances of being found by potential employers and headhunters.

15. Be Specific About Your Education

There are a number of reasons to be very specific about your education in your LinkedIn profile.

1. 1. Let prospective employers know your educational qualifications and attainments. It’s important to be completely honest and don’t embellish your achievements.

LinkedIn can find other connections from your past educational institutions. These people can often be excellent networking connections and may be happy to introduce or recommend you to other colleagues. It is not always easy to gain new connections on LinkedIn, if you have something from your past in common, you might find they can connect you to someone with the perfect job for you.

Forbes discusses why it is so important to stay completely honest when giving your educational background. As they say, you never know when your next interviewer might have gone to the school you’re not being completely honest about.

If you’re wondering how to add, edit or improve your educational profile settings, LinkedIn gives a clear outline of how to do this in just a few steps.

16. Network and Connect Actively

It’s not easy to make new connections on LinkedIn. However, it is recommended to aim to get the maximum published (500). There have been a lot of myths over the years about different features getting unlocked when a person hits 500 connections. This is not the case, the only thing that happens is that your publicly displayed number stops increasing. Hubspot debunks this and other myths about the network.

The best way to request a connection is to make a personalised request. Make sure you tell them who you are, how you know them (did you meet at a conference, meeting or are they a connection with someone you know?), why you are connecting with them (give them a reason to connect with you). Julie Yates discusses the Do’s and Don’ts of asking for new connections on LinkedIn in this article.

It is important to be careful to only try to connect with people you know or you can show some sort of connection with. While you are entitled to try to connect with people whose email address you don’t know, once you have had a number of people hit the “report spam” or “I don’t know this person” you can get put in the “LinkedIn jail house” as Social Media Examiner describes it. Once this happens you will be required to include your email address in every future contact and this can greatly reduce your ability to connect effectively in future.

If you craft a personalised message, do your homework and know a bit about the person and mention who and what you have in common, you should be fine.

Once you are connected, stay connected. Don’t neglect those connections you worked so hard to get. Tech Hive discusses why this is so important. Find out how to become a “super connector” in this Undercover Recruiter article.

17. Extend LinkedIn with Mobile Apps

Using LinkedIn’s mobile app allows you a lot more freedom to check posts, make connections and update status posts. As Matt Kapko points out, LinkedIn’s figures show that a candidate is 10% more likely to get a job if they apply on the first day it is advertised. Having the LinkedIn mobile app on your smartphone makes it much easier to stay in touch and respond quickly.

Advisor Tech Tips considers the most powerful feature of the LinkedIn mobile app is its calendar. If you are attending an industry meeting or conference, you can sync your “device calendar to incorporate rich LinkedIn profile data about each attendee”. As you can imagine, this can provide a wealth of information and useful content to help you make the most of your time and networking.

LinkedIn has now moved into a mobile based multi app approach and has put an enormous effort into making its platform mobile friendly. NextWeb reports that the mobile app is under continual development to make it even more user friendly and efficient.

Business Insider published an excellent article that discusses all the many ways you should be using the LinkedIn mobile app (but probably aren’t).

With more than 40% of users now accessing the network by mobile devices, if you haven’t downloaded their app, it might be time to think about it and learn how to use it to maximum advantage.

 

18. Become a LinkedIn Power User

Jordan Sundberg of the Undercover Recruiter says that only 50.5% of LinkedIn users have complete profiles (as defined by the social media network). This means that by ensuring you have a complete and well filled out profile and you keep an updated status and news feed, you will be considered a “power user”. This will increase your chances of being noticed, contacted and endorsed.

By using all the “tips and tricks” available to you, your status as a “power user” will be increased.

Jason Martin gives a list of some of the best ways to become a “power user” in just one hour per week. He suggests taking advantage of some of the extra features on LinkedIn such as advanced search, groups, answers (to showcase your knowledge and give back to the community), events (find out about events in your area that you might be able to join), news and updates.

19. Showcase Your Achievements

LinkedIn also allows users to showcase their achievements. This is another great way to show future employers the awards, certifications and other accolades that you may have won over the years.

For a step by step outline of how to add or change your certifications, this article will guide you through.

The Muse gives some great tips for how to show off your accomplishments to make your LinkedIn profile stand out for potential employers.

Any certification is worth mentioning. Digital WPC considers that by providing all forms of accreditation and certification, you will not only show off your achievements but prospective employers can see how these might benefit their business. Consistently updating your profile as you achieve new accreditations keeps your profile fresh and relevant.

Another excellent way to showcase your achievements is to provide work samples. You can provide these in a range of formats, including PDF, image (jpeg, png), video etc. This is one of the best ways to show off your professional achievements. If you’re unsure how to add work samples to your profile, check out this PC World article that walks you through the process.

