Treat sleep like it’s a friend, make a single-item to-do list, and other unexpected ways to improve your life.

Unless you live a charmed life, chances are there are aspects of it you’d like to improve. Sometimes it’s hard to get out of bed in the morning, to find time for family and friends, to tackle that to-do list of mundane tasks, to get the printer to actually work.

Out of these everyday difficulties, a market for life hacks was born: seemingly simple ways to optimize and streamline life. Some of these tips proved useful — dropping a pin in Maps where I parked my car has prevented many panicked searches — others, not so much. Oftentimes, however, the most effective step toward self-improvement is the most straightforward. Small and accessible shifts can manifest the most change without totally upending our established routines.

Experts, ranging from authors to academics, offer their bite-size, low-lift advice on how to live a better life. While these tips are meant to be easily implemented, by no means should you attempt them all — just try what speaks to you and your circumstances.

 

Responses have been edited and condensed for clarity.

Try to get natural light every day (and treat sleep like your friend)

“Number one in my mind is having light during the day, particularly in the morning. Sunlight is free. Even if it’s overcast, there’s still lots of bright light outdoors. It’s a triple whammy of being good because you get light, you get fresh air, you get to move your body. Going outside during the day is such a good thing for your sleep and overall mental and physical health.

My number two is to treat your sleep as you would treat your friend. This means prioritizing them and making sure you have time and space for them, but also not being overbearing and chasing them down and forcing sleep to happen. If you strike that balance between being there and holding space for your friend, sleep, but also being chill about it and not being too overbearing, then you’re going to have an easier time having the sleep health that you need.”

—Jade Wu, author of Hello Sleep: The Science and Art of Overcoming Insomnia Without Medications

 

Outsource help with dating, work, or whatever else is on your mind

“Weekly, share one of your hopes, dreams, goals, or dating and relationship needs with a new person. This will increase the amount of people who are willing to help you reach your goals.”

—Lamont White, dating coach, television personality, and founder of Better Way to Meet matchmaking services

 

Start a (small) to-do list

“The simple hack that has transformed my life is putting absolutely everything I want to do for myself, my family, and my work on a digital to-do list that I can check off every day. It seems so simple, but something about seeing those small tasks and checking them off daily has allowed it to become a permanent pattern for me. I recommend that people start doing this with one small task and slowly build up competence before they add more. Every time you check it off, you get the rush of having completed a task and you’re building a consistent habit.”

—Whitney Goodman, psychotherapist and author of Toxic Positivity: Keeping It Real in a World Obsessed with Being Happy

 

Cut through the chaos with meaningful rituals

“I think it’s important to create your own rituals. I’ve found that my own personal rituals help keep my work-life harmony in check. Whether it’s my monthly supper club or my morning ritual of preparing a hot beverage, I find that these things ground me in even the busiest of times.”

—Tina Wells, business strategist, advisor, and author of The Elevation Approach: Harness The Power of Work-Life Harmony to Unlock Your Creativity, Cultivate Joy, And Reach Your Biggest Goals

  

Take a breather before dealing with your finances

“Before you look at your finances, give yourself a two-minute transition exercise. For many of us, money is a serious stressor. We may not notice that we’re experiencing a fight-flight-or-freeze response as we sit down to go over accounts, but our body knows it. Set a timer for 120 seconds and do some deep breathing, make a list of three things you’re grateful for or appreciate about yourself, or simply journal for a page or two. Suppressing emotions and telling ourselves our anxieties are stupid or wrong leads to negative coping mechanisms like avoidance, while learning to self-regulate as a part of money management facilitates acceptance and presence of mind.”

—Amanda Clayman, financial therapist

 

Say hi to your neighbors

“My tip is to acknowledge the people I pass on the street: a smile, a nod, or a hello. I live in a small-ish town and while I know this can be a safety issue for some, I have found in my little community that I feel more a part of it, and feel like I’m contributing, even if it’s this very small acknowledgment on daily walks. My goal is to not be rushing around with blinders on all the time, just going about my business, but to actively work at noticing the people around me. I find I say things like, ‘Please go ahead’ now more than, ‘Oh I’m so sorry’ after having bumped into someone or cut them off. The small reminder to just pick your head up, make eye contact if you can, and offer a smile, nod, or even a hello has been a very worthwhile one.”

