As a part of a subcontract I work on, I just sat through a 30 minute plus online compliance training video. If you want to leave yourself paralyzed to make business decisions, I’ll send you the clip. It will leave you questioning the world in general. I know we live in a world of terrorists, computer hackers and people who want to do harm, but the video left me thinking that their approach to business was to scare the living daylight out of every employee thinking that this would help prevent mishaps, lawsuits and wrong actions. Although I can appreciate what

Last week  we discussed why it’s important to do a realistic job preview.   Well you might ask, how exactly do I do one? Companies. Internships and co-op programs are long-term realistic job previews. This set up can provide a company with an opportunity to screen candidates without a making a permanent hiring commitment, but it may take too long.   For tips on starting a job shadowing program, click here. In the absence of setting up an internship or co-op program, you can do a realistic job preview in a day or a week. The ultimate goal is to simulate the

3 Reasons to Make Realistic Job Previews a Part of Your Hiring Process What’s the best way to determine if a person is right for the job? What’s the best way for a job candidate to know they are accepting the right job? Traditional methods for employers tell us to screen resumes, interview candidates and make a decision. In the case of hiring recent college grads, traditional wisdom tells us to look at their G.P.A. and their major to predict success. That’s the way most companies do it; it must work. For job seekers, traditional wisdom tells us to take

We’ve had two young men as career coaching clients lately. Although pursuing different types of opportunities, they are both in their early to mid-twenties and are having a hard time finding a job in their respective fields- both of which, by the way, are in demand.   Both have been getting called for interviews, but something seems to fail in the interview every time and they haven’t been offered jobs. So, we’ve been working with them to help improve their interviewing skills. Both of these guys are technically minded. They are smart, good, hardworking people. But they are introverts. Situations like

With a growing need to manage project based work coupled with the need to vet an individual’s leadership capabilities, organizations are assigning hi-potentials with informal leadership roles, or project manager roles, before giving them the positional and formal leadership authority over others. As a chance to prove capabilities, those given project management roles need to understand how to succeed at both the task of getting the project done and the priority to get work done through others. Often these two priorities seem to be conflicting, when in reality they are not. Informal leaders often fail when they see the only