Susan was doing well in her job. She had an eight-hour workday, great friends, a supportive family, good health, and she was paid well. Everyone around her thought she was happy and lived an ideal life.

Susan was well-compensated and appeared to have time to balance her career and personal life. But she was struggling.

But Susan’s life was actually a mess. Her overly aggressive boss thought nothing of shouting at her in front of her colleagues. Though Susan was a good performer, she was constantly anxious about the next time her supervisor would berate her. Though she was expected to work eight-hour days, her boss would call her at any time of the day or night.

Susan began to dread hearing her cellphone ring and was so worried all the time that she couldn’t even sleep. She fretted that her colleagues and friends would lose respect for her, and she lost so much confidence that she couldn’t handle even the simplest of social interactions. Susana began to spend less time with her friends and family, where she would have to put up a brave face, and instead devoted more hours to work, where she could worry freely, obsessing over every detail of her job to the point of compulsiveness.

By most traditional measures of work-life balance, Susan was doing quite well. She was well compensated for an eight-hour workday, and she appeared to have enough free time to balance her career and personal life. But in reality, Susana was struggling. What’s more, her frustrations would not be picked up by conventional measures of wellbeing, because those measures don’t take into account the quality of people’s experiences, nor do they incorporate people’s own evaluations of their lives. Instead, those measures rely on factors like income and number of hours worked, under the assumption that these factors determine the quality of people’s lives.

Beyond work-life balance

When the idea of work-life balance was first introduced, it was a revolutionary concept. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Industrial Revolution and its resulting shift to manufacturing work made it possible for employers to require workers to labor longer hours than ever before in human history. In some industries, people toiled 14 to 16 hours a day, six to seven days a week.

As researchers began to study the impact that these long hours had on stress levels, health, and family life, the idea of work-life balance gained currency, and many countries began to legislate limits to the workweek. Most developed nations now mandate 40-46 working hours per week, with a minimum of two weeks per year of holiday/vacation.

The concept of work-life balance has been instrumental in influencing these changes and bringing about an improvement in the quality of life that is assumed to accompany shorter working hours. But the concept is useful only up to a point. Globalization has undermined the relevance of reducing worker hours to achieve work-life balance and has revealed limitations; the most significant is that at some point, limiting hours further is just not sustainable.

France has mandated a 35-hour workweek, for example. But what can the country do next? The workweek can’t be reduced indefinitely, as this has implications for a country’s economic viability and competitiveness. In a globalized world, if workers in one country are unwilling to work for economically viable hours, then businesses will migrate to a country where they are willing to do so. In countries such as India and Pakistan, workers are motivated to work 10- to 12-hour workdays — and this is unlikely to change soon due to the large number of workers willing to do so to move up the economic ladder.

Another problem with the concept of work-life balance is that it takes the number of working hours into account but not the quality of the working experience. A person may spend 35 hours a week at work, but if that worker, like Susan, has an abrasive manager or is in a highly stressful job or one that is not suited to her natural talents, then those manageable work hours are unlikely to enhance her quality of life. Conversely, a person may choose to work long hours because it allows her to progress in her career or to build a social system at work.

Thus, the assumption that reduced hours at work lead to an improvement in personal life is too narrow, and probably faulty. Other factors, such as social support, health, safety, and job fit, contribute greatly to the quality of a person’s life. Since the concept of work-life balance doesn’t take into account these significant factors, it does not provide direction as to how people can actually improve the quality of their lives, except for reducing the hours spent at work. As such, it is not actionable.

The assumption that reduced hours at work lead to an improvement in personal life is too narrow, and probably faulty

How we think about and experience our lives

A more comprehensive concept-one that’s more appropriate for the 21st-century economy-is that of wellbeing, which includes factors that contribute to our experiences and our perception of our lives. Until recently, wellbeing has been seen as an esoteric concept that is difficult to define and quantify. It is most commonly understood as relating to wealth or health, perhaps because of the ease with which these things can be measured.

One reason that wellbeing has been difficult to define is that it means different things to different people depending on what they consider important. To one person, it may mean prosperity or wealth; to another, it may mean values or community involvement or the realization of one’s potential. This is why wellbeing should be measured at the individual level, though it may be aggregated for organizations, communities, and nations. And any measure of wellbeing must be broad enough to incorporate an individual’s own choices and purpose in life while being specific enough to be compared and aggregated to facilitate action that can improve it.

