Adapting Your Career To Tough Economy

The economy worldwide is facing a turbulent moment at this time of the year. Fretting about how to survive your career in this challenging time of disrupting changes of economical demographic and technological innovation that drives drastic evolution to the career in many industries affected. No matter how defensive is your skills in attaining trust from your employers, there will be time when the changes push your relevancy to the career away as many related works these days have been replaced gradually by machines or software. Some industries that you may see thriving earlier are now are barely surviving while there are other industries that seems to get stronger than they once were. There are also others that doesn’t even existed few years ago. Regardless few of the changes has appeared to be positive, yet most of them aren’t. Who even bring up the term of “Green Jobs” during the 90s anyway?

The changes regardless how bad or good it were, requires an action. It is essential for veterans and millennials these days to adapt their current career to this new economy. For some people, this might mean to choose a different career in a different field to achieve this. Others might suggest to think differently about or changing the way you think about your career. Nevertheless many will look for the way or strategy to make their role in the career field stay relevant as once it was.

Making a Career Change

Should you even think about changing your career path? Well if the prospect of finding great new opportunities in your current field doesn’t look very promising, then the answer was probably yes. There is always little to nothing benefits in staying with your current career that lead to no future at all. All will look for a career progress but if it always led you to a dead end, then changing your career might be the best option at the moment. Even if you see that your field is doing well, you may want an out from it. Career change also is an option for worker who feel their life has changed in some ways, or having a job burnout – as feeling no motivation to do your job again or either your job was becoming too stressful and boring that you can no longer keep up with the burden anymore.

Changing Careers in Midstream

There could also be a possibility for you to change your career direction because of every relevant reason and sometimes the common reason is because they are ready to take the risk or there are also people who consider changing the way they work for example changing their permanent position into freelance as the reason for them to explore new possibility outside of their normal office environment. Some might even consider part-time work as they want to devote their time to start something they are passionate about. Some might even want to get the job at the place of their relevant interest so it won’t be a surprise if you notice a person that involved in a volunteering work with a certain company are finally working for them.

Create a Life You Want With a Mid-Career Crisis

There could be time when you think that you already had enough of your current career and want to try on other options that can bring again the passion that you once had. You might have a growing sense that you will be a lot happier in doing something else. When you start feeling a growing uneasiness with the field you are working in, that is the earlier symptoms that you are currently dealing with mid-career crisis where you are starting to realize that what you have been doing are not what you are planning to do for next 2 – 3 years.

Protecting Your Jobs

Keeping your job and continuing to grow your current career at work is tough in this time of challenging economical changes. Don’t just bury your head in the sands and hoping that all threats and problems in your current career will just disappear. You to gradually work for it to achieve it. Keep your ears tuned in to your work scope grapevine besides observing your industry’s trends and employment opportunities. EnigmaCG also suggests that you look at your performance and your achievement as seeing how you contribute to the company’s growth might give you the idea if your job is still relevant with the company’s mission. There will be time when you find out that despite your best efforts, the job was definitely not worth keeping then it is the right time to start a new job search. Or perhaps you are one of the lucky employees that the career path is still on demand yet the industry is not being helpful, it is also advised to look out for other opportunities.

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10 Creative Recruiting Strategies To Hire Great People

Forget Monster, Craigslist and Jobstreet.

In this millennium competitive job market, you have to start doing things differently if you want to succeed further. Also it is a requirement to start innovating the way you reach your desired candidates who might already have their job elsewhere. That’s where many recruitment agencies and companies these days embracing creative recruiting as an alternative that enable them to get away from the hassle of going through a stack of poor-fit profiles. By adding an interactive group interview during the recruitment process in order to actively seeking potential talents at unusual places. There are right now list of ways for company to innovatively change the hiring process.

This will make your business to ultimately stand out in the crowd and enable you to reach your ideal candidates.

Use self-selection to see who’s really interested.

To help you to better filter the staffing selection process, you can innovate the way of the resume submission by trying to add another layer to it and also during the one-on-one interview process. One best option is to invite all the eligible applicants to an open group event such as an open house. It is rather easy to assume all applicants will come for the event but from most open event organized worldwide there is a solid percentage of less than 50% who come to the event. Self-selection is the way to see and filter applicants because it is so easy to apply for anything but only few of them manage to take the first step ahead to succeed. This stage will help lowered the screening process.

This strategy will also help to evaluate how these people interact in groups.

Arrange for group interaction

Interaction with potential candidates in the group will be an excellent way to see their unique character, level of interest to the subject, their working knowledge and their communication skills. This will help you to observe if their overall characteristics will fit well with your organization culture. There are different ways to conduct an interactive interviews but the fundamental feature is selecting potential candidates and encourage them to interact in the group discussion where later you and your current employer can engage with them. One great example is doing something quite similar to ‘speed dating’ with each of them.

