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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How to Keep Employee Training Relevant and Interesting?

Through the eyes of some employees, training is considered to be a necessary hassle to be added into their already hectic working life. Although they know that employee development training will be critical for the success of the business and in order to keep update with the trends, innovations and further advancement in their fields of expertise. And it is also no helps that many companies organize and run their training programs but contribute to less or no changes at all in their employee improvement. This might be due to the cost and time constraint in order to revamp or incorporated new content to their outline of the program.

Training and employee development program normally contribute to higher employee retention and loyalty and it also helps to give the company a better impression to their potential employees. With an increasing demands of qualified talent each year these days, is becoming a highly relevant subject matters to have a relevant, interesting, training and development program that can cater all the employees who participate in the program regardless their working level. To reach the goal, how a training program can remain relevant and interesting to these employees without putting too much budget for the companies to invest on them?

Experience in catering & developing different training program for various business in our 5 different global locations, Enigma CG suggests you six ways on how to jump-start your training & development program and remain relevant at the same time:-

Invest in Leadership Development

In today’s time, conscious leadership that is a combination of both business and relationship skills are much needed. Over the next few decades, many baby boomers will be expected to retire from their current position so there will be a potential void for experienced leaders. This increase will later combined with the ongoing production of millennials that will make some of the current programs to be obsolete and no longer relevant. Investing in order to fine tune the current leadership development program or creating a particularly new one, a business can get ahead with this pending gap and continued to be poised in becoming the strong, well-developed leader for tomorrow.

Keep training relevant

Employees dread and despise trainings that are not related to their routine and everyday work life. So as expected, many will refuse to engage and furthermore decline to participate. Try to pick your course offering and the participants that will be participating. Decide and check if it is relevant to their work and job scope. Will the outline help these workers to overcome their current obstacles in completing their work with success? Everything should be put into account when deciding the course that fit your employees to ensure the success in the end of the program, either it will improve or break your employees. Make sure certain course materials are still relevant and help the participants now or in the immediate future to grow.

Bringing in a new trainer

In many organizations, the same people will be conducting the training over the years. There is a chance that their course content or materials might be irrelevant to the person these days. A new trainer can add a new flavor to the current topics as they can bring in different point of view and perspective besides adding up new content that can further engage the audience by expanding their knowledge further.

The new trainer doesn’t have to be expensive either because there could be an expert trainer lies within the four walls of your business and it might also be people from inside the organization. Reaching out to business peers and mentors to gain insights & expertise as well.

Create options

Make all training program to be easily accessible to all your employees. Start off by creating real-time offering, recorded offering and online offering to entice your employees further. Also you can give options for your employees to attend it either remotely or in person, considering where they are currently located. Prepare for other workers that non-traditionally work in shifts schedule. New technology has enable the program to be manage a lot easier by providing a platform for it to be accessed anyway either remotely or online and use the chance to get the full use of these technologies to allow easier and less expensive course & training to be conducted.

This kind of capability allows greater flexibility of how a course and training program can be conducted while enabling the employees to participate in the course and furthermore increase the attendance rates and in turn the likelihood of the subject matters can be retained.

Change the scenery

If the training is normally conducted in an onsite training center or a corporate conference room, you might want to consider moving to other location. Sometimes a change in scenery might be good to get these participants to be attentive at their seminars and training programs because it left all the other distractions back at their workplace and their mind will be free to accept any knowledge coming their way. It doesn’t have to be an exotic location but it can be in other corporate location, training center and even outdoor. It is essential to get the employees out of the office once in a while and take them into the neutral scenery so their mind will be freed from all the distractions that may arise in the office. This will encourage the participants to be more engage and willing to learn with the program.

Feedback, Feedback & Feedback

From before, during and after the class, do make sure you ask for feedback from your employees or participants. Ensure they are satisfied and learn quite a lot during the training so it will benefit them. Once you received the feedback, make sure to review it and later act on it if there are any issues that to be addressed. Acting from the feedback received, employees will most likely provide an open end and honest feedback that will move forward. It is also important to ask for feedback from employees that absent from the non-mandatory session because by knowing the reason behind their absence, employers will know what is the step to take that can help reduce non-attendees in the future.

By keeping the current training program up-to-date and relevant will help increase the utilization of the program further. Instead of having your employees dreading about the training course, now they will be looking forward to participate as they can gain more knowledge and insights that can help improve their method of work and increase their level of productivity. An additional benefit in training and development program for employees is reduction of turnover and increase in employee loyalty. Investing in corporate training will ensure their workforce to be able to serve them better in the new future.

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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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