Career, Advice Arianna Schioldager Career, Advice Arianna Schioldager

The Answers to These Two Questions Might Make or Break Your Interview

No pressure.

Photo: Edmond Dantès for Pexels

Transition time in between jobs is common and isn’t necessarily bad, however, it is important to figure out how to handle time in between jobs so it benefits you and doesn’t reflect negatively on your career.

Whatever the reason is for your temporary unemployment, you’re not alone; there’s at least one person out there in the same or a similar position as you. People will often be understanding about temporary employment gaps as long as you explain yourself.

Having a break in employment is okay.

But be prepared for hiring managers and/or recruiters to ask you two questions…

Why do you have a break in employment?

What have you been doing/what did you do during this time?

The answers you provide to these two simple questions could make or break you in an interview. A recruiter for a nationally recognized company recently told me a story about a candidate the company interviewed. They initially thought she would be a great fit for the position because she had the qualifications, but she had a six-month gap in employment. The employment gap wasn’t the deal-breaker, however, her answer to the question about what she did during those six months was. She gave a very vague answer that she hung out and relaxed with friends. That doesn’t sound like a bad way to spend six months, but it also isn’t a good answer to give in an interview. The company ended up going with another candidate who seemed to be more motivated and goal-oriented.

If she had said something about how she wasn’t happy at her old position so she decided to take time to figure out what she really wanted from her career, things might have gone differently for her.

Perfect your elevator pitch.

Elevator pitches are often used for companies and brands, but having a personal elevator pitch is also important. If you do have a gap in employment, come up with an elevator pitch to explain your situation.

A good example of an elevator pitch is something like this:

“I always thought I wanted to be in [industry], but when I got the position I wanted it wasn’t the right fit for me. I did learn a lot about myself and decided to take some time off to figure out what I really want from my career. I did a lot of research, and I’m ready to take on new challenges with this role.”

An answer like this shows that you made a conscious decision to leave your job for your long-term benefit and have since taken steps to ensure you’re moving towards the right career path. This answer shows thought, confidence and ambition to reach your goal.

When you’re thinking about how to handle time in between jobs, answer the following questions…

Is there something you could do during this time that would benefit your career in any way?

Could you volunteer somewhere? 

Could you take a class?

Could you learn a new skill?

Is this downtime worth it to you?

The point of answering these questions is to put a value on your time and make it useful. Volunteering, taking classes, or taking up a hobby will not only help you make use of your time, but it will also help you give a good answer about your time off when asked in an interview.

Stay active. 

While you may not be working for profit, one of the most important things to do when you’re in between jobs is to stay active. Start volunteering for a local charity or at local businesses/community centers.

When you have a large employment gap and you’re looking for a job, the worst thing you could do is sit around. Staying active in your community will give you something to put on your résumé and it will help you network. You never know who you’ll meet and who will notice your work ethic. A recent government study found that volunteering is associated with 27% higher odds of employment.

Volunteering isn’t only about networking, but it gives you something current to put on your résumé. If the first thing someone sees is a large employment gap, your résumé may get overlooked simply because of the fact that there is nothing current on it. However, if you start volunteering, you can use that to fill in the time where you weren’t working. 

If you haven’t done anything in your transition time, come up with a good reason why.

If you have just been sitting around, you better come up with a good explanation for it, or you can kiss your chances of landing that great job goodbye.

An example of a good answer as to why you didn't do much during your transition time is this:

“While I learned a lot at my last job, it wasn’t the right fit for me, and it became draining. I made the decision to leave that position, take time for myself, recharge, and figure out my next career move. Over the last few months, I have really focused in on what I’m looking for in a job, and that is x, y, and z. Now that I’ve had the time to recharge, I’m ready to get back into the swing of things and follow my passion of ___.”

If you’re going to take time off, make it worth it and clearly explain your reasoning in an interview.

About the author: A native San Franciscan, Michele Lando is a certified professional résumé writer and founder of writestylesonline.com. She has a passion for helping others present the best version of themselves, both on paper and in person, and works to polish individuals' application package and personal style. Aiming to help create a perfect personal branding package, Write Styles presents tips to enhance your résumé, style, and boost your confidence.

This story was originally published on March 7, 2018, and has since been updated.

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Career, Advice, Small Business Guest User Career, Advice, Small Business Guest User

So, You're Building Your First Team—Here's 5 Things to Know Before You Do

Take your company to the next level.

Building your first team as a startup entrepreneur is one of the most exciting parts about starting your own business. At last, the time has come for you to delegate responsibilities and get assistance. Let’s be real: you’ve probably needed more help for a while—now you get to actually hire the talent.

