The American employment landscape is often portrayed as hierarchical, competitive, and geared towards driven achievers always striving for that next rung–but many employees don’t see themselves represented in that picture.

According to a new survey from CareerBuilder, the vast majority of American workers do not, in fact, have their eyes on the top job in their field or organization. Just 34% of respondents aspire to leadership positions.  A paltry 7% are working towards the C-suite.

The survey was conducted online by Harris Poll for CareerBuilder, and included more than 3,600 full-time workers in private sector and government jobs, across various compensation levels, industries, and companies.

The distribution of those reaching for the top of the org chart changes along demographic lines. Forty percent of men seek a leadership role, compared to 29% of women. African Americans and LGBT workers are more likely to be eyeing top roles, beating the national average by five and 10%, respectively.

“While most workers don’t want a top job, it is important for organizational leaders to promote a culture of meritocracy in which all workers, regardless of gender, race or sexual orientation, are able to reach senior-level roles based on their skills and past contributions alone,” said Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources at CareerBuilder, in a statement.

“The survey found that employees at companies that have initiatives to support aspiring female and minority leaders are far less likely to say a glass ceiling holds individuals back.”

A variety of factors influenced the employees who expressed no strong desire to move beyond their current role. Seventeen percent felt they lacked the education to progress, but the bulk of respondents, 52%, reported finding fulfillment in their present role.

Finally, slightly more than one third didn’t want to suffer the diminished work-life balance perceived to be connected to leadership positions.

This article was written by Kathryn Dill from Forbes and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. Learn more about SmartRecruiters, your workspace to find and hire great people.

From the Startup Rules of Josh James, founder and CEO of Domo, the all-star executive who also co-founded Omniture and took it from inception to IPO to sale for $1.8B to Adobe:

“Rule 45: No Unemployed Candidates. Always an Excuse. Too Risky. Top-Rated, Currently Employed Candidates Who Won’t Leave… PERFECT.”

With all due respect for your accomplishments, Josh, I disagree.

Consider the strong case for the traditionally “unqualified” hire. Not every company, particularly in the early stages, can afford to hire an established “superstar.” I maintain that most any company, particularly in the growth phase, is better off by discovering potential stars (we call them Champions) in the making and creating a healthy holding environment that allows and encourages them to grow. Our own company, Fishbowl, is neither public nor for sale, but we’ve achieved record growth (currently more than 70% through the last three tumultuous years), regional and national awards for product and management quality, and negligible turnover (under 2%) since we began in 2001. We’ve done all of this by doing the exact opposite of the strategy our Utah neighbor, Josh James, has described.

But our approach requires the right core ingredients. I’ve honed my skills in identifying the traits we describe as the 7 Non-Negotiables: Respect, Belief, Loyalty, Commitment, Trust, Courage and Gratitude. I’ve previously written about the “7 NN’s” with my paired leadership partner, Mary Michelle Scott (Fishbowl President) in Forbes and in HBR.

We’re looking for candidates who exhibit these characteristics, and we’re watching the way they interact—their body language, eye contact, whether they are articulate—a good listener—and whether they can express what they feel without feeling nervous. Can they demonstrate strong character traits when asked how they would handle various situations in former jobs or in life? I can sense an individual’s work ethic. We look for someone eager and hungry to learn, which has generally been a good barometer of the individual’s work ethic as well. In 30 minutes, I can judge a prospective hire with pretty much 99% accuracy.  Our managers (we call them our “Captains”) have honed these sensibilities as well.

Consider our recent new hire in accounting last week. She came to us from a minimal position at Blimpie’s. She’s a lady who’s smart—highly qualified—was formerly the CFO of a small hospital. But then she got really ill. Then the economy caused her to lose her home. The short sale of her house left her with a little money to work with, but the only job she could obtain was as the manager of a Blimpie’s store for $9 an hour.

I sensed her capabilities from the moment we met. She’d never used QuickBooks (our inventory control software integrates with QuickBooks, and we run our own company on the same products and functionality we sell). Most everything we do (other than our basic financial/accounting principles) was new.

She embraced the challenge. She learned our system (eagerly) and made suggestions that within four days produced the most accurate financial reports in her area of stewardship our company has ever seen. Today she initiated a new process with our Controller that will cause our past due accounts receivable to diminish and possibly disappear. When someone is this eager and excited to excel, and is given the environment to thrive in, miracles transpire.

This is not a rare occurrence for us. Out of 18 developers (yes, our software product developers) only 2 had ever had any serious programming experience before. More typically, these individuals came with prior experience in dealing with inventory. They dealt with playground equipment, electrical or plumbing warehouses and many came from our customer support and training department. They know things about inventory beyond what engineering or even marketing could teach them. The programming skills they were able to learn.

We employ 50 individuals in support who had never worked in customer service before. The majority of our sales people came with little or no prior experience in sales.

Could this approach work for other companies? Consider the following advantages our philosophy gains:

1. Less-established employees have room for growth. They are fresh and eager, not fatigued or scarred.

2. They have no bad habits to break; only good habits to learn. You don’t have to un-train them on the paradigms they’ve put in place somewhere else. They can blossom into anything.