—Lizzie Post, co-president of the Emily Post Institute and author of Emily Post’s Etiquette, The Centennial Edition and Higher Etiquette: A Guide To The World of Cannabis, From Dispensaries to Dinner Parties

 

Prioritize the people who prioritize you

“Choose people who choose you back. This was something I realized on my own that changed so much about my relationships. We should be choosing the people in our lives who are actively choosing relationships with us as well, and anything less isn’t a relationship we have to accept.”

—Lane Moore, author of You Will Find Your People: How To Make Meaningful Friendships As An Adult

 

Reach out to that friend you’re thinking about right now

“If a friend comes to mind, contact them. It could be a text, a DM, a meme, or even an email. If all you say is, ‘Thinking of you. I just wanted to say hi,’ that is good. Even better: if you reminisce about a specific memory of the two of you together. Share something they’d find interesting — like a meme, news story, mutual interest — laugh again with them about a joke you once shared, or, if you can, honestly say, ‘I miss you.’ If they respond, plan to connect again — to talk on the phone, make a Zoom call, or get together in person. Get it on the calendar and make it happen. And if they don’t respond, give them the grace. People are busy, texts get lost, and even when we appreciate being contacted, we don’t always know what to say.”

—Jeffrey Hall, professor of communication studies at the University of Kansas

 

Make out with your partner… every day

“One small thing you can do to live better is make out with your partner every night before bed. Over time, couples in long-term relationships stop touching and kissing throughout the day. For many couples, the only physical contact they have is when they’re having sex or trying to initiate it. But if this is the only time you’re touching or kissing, that starts to create pressure. If your partner tries to touch you, you might find yourself pulling away because you don’t want it to ‘lead to more.’ Or you might start avoiding physical contact altogether. Instead, if you make the conscious intention to make out every night, you’ll start to break that connection between touch and sex. You’ll stop being so on guard around your partner, and you’ll be able to relax into the contact. Making out every night will help you feel closer to your partner, and you may even get those butterfly feelings from the beginning of your relationship back.”

...
Original Source > Vox
By Allie Volpe   

 

Any basic LinkedIn search will get you a list of candidates, but how can you be sure your search is returning all of the best candidates to be found? A more methodical approach with Boolean search is more likely to lead you to the best and most qualified—rather than simply the ones who are easiest to find. And, according to sourcing guru Glen Cathey, that’s exactly how you can get ahead.

“You guys all have LinkedIn ...,” said Glen Cathey...hence... “You all have the same resources. So what’s your competitive advantage?”

The answer, of course, is how you use it. With that in mind, here are Glen’s most important tips and takeaways for turning LinkedIn searches into a competitive advantage that will help you track down the best—and most overlooked—candidate profiles.

1. Don’t judge candidates based on their LinkedIn profiles alone

While professionals with a detailed list of their experience are easier to find on LinkedIn, those who haven’t had time to fully fill out their profiles shouldn’t be overlooked. Glen often finds great talent by messaging candidates with “text-poor” profiles—the ones who haven’t bothered to write lengthy, detailed summaries on LinkedIn. Best of all, these “ugly” profiles are overlooked by other recruiters, so you’re automatically more likely to get a response.

“It’s very natural for recruiters to skip these profiles because [they] don’t have enough information,” says Glen, referring to the bare-bones profile above. “This could be the best person in the entire stack of results, but you haven’t looked at them.”

Talented candidates have even been known to craft text-poor profiles on purpose because they don’t want to be bombarded with InMails from recruiters. These users found a clever way to stay out of the search spotlight—but as Glen points out, that just means you might be the only one messaging them once you expand your search.

2. Don’t just look at the top 5-10% of search results—try starting from the bottom instead

Many people only look at the first 10% or so of a search result—or the first few pages—assuming they’re seeing the cream of the crop. But recruiters tend to search for similar keywords and get similar results back, which means you’re probably looking at the same 10% of candidates as your competition.

To gain an advantage, Glen recommends “starting from the bottom”—a Drake-inspired method for making sure you get deeper into search results and spot overlooked talent. Don’t be afraid to literally go straight to the bottom, skipping to the end of your results and moving backwards from there.

“[We] have an unconscious bias toward starting at the top,” says Glen. “If you’re not getting to the bottom, then you’re actually not looking at some of the best candidates.”

3. Ask yourself the right questions to perform more strategic Boolean searches

Effective searches begin with asking the right questions. When searching for a specific term, like a skill or title, Glen always asks himself, “Would all qualified people mention it?”

If the answer is no, then you need to modify your search to be more inclusive. If the answer is yes, his next question is, “How many different ways would they mention it?”