Gallup has developed a wellbeing metric that includes the five key elements of wellbeing: Career, Social, Financial, Physical, and Community. These five distinct factors emerged from research that Gallup conducted across countries, languages, and vastly different life situations. Because these elements of wellbeing are universal, they can be measured and reported on for individuals, organizations, cities, countries, and regions around the world.

Because Gallup’s wellbeing assessment measures these elements individually in addition to yielding an overall score, it is actionable: The assessment gives individuals, organizations, cities, and countries the ability to manage wellbeing by undertaking actions to improve it. If an individual has relatively low Social Wellbeing, for example, she would do well to focus her efforts on improving interpersonal relationships with friends and family.

This can be managed over time. As her Social Wellbeing increases, she may choose to concentrate on Career Wellbeing, for instance, or choose to address both elements by spending time socializing with colleagues and making friends at work. In this way, wellbeing can be measured and managed comprehensively at the individual, as well as government, state, city, or corporate levels, by taking its various components and their interactions into account.

Conventional metrics such as employment status, income, educational level, hours worked, and women’s participation in the workforce are necessary to understand an economy, but they are insufficient when it comes to understanding and evaluating overall life satisfaction. Unless we begin to use a metric of a life well-lived — as measured by one’s own experiences and evaluation — people like Susan will continue to be under the radar, aware that something is amiss, but without an idea why or what to do about it.

The Five Essentials of Wellbeing

For many years studies have been done exploring the demands of a life well-lived. More recently, due to the evolving workforce and generational issues there has been an increasing need to understand how to help our employers achieve a well-balanced life. The elements of wellbeing that transcend the global work environment that differentiate a thriving life not a surviving life are as follows:

• Career Wellbeing: how you occupy your time — or simply liking what you      do every day
• Social Wellbeing: having strong relationships and love in your life
• Financial Wellbeing: effectively managing your economic life
• Physical Wellbeing: having good health and enough energy to get things done on a daily basis
• Community Wellbeing: the sense of engagement you have with the area where you live

Take a moment and enjoy all the gifts you have and it will reduce your stress and only say “YES” to the activities and life experiences that you know you want to do!

 

 

They’re young, smart, brash. They may wear flip flops to the office or listen to IPODs at their desk. They want to work, but they don’t want to work to be their LIFE. These are Millennials a force of as many as 70 million, and the first wave is just now embarking on their careers — taking their place in an increasingly multigenerational workplace. Get ready, because this generation — whose members have not yet hit 30 — is different from any that have come before them. Read the rest of this entry »

While the question sounds like the preamble to a funny punch line, the answer is no laughing matter.

According to an article last week in the Wall Street Journal, it takes many more than most employers think (or at least want to accept.) I repeat – a lot more. The actual numbers are mind boggling.

For example, infographic presented in the Wall Street article revealed that it takes approximately 1,000 online views by candidates to get 100 candidates to complete the application. Out of that, 25 applications are selected for review, and then 4 to 6 candidates are recommended for an interview. When all is said and done, companies may find their one diamond in the rough only after 1,000 candidates view the job posting. If those numbers hold up, it is clear that the impending war for talent is no longer imminent or pending. It’s here today.

Not one to rely only exclusively on hearsay, I was prompted by the article to review 25 jobs posted on our applicant processing system by clients during the last 3 months. The results don’t only confirm the findings presented in the Wall Street Journal but throw up an even bigger gauntlet to challenge employers. The best views-to-applicant scenario was 10 percent. But a more common scenario was as low as 1 percent.

Unfortunately for many companies, as good or bad as those results are, the job search does not always end when the one lonely qualified candidate is identified and offered the job. According to research presented by Talent Function Group, LLC, “the chosen applicant accepts the offer only 80% of the time.” That situation leads to two options – offer the job to your second choice (if there is one) or go back to the drawing board. Neither choice is desirable when a company’s productivity and competitive advantage are on the line and dependent on a minimum time to hire and high quality of hire.