20. Write a Summary of Your Career

One of the most important parts of your profile is your summary. William Arruda, in his Forbes article, considers your LinkedIn summary to be the equivalent of a bio. He believes a bio to be the most important powerful personal branding tool you have. According to Arruda,“an effective LinkedIn summary makes people want to know more about you and ultimately connect with you one-on-one, so congruence is critical.” Make sure your online profile matches your real world self.

Your summary gives you the opportunity to show prospective employers what is important to you. If you don’t fill in your summary, the first part of your profile they will see is your experiences section. This does not provide a focus for recruiters or hiring managers. A summary will help point them in the right direction.

Careercast’s article, “5 Essential Tips for a Killer LInkedIn Summary” offers tips for making your summary stand out. By following these pointers, your summary will give employers the impression you want them to have.

Still not sure how to write an awesome summary? Check out these examples of great summaries to make your LinkedIn profile pop.

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How to Optimise Your LinkedIn Profile in 20 Steps – Part 1

This is the first in a 2 part series of 20 points on optimising your LinkedIn profile. Updated for 2017/2018.

Click on each point for more details.

1. Check your visibility settings.

2. Customise your url.

3. Upload a professional photo.

4. Use the new header image for profiles.

5. Write a keyword rich, professional headline.

6. Include keywords in your summary.

7. Publish posts regularly.

8. Use rich media and stand out.

9. Reorder your skills.

10. Cultivate recommendations and endorsements. 

1. Check your visibility settings.

Set your LinkedIn privacy settings for maximum visibility:

Privacy isn’t one of the things that you need to be protecting when using LinkedIn to find employment. Make sure your privacy settings allow everyone to be able to read and search your profile. Since LinkedIn is a social network, it is about sharing information about you. Keeping things private won’t help your chances of being found for that next big career break.

How to set your LinkedIn privacy settings for maximum visibility gives you a clear rundown of the best ways to get the most out of your LinkedIn profile by making sure your privacy settings are configured so you can be easily discovered.

Some privacy settings are more important to get right than others. Here are 5 LinkedIn Privacy Settings You Need to Know.

Optimising your profile, member feed visibility, Twitter feed settings, profile views and understanding about authorising and removing applications are important factors in getting privacy settings right.

Still wondering why you should be visible to everyone? Understand the LinkedIn privacy settings in a step by step tutorial.

2. Customise your url.

LinkedIn allows you to set a “vanity” or “custom” url for your public profile url. This is another great way to make sure you are found as this ensures your name and page are a lot more search engine friendly. Follow these steps to set your custom url. Try to keep it as close to your name as possible.

If your name is not available, consider alternatives such as adding an initial or middle name. Another alternative is to add an industry related word that will get picked up by search engines more easily. For example: http://ift.tt/2fvkzo6

Joe Hertvik describes how to create a custom url for your LinkedIn profile using a step by step walkthrough with screenshots.

3. Upload a professional photo.

Ensure that you use a recent photo and that it reflects professionalism. Don’t include any photos from the pub, taken with a friend or with your pets. You want to look like a respectable future employee that will take the work and the job seriously.

Paying a photographer for professional photos for your LInkedIn profile can be worth the investment. While this can be expensive, a good photo will probably last you a few years. Follow these profile photo tips to ensure you get the most out of your photo shoot if you choose to take this route.

If you’re struggling to find the money or just don’t want to spend it on a professional photographer, this article on LinkedIn shows you 8 fixable photo flaws that you can avoid when creating your profile pic.

RealMenRealStyle points out that your LinkedIn profile is often found at the top of the search engine results (due to the authority of the LinkedIn website itself) and so having a bad or unprofessional profile means you are able to be seen 24 hours a day, 7 days a week online.

4. Use the new header image for profiles.

LinkedIn has recently updated its profile and cover image sizes. This excellent cheat sheet gives you the correct dimensions for 2017.

LinkedIn now gives you the opportunity to upload a new header image for profiles. Make sure that your header is consistent with your personal brand.

Social Media Examiner looks at ways to draw inspiration from other profile headers to ensure you have a stand out image. This article gives an excellent range of methods for choosing and optimising your header so that it gives you and your personal brand the best picture possible. It is worth considering how and why you want to present a particular image and the best way of achieving this.

Hubspot share their excellent Slideshare post on 10 Ideas for a Better LinkedIn Banner Image. Check out the Hubspot article for some ideas for how to make this banner image space stand out and create the buzz you want it to. While most of these tips are for company pages, you can also get some great ideas for creating the best personal profile banner image for yourself.

Hugh Briss presents tips for maximising the new responsive layout for the LinkedIn personal profile cover image and also offers a template to make it even easier for you to put one together quickly. According to Hugh, the the size LinkedIn suggests is 1400 x 425 pixels and a maximum file size of 4mb.