You might also take a bit more creative approach to later set up several of other activities to determine and get the better ideas of the level of knowledge and their passion for the industry as well as their personality.

Handpick dream candidates and how you wanted them

At most times, passive candidates who might not actively seeking for a job might be one of your dream hires. Usually these candidates are already employed and you might never manage to attract them without letting them aware how much you want them to join your company and work for you. Reaching out to them in a personal manner might be the thing they need to see if you are really willing to go beyond your usual to get their attention. There are actually many ways for you to creatively approach these employees and maybe by offering incentives to flatter them a bit. One of the case is by the Red 5 Studio, a video game company where they randomly select 100 candidates and get to know them personally through their social profile. Then each of them are sent a personalized iPod that exclusively equipped with a welcome message by the CEO.

The flattery usually paid off and more than what they expected actually responded to the pitch where 3 of them left their previous job to join on board. Many other potential hires found the company through the words of mouth generated by the buzz.

Look For Talent in Unlikely Places

How can you maintain a corporate culture while doing a fast hiring? Follow the step of the Quicken Loan Company, they look for talents at unexpected places. They regard as they are not finding the talents within their industry but far stretch their lookout to the point where they simply hiring people out of the job scope. To them, it is easier to teach people about finance but not to teach them about passion, urgency and the willingness to go extra miles.

Attend events that are not job fair

Often job fairs turn out to be useless as the crowd that usually flocked around are only the common people searching for quick job. Rather than that as most of our potential hires might already have their stable or permanent job at the moment, it’s assumable that they would not be gathering around some job fairs. Start off by looking at the conventions and events that aren’t traditionally job search related. One of the highest probability to find potential hires was through the Meetup where they organized group event of the same particular interest, might be the perfect spot to look out for your best talents.

For example if you are looking for a graphic designer or web editor, you can start your search at the group event focusing on the graphic design seminar or web camp where all the people from the same background interest and talent gathered to discuss passionately about the subject. Because then, you will get the feel on how passionate they are about what they are doing and get the feel of what they would be like in person.

Making yourself stand out through non-traditional media

In this year of media & technology, you can’t assume by relying on your perfect job description written on some job sites will make you stand out in the crowd. With a little magic of technology, you can make it happen through a video or podcast. Through the use of media, you can successfully convey the message to your potential hires about your company’s corporate culture and just how fun is it to work with your team.

Whether it’s a fun video on YouTube showing how much fun it was to be working in your company and how awesome the employees in your company would be. Maybe a recorded podcast discussing about the job description of the particular job might just do the trick. Hopefully this strategy will help to differentiate you from other companies and make you stand out.

Actively search profile and social networking sites

Rather than going through pile of bad fit resumes that you might be getting in the response to your job post, you might try to seek your potential hires through something else for example by searching through their social media profiles. This way you will get to see only the candidates that you see fit and suitable for the job because you done the search yourselves. These days there are several sites that enable their users to create profile where they can add their knowledge and past work experiences together so that recruiters will get a better ideas of the candidates suitability to the job they will be offering.

This way recruiters can view their resumes, conversation with others in the network, how they engage and their contribution to answering the big questions. Through this method, you are not only screening for the perfect candidates but you’ll also learn a few things about them pre-interview.

Consider past candidates

Some of your former rejects might be your potential hires now. There are times in the past where you passed on some good candidates due to some unexpected reason or another. Perhaps you might have disagreed with their expected salary package which is just a bit too high or they are previously aren’t the ideal candidates for the job in discussion. For whatever reason it was, if you think that the current job offer would definitely fit with your previous candidates, it won’t hurt for you to contact them and get in touch with them now just to see if they are still interested.

Publicize referral incentives

Sometimes referrals just might do the trick as the source for great hires. All you have to do was let the people know that you are currently in the look out or even send out an offer or incentive to send them your way. A financial reward might be ideal if you would be hiring the referral in the end, but if your referrer is your employee, non-monetary perks can be good too for example a day off or exclusive parking spot.

However in order to publicize outside of the company, some great ways to get the word out is by including the note in your email signature telling that you are currently looking, indicating what are you looking for as suggested by many experts. 

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13 Things Not To Say During Your Job Interview

Aside from submitting a resume full of typos, there will be a chance you get turned down for a job offer when you accidentally say things that was not acceptable during your interview session. These so-called sayings are the easiest way to get you quickly eliminated from a job offer consideration. Basically it feels like putting your foot into your mouth technically. You might have aced your resume validation check and gave your hiring managers a great impression for the first time just by reading through your impressive resume but what happened when they meet you? Can you impress them the same way as what they saw in your resume previously? Some people may not get this but what do you say during your interview session matters as it is generally like your first audition. Hiring managers interview candidates to check whether you really fit for the job scope and the ability you have in handling the task required. Most of the qualities that they will put into consideration are the ability to think on your feet, creativity, emotional intelligence and your attitude. It’s not only what you say that counts but how do you say it. Furthermore, your tone of voice and body language will be watched closely during the interview to determine if you are the right man for the job. Here’s a few things that EnigmaCG suggests you should have avoided saying during your job interviews, regardless it was your first:-

“I’m really nervous”

Even if you are nervous because it is your first job interview, you must never show it to your interviewers. Remember as no company wants to hire people with an absolute lack of confidence so you must avoid from showing it during your interview session. At this moment, honesty is not the best policy so you’ll be better fake it until you definitely make it.

