give labor | SmartRecruiters Blog

Give Labor Day

David Smooke — Thu, 29 Aug 2013 17:33:39 +0000

In honor of Labor Day, SmartRecruiters encourages you to help a friend find a job

SmartRecruiters, the hiring platform, announces its third annual Give Labor Initiative, where the company asks you to help a friend find a job. If you know someone unemployed or underemployed, spend fifteen minutes helping with their job search.

Labor Day has always been a time to remember and celebrate achievements. The United States Department of Labor describes Labor Day’s founding as “a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.” However for 11.7 million unemployed and 22 million underemployed workers, there isn’t much labor to celebrate.

SmartRecruiters believes that the elimination of friction in the hiring process can create full employment. It is an ambitious goal that cannot be reached overnight. However, we know that in helping the unemployed and underemployed by: (1) improving their resume and/or social media presence, (2) interview counseling, and (3) facilitating introductions, Give Labor Day will be a day to better America’s labor market.

Following Labor Day, SmartRecruiters will open its San Francisco headquarters to all job seekers (56 Tehama Street) from 4 to 7 pm on Tuesday September 3 to provide free and professional jobs search consultations to the unemployed and underemployed job seekers [Register Here]. Premier Staffing, a partner in the recruiter marketplace, will also be in attendance, volunteering to consult job seekers.

Give Labor will continue each year, and we hope that job assistance becomes a social responsibility of Labor Day, as community service is a social responsibility of Martin Luther King Day.

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Why Purpose Matters and How to Communicate Your Purpose to Candidates

Christopher Murphy — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 17:09:50 +0000

A more prosperous economy, changing social norms, longer lives and technological revolution have each helped change the idea of an American “career” in the past thirty years. Though plenty of individuals still struggle through the workday, our aspirations for and general perspective on why we work no longer mirrors the often-downtrodden subjects of Studs Turkel’s 1974 expose “Working.” We live in an economy with an implicit understanding that if we’re talented, we’re entitled to love our work – to find in work an awe-inspiring purpose than exclusively providing for ourselves and families. Employers, accordingly, are beginning to realize that they’ll need to oblige this sentiment if they want to attract the best and brightest.

Of course, the more valuable a candidate’s skill set and the more competitive the industry in which she operates, the more she is able to demand this be the case. Take the tech sector, for example. In an extremely quickly moving, and often volatile industry, talent is particularly valuable. Sure, salaries are super high in tech, reflecting the demand for quality developers, designers and strategists. But, at a certain tier, marginal salary differences between competing companies become less important than the myriad of those companies’ other qualities. Indeed, companies have to do a lot more than pay to attract the best talent. Creating a more viscerally joyful work experience is a start (hence the profusion of tech startups with ping-pong tables, free booze, and other fun additions to the workplace that have now become almost cliche). But to distinguish themselves, good companies must foster fulfilling work experiences – they must develop an excellent culture and community, provide opportunities for personal growth, and communicate an awe-inspiring purpose to contextualize day to day work functions.

A number of companies serve as good examples here. Take Asana, a software company that basically builds a sophisticated to-do list. Given that description, Asana wouldn’t strike the reader as a company whose purpose motivates its employees. But there are no discrete standards for what makes a company more purposeful than another, or whether one company culture is better than another. How well a company creates a satisfying work environment depends on the lens through which it views its work, the way in which it executes that work, and how that resonates with employees. Back to Asana:

“Asana’s mission is to empower humanity to do great things. Our approach is to build software that makes group communication and coordination effortless, giving teams of like-minded people the tools they need to accomplish dramatically more ambitious goals.”

Asana’s employees don’t believe they’re creating a pretty task list; they believe they’re changing the world. Buildasign.com, Etsy, Airbnb and Zappos are just a few others on a growing list of organizations whose products might not immediately suggest or require a deep connection to social impact or company culture, but whose employees, and often times customers, are acutely aware of and invested in the connection. The data show it’s good business, too. A 2003 University of Michigan study showed that organizations that were perceived by employees to be more virtuous also had significantly higher productivity, quality outputs, and lower employee turnover.

However, you can have an outstanding culture and mission and still fail to attract top talent. Good recruiting depends on successfully communicating those core company elements. Employers need to leverage media to succeed here. Your values, your culture, and the special sauce that makes your company the right place to be for the right candidate are all elements that candidates need to feel. The more relatable you can be, the better fits you’ll identify. Rich media provides the opportunity for candidates to get to know your company and, if they’re the right fit, become attracted to your company (yes, it’s sort of like the dynamics of online dating but for employment).

Try testing this theory. You’ve now spent a couple minutes reading my thoughts on work and recruiting. As passionate as I am about what I’m writing, you only have a cursory sense of who I am. Now go to our site: www.zoomforth.com/about (this is an elegant plug, isn’t it?!) and click on me. Check out a few photos and watch a few seconds of video. Pretty quickly, you get a much better sense of who I am. At Zoomforth, we’re helping companies do the same thing.

Growing organizations use multimedia to describe their people, positions and culture so that they attract the right fits. If companies can both implement measures that generate well-being and also communicate them, the returns are enormous. Beyond the intrinsic good of putting people in the right work environment and making them happy, the happier employees are at your company, the more effective they’ll be and the longer they’ll stay.

Photo Credit Smartup Zoomforth

The post Why Purpose Matters and How to Communicate Your Purpose to Candidates first appeared on SmartRecruiters Blog.