5. Write a keyword rich, professional headline.

The headline on your profile is top real estate, so optimise it! Load the headline with keywords for search engine optimisation For example, instead of “ job seeker”  be specific and write: “Aspiring Public Relations and Social Media Professional”.

It’s important to know what words are most effective to use in your headline. Laura Smith-Proulx lists the 5 Most Worthless Phrases in your LinkedIn Profile and why you need to pay attention to make sure you’re not wasting this most important part of your profile. You need to get it right to ensure you give the right impression to future employers and can be found easily by recruiters and headhunters..

The Firebrand Talent blog’s post How to Find Your Next Job Using Social Media discusses the importance of using social media properly when trying to find employment. It is important to understand the best way to communicate with prospective employers and strategies to “cut through the clutter” and stand out above the crowd. Writing a keyword rich, professional headline is the first step in standing out for recruiters and employers.

6. Include keywords in your summary.

Have you been wondering how you can get more people to view and find your LinkedIn profile? The Job-Hunt blog discusses the fact that a well optimised profile with highly searched keywords can massively increase the number of people viewing your profile.

There are a number of places in your LInkedIn profile where you can add keywords. Your professional headline, job title, summary, projects and endorsements can all have relevant keywords and can help you to stand out to future employers and headhunters.

Ok, so what keywords are the best to use in your job search efforts? Susan Joyce shows you how you can find the best keywords for you and your industry and the jobs you are wanting in the future. She suggests using indeed.com/jobtrends to determine the best keywords for you.

PayScale’s Leah Arnold-Smeets writes about her 6 favourite ways to keyword optimise your LinkedIn profile. One useful suggestion is to incorporate keywords into your “Interests” section. If you’re looking for a business related position, mention that one of your “interests” is to “read the Australian Financial Review” or “Harvard Business Review”. This way you get to sneak a few more keywords into your profile and show prospective employers that your career is something you take a wide interest in and are prepared to learn about, both on and off the job.

7. Publish posts regularly.

If you want to be easily found and keep your LinkedIn profile fresh, make sure you publish blog posts regularly. This is one way to show future employers that you “know your stuff” and stay up to date in the industry.

If you’re wanting to show your expertise and knowledge in a particular field, LinkedIn posts are one of the best ways to do this. Posts are searchable by keyword in both Google and LinkedIn and, like with Facebook, the more your post is shared, commented on and viewed, the more it will be shown to your networks and connections. As this post by Social Media Examiner shows, by having enough views, your post can get picked up by LinkedIn’s newsreader, Pulse. This can give your post an enormous boost and let you gain a lot more followers and traction.

Neal Schaffer gives some great tips for writing your first blog post on the LinkedIn publishing network and in the included video he discusses best practice for placing images and video in posts.

One of the original LinkedIn “Influencers”, Jeff Haden, was invited to publish posts on the network’s publishing platform, Pulse. Now that everyone has the opportunity to publish their own posts on LinkedIn, Jeff presents his ideas for best practice for writing and publishing a post for this network. One of the more important points from Jeff is to not make the mistake of using this platform purely for self promotion. It is vital to provide value and use the 80/20 rule where you provide 80% value and content compared to 20% of your own promotions.

Wondering why you would want to publish articles on LinkedIn? Jay Palter’s article presents reasons why publishing on the network is a great way to promote yourself, your knowledge and skills. As Jay says: “LinkedIn is not revealing exactly how this user-generated content is distributed on its system, but it’s clear that good articles can make their way into notifications displayed on the site, emails sent to your connections and even to the Pulse home page.”

Jay goes on to give a list of tips for optimising your LinkedIn content for the publishing platform and search results.

Marko Saric of HowtoMakeMyBlog.com gives a complete rundown of how he managed to get his post featured on LinkedIn’s publishing platform. According to Marko, the LinkedIn publishing platform allows you to “position yourself as an authority, build a following, boost your brand and expose your work to potential clients, future employers and key decision makers in your industry”.  This is incredibly valuable and if done right, can massively improve your presence and standing on LinkedIn.

8. Use rich media and stand out.

One of the best ways to stand out from the crowd on LinkedIn is to use rich media. This can include videos, slideshares, power point presentations and podcasts. Lewis Howes shows how to use video to get noticed on LinkedIn.

Once you have that video created and you’re ready to add it to your profile, you’ll want to know how to embed the video into your LinkedIn profile.

If you would like to do more than add a video and would like to consider all of the possibilities for adding rich media to your linkedIn profile, Kristin Burnham from Cio.com gives a great rundown of the many ways you can improve your profile so it really stands out.

Creating and adding a Slideshare presentation to embed on your Linkedin Profile is another way to add rich media that is highly searchable.