3. They have the right attitude. With attitude, as they say, the aptitude will come.

4. New blood, whether young or old, can bring fresh ideas and perspectives to old problems. Their enthusiasm can be infectious. Their naiveté is some of the gold that they bring. They’re not afraid to ask, “ Why do you do it this way?” From the most innocent questions, we may go back to our roots and say, “That’s a good point. Why do we do that?” The newest employee may be the one who prompts a positive change.

5. You can build lifelong relationships. Some of our employees are young; some are older. But when your company is the place an employee has been permitted to blossom and shine, they will love working with you, most likely forever.  Thus, turnover is low.

Many companies will argue that the cost of taking someone on with no experience is prohibitive. We disagree. We employ the concept of agile programming through our entire organization. We use paired leadership and paired teamwork. Each new hire has someone to coach and train him or her, and within a few months, or weeks in some cases, they’re fully up to speed and online.

Could this approach work for you? At a minimum, I hope I’ve given you the reason to consider these possibilities as you make your next set of new hires. I maintain there are many all-star/champion employees within every company’s reach. You just need to recognize their potential, and then create and maintain an environment that allows them to be nurtured, developed and then to shine.

Sorry, Josh!

This article was written by David K. Williams from Forbes and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. Additional reporting for this article was provided by Fishbowl President Mary Michelle Scott. Learn more about SmartRecruiters, your workspace to find and hire great people.

Happiness in the workplace is something of a double-edged sword. Yes, having happy employees is critical to the success of any company, but there are plenty of ways that bending over backwards to put a smile on your workers’ faces can backfire. As with everything else, balance is key.

Myth #1: Employees should be kept happy 24/7

Let’s start simple. As a boss, you’re neither able nor expected to be in charge of your employees’ happiness every second of every workday.

The thing about employee culture is that participation should never be compulsory. Yes, you should encourage employees to get together outside of regular business hours, but don’t force it. That kind of “extracurricular” contact could go a long way toward helping your team work more effectively together while they’re on the clock; encourage it, but don’t try to mandate it.

What any boss needs to understand is that the people he or she oversees have lives of their own, with individual hopes, desires, worries, sources of stress and, yes, plans for what they want to do after work. We are not our job descriptions, after all.

Employees have plenty of their own reasons for being less than enthusiastic on any given day. If their discontent has something to do with working conditions, then you have your work cut out for you. But if it’s something to do with their personal lives? Well, then, that’s really not your concern unless it starts to interfere with their work.

Onno Hamburer, the author of the Happiness at Work e-book, understands that negative feelings are a part of daily life: “…Even when things are going well, we sometimes need negative feelings, as they serve as a warning when there is a chance that things may go wrong. Negative emotions also help bring about change.”

Trying to create happiness is putting the cart before the horse. If you focus first and most intently on creating a welcoming environment with a high hiring bar, your happiness “problem” will probably take care of itself.

Myth #2: The ‘good guy boss’ is the best kind of boss

Being a boss obviously brings with it a host of challenges, and chief among them is the whole identity crisis thing.

What I mean is that there are a number of management styles available to you, and while you’ll probably find that some combination of them will get you the best results, there are still stereotypes that you’ll want to avoid.

One of these is the “good guy boss.” This is the boss who wants to be everybody’s best friend – who feels honor-bound to wear a smile, say yes all the time, and generally sacrifices objectivity for artifice.

I understand the appeal; everybody wants to be liked. And, yes, to a certain extent, being a likeable boss is pretty essential to morale. Just keep in mind that being liked and being effective are not always the same thing.

So what does the good guy boss look like? He’s the one who’s always smiling, even though it looks a little bit more pained than it used to. He’s the one who never says no to his employees, even when it will hurt the company.

Here’s the thing – being a good guy boss every second of the day could actually hurt you. Here’s how:

1. Your employees won’t bring serious issues to your attention. You probably have people in your life who can’t handle criticism; we all run into them from time to time. If you’re the kind of boss who’s unrealistically positive every day, you’re going to give the impression that you don’t want to hear bad news or receive constructive criticism, however badly they may be needed.
2. You’ll be putting unnecessary pressure on your employees. Employee expectations are essential, but you don’t usually see “relentlessly sunny disposition” on the list of prerequisites. Being a good guy boss puts quite a lot of pressure on your employees to match the intensity of your smile and optimism, when the truth is that contentment is not a one-size-fits-all proposition.
3. Your customers may not respect you. Customers are always going to be interested in how their business partners treat their employees. This is particularly true in the retail scene, but it holds up in just about every industry. They want to know that you have the respect and trust of your employees, but if you try too hard to be the good guy boss, your customers will think you’re a pushover.

I’m not saying it’s impossible or inappropriate to be a positive, well-liked, and optimistic boss; the only danger comes from replacing things like objectivity and honesty with artifice. Your focus needs to be on creating an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect, rather than on being liked no matter what.

Myth #3: Happiness is not the same thing as engagement

Despite what Gallup might tell you, happiness is not the same thing as engagement, no matter how often we use them interchangeably.