Human capital is what makes your business go (and grow) forward. For startups, the first 10 employees hired are crucial to the success or failure of the business. The hiring decisions you make will shape your company’s culture, and your employees will represent and express your brand to the world. 

Want to know how to build a team? Here are five critical things to consider when you’re recruiting your first team.

1. You’ll Attract What You Project

When it comes to hiring, you’ll attract the job candidates your postings appeal to. Finding qualified candidates is one thing, but discovering applicants who truly connect with your messaging requires branding yourself with this purpose in mind.

Think about it as a second layer to your brand: there’s what everyone sees, then there’s a look at the corporate culture beneath the brand. Is your startup all about the beer fridge and billiards, or are you more focused on fair pay and benefits? The values and purpose you espouse on your careers page via your social media presence and in your job postings are crucial to finding the right fit.

Forty-seven percent of surveyed recruiters believe that social media is the best way for you to establish and promote your employer brand. Plus, your general audience will also enjoy the transparency; consumers love a peek behind the curtain.

2. Choose From Full-Time Employees and Gig-Economy Masterminds

In lean startup culture especially, it’s customary to harness freelance talent during a growth phase. You can hire freelancers on a per-project basis and you don’t have to contribute to their benefits, though generally their hourly or per-project rates will be higher. Freelancers are independent; they can come and go as they please and as you need them, and they won’t have the loyalty to your business that a full-time employee might.

Your full-time employee, however, has a vested interest in stabilizing and growing your startup. This employee’s livelihood, and most, if not all, of their working hours are devoted to the success of your venture. However, your investment is more concrete.

Your business, and its needs, will best determine this decision; most startups get a core team of full-time employees and freelance as they grow. Some of your best freelance employees may become full-timers eventually.

Whatever you decide, ensure you abide by IRS guidelines about contract workers vs. full-time employees. Many startups make the mistake of confusing the two, leading to potential penalties.

3. Save Money with Virtual Workspaces

Traditional, physical office locations bring a sense of community to your team, but they also contribute to a lot of overhead. As a startup, you can likely use some of your funding elsewhere.

Unconventional workspaces are nothing new to startups, long lauded for beginning in garages, basements and at Starbucks locations across the nation. Before you fill your workspace with people, think about what it looks like. Experts predict that the majority of the American workforce will be remote by 2027. If you’re hiring remote employees, consider candidates who have worked for startups before, people who have worked remotely, and those who indicate they’re self-starting and self-directed.

Tools like time-keepers, Trello, Asana, meeting-free Mondays, and carefully scheduling calls can also help you and your employees, whether virtual or ever-present in a physical location.

4. Recruit Online and by Recommendation

As a startup founder filling a specific niche, you’re probably already acquainted with many people in related industries. These connections are a rich resource. Harness your network to find top talent, especially when it comes to recruiting those initial core team members.

In a survey of over 3,800 recruiters, 43% indicated their primary source for quality hires was from social professional networks, followed at 42% by internet job boards and 32% from employee referrals. Therefore, recruiting online and asking your existing network for direct referrals can support your success.

When it’s time to find your core team, consider these methods. Don’t be afraid to ask a more advanced industry connection questions like, “If you had extra budget, who would you hire?” and “Where did your top entry-level candidates go to school?” 

5. Focus on Analytics

As you build your team, it’s imperative to consider the importance of tracking your success. Metrics provide data that can inform your decisions to grow and expand your team, and if you’re planning to receive outside funding, proving your success is mandatory.

It’s also about your customers and clients. Regardless of your industry, every customer you serve is interested in at least one of two things: recommendations and/or metrics. Think about your average e-commerce customer. Shaped by online shopping experiences provided by the likes of Amazon, they’re used to receiving recommendations based on their browsing history and previous purchases. 

Providing those recommendations means having a handle on browsing history and customer behavior data. If you want to compete in e-commerce, you’ll need employees who are skilled at working with big data to ensure customer and client success.

In a B2B (business-to-business) market, your customers will be interested in metrics. Their investment in your tool or service may not be useful to them if you can’t prove ROI (return on investment), meaning analytics are also essential components of what you do.

Additionally, there’s the success of your growing business to think about, and that will require productivity and financial analyses. Your core team members must address how to organize, finance and market your organization, and those high-level tasks require detail-driven analytics.