The “LinkedIn Professional Portfolio” brings your LinkedIn profile to life and it allows you to showcase who you are and what you can do in stunning, rich multimedia. Make the most of this great feature and method to really demonstrate why you are the perfect candidate for that dream job. Udo Milo provides a slideshow demonstrating how you can visually enhance your profile and message.

9. Reorder your skills.

Understanding how to manage skills endorsements is important. While it is possible to reorder your skills on LinkedIn, you can’t reorder endorsements. Additionally, you can only reorder skills that don’t have any endorsements. To understand LinkedIn’s endorsements system a bit more, check out this article by Andy Foote on LinkedInsights.com

If you prefer to watch a video to find out how to reorder your skills on LinkedIn, this video by Shelley Roth shows you how to do this.

If you want to know how to reorder more than just your skills in your LinkedIn profile, this LinkedIn Makeover article gives tips for how to rearrange your profile sections, experiences and recommendations.

 

10. Cultivate recommendations and endorsements.

Skill endorsements are one of the best ways to stand out on LinkedIn and give prospective employers an idea of your talents. By giving colleagues, or employers, a recommendation, they will be alerted to your endorsement and may consider providing one for you.

 

Wondering how to get more endorsements? Michael Delgado offers 5 Ways to Get More LinkedIn Endorsements.

 

If you find that people are endorsing you for the wrong skills, Social Media Examiner discusses ways to manage your LinkedIn endorsements and suggests methods to guide people into giving you the endorsements that you need.

 

Give yourself the best chance of gaining top recommendations that are relevant and from highly recognised people by reading this article by Mir Haynes. Mir gives tips on how to decide who to ask and how to ask them to give you a recommendation.

Read part 2 of: How to Optimise Your LinkedIn Profile in 20 Steps – Part 2

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Different Types of Mentoring and the Benefits of a Mentor

Mentoring Today Mentoring is having a kind of renaissance in the business world, with the likes of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg crediting Steve Jobs’s role in his success, Bill Gates crediting Warren Buffett and Sir Richard Branson also saying he had help from renowned aviator Sir Freddie Laker, in setting up Virgin Airways. There really is a strong argument to use mentoring for your business and yourself.   Benefits of Mentoring There are so many benefits to mentoring , not just for the giants of business. Mentoring has benefits for all members of staff at all levels of seniority. Mentoring can improve company culture, help train new employees, build connection with coworkers, encourage the vocalising of new ideas and build leadership and interpersonal qualities.   Mentoring Styles Traditionally, mentoring has been a top down exchange with more senior members of staff imparting their hard earned knowledge to junior staff members. But more recently mentoring is about a many-way exchange of ideas and how to manage mentoring, with the styles of mentoring flourishing in recent years.   Reverse Mentoring Reverse mentoring has risen in popularity and it is literally reversing the role of the mentor and mentee relationship. So the mentor is the junior and the mentee is the senior team member. The idea is the senior member through the exchange can gain insights into what drives (usually) younger staffers, helps them understand communication styles, for example intense social media tactics and can learn new patterns and trends of their younger customers. The juniors can get deeper insight into the business and gain confidence dealing with mature stakeholders.   Peer to Peer According to a study at a leading UK telecommunications company 78 per cent of employees prefer to learn from their peers but found little attention is focused on this type of training. So, the company set up a shared platform whereby staff can pass on their knowledge and insights through instructional briefs, videos or discussion threads or forums. Four months after implementation, new hires got up to speed more quickly and training costs have fallen.   Group Mentoring This type of mentoring is also based on using a shared platform and can also act as a starting point for more organic peer to peer mentoring. Group mentoring is where the mentor, a skilled team member usually quite senior, imparts their knowledge through the platform and can engage with several mentees at a time.   Anonymous Mentoring This sounds controversial but some companies find it very effective. Anonymous mentoring uses psychological testing and  background reviews to match mentees with trained mentors outside the organisation. Exchanges are conducted entirely online, and both the mentee and the mentor, who is usually a professional coach or seasoned executive, remain anonymous. Professional services company Decision Toolbox tested it out with positive results. Joanna Sherriff, 33, the vice president of creative services at the company and an active anonymous mentee said, “My original thought was that it would be odd, in the long run, though, I could see why the anonymity was required. I would never have shared with my mentor some of the things I did if he or she had known my identity or my company.” Mentoring will be as unique as all the humans in your organisation. There will be many occasions to start a mentoring scheme and in your working life you should expect to have a few mentors at any one stage. A mentoring partnership or group can last years, months or weeks. The key is to make sure it’s measurable, timely and outcomes based. All parties should get something out of it and at the end of the day strong connections and improvements should be made.

