The 2014 National Career Development Association Conference in Long Beach, CA was a tremendous experience. Here’s what I learned along with some thoughts on leadership actions for us all to consider: 1. Career Development in an Employee Engagement Strategy. I heard about how Boeing and GM are setting up systems (mainly through online tools) to facilitate employees to take ownership of their careers and for leaders to take ownership of facilitating career development discussions and planning with their employees as a part of performance management. I personally learned how true this lesson is through an experience a friend had before we
The HR world has been all a buzz with SHRM’s announcement of a switch to a competency-based certification. In an email to members, the SHRM CEO stated, “We believe a competency-based certification is the new standard for HR professionals around the globe. Our members have told us this; and we have listened.” Regardless of whether or not you agree or disagree with SHRM’s move, competency models are prevalent. The career development world has been competency-based through its Career Development Facilitator Training for quite some time. What is a competency? Good ole Wikipedia provides us with this definition: “A competency is
One of the reasons I love CDF training is because the competencies that the training emphasizes fit together so nicely. Not only that, but they also spur action through behaviors as any good competency model should do. An example of 2 CDF competencies in action Take these two competencies: “Helping Skills – Be proficient in the basic career facilitating process while including productive interpersonal relationships.” And “Program Management/Implementation – Understand career development programs and their implementation, and work as a liaison in collaborative relationships.” In the CDF training, you learn that helping skills includes being competent in helping others
With all kinds of tools out there these days for a computer instead of a person to initially screen a resume, we get lots of questions about keywords. What keywords am I supposed to include seems to be the critical question. What keywords should I include? You will know what keywords to include because they are in the job posting. Tagcrowd.com is the quickest and coolest way we’ve found to identify keywords by the frequency they appear in the posting. What you do: Find a posting Copy and paste the posting into Tagcrowd.com View the word graphic it displays Make sure the
To include a cover letter or not to include one? Some say no if it’s not asked for, citing it’s a waste of time. Why would you think a hiring manager or recruiter would look at a cover letter if they only spend six seconds on average looking at a resume? However, having a cover letter that actually makes it easy for a recruiter to see if you meet the qualifications for the position could help you stand out in a way that gets you an interview. The key is: Do you meet all the qualifications for the position? If you