To win the war for talent moving forward, nearly every employer will need to cast the widest possible sourcing net to attract, identify, and hire qualified candidates. In addition, operations and sales managers don’t have the time to waste interviewing candidates who can’t do the job. The competition for recruiting qualified skilled workers poses a formidable challenge for most organizations. Management has a choice: deal with a “resu-mess” which will inundate recruiting and human resource staffs, which are already running lean; or insist on applicant processing automation to build a talent pool of qualified candidates, reduce the time-to-hire, and ultimately improve the quality of employees.

 

Mobile recruiting, in its purest form, is the act of recruiting or engaging candidates on a mobile device. Using mobile devices to recruit candidates includes many different forms and involves many different devices, such as a smart phone, cell phone, tablet, or iTouch. Mobile recruiting can be the use of mobile devices for either the candidate or the recruiter, and it supplements any social and internet recruiting strategy. When making your company’s recruitment strategy, consider the many apps, technologies, and tools that are already out there and developed for the company’s benefit.

Mobile recruiting involves any action or conversation regarding the job search using a mobile device. This could include an app that aids in candidate sourcing or pushes notifications when a candidate applies or schedules an interview, or even reads QR Codes for use at job fairs. According to Mashable, mobile recruiting is on rise in the job seekers mind: 19% of job seekers use mobile devices to search for jobs, but 57% of job seekers would like to use mobile devices to search for jobs. Technology will catch up to the job seeker. While best practice of mobile recruiting is still evolving to candidate behavior, it is clear that companies should have a mobile recruiting strategy going forward.

“For employers, mobile is the new paradigm shift,” states mobile recruiting expert Michael Marlatt.

Tools exist to make the hiring and interview process easy and mobile-ready for the job seeker as well. These include mobile ready web sites, audio job listings, and text message alerts for job seekers who are mobile, active, and on the go. Mobile is especially appealing for this reason. Recruiters and companies can engage job seekers anywhere and at any time. A quick text message for a recruiter to alert a job seeker offers a real-time opportunity to engage. Job seekers don’t have to wait to be in front of a computer to apply, or receive email about a job. Job seekers want to be able to easily research and apply for your position without being tied to a computer.

Creating and executing a mobile recruiting campaign doesn’t have to be expensive. It can be as simple, complicated, inexpensive, or expensive as you wish it to be. Let’s start with easy, here are three budget friendly ways to leverage mobile recruiting:

• Schedule Candidate Interviews via Text. Enterprise text message systems serve as a form of CRM. Make it easy for your Millennial candidate pool by scheduling and communicating the details regarding their interview via text. Offer to send interview location and directions via their cell phone linking to a simple Google Map. Candidates can easily create a route using their Maps app while also having the option to receive directions via emails.

• Make Applying & Research Easy. Your company must be easily accessible on mobile devices. As candidates have more choices – even in this current economic market – it’s important to make it easy for job seekers to learn more about your company, the company culture, and where they could fit in. This includes open jobs and details of what those jobs actually entail. Mobile formatted career sites make it easier for candidates to quickly view information. Also bear in mind that the traditional employee applications take an average of 45 minutes to complete. Using mobile technologies, and a professional profile, the application process can be snap, sometimes even 60 seconds or less. Consider not only the context of employee applications, but also in the context of building a talent community.

 

• Leverage Video. One of my most popular online activities via mobile is viewing video. As more people own smartphones and as smartphones get bigger and better, more and more video viewing will be on phones. Whether live streaming or a 5 minute day in the life video or employee testimonial, companies can leverage opportunities to engage their candidate base using the power of mobile video. Video provides insights into the environment and company culture that we can see and hear creating a lasting impact that goes beyond any job fair brochure.

It can be hard for parents of Millennials to let go.  It is so hard that parents of this group of young adults – both Baby Boomers and Generation X – now entering the workforce have been labeled “helicopter parents” and now “snowplow parents.”

Likewise, it is equally hard for many Millennials, also called Generation Y, to escape their parents’ sphere of influence.  The recession has only made matters worse. Tough economic times have forced many 20, 30 and even 40 year olds to return home. Recent statistics from the Census Bureau tell us that 49% of 18- to 24-year-olds live at home with their parent(s), compared with 35% in 1960. In 2008, 10% of 25- to 34-year-olds reported living at home. That is a 56% increase since 1970—such an increase that we now have another label for this generation: “Boomerangers.”