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Working from Home: Tips, Tools & Strategies

One in three Australians currently work from home at one time or another and that number is rising. If you’re one of those people reading this at 9am in your pyjamas basking in the glory of a leisurely breakfast with absolutely no intention of adding to peak hour traffic, you’ll know what we’re talking about. It’s not just these obvious benefits we love. Working from home usually means a quieter atmosphere for increased focus, less distractions, time and money saved on commuting and increased time with family and friends. But it can bring it’s own unique problems; isolation, information security issues, lack of community, health and safety issues, and duty of care issues. So to make it work for you, your stakeholders and your career progression here are some tips from the team at Launch.   The Home Office – Starting Point Whether you spend just a day in the home office or work the whole week at home, your home office should be very similar to your work office without the distractions. Try to see your home office from your employer’s point of view. They have a duty of care for you during office hours so make sure your chair, desk and space are at a standard you would expect at work.  You need to ensure everything including your hardware is setup to decrease the chance of injury to you and the people in your space, be it partners, children or even pets. It’s an obvious one but you’d be amazed how many people attempt to work from the dining table only to find it wasn’t really a great spot.   The Set Up Your actual work station should be a mirror image of your work desk to ensure your efficiency at your home office is the same as your efficiency at work, if not more. So if you operate with two or more screens at work, you should have this set up at home or if you need to video conference frequently, ship in the right hardware to make sure you’re accessible and constantly not “having technical issues”. We’ll go into the best tools for working at home later.   The Home Office is Not Exactly Your Home Your home office needs to be an area that is a designated work space for the purpose of work only. It needs to be separated and somehow removed from domestic life. Close the door, turn on your “work” music. Have a signal that shows others you are preoccupied. This will also trigger your own mind-set that you are in “work mode” (even if you are in your dressing gown) and you are focused. On that note, keep your office overstocked with paper, pens, post-it-notes, marker pens. Keep time-wasting, distracting visits to the shops, kitchen and other rooms to designated break times. The more segregated your office is from your home the better the functionality, your focus and productivity.   The Tools Probably the most important part of making the home office work is to keep strong communication lines open with head office, your peers and stakeholders. One of the biggest issues both employer and employee have with remote workers is the inability to collaborate and create solid social bonds through face to face contact and build meaningful connections. Off the cuff conversations and incidental meetings that can lead to new ideas and input simply do not happen remotely and this can frustrate both employers and employees. To ease this, try to organise monthly or regular get togethers. If this is not possible, use a group chat tool such as Slack. For constant conversational communication nothing beats Slack and it keeps getting better. Slack now offers video conferencing and a whole range of tools to keep your communication, colloquial, quick and sometimes down right funny .  Another tactic to try is to cut down on email and keep communication lines through a group chat or your project management tools . Less will be lost in the translation. We’ve also heard of remote-working team members that have webcams always switched on to his or her team in head office so they can see and importantly hear any conversation taking part in their part of the open plan office. The head office team love it as they know the remote worker is “live” and is always there, and the remote worker feels totally connected to the team. Simple old school technology used wisely. Other tricks of the trade for making life easier in the home office is staying organised. If you don’t have a scanner try camscanner or if you love using Evernote they have a great tool called Scannable. Keep all your receipts together ready for expense reports with SquirrelStreet or Shoeboxed . For most companies, while they are saving money by not establishing global offices for remote workers they however are increasing their vulnerability to IP theft from hackers or if your devices are lost or stolen. To protect one of your most valuable assets, your data, you need to invest in secure communication structures, better project management tools, software and VPN’s. But VPN’s or virtual private networks we believe are essential. They basically create a private communication network over the public one i.e: the internet, so it’s an added layer of data security that only those authorised can access. From a home point of view – be smart, keep running your antivirus software update and run it weekly. Stick to just one reputable provider such as AVG as running multiple variations may interfere with each other. Update your passwords, look at using Lastpass to protect all your passwords and try to store as much as you can on the cloud and not your device.

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How to Use a Recruitment Consultant Effectively

