The Importance of Combatting a Negative Employer Brand

The Importance of Combatting a Negative Employer Brand If pressed, most of us would probably say that we have a pretty good idea of what kind of thing goes  into making a company an attractive or unattractive place to work. It doesn’t take a genius to work out  that cultivating a good  employer brand â€" creating positive impressions among your current employees  and potential hires â€" has substantial benefits. Or, on the flipside, that being perceived as an unpleasant  place to work isn’t conducive to attracting top talent. It’s pretty basic common sense. What isn’t so easy is knowing exactly what you should be prioritising in your employer branding efforts.  Harder still is quantifying the impact of a good or bad employer brand in any meaningful way. At LinkedIn, we recently conducted some research into the preferences of UK professionals, with the  aim of coming up with some answers to those teasers. The results were pretty illuminating. Top factors  that attract employees to a company: When it came to the most likely things to attract someone to a company or to deter them from taking a  job there, there was an interesting split. The top five factors contributing to a positive employer brand  that encourage people to accept a job with a particular company or organisation tended to be factors  that are developed closer to home. These internal elements of the employer brand are more easily  influenced by employers themselves: Increased job security Increased professional development opportunities The opportunity to work with a better team A company sharing their own personal values Positive impressions of the company from past and present employees Top factors that put employees off a company: In contrast, the five factors most likely to put professionals off taking a job with a company tended to be  more external and further out of the sphere of direct influence. These factors more often relate to  perceptions about the company amongst other people: Concerns about job security Dysfunctional teams Poor leadership Negative impressions of the company from past and present employees A company having a poor reputation among its industry peers. Should employers focus on combatting  a negative employer brand? This underlines that organisations need to go beyond their own doorstep to reap all the benefits of an  attractive employer brand, and influence groups of people further from home. This is likely to be a  harder and more expensive process. Is this extra investment worth it? It was when we came to quantifying the impact of a positive or negative  employer brand, though, that things got really interesting. It turns out that more than half of UK  professionals would entirely rule out taking a job with a company that exhibited the top three negative  employer brand factors, no matter what pay rise they were offered. Even a pay rise of 10 per cent would  only tempt a quarter of us to sign on the dotted line. That got us thinking. What if we could attribute an actual cost to the impact on UK companies of a poor  employer brand? Using a combination of our research results, some publicly available data about  salaries, and anecdotal evidence from friendly HR professionals about businesses’ employee turnover  rates, we crunched the numbers. And the answer was pretty eye-watering. Based on the average UK salary being £27,200 (according to ONS), assumed annual employee  turnover of 15 per cent, and the requirement of a minimum 10 per cent pay rise, the cost of a bad  reputation for a company with 10,000 employees could be as much as £4,080,000 per year. And bear in mind that this is just the impact on the wage bill â€" it doesn’t account for costs in other areas,  such as employee attrition, morale, or having a smaller talent pool to choose from. What can companies do to avoid being hit with this extra expenditure? A positive employer brand  has been made more attainable than ever thanks to the rise of social media. Here are my three top tips  for boosting your company reputation online: Involve everyone: Your current employees are your best ambassadors and advocates. They  are in the best position to give those on the outside an authentic idea of what it is like to work  for your company. Involve them in developing your ‘story’, and encourage them to share it â€"  and their activity and achievements â€" through their personal and professionals social media  channels. This is why we recently launched a product called Elevate, to help companies  empower their employees to share relevant content from within the business. Seize the social opportunity: It is important not to be just a passive observer on social media.  By playing an active part in discussion groups and threads about issues relevant to your  business you can build not only brand awareness but also the kind of two-way conversations  with potential employees that creates goodwill and trust. Show, don’t tell: It is all very saying that you have a great company culture, or that you are  concerned with reducing your environmental impact, but in a competitive talent market you  need to back up what you say. Blogs, photos, graphics, and videos can provide a valuable  insight into your company, and spark conversations. They don’t necessarily have to be slick,  but they do have to be real â€" authenticity is key and can act as a big differentiator in instances  where many prospective employers claim to have a great culture. How does your company approach its talent brand? Have you seen any particularly smart examples in  your industry? We would love to hear about them in the comments below.