It’s natural for parents to care about their children’s future.  But escorting your 20-something to an interview or acting as your child’s agent with the CEO or VP of Human Resources to negotiate his or her salary and benefits may be carrying the relationship too far.  And parents – school days are over for your adult children.  You don’t to harass your child’s manager over a poor performance review like you did your child’s teacher during his elementary and high school years.

As Millennials and their parents stress out about finding jobs, it’s the right thing to do to discuss options.  And it’s not wrong for parents to want to hover like you’ve done for the past two decades. It’s just that there’s a limit to the value of your good intentions.  There’s a fine line between taking a heartfelt interest and becoming a co-dependent in a non-productive relationship.

Here are six ways parents can help their Millennial children job hunt:

• Read over their resume to give you a fresh perspective, but NOT write the resume, word for word.

• Coach them on how to negotiate a salary offer, but DO NOT negotiate on their behalf, term by term.

• Brainstorm ideas for their job search, but NOT do the search, job by job.

• Practice interview questions with your child, but DO NOT serve as their reference.

• Alert your child to a local job fair, but DO NOT attend it with him (or worse yet, as his “agent”).

• Talk over the pros and cons of job choices, but DO NOT make the final job decision.

If you have done all of the above and your Millenial does not know what they want to do in life, get a copy of Strengths Finder and discuss with them their identified strengths. This will build their self esteem and confidence to get out in the big bad world and find a job they are capable of performing.

Photo Credit Brooks Gibbs.

What to avoid on your resume–

1. Writing an Ineffective “Objective” Section Avoid writing an “Objective” section at the top of the resume that exactly matches the wording in the job posting. (There is one exception to this rule: if you are applying for a government job, matching words in your resume to the job posting is an excellent strategy because many government agencies employ an automated process that selects resumes based on whether their keywords match the posting criteria.)  In most cases, writing an “Objective” section that precisely matches the job posting will just earn you an eye-roll.

   Instead, use that space to write a “Summary of Qualifications” section highlighting your best skills and experiences, then explain how they can benefit your target company.  Remember, hiring managers don’t really care about helping you meet your objectives—they are more interested in finding out what you can do for their business.

2. Using Outdated Resume Trends Ten years ago, the reverse chronological order resume style was in vogue.  But now, particularly if you are a Baby Boomer or older Generation Xer with a lot of job experience, sticking with that old format can actually work against you.  Because recruiters tend to read the top of the resume more closely than the bottom, simply highlighting your work experience in a long reverse chronological string can effectively bury the skills you most want to promote.  Instead, use a hybrid functional-reverse chronological style which contains a short summary of your personal characteristics, skills, and accomplishments at the top.  Then, follow the summary with a listing of your previous work experience.
3. Improper Naming of your Resume File These days, the majority of resumes are submitted online or via email as a Microsoft Word or PDF document.  For this reason, you should always, always name your resume file like this:  firstname_lastname_resume.doc.   Naming your resume files in this manner helps ensure your resume doesn’t get lost in a hiring manager’s digital slush pile. You want to make your resume as easy to find as possible and avoid situations that leave a hiring manager wondering what on earth is inside the randomly-named Word file sitting on their desktop.
4. Questionable Contact Information Generation Xers and Millennials are more likely than any other generation to include an inappropriate email address in the contact information section of their resume.  If your primary email address is something like drunkenfratboy@gmail.com or kinkysexkitten@yahoo.com, do not include that in your resume.  Instead create an email address that is a variation of your name and place that in your contact section instead.  (And don’t forget to check it!)

Photo Credit Health Insurance Quotes.

Interning or volunteering with companies in your target employment industry makes tremendous sense if you’re at a career crossroads or if you’re in between jobs—especially in lean economic times. It is absolutely the best way to gain valuable knowledge and experience that can take you to the next level in your career.  Additionally, even if you intern at a company you don’t want to wind up working for, you’re still making contacts, staying on the market, and opening up doors to the places you want to be later on.

If you’re at a non-traditional age for interning (that is, you’re over 25), don’t worry.  Seeking an internship at your age is not as awkward as you fear it might be if you know how to speak effectively about your goals.  For example, you will create an awkward situation if you walk into a company and say something like, “I was laid off from my previous employer and can’t find another job, so I’d like to work for you for free.  Then if you want to hire me later on, great.”  That might be the truth, but it hardly positions you as a valuable resource—someone the company may actually want to train and hire.