When you hire an analytical mind, consider how they will work with your most creative marketer or your dedicated developer. While “synergy” is a buzzword of the past, the concept still applies; especially in the early stages, you need a team ready to collaborate and weather startup challenges. On opening day, you have the best sense of what your business needs, so trust the data, qualified recommendations, and your business needs. Trust yourself to assemble the best team possible.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jori Hamilton is a feminist writer from the Pacific Northwest who enjoys discussing social justice, empowerment, and how to improve the workplace. You can find more of her work in her portfolio here.

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Business, Advice, Small Business Chelsea Evers Business, Advice, Small Business Chelsea Evers

5 Things You Should Never Delegate

Sometimes DIY is best.

Small business owners, do you have a hard time giving up control? We understand the fear. If you do it wrong, it can lead to expensive mistakes, damaged brands, and poorly-managed teams...but do it right, and there are tons of benefits to gain: You’ll free up your calendar and have more energy to focus on high-level, big-picture tasks. You’ll also quickly achieve goals, while allowing your small business to scale.

That said, there are some tasks that should never be taken off your plate. As a small business owner, you should be laser-focused on creating the best business plan, workplace, and community that you can. Here are five things you should never delegate:

1. Call the shots for every major business decision

It’s your company. Never assign high-level moves or major business decisions (significant changes to the business, investments, partnerships, etc.) to anyone but yourself. Even when you hire a strategist or consultant, you’re still the person who should have the final say. It’s your business—own it.

2. Don’t delegate anything you don’t understand

You can’t effectively manage what you don’t comprehend. One area where business owners often fail is understanding finances. Many think it’s time-consuming and tedious and therefore want to hire it out right away—but how can you make important decisions for the future without knowing how and why to allocate resources? How can you make informed business moves without comprehending the state of your finances? Understand your finances and the scope and extent of each of their roles, then consider hiring an accountant, bookkeeper, controller or other support.

3. Do all of the hiring and firing yourself

The strength of any small business lies in the strength of its team. When you do all of the hiring on your own, you’ll be sure prospects fit with your vision. After hiring, build relationships with all key personnel and take charge of motivation, inspiration, and employee morale. Make sure employees feel like important contributors to your team.

It’s equally vital to handle firing. Of course, a manager can fire an employees on your behalf, but it’s your job to share the value of their contributions and to make sure their exit is a fair and professional one. Your business’ reputation lies in your hands.

4. Create a strong company culture

It’s imperative that the boss personally cultivates and sets the tone for their company’s culture. If they don’t, it will organically come into being by way of the words and actions of their employees. Set a culture that encourages others to speak up, share ideas, and voice concerns; motivate others to “own” their areas of the business; and look for the right fit (in terms of personality and in values) in every new hire you bring aboard.

5. Personally welcome all new employees

No matter how great your managers may be, nothing can replace the feeling of being personally welcomed by the CEO on day one. Your employees will start on the right foot and have an easier time acclimating to your company’s culture when standards and expectations come straight from you.

When you’re  a small business owner, it can be tempting to want to do it all alone. It’s crucial to spend time on these five vital strategies and tasks, but when it comes to the rest of your work, take a step back and think about how you can delegate to make it easier to focus on the big picture. What can you delegate this week?

Syama Meagher is CEO and chief retail strategist of Scaling Retail, a boutique retail consulting firm working with clients around the globe. The agency advises startup, growth stage and enterprise CEOs on everything from the art of negotiation and industry best practices to mental frameworks and capacity building for new hires. Discover what Scaling Retail can do for you at www.ScalingRetail.com.



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Career, Advice Kate Williams Career, Advice Kate Williams

Ask: Jaclyn Johnson, Create + Cultivate founder

Jaclyn Johnsons' tips for hiring potential staff.

We put out a call on Instagram to find out what you wanted to ask Create + Cultivate founder Jaclyn Johnson about starting and running a business. We got tons of amazing questions, and here Jaclyn is addressing one from South African jewelry designer A Ring To It: "Any tips when interviewing or hiring potential staff members and what has been your approach to managing a team that executes your creative vision?"

• Get referrals

When it comes to hiring, I start with friend referrals and fans of the brand before I look anywhere else. Send an email to everyone you know in your industry and ask if they know of anyone; and also put out a call on social media. If someone is already familiar with your brand, it will likely be easier for them to jump in and get up to speed. (If you're the one who wants the job, email and email—and follow up—to show that you want it.) Also, intern! Three of our current employees are former interns :).

• Do a trial run

Once you do find someone, start them out with a test period. I think three months is always good for new employees—that way, you can find out if they're the right fit. It's always good to have an open dialogue about how they're feeling and performing in the job. Not everyone is right for every job, so if something doesn't work out, it's not necessarily because they or you failed.