I’m going to make a slightly ridiculous comparison, so bear with me. If you’ve ever owned a cat, you probably know that they go crazy for string. You can drag it around and they’ll run and jump to catch up with it. After a while, though, they’ll tire of the stimulation, lie down, and only halfheartedly reach for the string while they repose lazily on the carpet. The pursuit of the reward is no longer worth their time.

In this example, the cat is your workforce and the string is, well, whatever you want it to be. Taco Tuesdays? Free shots of Yukon Jack at 3PM every day? You might be temporarily improving their happiness with relentless boondoggles, but too much of a good thing and they’ll stop putting in the effort to catch the proverbial string. Simply put, they’ll be happy and probably complacent, but they won’t be engaged. And they certainly won’t do their best work.

For the record: the occasional Taco Tuesday is wonderful for morale. Just don’t overdo it.

If I can put my WebpageFX hat back on for a moment, I’ll point out that we’ve seen really wonderful results from providing unique experiences for our employees – usually once a month or so (September’s was a sushi-making class). They’re not a direct reward for good performance – not exactly. The difference is that employees understand that we’re looking out for their happiness, and they very naturally look for ways to feel that they’ve earned it.

And that, really, is the crux of everything you’ve just read: employee satisfaction is all about providing opportunities to pursue happiness. It doesn’t require false praise or facades. If you want more ideas for how to improve your own company’s happiness and engagement, I hope to explore our approach to employee incentives in further detail in a future article.

This article was written by William Craig from Forbes and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. Photo Credit Office Now. SmartRecruiters is your workspace to find and hire great people.

The pace of hiring, which often cools along with temperatures in the fourth quarter, won’t slow to the extent it sometimes has in previous years, according to a report released today by CareerBuilder.

Just under one third of employers–29%, precisely–plan to hire full-time, permanent employees in the fourth quarter. While that’s a slight dip from the 34% of employers that added to their ranks during the third quarter, it’s up from the 25% who were hiring at this time last year.

The nationwide survey of 2,203 hiring managers and HR professionals across industries at companies of varying sizes was conducted online by Harris Poll.

Nine percent of employers plan to reduce staff, roughly the same as this time last year, while more than half anticipate no change.

“The jobs outlook for Q4 is now more in line with pre-recession forecasts as employers cast a greater vote of confidence in both permanent and seasonal hiring,” said Matt Ferguson, CEO of CareerBuilder, in a statement. “What’s also encouraging is that recruitment plans for small businesses with more than 50 employees are keeping pace with larger organizations.”

The report offers seasonal workers a healthy dose of autumnal sunshine. As the holiday season approaches, 26% of employers across all industries plan to add temporary workers.  Even better? Forty-two percent of companies hiring those workers expect to offer some seasonal employees full-time permanent employment. Forty-three percent of retailers–the leading industry for seasonal employment–plan to hire seasonal workers, up slightly from 39% last year.

The bulk of available seasonal positions will be in customer service, those administrative and clerical positions, shipping and delivery, and accounting and finance jobs will also be available, as well as inventory management, IT, non-retail sales, and gift wrapping jobs. Marketing, hosting and greeting, and public relations positions will also be available for seasonal employees in the fourth quarter.

Seasonal workers will also bring home better wages than last year, according to 27% of employers. More than sixty-three percent of seasonal employers will pay at least $10 per hour, and nearly 20% will pay at least $16 per hour.

The greatest number of opportunities for those seeking full-time, permanent employment in quarter four will be found in the South, while seasonal employees will want to head West. The Midwest lags other geographies, though roughly a quarter of employers plan to hire permanent and seasonal workers.

And while the smallest companies–those with 50 employees or fewer–continue to be the most timid where hiring is concerned, small business with more than 50 employees anticipate roughly keeping pace with their larger competitors with staff of 500 or more.

This article was written by Kathryn Dill from Forbes and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. SmartRecruiters is your workspace to find and hire great people.

Every once in awhile we receive letters from readers that make all of our work as writers and leaders worthwhile. I received one of those letters this week from Stephen Graveman of St. Louis. Stephen is a young man (28) who wrote to me about the challenges of getting his first opportunity in the field of his passion: PR.

Stephen is a recent college graduate. We all know how difficult the economy has made it for aspiring graduates to get their first shot at a career opportunity, when they have no prior experience to offer and there are sometimes hundreds of applicants vying for any applicable job.

He was particularly taken by one of the first articles I published for Forbes, The Case For Hiring ‘Under Qualified’ Employees. In that piece, we outlined the five big advantages employers gain by hiring for aptitude and passion rather than direct prior experience and skills, as follows:

1. Less-established employees have room for growth. They are fresh and eager, not fatigued or scarred.
2. They have no bad habits to break; only good habits to learn. You don’t have to un-train them on the paradigms they’ve put in place somewhere else. They can blossom into anything.
3. They have the right attitude. With attitude, as they say, the aptitude will come.
4. New blood, whether young or old, can bring fresh ideas and perspectives to old problems. Their enthusiasm can be infectious. Their naiveté is some of the gold that they bring. They’re not afraid to ask, “ Why do you do it this way?” From the most innocent questions, we may go back to our roots and say, “That’s a good point. Why do we do that?” The newest employee may be the one who prompts a positive change.
5. You can build lifelong relationships. Some of our employees are young; some are older. But when your company is the place an employee has been permitted to blossom and shine, they will love working with you, most likely forever.  Thus, turnover is low.