“Let’s talk money”

You should never discuss about salary at thee early stage of your interview process. Discussing about salary can raise a red flag to some potentially great employers that you are in it just for the sake of the paycheck and not for any deeper reason. Today, more employers are looking for employees that can align to their mission and their values. All the negotiation process on the salary should be done at the end of the interview process.

“My weakness is that I care too much/ work so hard”

Another important thing that you should never say during your work interview is voluntarily talk about your weaknesses. Unless they ask you a standard question of “What is your biggest weakness?” then you should never talk about it.

Even if you are asked this question, just stay away from these answers because everybody will know it is a masked strength that will be a turn off for every interviewers who have been around the block all these years and you should focus on telling them your true strength and spend time thinking of what is your true weaknesses and professionally admit to them.

“I really need this job”

You should never show the sign of desperation when you are in the job interview. And you must never say that you need this job due to your current circumstance. Most employers may view your desperation as a sign of weakness and again, they want their employees to have a long term relationship and career goal with them and which is not merely just a job.

“My current boss/employer is horrible”

Never try to criticize your former boss or company ever during your job interview. Be careful if the interviewers drag you into talking about your previous company because you shouldn’t badmouth about your earlier company even how bad your experience with them. It will not be classy and it will often make you sound bitter, negative and petty. It also indicates that there will be a chance for you to badmouth and talk negatively about other companies in the future. It will also be a test to see if you would say something reproachful.

“I need…..”

Don’t ever make the conversation all about your own need. You should listen and acknowledge the company’s need and what you can do to help them in achieving it. Besides, talking about your need will indicates that you will be someone that will potentially be a high-maintenance and quite challenging to work with. Every people has their own need so let’s not make your own be too obvious then what it seems. EnigmaCG encourages candidates to start thinking of what they can do to help the company they are having interview with on how they can contribute to the company instead of what the company could give you.

“Do you know when we’ll be finished here?”

Don’t ever show the sign that you are in a hurry to be somewhere else during your job interview. A 30-minutes job interview could drag into 90-minutes if all goes well and if the interview feels that you have to be somewhere else that is more important it might and definitely be a turn off. EnigmaCG advised candidates to be respectful to the interviewer by showing them how much you appreciate being in the interview session. Giving a word of gratitude once in a while won’t hurt your pride at all. Besides, showing them that you are in a hurry to be at other place might showing them the sign that you are not appreciative towards the opportunity they are about to give.

“I love the perks you offer”

Don’t bring up on anything about how much you love the perks being offered by the company. This will show signs that you are more interested with the benefits you will be getting from the company rather than contributing to the employer’s success. At least don’t try to show how excited you are about the benefits you will be getting and care more about how you can help the company in achieving their goal.

“I rather not say…”

Unless the interviewer asks you a highly inappropriate and illegal questions or something that makes you uncomfortable, you have every right to answer all the queries from them. A job interview is never the best time to play with the ‘no comment’ remarks as it will show just how unprepared you are on the job interview and much worse, they will think that you might have something serious to hide from.

“How much paid time off do I get in the first year?”

You shouldn’t give them the impression that you determine to take all your available sick leave and miss as much of your work while still getting paid for it. You can just leave such question during the follow up interview or during your meeting with the human resources for further discussion on the benefits.

“S—, d—, f—, etc.”

Under any circumstance, never use the swear words or slang terms during your conversation in the interview session just to come across as ‘authentic’. This will only give people the impression how poor is your communication skill.

EnigmaCG agrees that swearing will indicate just how unprepared you are during the interview. Even if your interview is done after the work hours where everyone else around you are swearing, please finds a PG-rated words that you can use and use inflections or body language to make your points.

“I’m getting divorced/pregnant/going through a tough time.”

EnigmaCG advises against bringing up other personal related matters or issues. This can be viewed as the major turn off to any employers just for the whole host of reasons and not because it is about whether your personal challenges might get in the way of your performance at work or effecting your daily job activities.

“I don’t have any questions for you.”

When you were asked if you have questions for them, don’t say no. This will give them the impression that you aren’t interested with the job nor the company itself. EnigmaCG encourages candidates to ask if they have any enquiries on anything regarding their job responsibility and also the company procedures because it will indicate just how much you have researched about the company and how prepare you are in accepting your future responsibility.