For example, if you’re looking for a developer who has experience with Hadoop, you have to consider that they might not all use the title “developer”—and they may not mention “Hadoop” anywhere in their profiles, either. If you just search for those terms, Glen cautions, you’ll exclude lots of qualified candidates.

Instead, use the Boolean OR operator to expand your results. Unlike the AND operator, the OR operator broadens your search because it only requires that one of multiple terms be included in each profile.

Strategically multiple terms with both OR and AND operators can yield a much more targeted search.

In the above example, when searching for a Hadoop developer, Glen connects several possible titles (e.g., software engineer, developer, and programmer) with OR statements in parentheses.

Then he does the same with terms like Hadoop, HDFS, Hive, Yarn, and MapReduce—separating them by OR operators and bracketing them within parentheses. By combining the two lists with the AND operator, his search brings back people who have at least one term from each list in their profiles.

He’s essentially still searching for the same two concepts as the original query (“software engineer” AND Hadoop), but now he’s broadening the search with synonyms while still keeping it targeted.

When you just search for "software engineer" AND Hadoop, you get 70 results, but when you expand that with synonyms using OR—while still connecting the two concepts with AND—you get more than double his results: 151 people, including 81 qualified candidates who were unintentionally excluded from the first result.

This approach significantly increases your search results—and it can be applied to any job title, skill, word, or phrase that might show up in a qualified candidate’s profile.

4. Most candidates that you’re looking for aren’t using the title you’re searching with—but you can still find them

Often, great candidates are out there, but they aren’t showing up in your searches because your terms are excluding them. Here’s a great example:

When you search for “data scientist,” you’ll get 600-some results. But there are tons of qualified data scientists out there who might not use that term. They will, however, use certain words like “data center" or “analytics” instead.

When you exclude those 600 “data scientist” results by using the Boolean NOT operator, and instead search for terms that only a data scientist would use, you get over 6,000 results. That means you’re missing about 90% of data scientists with the first search, just because they’re not using that term.

This is what Glen calls “dark matter.” You can find more candidates (who your competition is probably missing) by searching with dark matter terms. You can find these terms by working backwards. Start by searching for data scientists, then scour the profiles of a few of these candidates to determine what terms come up often. Then you can use the OR operator to feed those common terms—e.g., “data center”—back into your searches, ultimately revealing those hidden candidates who perfectly match your needs.

5. Use the NOT operator to expose hidden candidates with the qualifications you’re looking for

You can make great use of the AND and OR operators in LinkedIn searches, but the NOT operator can be just as useful—particularly when you need to move through a long list of qualified candidates in a strategic, methodological way.

With a method of strategic exclusion, you can make sure that each of your new searches exposes new, good candidates.

In the above example, Glen was searching for a project manager who had experience with EMC technologies. He searched for all the people who used those terms in their profiles (“project manager” AND EMC), but quickly bottomed out the list.

He then asked himself whether all qualified project managers would list EMC in their profiles—and because the answer was no, he chose to exclude that term in his next search with the NOT operator (or simply a “-” mark), while using his “dark matter” strategy to add several related terms (e.g., data centers, migrations, and storage).

This brought back a completely new stack of candidates that was mutually exclusive from the previous results. Best of all, he tracked down a perfectly qualified candidate who simply didn’t think it was worth mentioning EMC in his profile.

“It was an a-ha moment,” says Glen. “You’re getting into the mentality of the candidate, and some of them are not even thinking of putting the term you’re searching for in their profiles.”

6. Use the NOT operator to methodologically build a list of very qualified candidates

You can take this strategy a step further by strategically excluding candidates. Start by searching for every single qualification by stringing them all together with the AND operator. For example, if we have five qualifications that we’ll call Q1, Q2, etc., our very first search would look like this:

Q1 AND Q2 AND Q3 AND Q4 AND Q5

You’ll get a small group—let’s say four candidates—who match every single qualification.

Then, let’s systematically add a NOT before the final qualification. The search would look like this:

Q1 AND Q2 AND Q3 AND Q4 AND NOT Q5

Now you’ll get a bigger stack of candidates—11, maybe—who have all but one of those qualifications. Most importantly, these 11 won’t overlap with the previous four candidates at all.

Next, add the NOT operator before the second-to-last qualification:

Q1 AND Q2 AND Q3 AND NOT Q4 AND Q5

You’ll get yet another new stack of very qualified candidates, who don’t overlap at all with your two previous searches.