The article struck a chord for Stephen: “I have been working various jobs in retail management and the service industry while I went to college late at night. I majored in Corporate Communications, and I have always been drawn to PR.”

While in school, one of the positions he held was with an optometrist firm—working on eye glasses, working with customers—the company gave him a little opportunity to apply his background to their work in affiliate marketing, but only for a few hours a week. While he was incredibly appreciative to the company and grateful to have a job of any kind, he knew that there was no future and especially no public relations future in the role that he held. He spent a great deal of effort looking for the opportunity to break into a role in PR, but was thwarted at every turn due to the lack of a prior PR position.

“That article came out at exactly the time I needed it,” he said. “I was getting so frustrated I was ready to give up. The few internships I found were across the country and would have required me to relocate at my personal cost. Entry level positions were very difficult to find.”

“Then I read your article. Sometimes when you hit that bottom level, depressed, exhausted and worn out, it takes a voice from outside to encourage you to pick yourself back up and move forward again. Your article did that for me.”

Feeling encouraged, he fired off an application to a local agency in St. Louis, Standing Partnership (as it turns out, a very appropriate company name). He phoned the agency (a great move) to ask for the internship coordinator’s name, to allow him to customize an email message. By a stroke of great fortune he ended up being transferred to the individual himself.

Here was his chance. Stephen used his PR skills to make a case on the spot for the passion he held and his fervent desire to fill their intern position. They already had a Summer intern, but the conversation had left an impression. As the months passed he continued to build his portfolio, working to augment his passion with an expanding skillset as well. In November he received a call inviting him to come in for an interview. In December he was hired. In January of this year he began his new job – a 4-month PR internship.

Stephen’s employer has no new permanent positions at the moment, or I have no doubt they’d be strongly considering a long-term role for him there.

“Getting this position was such a critical step,” Stephen says. “My intern coordinator has been wonderful—I’m working as hard as I can—and now I’m beginning my search to finally break into the public relations industry full-on.”

For progressive employers everywhere, my recommendation still holds. Hire for aptitude and core characteristics, and the experience and skills will follow. In our case we look for the 7 Non Negotiable traits of Belief, Loyalty, Respect, Commitment, Trust, Courage and Gratitude. From all indications, Stephen possesses these attributes in spades. He is sure be a credit to the public relations industry he is passionate about. I look forward to reporting on his continued progress.

How could these 5 principles – and the 7 Non Negotiable traits – bring better employees (especially from unexpected places) to you? I look forward to hearing your stories as well.

This article was written by David K. Williams from Forbes and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. Additional reporting for this article was provided by Fishbowl President Mary Michelle Scott. Learn more about SmartRecruiters, your workspace to find and hire great people.

Not pre-med. Not business. Not computer science. The most popular college major choice for high school seniors surveyed by CareerBuilder—the majority of whom already have a career in mind—is engineering.

We can debate how many of these students will stick with engineering when they get their first homework assignments in college. But let’s assume most of them don’t move to less rigorous majors. Which engineering field should they choose? What are the most in-demand engineering jobs in the U.S. based on job growth, hires, and job posting activity? And which ones have the oldest workforces that will need to be replaced sometime in the next five to 10 years?

To answer these questions, we looked at labor market data and job postings analytics from EMSI for all 18 engineering occupations classified by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and all eight engineering technicians occupations (which are primarily middle-skill positions). Both categories, despite the difference in educational requirements and median pay, are adding a bunch of jobs post-recession and are key STEM occupation groups. But they tell a different story when comparing job postings from employers and hiring that’s taken place.

Engineers

First, a few big-picture data trends:

The U.S. has approximately 1.6 million engineering jobs that pay $42 per hour in median wages. Civil engineers account for the most jobs of any engineering field (274,000 in 2014), followed closely by mechanical engineers (264,000) and industrial engineers (229,000). Those three engineering jobs, plus electrical engineers and electronics engineers, make up two-thirds of the American engineering workforce.

Job growth from 2010 to 2014 has been in the double digits in four occupations: petroleum engineers (30%), mining and geological engineers (12%), biomedical engineers (10%), and industrial engineers (10%). But every engineering occupation has added jobs, the most coming among mechanical engineers (21,500 new jobs since 2010). As a whole, engineering jobs have grown 7%.

The most-concentrated metropolitan area for engineers (among the 125 largest MSAs) is Huntsville, Alabama, which is home to a NASA flight center and other aerospace and military establishments. Huntsville has 5.1 times more engineers per capita than the national average. Next is San Jose (3.5 times the national average), Palm-Bay-Melbourne-Titusville, Florida (2.9), and Detroit (2.75). In general, the South (Huntsville; Augusta, Georgia; Greenville, South Carolina) and the Rust Belt (Detroit, Dayton, etc.) are the densest areas for engineers.

The output of engineering graduates was at a standstill in the early 2000s. But since ’07, completions nationwide have shot up 33%, from 108,000 to 144,000.