Google Onresume Android App

Google Onresume Android AppGoogle's Onresume Android App is a free mobile resume builder. It allows you to create your resume quickly and easily from images and text. Google's Onresume uses the Google Docs platform for easy collaboration between multiple mobile device users.Onresume is free to download and use for any Android device or browser. One of the most powerful features of Onresume is its built-in search feature. You can use the keyword phrase or the page title that best describes your career.The Onresume resume builder app offers some additional features which are great for creating a professional, but natural-looking resume. It also offers drag and drop capabilities, thus letting you choose the kind of formatting that you want to use.Google supports a wide range of formats such as PDF, Word, Numbers, and Quicken formats. However, when you create your own custom format, you can customize the fonts and colors. The Onresume Android App lets you change the font size, bold and i talicize keywords, and even reorder keywords. You can even use a white background for your keywords.Onresume allows you to apply different style of layout. This is a fantastic feature for mobile device users, since most people tend to use their smartphones to browse the internet on mobile devices.One of the great features of Onresume is its integration with the Android Market. You can update your Onresume format and manage your content from your Android device. Onresume allows you to do this without downloading the whole app.Onresume uses the Cloud Printing technology which makes it very easy to do good design in a hurry. Google also provides templates for easy uploading and printing.Onresume Android App was not designed specifically for Android device users. However, they will still get the full potential of using Onresume as it was intended for mobile use. For other mobile users, Onresume may be a very useful tool to help them make a professional looking resume.

Need Career Change Advice - VocationVillage

Need Career Change Advice - VocationVillage Dear VocationVillage.com, Our son is a carpenter who would like to do something different which would be a good job for the future. He is thinking of something to do with sports, teaching, or health related jobs like physical therapist assistant or occupational therapy assistant. His education is a BS degree in Professional Broadcasting. He enjoys people and has great communication skills. He is good at getting people to join in. Any career change advice that you can offer?Signed, Hopeful ParentNeed Career Change Advice?Dear Hopeful Parent, You dont say your geographic location or what school your son attended but the first thing I would explore is what type of career counseling is available for alumni through the university where he graduated. Many schools offer terrific and free or reduced fee resources to alumni, often via webinar/telephone/email so that distance isnt a problem if he no longer lives in the same place he went to college.Whether he gets help from his alma mater or from another local career counselor, one of the first things he might want to do to explore careers is to take a career assessment like the Strong Interest Inventory (SII). The SII doesnt really tell you anything about yourself that you dont already know, but it accelerates the process of self-exploration and would enable him to see how similarly he scores to people who are already happy and successful in their career fields.I recommend that he write a Wish List about what he wants in a future career. Then he can compare his Wish List with ea ch career being considered. This type of systematic analysis usually helps to avoid mentally spinning in circles and within 8-12 hours of research, some clarity usually begins to emerge.One good resource to read about careers is the Occupational Outlook Handbook published by the U.S. Department of Labor. The Handbook outlines the training and education required for each career path, earnings, expected job prospects, what workers do on the job, and working conditions.After your son narrows his career options to a handful of choices, it is helpful to talk to some people in those fields to see what career advice they can give someone who wants to make a career change into their career niche. You can find these people via your own network (neighbors, friends, church, his schools alumni network, etc.) or through a careers professional association. Here is an article I wrote about how to conduct an informational interview.Finally, I recommend taste testing a future career by finding a way to get some experience rather than just reading about the job. By this I mean volunteering at a hospital before committing to a healthcare career or tutoring some children before deciding to become a teacher.Career changes involve a process and it can take some time, but millions of people have done it and your son can, too.Hope this helps!.Photo courtesy of Rasmus Thomsen / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

How to Get Back in Gear Post-Maternity Leave - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