Updated post. A good recruitment consultant can be an extremely valuable resource in a job seeker’s journey. They often have long term relationships with their clients and know and understand the role and requirements of individual employers. Recruiters have, at times, been the subject of harsh criticism, sometimes warranted, but often the result of a lack of understanding of the role of a recruiter and how to use them effectively when looking for a job. A recruitment consultant can assist you in building relationships with potential employers. They can be a conduit to help you get the position you really want by providing opportunities for your career. It’s important that you communicate and put time into building a relationship with your consultant. Good recruiters work towards long term relationships. They may place candidates who, in future, become clients who return to recruit candidates for their own vacancies. The following points may be useful in assisting a job seeker to utilise a recruitment consultant more effectively: Recruitment consultants usually specialise in a role type Even in the large generalist agencies, consultants usually  specialise  in an area, such as sales, IT, accounting etc. And within those broad categories, consultants can specialise in narrower role types. For example, within  IT  a consultant may focus just on network infrastructure, or only on SAP, etc. If you’re an accountant registering with a consultant that only specialises in IT Sales you’re probably not going to get the response you’re after. It’s important to do your research before developing relationships with recruiters to ensure your skill set and experience match the types of roles the recruiter specialises in. Once you’ve established you’re registering with the right recruiter then ask for a meeting. It is possible the recruiter will prefer to meet you when he/she has a role that is a good match for your profile. This is not because the recruiter isn’t interested in you; it’s just that there are limited hours in the day. Keep in contact with the recruiter especially if you see a role advertised that you believe fits your profile. It’s not a good practice to send a blanket email to numerous recruiters, it’s always better to personalise your approach. Some candidates communicate that they are on the job market to numerous competitive recruitment consultants in the same email (not blind copying). This is not the best practice, a consultant isn’t encouraged to put the time into a candidate that has openly approached every one of his/her competitors. A recruitment consultant is not a career councillor It’s a common misconception that a recruitment consultant’s main job role is to council candidates on career choices. Good recruitment consultants are certainly open to assist in this area however it’s important to remember the consultant is in a commercial position and is paid by a client to find the best candidate for their company. Is the very best candidate for an IT Sales role an individual that is really unsure about whether he/she wants to stay in sales? The answer is no. The best candidates are those who are sure of their career path, know their strengths and sell their experience and skills to match a vacancy of their choice. Someone who is passionate about what they can provide to the client company is certainly a more attractive option. There are outplacement agencies that specialise in career counselling and if you are a candidate in career transition and unsure of your next move it is advisable to seek out a career councillor to assist. This way you will be able to approach the job market with purpose and confidence. In summary, it is not a recruitment consultant’s job to decide on a job seeker’s career path. Opening correspondence with … “I’m unsure of what I want to do, I really just want a job”, is likely not to provide the desired outcome. Conversely, a focussed and skilled candidate who can present a clear match to an open client position or is marketable for specific roles within the consultant’s area of  specialisation  has a much higher chance of securing a role through the consultant with their client company. An agency recruitment consultant is paid a fee by a client company to find the best match candidate for their role and their business It is a recruitment consultant’s job to care for both the candidate and client with the same amount of attention and respect. Be mindful that the consultant is obligated to find the absolute best match candidate for the client company. That fit includes: skills, experience, cultural match, values alignment, industry knowledge, possible longevity in the position and a long list of other potential considerations dependant on the client job brief. So even though interested candidates could believe themselves to be the right fit, it is the consultant’s role to assess the match with consideration of the full brief; this is the service the consultant provides. It’s advisable not to register your interest in a position with the recruitment consultant and then register with their client directly to cover both avenues Double representation of a candidate is not good for anyone concerned. It is vital to be honest with the recruitment consultant if presentation to the client company has already occurred, as a consultant will often be unable to assist if the presentation occurred within the previous six months. When a recruitment consultant is engaged to fill a role by the client it may be that the client has already attempted to recruit the position through their own channels prior to contacting the consultant. If this be the case, the client may have advertisements running on their own websites or on  online job boards . Should a recruitment consultant interview a candidate for a position and reveals the client they are working for, it is not then advisable to apply to the company directly. This creates a representation conflict and can be detrimental for the candidate, as often in this situation the client company will question the candidate’s integrity and decline to interview the candidate. A recruitment consultant strives to place the best match candidate in each position and is continuously working towards that end. A consultant is driven to provide the candidate with  a great recruitment experience  and the points in this blog may assist the job seeker to develop the relationship with some understanding of the recruitment consultant’s perspective.

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How to Get the Job You Want While Working – Up-Skilling