Just over 20% of 2013 engineering grads were non-resident aliens, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, with the majority (113,620, or 78%) U.S. citizens. And about 80% were men.

Oldest Occupations

Occupations with older workforces are potential targets for labor shortages. Not all workers 65 and above will retire at the same time, so the doom-and-gloom scenarios that get tossed around likely won’t become reality. Yet if the demand for workers continues and if a good-sized segment of that workforce is poised to retire, skills gaps are likely to become a real issue—especially at senior or management-level positions that are hard to recruit for. We’ve documented this trend in the skilled trades, and it’s just as relevant in engineering.

Two of the fastest-growing engineering fields also staff two of the largest proportions of older workers: industrial engineers and petroleum engineers. In both, 25% of currently employed workers are 55 years or older. Industrial engineers are vital to many manufacturing firms that struggle to find the right technically oriented talent, so the aging workforce is a threat. Petroleum engineering, meanwhile, has had a noticeable undersupply of graduates coming into the marketplace in the last few years, with just 1,600 completions in 2013 compared to EMSI’s yearly job openings estimate of 3,500.

The engineering occupation with the oldest workforce is also one of the smallest in terms of jobs: marine engineers and naval architects. Only 8,000 of these jobs are in the U.S., but 29% are 55 years or older. The youngest occupations, on the other side, are computer hardware engineers and agricultural engineers; just 12% of the current workforce in each is 55 or over.

Job Postings vs. Hires

We’ve given the lay of the land for engineers with traditional labor market data, an essential step for any workforce analysis. But EMSI’s new job posting analytics gives an additional context and perspective into the demand and hiring activity for engineers.

For instance, one thing we can quickly see is that de-duplicated online job postings exceeded average hiring on a monthly basis for all engineers from January 2012 to July 2014. This is an indication, perhaps, that the pool of skilled talent nationally isn’t keeping up with employer demand. The best example of this is perhaps industrial engineers, an occupation with three times more unique monthly postings (24,740) than average monthly hires (7,737) since the start of 2012. These excess postings could represent real vacancies.

Conversely, hiring is outpacing posting for civil engineers (13,657 monthly hires to 6,025 postings), as well as engineers, all other and nuclear engineers. These and other engineering occupations could be under-represented in online job postings, meaning that employers find alternative ways to recruit for these positions.

The Bottom Line

Considering all of this data, civil engineers and few smaller specialty fields (petroleum engineers, biomedical engineers, and nuclear engineers) are no doubt in-demand nationally. Hiring and job growth is strong for civil engineering, and petroleum engineering combines the highest wages, fastest growth, oldest workforce, and smallest supply of graduates.

For colleges and workforce professionals who want to get the most clarity on skills gaps and employer demand, we recommend exploring regional data and engaging local employers. Read more about that in our analysis for JP Morgan Chase’s New Skills at Work initiative.

Engineering Technicians

How are things different for engineering technicians? First, far fewer engineering technicians are in the labor market (an estimated 450,000 in 2014) than engineers (1.6 million). They also have considerably smaller median wages ($26 per hour vs. $42 per hour).

Still, engineering technician jobs shouldn’t be dismissed. Each of these occupations—including the largest: electrical engineering technicians—have a lower barrier to entry than standard engineering jobs since they typically require an associate’s degree. This makes these STEM-related training areas very important for community and technical colleges. And several of these jobs are growing at a rapid clip, led by mechanical engineering technicians and environmental engineering technicians (both up 9% from 2010 to 2014). Collectively, engineering technician jobs have jumped 4%.

The growth of engineering technicians has been strongest in Detroit (27% since 2010), but Houston, Seattle, and Portland have also seen double-digit employment growth. Most of the Rust Belt, as the green on the map below indicates, is experiencing job growth after severe layoffs during the recession.

Oldest Occupations

Overall, engineering technicians have a younger workforce than traditional engineers. While about a third of engineering techs are 45-54, there are fewer 55-and-older workers in these mid-skill fields (21% compared to 23% for engineers). For context, 19% of all traditional salaried employees in the U.S. are 55-plus.

Aerospace engineering technicians have the oldest workforce of all technician positions (23% are 55 and older). Electrical engineering technicians, industrial engineering technicians, and mechanical engineering technicians (as well as technicians, all other) are at 22%.

Job Postings vs. Hires

In contrast to engineers, there have been more hires than postings for engineering technicians. Just about twice as many, in fact, from January 2012 to July 2014. This makes sense given that employers are less likely to scour the internet for available technicians than they are for highly skilled engineers.

Like civil engineers, civil engineering technicians are under-represented in job postings compared to hires. There were five hires for every unique job postings over our time frame. Engineering technicians, all other, had an even bigger hires-to-postings ratio.

The number of employed civil engineering techs in the workforce dropped slightly from 2010 to 2014 (from 72,500 to 71,700). But employers have been more active in posting for these jobs (unique postings were up 50% from January 2012 to July 2014), while posting intensity—a ratio of total postings to de-duplicated postings—is lower (3-to-1) than all engineering technician occupations (4-to-1).

We also examined job posting analytics for Detroit, since it’s such a huge growth area for engineering technicians. Hires eclipsed job postings by a 3-to-1 ratio from January 2012 to July 2014. The majority of top companies posting for technician positions in Detroit are staffing companies—further evidence of the link between manufacturing and temp employment that we wrote about earlier this year.