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Why Choose An Employment Agency?

Employment agencies can inevitably secure you an employment opportunity in no time as they plays an important part in marketing your talent to potential companies. There are a lot of possibilities you can consider either you are temporarily securing a job for a short gap of time or looking for a long term employment. If you are looking for your dream job, then using these agencies will help you quite a lot in term of time & money. Whatever work that you desire, staffing agencies can help assisting you to find what exactly you have been looking for. EnigmaCG encourages you to use recruitment agency to help fulfill your requirement in job search as you will receive assistance and support to live up to the expectation and standard set by organizations these days.

Securing a job can be a tough task for people with minimum years of experience as competition gets tougher from year to year with more students graduated from universities and colleges and the industry however is looking for the best candidate around. With these challenges arise, it will leave you with a hard time in securing even for a job offer. Thus, recruitment agencies are here to help you in overcoming these challenges by innovatively market you to the potential companies through so many methods which also includes improvising the resume and career development counseling. Here are the top reasons why you should be using the recruitment agencies to secure your employment opportunities.

Access to wide range of job positions

Recruitment agencies normally have an access to wide range of job positions and because they have quite an enormous list of contacts with potential clients and companies, there will be a big possibilities that they can match your profile with the right employer which still looking for a candidate to fill up an important position. So, how do you think you can go through all these talented people out there just by sending up your resume and pray for them to check into it later? By any case, that normally do not happen as they will go through a pile of resumes that sometimes may get the employers into an ultimate boredom due to the way how the resume is written. There will be a slight chance that they will come across with your profile in the end. With recruitment agencies, you can skip through all these procedures and jump directly to the front for the job you want. These recruitment agencies deal with the companies on daily basis and for many cases, they have the strong connection that will benefit you later.

Saving your time

Another factor was saving your time when going through all the insignificant job interviews the whole day. Have you ever experience the time when you have gone through interviews for jobs that sometimes have nothing to do with your work experience? Recruitment agencies match the perfect candidate according to their talent with the right company so you won’t have to go through all these exhaustive experience and go directly for the interview with the right company for the right job you want. Some agencies have certain roles which they will be pushing off to their clients and it is slightly preferable as it will assist you in getting the right kind of role in the right company for your long term success.

Expert in their fields

Recruitment agencies have access to the wide information and details on their clients and it helps you to decide on which role from which company that will suit you. In short, they know their way around better than you and they can offer tips and advise on how to select a career path properly. As expert in their own field, they have a great deal of experience in managing the employment process which will benefit you in long term run. They can offer you vital information and resources when dealing with potential clients for example, the salary expectation. Many candidates are unsure what to submit to their employers during the first stage of their interviews and often undersell themselves. These agencies will help you to get what you are truly worth.

Perfect for temporary recruitment

There are times when you will be looking for temporary and immediate work due to any circumstance. Employment agencies can assist you in finding such opportunities at the right time. You will be given the role immediately once you fit into all the required criteria. There are cases when people in need of money for quite a short term basis and don’t know which role that suit them well to start looking for it, recruitment agencies come across as a guardian angels for these people to secure a short term basis role that will later lead to possible long term employment opportunity.

Great people skills

Reference are always important practically in any industry. Your past work experiences are vital to all your upcoming employers and by using the recruitment agencies, it will eventually limiting the amount of time of your listed referees are contacted. Recruitment agencies can also offer advice on which referee that you can share their contact with as some might have quite a negative feedback from their previous employment. These people often possesses great people skills which will help to better mediate between you and your employer to show the bigger picture.

Wealth of knowledge

It is also essential for candidates to use staffing agencies because with the wealth of knowledge they have in hand, they will be able to place you in a better position and environment. A recruitment agency can decide either you are in a perfect fit for the job in the company or if the workplace culture and environment is right for you. Often they will offer you advice on which company is the right place for you and if the job scope is suitable for you to handle. There are times when there are roles that sounds suitable but right through the responsibilities are slightly nothing like what the candidates thought off so the recruitment agencies are trying their best to minimize these problems.

Strict confidentiality rules

Through recruitment agencies you will be able to maintain strict confidentiality with your potential new employer without your current employer knowing that you are actively seeking for a job. Plus, they won’t release your detail to anybody without your prior authorization. This will give you a piece of mind that no random calls from unwanted company coming in to bother and to further assist people who already having their full time job that their current boss won’t aware that they are currently looking out for opportunities.

Free of charge

And finally it is the one thing that you should be considering, that it is free of charge. Being free means you have nothing to worry about having an upfront payment in any case. All the payment will be done by the employer once you are officially on board. There you have nothing to fuss about when you choose to go with a recruitment agencies, all your matters will be well taken care of. 

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