The most successful people know that to achieve their career goals it’s important to be proactive and constantly increase their work skills. So while we can all gain experience and pick up new techniques on the job, there is a vast difference between this, and actively reaching-out to gain additional new skills, expand your knowledge base and upgrade your qualifications.   Luckily, you don’t need to leave your current role to embark on new training and learning programs. If you’re wondering how to get the job you want, a promotion or a pay rise, there are several approaches you can take to upskill at work.   Volunteer There are two ways you can use volunteering to upskill. One is volunteering for a larger project at work that appears as a “stretch goal”. Put your hand up to do something outside your job description and learn as you go along. A good manager won’t throw you in the deep end. You can learn new skills from the experts at work, and that experience can be added to your resume. The other way is to volunteer at various institutions that are aligned with your work goals and passions. Volunteering forces you to get outside of your comfort zone and work in a new environment, with new objectives and team cultures. You will interact with different people, learn new approaches and gain new insights, whilst also giving something back. Many prospective employers view volunteering favourably.   Mentoring Again, there are two ways you can use mentoring to gain more skills while at work. The first is the classic mentor and mentee relationship. The mentor is usually a senior, more experienced person in your organisation, who can teach and guide you to develop a range of skills they’ve taken years to acquire. The second is to mentor someone yourself. Imparting your knowledge to someone forces you to hone your communications skills and, by talking to others in your organisation, you may understand more about the business in general. You might understand various pain points for staff members or you could identify an efficiency of the business that can be improved. Importantly, as you explain your work, skills and experience, you may identify an important skills gap that needs filling.   Hit the Books, Podcasts and Online Tutorials It may sound obvious but thanks to our online community there are literally thousands of courses you can sign up to upskill at anytime, anywhere. Moocs or Massive Open Online Courses are offered by some of the most prestigious educational institutions in the world, including Oxford, Harvard and MIT for free. Yes for free. You’re welcome. You can also gain new skills closely aligned with your industry and role, with a range of specialist online educators.  For example, there’s Udemy for courses as diverse as teacher training to photography, or General Assembly , that offers online or out-of-hours and weekend courses on all things digital. There’s also Lynda , an entire learning platform powered by LinkedIn with video courses produced by current experts in their field. Podcasts are another flexible and easy way to access knowledge, news and insights from any industry.  Turn the dead-time commuting to work into an information superhighway. In fact, any new source that can enrich your understanding of your chosen industry with relevant updated news, should be bookmarked on all your devices. Being able to talk the talk and have a strong grasp of the industry issues and hot topics, will help you identify future job prospects and opportunities.   Blogging Running a blog related to your profession is one way of announcing to the world that you are an expert in your chosen field. Whether you are or not might be debatable, but it will set you apart from your peers. Blogging is a discipline in itself, it shows a level of organisation, thought and technical skill, and employers see this as a plus. A keyword rich blog will also help you be discovered by recruiters searching for people with your skills and drive.   Networking While it’s not strictly upskilling, networking can introduce you to some inspiring people working on projects that excite you. Networking helps you see clearly, the “end goal” of where you need to be in your career and the people that can help you get there. Understanding the path of others can raise questions about your own career path and give you special insight into your industry needs, compared to the skills you currently have. Attending regular networking events will also help you keep up with industry demands and trends.

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Hiring Processes for Building and Retaining a Diverse Team

By now most Australian companies are aware of the benefits of having a truly diverse team and how it impacts productivity, performance, team morale and the bottom line. A  study  from management consultancy – McKinsey & Co, revealed that gender diverse companies are more likely to outperform others by 15%, and ethnically diverse are 25% more likely to outperform. Just these two aspects alone, show the great improvements an organisation can make by strategically creating a broad and diverse team.   So how does a manager build and grow a diverse team?   1. Shout it Out Ensure your company’s diversity policy is in the spotlight. Ensure that it’s easily accessible for all your team to be aware of it, become familiar with it and live its values. Schedule quarterly open discussions about how it is being implemented, and importantly,  how it’s being measured . If you make your diversity goals a shared focus, this will enable your team to become invested in the program professionally and personally. Their input will usually result in real practical initiatives to alleviate areas of concern and encourage behaviours that actively support your respective diversity program. For example, Facebook is taking a real lead on ensuring its diversity strategy is highly visible. In 2015, Facebook reported that 68% of its employees were male, and in technology-related roles, males made up 84% of its workforce. Realising it had a diversity problem, it created a training program to manage unconscious bias and they’re encouraging other companies to get on board, by putting the training and videos online for  everyone to access .   2. Make Changes Big & Small You should ensure that you review and continuously assess your hiring processes from top to bottom. It’s not enough to keep hiring a diverse team of people, you have to keep checking it to see if its having a positive impact. Like a garden, you need to nurture it carefully to have it flourish. So while a diversity strategy is a large undertaking, its implementation is often a series of small changes in hiring, language and behaviours.  We notice the small, nuanced changes in day to day work that can make for larger positive, on-going changes for some time to come. For example, Buffer, the social network management site, increased the number of women developers applying for technical roles when they simply cut the word  “hacker”  out of its job descriptions.   3.    Check-in on Your Culture & Behaviours Implement “no-interruption rules” for your meetings to make sure all ideas from any member of the team can be heard.  This will provide an environment that encourages people to speak out, have engaging conversations and positive outcomes. Again, minute behavioural changes have impact. This one sounds obvious, but treat your current diverse team well. Some teams members may not feel they can bring their “full selves” to work. Don’t be ok that they are quiet about it. Talk to them about sharing their knowledge. That is why we need diversity in the first place –  to share knowledge and different insights. Ensure your diverse team members are cared for and included. Appreciate their contributions, and where applicable, assign them to highly visible projects and include them in all meetings. Make sure there is a career path for them. While this should apply to all team members, particular attention has to be paid to your current focus team members so that any potential old cultures and perceptions can change.   4.    Flexible work arrangements Most organisations in Australia have implemented some kind of flexible working arrangement with their staff. This stems from the idea that not all of us have a partner at home looking after a household, while the traditional 9-5 hours can be maintained by the “working partner”. Flexible working arrangements acknowledges and respects the needs of parents, carers and people with a range of different needs and circumstances. Not all staff need this, but many of them want it too.   5.    Socialising & Groups Remove ‘forced’ social meetings. Socialising is important for colleagues to bond and form good working partnerships and friendship groups, but it has to be on terms that suit a wide range of individuals within the team. Drinks after work can intimidate a range of people who are suddenly deemed “not fun” because they don’t drink. Get creative. Have other types of social meetings to discuss great things that have happened at work, or find something the team love to do as a group and encourage inclusive behaviour. We don’t all have to be best buddies but just need to form good working relationships.   6.    Mentoring Mentoring is a great way to build strong work relationships within an organisation and to understand each other’s needs and pain points. Mentoring can also instigate unlikely friendships and connections when we start to realise, “we are all in this together”.