The Bottom Line

Hot engineering technician jobs tend to follow the patterns of their related engineering fields: mechanical engineering technicians are growing just like mechanical engineers, and the same goes for civil engineering technicians and civil engineers. For both engineers and engineering techs, the demand from employers appears to be strong. But the demand for all engineering occupations isn’t the same, just like not all regions need these types of the workers as badly as some.

This article was written by (Director of marketing and PR at EMSI) Joshua Wright from Forbes and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. Learn more about SmartRecruiters, your workspace to find and hire great people.

It’s funny the way counterintuitive measures so often prove to be the best solution. But then again, this has been true for centuries. “All behaviors contain their opposites,” said Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching around 6th century BC, and you should “learn to see things backwards, inside out and upside down.”

That said, in the 21st century, and arguably in centuries before ours, counterintuitive measures have been deemed irresponsible by those who undertake them and then fail, and genius by those who undertake them and happen to succeed. It makes business practices seem to be more luck of the draw rather than the result of a creative strategy that allows for trial and error.

Few entrepreneurs strike it rich on their first company. In fact, generally speaking, 75% of startups fail, meaning that if you’re looking to be the next Zuckerberg, the odds aren’t in your favor.

Of course, it isn’t the droves of failed ideas that make entrepreneurs so interesting. It is their never-ending ability to learn, relearn and then actually create. It is their insatiable desire for putting trial and error to the test – over and over and over until it works. And admittedly, I’m addicted.

You’ve all heard the Thomas Edison quote, rattled off at a reporter when asked how it felt to fail so many times: “I have not failed 10,000 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 10,000 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”

His determination gave us the light bulb, and his failures ceased to matter.

When building your company from the ground up, finding and hiring like-minded people is essential. Starting a business is not a one person initiative, you must trust your team to take responsibilities off your hands, so you, as the founder, can focus elsewhere.

No, employees don’t have to see the world exactly as you do. In fact, they shouldn’t see the world as you do at all. No one creative; no one striving for the success that comes from true, resilient and persistent trial and error; and no modern-day Thomas Edison ever sees the world exactly the same as anyone else. Instead, you need someone who isn’t afraid to take criticism, and someone who isn’t afraid to give it to you. You need someone who believes in your vision, values and mission, but who also stands their ground – so that when it comes to needing to do so for the company, you know that they will. What you need is someone with stamina, courage and a forward-looking worldview that is a daily encouragement for you and others toward excellence.

Hiring might not be rocket science, but it is indeed an art form, even a science per se, in and of itself. Here’s what has worked best for me, and what you should look for too, in new employees, no matter the role. These characteristics might sound similar to your own, and many of them might make you think these employees will be challenging to work with, but that’s the point. Passion is revealed in action, not in silence. Invest in that.

Intelligence

Hiring for culture is important, and a culture match is certainly essential. But, no personality fit can make up for brains. Rather, you need both. And, we aren’t simply talking IQ intelligence here – we’re talking emotional intelligence as well.

Look for someone who sees the future as clearly and boldly as you do – and who is able to take a blow every time someone claims that their vision is plain wrong (because they will). You need employees who can take criticism as well as you do when you pitch VCs, and who bounce back smarter and stronger from it. A work culture of constructive criticism combined with deserved accolades when the trial and error process works (or doesn’t) is essential. And you need the people there who can handle both the ups and downs – just like any successful entrepreneur.

Excellence

With the ability to take criticism well and build upon current knowledge (two things that come with both IQ-related intelligence and emotional intelligence) comes the capability to produce standout work that often times alludes bigger enterprises.

Excellence makes startups standout. Excellence takes startups from funding to the growth stage and from the growth stage to a leading position in the market. Indeed, excellence still matters. In an age in which timeliness and the first to publish, comment or act has everyone on the edge of their seat, you need people who use their collective education, surroundings and feedback in combination with a vision for the future to make decisions that drive real business results without sacrificing excellence.

Look for people who extend their interest in your industry to outside work hours. Are they networking within the industry? Do they have an industry following on Twitter or LinkedIn? Are they versed in the latest news and most up-to-date information within your specific field? Because if the answer to all of this is yes – it’s likely they’ve already generated excellence within the industry in one way or another, and your company culture can tap into that.

Bullheadedness

And in the face of it all, you want your next hire to have the guts to attack out-of-the-box ideas via action the same way you did in order to get your company off the ground. Starting a business is no easy task, keeping it going and on the forefront of innovation amidst the business behemoths in your industry is certainly no easier.

Look for someone who can see the holes in the wall, no matter how small, and who can invent ways to help others see them, too. Call them an idea person, a good salesperson, someone who is perhaps a little overconfident or overzealous, but whatever you call them, be sure it’s your company investing in their determination, the same way the VCs invested in you.

Of course, in order to accomplish this, you need job descriptions that accurately portray your company culture and the characteristics above. Your startup status should never mean that you throw together a vague job description. All hires must be strategic, and the best way to make sure that happens is to formulate a well-thought out job description. Doing that, in combination with using these three characteristics to weed out those who don’t have an epic startup mentality, will make scaling your startup a process that pulls in people who have the drive, ambition and frank determination to make an idea work – and encourage everyone else to make it work, too.