How to Get Back in Gear Post-Maternity Leave - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Since your newborns birth, talk consists of everything baby-related: name, age, weight and hours spent in labor. While you love discussing your bundle of joy, youve got other labor in mind â€" returning to work and life post-maternity leave. How do you get back into gear when your leave is up and you have to start a new routine with baby? Your slow integration back into the world of work and life will make you feel stuck in a weird time warp, but with a few baby steps, youll get back on track in no time:   1. Remember How to Speak Adult Youve spent your time with family, and most of that time with your newborn. Chances are you also speak in baby talk to yourself, especially with reminders and needs: “Go to sleep now, silly. Dont forget the breast pump or your boobies are going to be two sore, leaky and squeaky balloons!” Other moms will understand if you talk this way while youre in the grocery store, but the cashier may look a little confused. Your boss will probably turn several shades red when you refer to them as “silly” or your biggest client as “sweetie.” Skip the sweet whimsy, and slow down when talking as you remember how to speak adult. 2. Youre Going to Need New Work Clothes Dont skip the postpartum shopping spree. As your body continues to recover, your shape and weight will fluctuate. Buying new clothes today only to toss them in two months may seem senseless, but you dont want to be late for your first day back as you try to find something that fits â€" anything that isnt stretchy yoga pants. Keep in mind it will take your uterus six to eight weeks to get back into pre-pregnancy gear, and the rest of your body will need time to adjust, too. 3. Chat With Your Boss When you return to work, schedule a short chat with your boss to get up to speed. Address any questions or concerns they have and raise your own. As you made a plan for leaving, youll need a plan for integrating back into your workflow. Will you be working your usual hours or slowly increasing your work hours? Half days will be easier for you and your child, especially if theyll be at daycare. While 47 percent of mothers believe part-time work is ideal for maintaining a work-life balance, keeping a full-time job with a flexible work schedule is best for your family in the long-term. Its okay to take it slow. Do you need any accommodations to get through the day for your physical health, such as more breaks to pump milk? Do you need a different chair for your back? Send emails to let colleagues and clients know youre back in action. Take it one step at a time and know you dont have to bring your A-game on the first day. Getting back in the workflow is a process, and youre a true professional to realize this. 4. Use Your Most Powerful Word Moms everywhere know the power of “because I said so” even if they hated hearing it as a child themselves. It typically stops or slows any protests or temper tantrums. Take that firm mama tone and apply it to the most powerful word you know but dont often use: “No.” As if having a child wasnt enough to shake up life! Your work-life balance will be threatened by your prior obligations and by new “requests” left and right. Dont feel pressured to accept additional obligations, work-related or social, that will overwhelm you and threaten your mental, emotional or physical health. If you take on too much, you will burn out. Say no, and dont feel guilty about it. 5.   Focus on Small Meals and Healthy Snacks When youre in a rush, meal planning for a whole family â€" much less yourself â€" presents a challenge that leaves you defeated and hungry. Its important to keep your health up as you produce milk and recover. As you get back into gear in other areas of life, eating healthily will give you the energy you need to get through the day. Focus on creating small meals to eat throughout the day, such as a spread of hummus, vegetables, nuts and cheeses. Breastfeeding or not, super foods like protein-packed almonds that may help boost milk supply and sunflower seeds that are packed with fiber and high selenium, which helps repair damaged cells, are great choices. Such a healthy combination is important to recovery and breastfeeding. Make trail mix and carry small snacks with you. 6. Make a List and Check It Twice When you return to work and life, youll resume many responsibilities with many new ones to balance, especially with your new child in tow. Time management will be intrinsic to your success and sanity, though not everything goes according to plan. Think like Santa: Make a list and check it twice. Sticky notes on the fridge and on your computer are helpful and handy, but the cloud and your smartphone apps will be your best friends to get through daily routines, such as the Baby Tracker Nursing App and Mom Maps. Keep track of your nursing and child-friendly restaurants when you need to have the baby in tow for errands and work-related adventures. A shared calendar will allow your family to keep track of each others schedules along with meal planning. Make the lists, and check them twice.