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Hiring Processes for Building and Retaining a Diverse Team

By now most Australian companies are aware of the benefits of having a truly diverse team and how it impacts productivity, performance, team morale and the bottom line. A  study  from management consultancy – McKinsey & Co, revealed that gender diverse companies are more likely to outperform others by 15%, and ethnically diverse are 25% more likely to outperform. Just these two aspects alone, show the great improvements an organisation can make by strategically creating a broad and diverse team.   So how does a manager build and grow a diverse team?   1. Shout it Out Ensure your company’s diversity policy is in the spotlight. Ensure that it’s easily accessible for all your team to be aware of it, become familiar with it and live its values. Schedule quarterly open discussions about how it is being implemented, and importantly,  how it’s being measured . If you make your diversity goals a shared focus, this will enable your team to become invested in the program professionally and personally. Their input will usually result in real practical initiatives to alleviate areas of concern and encourage behaviours that actively support your respective diversity program. For example, Facebook is taking a real lead on ensuring its diversity strategy is highly visible. In 2015, Facebook reported that 68% of its employees were male, and in technology-related roles, males made up 84% of its workforce. Realising it had a diversity problem, it created a training program to manage unconscious bias and they’re encouraging other companies to get on board, by putting the training and videos online for  everyone to access .   2. Make Changes Big & Small You should ensure that you review and continuously assess your hiring processes from top to bottom. It’s not enough to keep hiring a diverse team of people, you have to keep checking it to see if its having a positive impact. Like a garden, you need to nurture it carefully to have it flourish. So while a diversity strategy is a large undertaking, its implementation is often a series of small changes in hiring, language and behaviours.  We notice the small, nuanced changes in day to day work that can make for larger positive, on-going changes for some time to come. For example, Buffer, the social network management site, increased the number of women developers applying for technical roles when they simply cut the word  “hacker”  out of its job descriptions.   3.    Check-in on Your Culture & Behaviours Implement “no-interruption rules” for your meetings to make sure all ideas from any member of the team can be heard.  This will provide an environment that encourages people to speak out, have engaging conversations and positive outcomes. Again, minute behavioural changes have impact. This one sounds obvious, but treat your current diverse team well. Some teams members may not feel they can bring their “full selves” to work. Don’t be ok that they are quiet about it. Talk to them about sharing their knowledge. That is why we need diversity in the first place –  to share knowledge and different insights. Ensure your diverse team members are cared for and included. Appreciate their contributions, and where applicable, assign them to highly visible projects and include them in all meetings. Make sure there is a career path for them. While this should apply to all team members, particular attention has to be paid to your current focus team members so that any potential old cultures and perceptions can change.   4.    Flexible work arrangements Most organisations in Australia have implemented some kind of flexible working arrangement with their staff. This stems from the idea that not all of us have a partner at home looking after a household, while the traditional 9-5 hours can be maintained by the “working partner”. Flexible working arrangements acknowledges and respects the needs of parents, carers and people with a range of different needs and circumstances. Not all staff need this, but many of them want it too.   5.    Socialising & Groups Remove ‘forced’ social meetings. Socialising is important for colleagues to bond and form good working partnerships and friendship groups, but it has to be on terms that suit a wide range of individuals within the team. Drinks after work can intimidate a range of people who are suddenly deemed “not fun” because they don’t drink. Get creative. Have other types of social meetings to discuss great things that have happened at work, or find something the team love to do as a group and encourage inclusive behaviour. We don’t all have to be best buddies but just need to form good working relationships.   6.    Mentoring Mentoring is a great way to build strong work relationships within an organisation and to understand each other’s needs and pain points. Mentoring can also instigate unlikely friendships and connections when we start to realise, “we are all in this together”.

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