This article was written by H.O. Maycotte from Forbes and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. Learn more about SmartRecruiters, your workspace to find and hire great people.

Lately there has been a lot of noise about the rapid rise of technology in HR, and its impact on the traditionally very human face of recruitment. Conjectures fill the webisphere on whether or not HR Tech will ever completely replace human-driven hiring and recruiting altogether, some are drawing such parallels between the relationship of HR to new tech as akin to that of the traditional job search to the emergence of the ole Internet itself.

But tech’s scope and speed should be no-brainers by now. Tools like automated outreach turn recruiting into a constant, global two-way street. The oft-cited LinkedIn and similar networking sites have mastered this kind of passive recruiting, enhancing a company’s visibility at the same time as they uncover possibly ideal candidates: company and brand X, meet candidate Y; candidate Y, meet company and brand X. It’s becoming enough of a norm in our world that we’ve stopped seeing this as a novel innovation, but about five minutes ago, it was.

Now, smartified candidate-tailored active recruiting is close on its heels, with new talent outreach and on boarding systems being developed that can locate prospects based on far more than a checklist of education and experience criteria. These methods are designed to be stratified and fluid, create a kind of built in “decision tree” that dovetails outreach, analytics and data with human input and decision making.

The point is: whether or not tech will ever take over HR entirely is, well, beside the point. Tech is a medium; a tool; and savvy companies need to take advantage of it to gain strategic position. A 2014 survey on HR Service Delivery and Technology. found that a third of companies plan to increase their investment in HR tech this year, which means that two-thirds of the companies surveyed may wind up in the dark.

Among the hottest areas of investment were:

• Talent Management Services

• Mobile Access Services

• Cloud-based software-as-a-service systems

About That Survey

Another area of investment growth the Towers Watson study notes is in HR data and workforce analytics. With the far greater scope and reach of HR tech-generated campaigns, Old Hat has a new bang. Among the various data sources HR organizations are now mining, according to the study, are employee engagement surveys. Their effectiveness now upped exponentially with a dose of tech, those same little sleepy surveys that floated onto employees’ desk (and were tackled, unenthusiastically, during 4 pm lulls) are now powerful treasure troves of usable data.

Employee engagement surveys now provide invaluable insights that play a key role in corporate planning, according to half of the companies who surveyed their employees at least every two years. One third of respondents reported that the results of employee engagement surveys will have a substantial role in their organization’s direction and strategy. Tech has made the old new.

Dive In

There’s an endless race for talent going on in the world of work. And clearly, technology’s presence in HR and talent acquisition is not a question of when, or even if. Tech is here to facilitate HR, as we ask it to: We’d best be involved on the ground floor and making sure it facilitates our needs and goals.

HR’s role in tech, from the initial search to recruitment, from training to bringing new recruits up to speed, is what will turn the vast potential of a technology into a competitive advantage. Its effectiveness, in terms of functionality that supports an organization, is a matter of tailoring and customization. That means getting in the pool. To help shape tech to your best advantage, recruitment needs to make sure it’s involved in the process from the start.

Scott Klososky, founding partner of Future Point of View, a tech consulting firm in Edmond, Oklahoma, recently underscored this, saying that HR professionals should become more educated on technology to stay relevant and competitive. From upper management workshops on how to link up leadership and technology to frequent consults with IT and business and marketing analysts, the more closely HR can be involved, the better.

This article was written by Meghan M. Biro from Forbes and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. Learn more about SmartRecruiters, your workspace to find and hire great people.

A founder can’t grow a winning enterprise singlehandedly. Some may try, but it is nearly impossible to do so. Every famous entrepreneur has built a flourishing company with great employees by his or her side.

An entrepreneur can invent and even commercialize an idea as an enterprise of one. In time, however, the tasks of running a business become too great for the entrepreneur to manage alone.  At this point, a savvy leader must find and hire the best workers to help achieve the entrepreneurial dream.

In today’s economy, hiring the best people is more critical than ever. Entrepreneurs can’t afford to lose time, money and results from a bad hiring choice (a recent Forbes article by David K. Williams pegs the cost of a single bad hire at anywhere from $25-50,000). The cost of finding, interviewing, engaging and training new employees is high. Employees also require desks, computers, phones and related equipment, let alone the largest costs of being an employer salaries, benefits and taxes.

Leaders view new employees as an investment and anticipate an excellent financial return over time.

Over the course of my career, I’ve hired hundreds of people. Some were exceptional employees who were major contributors to our success. Others didn’t work out. In most cases, when an employee left or was terminated, I was the problem. Those dismissed were good people. I just did not know how to properly hire new employees.

Historically, and sadly, the only criteria I had used were to find the candidate with the best skills, experiences and ability to match a job description.

I have since identified seven categories—I call them the “7 C’s”–that you should consider to find the best new employees, as follows:

1. Competent: This is still the first factor to consider. Does the potential employee have the necessary skills, experiences and education to successfully complete the tasks you need performed?