Instead, go in talking about your long term goals.  Focus on why you’d be a wonderful asset to any company in your future position.  Stress that you feel your career path has plateaued, and that you have decided to be pro-active in taking it to the next level.   Talk about the reasons why interning at your target company will help you break the plateau by giving you the knowledge and experience you need to take your career to the next level.  Finally, don’t forget to play up your past accomplishments and talk about why you would actually be an asset to your target company.  Remember, just because you’re working for free doesn’t mean you aren’t a drain on their resources.  They have to put time and energy into training you.  Recognize that, and provide reasons why you will make it worth their while.

Photo Credit Zapwater.

Here is a recent video of me at the Junior Achievement You’re Hired Event.  Please take a look at my video and thank you for supporting me.

What crazy things are job seekers doing to get noticed by hiring managers, recruiters, hr? Do these tactics work? Or are they a major turn off?

With more job seekers competing for fewer jobs these days, it seems like more and more people are going for a creative hook to get their resumes noticed.  For example, video resumes seem to be growing in popularity.  I saw a guy at the coffee shop the other day who was walking around wearing a t-shirt that said “Hire Me.”  I also heard of a girl in Dallas who spent $1200 to rent a billboard that promoted her qualifications.

If you’re thinking about highlighting your job application with an attention-grabbing stunt, make sure you’re pitching the right audience.  If your target hiring manager is an older Baby Boomer or Traditionalist, a creative stunt probably won’t land you the interview and could actually be seen as unprofessional.  Traditionalists value conformity, hard work, sacrifice, and respect.  The best way to get their attention is to stick with the tried-and-true resume on quality paper stock—nothing less than an outstanding list of qualifications will get a Traditionalist’s attention.  Baby Boomers, who tend to be very work-centered overachievers, are also unlikely to appreciate gratuitous gimmicks.  While they are not as rigid as Traditionalists in their views of how things ought to be done, they still value the tried and true.

The hiring managers who are most likely to respond positively to crazy job-seeking stunts are Generation Xers working in creative fields like Marketing and Advertising.  Generation Xers are less formal, inherently independent, and tend to take a cynical view of traditional Corporate America.

Personally, I’d hire someone wearing a suit over someone wearing a t-shirt that said “hire me,” and it doesn’t take a billboard or a video resume for me to notice a qualified candidate.  But that probably has a lot to do with the generation I’m from and the type of people I typically hire.  I’m a Boomer hiring in a non-creative field, so don’t put up posters of yourself in my company parking lot, don’t announce your candidacy with a singing telegram, and don’t send me Chinese food with your resume in a fortune cookie.  I won’t bite.

Photo Credit Simple Job Search.

Everyone says you should “tailor your resume specifically for the position you want.” But what exactly does that mean?

The best way to effectively tailor your resume to the job you want is to find out who the hiring manager is and try to highlight skills and experiences you know that person will value. While that sounds easier said than done, if you can figure out which generation the hiring manager belongs to, you’re way ahead of the game. Different generations value distinctly different things in their employees, and if you can tailor your resume to speak to their value triggers, you have a better chance of standing out from the crowd.

For example, if you know your hiring manager belongs to the Traditionalist generation, you can score points by highlighting your loyalty and commitment to the companies you’ve worked for. If you have worked for one or two companies for a very long time, make sure your dates of employment are prominently featured.

Boomers value employees with ambition who put in long hours and do whatever it takes to get the job done. If you think your hiring manager might be a Boomer, make sure your job descriptions include instances of times you went above and beyond to achieve company goals.

Generation Xers, in particular, do not care about your career objectives or where you want to go. They only care about “WIIFM–what’s in it for me.” If you think your hiring manager might be an Xer, focus on the benefits you can bring to the company. In particular, be sure to highlight your technical skills and your creative problem-solving prowess. In your cover letter, explain how your particular brand of expertise can help take your target company to the next level.

If you think you might be interviewing with a Millennial, be sure to include any community contributions or volunteer experience on your resume. Millennials are deeply interested in whether you care about your community, how strong your teamwork skills are, and whether you are willing to promote your co-workers as well as yourself.

Photo Credit Herd.