• Know what characteristics are important to you

I tend to look for and hire self-starters. Our business is always changing and I need people who can think on their feet. With new employees, I like to give them a few projects and situations that they can own and run with so that I can see how they think and how comfortable they are with autonomy. Also, be brutally honest—I never pretend to have the fluffiest work environment—it’s hard work! Also understanding your employees' goals are key! Where do they see their career going? What is their dream? That way you can map back to that at all times.

 Our business is always changing and I need people who can think on their feet.

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• Expect that there will be a learning curve

As a business owner, you sometimes have to remind yourself that people aren't mind readers. In most cases, it's going to take at least six months for people to understand how you think and work, and how you expect them to perform.  Also, assign mentors—as a business owner you might be too slammed to be on top of everything, but having senior employees mentor junior employees has been a super helpful program for us!

Entrepreneurs, do you have any hiring and management tips? If so, share them in the comments below.

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Advice Jenay Ross Advice Jenay Ross

How to Craft a Resume That's Full of Flavor

Taste is temporary. Flavor is forever. 

In the last fifty years the way we do business has evolved exponentially. One, the Internet: we work on-the-go and on planes, from the back of our Ubers and on Sundays. Traditional work hours have become a relic of the past. There is no office normcore. Nor do we want their to be.

Yet despite the changes we’ve seen-- even in the last ten years alone-- there is one antique that keeps hangin’ on: THE RESUME.

If business has changed, why hasn’t the resume?

So, we asked Bai, the better-for-you beverage company that believes “taste is temporary, flavor is forever,” how to create a resume that's full of forever flavor. Flavor is the promise to not be dull. And let’s be real: when you’re sending your resume to a company that receives hundreds of applicants, you need to stand out to gain the competitive edge.

In short: you need to ditch the dull. Here’s how to make yours a forever resume with these 6 tips from Bai.

1. KEEP IT ONE PAGE.

You’ve had a lot of jobs, but your career resume is different than what you cobbled together to land your first job. Internships or summer jobs you held in college, those can go. Bulk is not better in the case of your resume.

“Bulk is not better in the case of your resume.”

Tweet this.  

Listing jobs that are not directly related to the position you’re applying for is fine, but you don’t need to laundry list Every. Single. Position. you’ve ever had. Edit your resume so that it’s ONE PAGE ONLY and highlights your best work.

2. DEVELOP YOUR POINT OF DIFFERENTIATION, BUILD OUT YOUR STRATEGY FROM THERE.  

Speaking of your best work, have you ever sat down and asked yourself what you want your resume to accomplish? WE KNOW! A job, that much is a given, but beyond a job. What do you what your resume to communicate about you?

Most applicants don’t think of their resume in terms of strategy. They think that starts after they snag the position-- but that’s a dated way of thinking. To bring your resume into 2016, make sure that every line counts and that you can answer the ‘why’ as to why you’re including it.

3. USE KEYWORDS

Employers are optimizing across the board. Most Fortune 100 companies use something known as the Applicant Tracking System. Doesn’t sound sexy, but it’s critical to understand in the current job market. Even small companies who don’t have the bandwidth for hiring departments are relying on software that searches job-seeker databases for keywords related to the position they are a looking to fill. Skill-related nouns are one of the most searched keywords. Think: marketing campaigns and special events— i.e. nouns related to the skills the employer wants in a candidate. However, don’t front-load the top of your resume with a list of words. They should be integrated into your resume to show how you’ve best used that skill.

“Integrate keywords into your resume to optimize your chances of being seen.”

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4. NO MORE REFERENCES, INCLUDE SOCIAL MEDIA HANDLES AND LINKS

You know they are going to be looking, so make it easy and include your social handles at the top of your resume. They are equally as important (if not more) than your phone number. Companies want to see who you are, how you engage on social media, and yes, how many followers you have.

5. CALL-OUT BOXES

You see this on blog posts— call-outs of the most interesting quotes or content. There’s good reasoning behind it: it’s the most interesting. Also, it breaks up what you’re looking at. You don’t need to InDesign your resume, but bullet points and line breaks are so 1998. Really want to show that you have resume flavor? Call-out your strengths. If you grew a brand’s Instagram following from over the course of a year with social programming, highlight those numbers. Give them stats. Companies love stats. You know what they don’t like...

6. HEADSHOTS -- BE GONE

Research shows you have six seconds to snag a potential employer's interest. So you should use this opportunity for them to focus on your skills, not your new haircut. That’s why you’re including your social media handles.

A lot of people think that a photo is a great addition to a resume— adds a personal touch, but what it’s really adding is a distraction, and stealing precious seconds away from you accomplishments.

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