How to Write a Profile For Resume

How to Write a Profile For ResumeIf you are a victim of identity theft and if you want to know how to write a profile for resume then you have come to the right place. In this article I will share with you the easiest ways to protect yourself from the horrible criminals who use identity theft to steal money from you.Identity theft is used by many people these days. It is such a huge problem that I think that everyone should know how to protect themselves against it.In this article I will show you an easy way to protect yourself by deleting any public information about you. You do not have to worry about giving them information about yourself; but it can be a little hard to get rid of some details about yourself.One thing you have to know is that if you are using a professional resume writer to write your profile for resume then they will probably ask you to delete all your details about yourself so that they can make their resume more professional. This is a really good idea and you should do it if you can, because then your profile for resume will look like a professional.The problem with this method is that many people do not know what to do and they do not know what to remove and add, so they end up removing too many personal details from their profile for resume. So just make sure that you do not remove everything but keep only the important ones.When you need to get a hold of your resume and when you want to send it to your employer then you can check your email or your phone and send your resume to your job via your online account. So, if you want to know how to write a profile for resume then this is the perfect solution for you.Also you should make sure that you will send your resume through your internet account and never from your mobile because that way it is safe and easy for you to access your resume. This will also help you a lot when you are applying for your new job because employers sometimes check online accounts for candidates.So this is how to write a profile for resume, do it now. Just remember to check your email regularly and also to check your mobile if you need to send your resume to your employer.

How To Take A Real Vacation From Work

How To Take A Real Vacation From Work Are you constantly getting calls and other interruptions from the office when you’re on vacation? If so, you’re not taking a real vacation. And that’s something we all need in order to recharge, re-energize and refresh. I struggled with this myself throughout my 24-year career, and at times even wore these interruptions as a mis-placed “badge of importance”. Ridiculous, I know. If you struggle with this too, here’s a great tip I learned from the Chief Operating Officer for one of the largest research operations in the US â€" let’s call her Dana. Dana’s philosophy is that there is nothing your boss can do to guarantee or give you your vacation time â€" you have to take responsibility for it yourself. And that means building your team, organizing your systems and establishing your “deal” with your stakeholders so that you can take that personal time off. Building out your team and setting up systems and processes are bigger topics and also more specific to the sector you’re working in, so let’s focus here on the more universal aspect of negotiating your “deal” with stakeholders upfront. Here’s what Dana has established as her “deal” with her boss: She tells her boss that: “When I’m in the office, I’m your best employee. When I’m out on vacation, you go to my team first. If you don’t, then you’re undermining them.” To reinforce this, she has a strict phone policy: “I don’t take my work phone on vacation. My team has my personal phone number if they truly need me, and I tell them not to call me unless it’s an absolute emergency that they cannot handle. It’s in everyone’s interest that my team can run this operation without me for a week or two. This policy builds up their confidence and ensures that I’m not holding anything up for the organization. Her boss objected to this “no phone” policy at first, but Dana got him to agree to experiment with it on her first vacation and the system worked so well that he is now fully supportive of it. As for why her boss should want her to take her vacation, Dana says that: “People make their best decisions when they take a break. In fact, I’ve made some of my best decisions the week after I get back from vacation.” Who can argue with that? So challenge yourself to set up your team, your systems and your “deal” with stakeholders to be able to take that crucial time off so that you can bring your best self to work when you get back. What actions do you need to take to make this work for you?

The Top 10 Things Coaching Marketers and Training Schools Wont Tell You - Kathy Caprino