2. Capable: Will this person complete not only the easy tasks but will he or she also find ways to deliver on the functions that require more effort and creativity? For me, being capable means the employee has potential for growth and the ability and willingness to take on more responsibility.

3. Compatible: Can this person get along with colleagues, and more importantly, can he or she get along with existing and potential clients and partners? A critical component to also remember is the person’s willingness and ability to be harmonious with you, his or her boss. If the new employee can?t, there will be problems.

4. Commitment: Is the candidate serious about working for the long term? Or is he or she just passing through, always looking for something better? A history of past jobs and time spent at each provides clear insight on the matter.

5. Character: Does the person have values that align with yours? Are they honest; do they tell the truth and keep promises? Are they above reproach? Are they selfless and a team player?

6. Culture: Every business has a culture or a way that people behave and interact with each other. Culture is based on certain values, expectations, policies and procedures that influence the behavior of a leader and employees. Workers who don?t reflect a company?s culture tend to be disruptive and difficult.

7. Compensation: As the employer, be sure the person hired agrees to a market-based compensation package and is satisfied with what is offered. If not, an employee may feel unappreciated and thereby under perform. Be careful about granting stock in the company; if not handled well, it will create future challenges.

Job applicants will give you their answers to the seven categories. They may be modestly presented or exaggerated. You are searching for the truth. To obtain a clearer picture of potential workers, I recommend you talk to former employment associates. The references a job candidate provides will nearly always provide a biased report. Instead, ask the candidate for the names of former bosses, peers and subordinates.

I’m here to tell you that good references will share the truth and not mince words. With these names in hand, call former co-workers and ask them if the job applicant fits my seven characterstics. This will give you a full and accurate view, good and bad, that will leave you much better equipped to select the best candidate.

This article was written by Alan Hall from Forbes and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. Learn more about SmartRecruiters, your workspace to find and hire great people.

“A superior leader is a person who can bring ordinary people together to achieve extraordinary results.” Many years ago, an entrepreneur told me that. He was right.

For most organizations, hiring the best talent is not a viable business strategy. The only way to get the best is to pay more than your competitors, and few companies are willing or able to do this.

A far better strategy is to hire decent, hardworking people and bring out the best in them. Here’s how to do it:

1. Recognize that each employee is unique: People are not machines; most of us don’t fit into neat little boxes. If you look around your team and see similar-looking and acting people, it probably means people have been forced into boxes that are limiting their performance.

Not everyone is motivated by money or power. Not every team member gets excited by hitting the monthly budget, or by closing another deal. To bring out the best in each employee, you have to acknowledge this reality. Most organizations don’t have the energy or initiative to do this, which is why they end up with barely ordinary performance levels.

2. Have a purpose beyond money: I’m a realist, and know that people primarily work to earn a living. But people work harder, longer and better when they see the purpose behind their work.

Every organization and group is different, so there are no pat answers… but there are lame ones to avoid at all costs. Don’t just paste a nice-sounding purpose onto the edge of your group, as in, “One cent from every order will be donated to feed whales.”

The purpose you employ should be woven into the fabric of your organization. It must be substantive and meaningful.

3. Turn down the volume: The loudest voices in an organization aren’t always the wisest ones. In fact, they sometimes lead companies right off the edge of a cliff. Make it possible for people to contribute in many ways: privately as well as publicly, in written form as well as speaking at a meeting.

In other words, magnify the quietest voices, and turn the loudest ones down a few notches.

4. Stop making people imitate their boss: Weak leaders want their subordinates to act like them; such leaders lack the imagination – or strength – to recognize that there are many paths to success.

If you run a sales team, everyone doesn’t have to sell like you do.

If you manage a group of consultants, each one doesn’t have to dress and talk like you do.

Give your people the freedom to be the best version of themselves, rather than a pale version of you.

5. Treat your people like adults: I occasionally participate in an organization that employs accomplished professionals as temporary part-time workers; the organization treats these professionals like children, and it always amazes me how quickly the professionals start acting that way. These are doctors, lawyers, and executives. Many manage multi-million dollar budgets. But they all get the message: “management” doesn’t trust us.

People rise – or sink – to meet your expectations, so raise your expectations, and always treat your team members with the ultimate respect.

6. Be loyal in good times and bad: There is no loyalty any more, some say. I say this is nonsense. The more loyalty you show your employees, the more they will show your organization. An employer holds the power, so an employer must take the first step to building a loyal relationship.

Most companies don’t understand loyalty, which is why those that do possess an unfair advantage.

7. Be clear and consistent: Many companies operate with the same techniques that scientists use to drive lab mice insane: they set impossibly contradictory goals. They ask for one sort of behavior, but reward another. They plea for excellence, but operate with sub-par tools and systems.

Put your compensation systems in synch with your goals. Give your employees the right tools, and give them the freedom to keep customers happy. Above all, don’t change your strategy every other quarter. Pick a strategy, and stick to it.

Bring out the best in each employee, and you will bring out the best in your company.

This article was written by Bruce Kasanoff (ghostwrites and edits articles for entrepreneurs) from Forbes and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. Learn more about SmartRecruiters, your workspace to find and hire great people.