You can keep repeating this process for as long as necessary, continually building on your results in a systematic way.

Imagine it like a series of concentric circles. In the dead center, you’ve got the small amount of candidates who meet every qualification—the five. The next circle contains the candidates who match all but one qualification, and so on.

By using the NOT operator, you’re broadening your searches while making sure you don’t see repeat candidates. After you exhaust the center circle, you exclude it (with NOT) and search through the ring around it. You can repeat this process systematically, going ring-by-ring, instead of going through bigger, messier circles full of people you’ve already reached.

7. Find high performers with achievement-related Boolean search terms

Once you understand how to ask the right questions and turn them into Boolean searches, all kinds of new possibilities open up. For example, Glen often uses the OR operator to stash a ton of related terms into one search. He tinkers and experiments with the terms, always aiming to find a specific marker of the best talent.

When looking for high performers, he started by asking himself what an exceptional candidate would have in their profile. They’d likely mention things like awards, achievements, honors, and making President’s club, so that’s exactly what he puts into his Boolean search, separating each word or phrase with the OR operator.



Using this many terms may bring back thousands of results, but for Glen, who’s always looking for ways to uncover overlooked talent, that’s exactly the point.

“My goal is to find more people,” says Glen, “of which there will always be a subset of very good people.”

Once you have that big stack of results, you can use methods like strategic exclusion to winnow it down to the most qualified people.

Recruiters who apply Glen Cathey’s simple but effective search strategies have experienced great results, but even this list doesn’t include all of Glen’s insights from his talk at Talent Connect. Stay tuned for our next post on Glen’s approach to candidate searches, including new tips on using Boolean search to find more diverse candidates.
...
by Glen Cathey

 

 

Flexible work provides benefits for both companies and people. It affords each party the opportunity to grow by enabling them to allocate their time, resources and energy to those things that they really enjoy and value.

 

Unfortunately there is one challenge with flexibility: this form of work is often inadequately regulated, abused and regarded as cheap. As a result those involved in flexibility – workers and businesses – often make lower wages and lower margins – not least because governments and unions develop or maintain incentives against flexible working or because pop-up companies define their service solely based on price rather than on quality and innovation for their clients. This is clearly not sustainable. It is unacceptable that those who choose to work flexibly should be punished for doing so.

 

Wherever we look around the world, regulations favour labour market rigidity. This increasingly serves vested, conservative labour unions rather than the labour force as a whole. For flexible workers these regulations include thresholds to social security (allowing different payment levels based on the length of contract), unbalanced collective bargaining, limited access to training and often blatently lower pay. Such rules are all too often justified with the excuse that a temporary job is not a “real” job, or that it is a “side” job and hence not worth a real wage, social security or training. Other arguments used are that workers in century-old, golden cages feel threatened by those willing to work in flexible new ways; or – and the most outrageous and misguided of all – that temporary work is a placeholder for women while they wait to give birth, rather than a means to combine work with other responsibilities for both women and men alike.

 

 

These outmoded rules and justifications have allowed short-sighted business models to present flexible work as a way to cut labour costs rather than as a way to provide greater agility and choice for everyone involved. Based on this premise the market for added-value flexible providers is being squeezed and set on a downward spiral of decreasing margins, quality and innovation. But who can blame them if labour laws are set up to enable this behaviour?  Whatever moral or economic stance people may take on this issue, the bottom line is that it undermines the market for flexibility for flexibility’s sake and prevents people from entering the labour market on a temporary basis as it simply doesn’t pay enough to make economic sense.

 

We need to break this vicious circle. Just as with nationality, gender, ethnicity and age, the length of one’s contract should never be grounds for justifying lower wages or benefits. Governments and unions should abandon their idle policies of trying to squish workers into a one-size-fits-all model and punishing those who opt out from the model with decreased wages and levels of social protection. The world has changed and our approach to work needs to change with it. Making this a reality will involve a radical reform of existing rules and regulations as well as confronting the privileges of workers on open-ended contracts.

 

Obviously, this is not a message that all HR and procurement managers will want to hear. Yet, if adjustments are required in order to align salary packages with production, the idea of taking those wage discussions to an HR provider is inherently flawed. These types of discussions should take place between the employer and the employee – with or without the support of their representatives. This would then free-up HR professionals to create efficiencies and savings through a more efficient deployment and organisation of work. By addressing the unfair compensation and rights of flexible work, we will allow it to play its true role of enabling work for all.