The Top 10 Things Coaching Marketers and Training Schools Won’t Tell You This week, I had a fabulous conversation with Starla Sireno â€" Founder of www.Fearlessnessinc.com and the Fearless Women Entrepreneur Network â€" an empowering forum for women entrepreneurs in San Francisco and beyond, providing the knowledge and support women need to become fearless entrepreneurs.   Starla and I both found so much validation and confirmation in sharing our honest and frank views about the coaching business, entrepreneurship, women’s challenges in launching their ventures to great success, and the onslaught of false information that is damaging to thousands of women today. I realized in speaking with Starla that I’ve officially had it with the thousands of false and empty promises I keep hearing from hundreds of coaching marketers and product developers for coaches, and organizations that train beginning coaches.   Their talk is SO full of misleading guidance, that it’s time to speak out.   I’m sharing below what I know to be true about the coaching business, based on not only my personal experience, but also my honest and authentic conversations and connections with hundreds of coaches nationwide and in other countries. *Note: The following information excludes reference to executive and business coaches who are paid by an organization, not by individuals.   There are exceptions to the statements that follow, but not many, and only under special conditions: What I know to be true about coaching:   1) “Coaching” per se doesn’t sell.   People still don’t know what coaching is or what it delivers.   To get new clients and continually fill a pipeline to make a good living, you must promote and market the substantial benefits and outcomes you deliver, not sell “coaching” 2) Your delivered outcomes must be highly compelling.   The benefits and outcomes you deliver through coaching must be compelling and highly valuable in the eyes of your clients, not yours.   For people to part with their money today, you must address a pain point that has to be resolved, or a benefit that is deeply coveted, in the client’s opinion. 3) Don’t count on workshops for your living. You won’t make any money running workshops, selling passive income products, or engaging in affiliate relationships if you don’t have a large enough community (in the multiple thousands) to sell to. 4) The strength of your brand matters. With the massive influx of data and information today, you need a compelling brand and powerful unique positioning, website and other marketing materials that work, to stand out and help you attract new clients and customers unless you only want to work only through word-of-mouth. 5) You need a large platform or community in order to sell books. Creating books and e-books in general won’t make you money either â€" again unless you have thousands of potential customers within your reach.   Books (and only well-developed ones that offer something of value) will, however, generate other benefits for you (credibility, recognition, exposure, a new affordable way to reach people, etc.). 6) Hundreds of coaches nationwide are not making it.   The median annual salary for a life coach is $30,000 â€" and many more coaches make much less than that.   If you want a bigger income, you must embrace a different business model that includes not just one-on-one coaching but also other high-quality and useful services, products and programs. 7) Publishers will be interested in your book only when you command significant attention. Publishers won’t consider publishing your book unless you have a sizable platform and community (in the many multiple thousands) and can command attention, through traditional or social media, or through others means.  8) Publicity doesn’t have the financial impact you think it does.   National publicity is awesome to get, but it doesn’t necessarily move any important needle in your business financials â€" including in your revenue, clients, customers or speaking fees.   Don’t chase publicity for publicity’s sake. 9) Paid speaking gigs don’t come easy. If you want to be a paid speaker, it takes a great deal of training, powerfully-crafted programs, credibility, in-depth experience, and hard-earned knowledge about how to engage, inform, and enliven an audience.   All of that takes years.   Don’t expect high fees (or fees at all) as a beginning speaker. 10) Coaching is NOT a quick and lucrative way out to your corporate job.   DON’T engage in a coaching practice if you think it’s an easy, profitable way to run from your corporate life.   And please don’t launch a coaching or consulting practice (or other business) if you aren’t ready to focus on and continually attend to the business-building and marketing actions essential to creating a thriving business.   If it’s contrary to your personality to go out and pursue business opportunities daily and promote your business with gusto and energy â€" then definitely think again. *   *   *   * Coaching can be a very rewarding and exciting profession, but it takes time, energy, business and marketing know-how, sound investment, and an ongoing commitment to making it work.   False promises about how easy it is to earn six figures, create compelling information products that sell, or attract clients who’ll flock to your door, are misleading at best, destructive at worst.   Some helpful TO-DO tips: 1) If you’re building a coaching practice, seek out reliable and highly respected coaching marketers and business-builders who understand the realities of the business and will share with you the core strategies they’ve used to overcome the inherent challenges.   2) Please be judicious in what you invest in outside help to develop your business. Don’t spend thousands of dollars on outside marketing help if there’s no way you can recoup that money within the year.   3) Find helpers who are strong role models whom you respect, and whose products and programs are of high quality. 4) Believe only the advice of people who want you to succeed as much as if not more than  they want to fill their own pipelines. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for real-life stories of successful coaches who have navigated powerfully through each of the above realities. I’d love to hear from you.   What else do coaching marketers and schools NOT tell you? Leave a comment!