The LinkedIn & Resume Essentials

Emily Liou — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 05:18:13 +0000

SmartRecruiters recently hosted Give Labor Day at its SOMA headquarters this past Labor Day to helping less fortunate job seekers find employment. By volunteering, I was able to not only share some tips on resume writing, but also learned from other volunteers the best practices on how to strengthen a LinkedIn profile. Here are the essential resume and LinkedIn tips that volunteers shared:

The 3 Resume Essentials:

1. Fifteen Seconds and Dismiss?!

How do you get a hiring manager’s attention in 15 seconds or less? Don’t overwhelm them with text: keep your resume to two pages maximum if you have extensive experience. List 2-3 quantifiable accomplishments that speak to your strengths. Remember, you want to capture and paint a clear picture of your professional career and elaborate further in the interview. The key is to land that phone interview!

2. Remove ‘Objective’ & Add ‘Skill Sets’:

Don’t tell an employer what they can do for you; tell an employer what you can do for them! Unfortunately, before you may even get to human eyes, a computer can already eliminate you from the stack. Adding a summary of your skill sets that highlight the keywords and/or hard skills for the position will get you more callbacks.

3. Review, Review, Review!

I know many hiring managers who automatically discard a resume if they see a typo or inconsistency in organization. A resume does not only represent your achievements, but also represents skills such as writing, organization and attention to details. It’s a reflection of how you present. Always get a second pair of fresh eyes after any revision.

The 3 LinkedIn Essentials:

1. Customize your URL:

By default, LinkedIn gives you a public profile URL filled with random letters and numbers. You want to be able to give a URL that is easy for people to type, so make it as simple as linkedin.com/yourname. This makes it so you can share your LinkedIn in conversation, and it just looks cleaner in the browser. If your name is not available, be creative! You can even add a term that is industry specific if that is what your passion and future lies in (example: JohnSmithBlogger). Stay away from crazy spellings. When created, add this URL to your resume heading.

2. Summary = Story:

Feel free to write this section in the first person and give your readers a background of your past, present, future and passions. Think of this section like the first few minutes of the interview. Who are you? And what are you looking for?

3. Ask for Recommendations:

When job seeking, ask yourself the following questions: What qualities is my next company looking for? What skill sets are needed? Remember that your recommendation hinges on the position and reputation of whoever gives it. Usually, it’s best if the recommendation is from a former boss, or satisfied client, but it can also come from a respected colleague. Make sure it highlight these specific qualities and skill sets. A recommendation can act as a public reference check – the more relevant the better.

On Give Labor Day, one of our job seekers – a personable, funny, managerial level professional – was just beginning his job search in San Francisco, where he is returning after moving internationally for 10 years. I know any recruiter would have a pleasant conversation and walk away with a wealth of knowledge on the communications industry, once they invite him in for an interview. Unfortunately, this job seeker, like many others, indicated countless applications would result in (surprise!) little to no phone calls. By sharing the tips above, job seekers can increase their likelihood of getting noticed, so they can showcase their amazing personalities and skills!

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5 Things To Do Right Now to Land That Job

Jessica Miller-Merrell — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 04:52:42 +0000

If there’s one thing I love it’s helping job seekers. Working in HR in a corporate capacity, it’s not something I could do very often. Outside of the occasional mock interview or resume review at the local college, we were bound to providing the standard verbiage in most of our candidate conversations and turn down emails to those job seekers that didn’t receive an offer. “I’m sorry you weren’t the best candidate selected for the job.”
Give Labor is different. It’s making Labor Day a day to help job seekers. But you can help a job seeker on any day! Give Labor takes the best of social good and helps job seekers who are often left with more question and frustration than answers.
For those job seekers who didn’t reach out as a Give Labor volunteers this week, I want to help. Here are 5 things you need to do right now to help you land that job.

Use Micorsoft Word Not a .pdf to Apply. Maybe you have a beautifully designed resume and graphic masterpiece. You upload it to my company’s applicant tracking system, but the recruiter doesn’t see it. The information isn’t searchable like a word doc and so I look past your resume because there are two hundred candidates applying for the exact same position. Unless a job opening specifically asks for a portfolio of your work or a pdf, stick to a resume in Microsoft Word.

Be Honest About Your Skills. Good recruiters and hiring managers can smell a rat. Don’t waste your time or mine by applying for a job you aren’t qualified for. List your work experience openly and honestly as possible. I want to hire good candidates who can do the job. If you don’t have those skills, volunteer at a non-profit or attend vo-tech classes to get the experience you need. That’s exactly what I did when I wanted to learn how to use graphic design tools like Photoshop. These skills have proved invaluable to me in my career in so many different ways.

Appearance Matters. Whether it’s your resume, cover letter, or dress for an interview, job seekers are being judged. Recruiters make assumptions on your skills and aptitude at a moment’s notice. It’s a moment that can cost you an interview or a job offer. You can help control these things by making sure your marketing materials and personal house is in order.

Manage Your Social Profiles. While this tip seems to permeate nearly every career and job search blog out there, it begs to be repeated. Recruiters are using social media to source and investigate the online you. Keep all your accounts professional and free of offensive materials. This includes politics and religious information as I see an increasing number of passionate political updates on Facebook. Don’t lose out on a job opportunity because of the passion behind your Presidential pick. It’s just not worth it. Really.

Connect with Recruiters but Keep it Cool. There are literally thousands of recruiters and HR professionals on social networks. Many are open to connecting in a real and meaningful way. An online relationship follows the same social obligations meaning that in order to receive you must first give. Play it cool. Take an interest in the recruiter. Retweet their posts, send them a candidate referral, and take an interest in what they do before you ask for their time or a favor.

The job search is a complicated process that involves many moving parts some that you can control and others you cannot. By taking responsibility and control for your job search, you must plan and prepare for all scenarios and keep your house in order. Because you never know when a job opportunity may land in your lap and always at that one moment when you were caught unprepared. Prepare for that moment, and you’re on track for success.
Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. She’s an author who writes at Blogging4Jobs. When she talks, people listen. Also, connect with her on Pinterest @blogging4jobs.

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