 ...
by

Jochem de Boer

Global Public Affairs Manager, World Employment Confederation

 @ JochemPdeboer

 

 

Today’s digital age is taking us into a territory where new skills are becoming crucial. Not only are new jobs being created but existing ones are being ‘digitalised’ and thus require that the skills needed to perform them also evolve. At the same time, digitalisation offers potential to facilitate skilling with tools such as gamification and virtual reality, or simply by collecting data that will help organisations to better evaluate their workforce needs.

 

The HR services industry is already harnessing technologies like artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality and the metaverse in its daily work. Through digitisation it supports skills training and creates a virtual world where people can meet, learn and engage.  Digital tools facilitate interview processes and even skills accreditation.

 

To truly reap the benefits of digitalisation, we must ensure that it offers opportunities for everyone and that nobody is left behind. Addressing the World Employment Conference in March 2023, the Director General of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), Gilbert F Houngbo, issued a rallying call for the HR services sector to support the digital transition of the workforce. We listened and have responded with recommendations on five main ways in which our industry can support positive change in the months and years to come.

 

 

First up is to recognise the sheer size of the skills challenge. Research reveals that the vast majority of employers are concerned that they won’t meet hiring needs for technical skills. Finding the trainers available to teach people new skills is an equal problem. We need to scope the challenge and work together to find creative solutions. Recent research such as the OECD’s Skills for the Digital Transition, supported by WEC member Randstad, explored 417 million online job postings over a period of 10 years in 10 countries to discover the most recent labour market trends in demand for digital professionals and skills.

 

Next, the HR services sector needs to be a voice on skills policy, working with education experts and policymakers to inform the skills agenda at national and regional level. Bringing parties together is crucial in meeting the challenge. Our sector connects with thousands of workers, academics, innovators and business leaders every day, so is uniquely placed to understand the challenges and opportunities that digitalisation offers and to play a convening role in ensuring that everyone can work together to deliver solutions. This labour market knowledge is crucial in designing targeted retraining and upskilling policies.

 

In addition to this expertise, we can also rely on a long-standing tradition of upskilling and reskilling, especially in the agency work sector. Through social dialogue, several countries around the world have builtinnovative models for training agency workers, ensuring sustainable careers for them. As the European Union launched its European Year of Skills in May 2023, I am very proud of the renewed commitment and the joint recommendations that our European regional federation, WEC-Europe, adopted with its sectoral social partner counterpart, UNI-Europa. As skills and training are becoming increasingly important in the context of the digital transition, WEC-Europe and UNI-Europa pledged to work jointly with their members and affiliates in improving access to the skills required for these transitions.

 

Creating short-term skills solutions for employers is important too. While better skills and education policy to deliver long-term solutions to skills matches remains the priority, employers still need solutions now. Our sector can be a very useful partner in providing immediate solutions such as temporary placements, reskilling and career management that will allow the organisation to keep the doors open and meet immediate staffing needs.

 

The HR services sector also needs to gain a better understanding of the skills that leaders need. Business leaders will only remain relevant in today’s digital environment if they can oversee a culture of change and innovation.  I believe that there is an interesting business opportunity for our sector in working with business leaders to manage change and attract the type of staff needed to deliver ongoing workplace evolution.

 

Our last recommendation concerns the skills set of the HR services industry personnel themselves. There is a vast opportunity for the sector to offer a far more strategic service. Indeed, 87% of recruitment professionals say that this is already happening, and they are increasingly required to provide clients with broader, more nuanced advice on mapping staffing needs.

 

There is a whole new seam of opportunity opening up for the HR services sector. By ramping up its strategic impact, the sector has the chance to offer real added value to companies, workers and labour markets and enable the digital transition.

... 
by

Denis Pennel

Managing Director, World Employment Confederation

@PennelDenis

With artificial intelligence increasingly becoming part of daily life, more and more job seekers are using AI tools in their job search journeys.

Trisha Chapman, founder of impressivecv, says large language models can help job seekers craft resumes, cover letters and practice for interviews.

Providing the chatbot with your work history will allow it to generate a resume. Same for a cover letter – if it is provided with your experience and the job description, she says.

It “can save you time and effort, allowing you to focus on other aspect of your job search,” Chapman adds.

According to ResumeBuilder.com, 46% of the 1,000 job seekers surveyed in February said they are using ChatGPT to write their resumes and/or cover letters.

Nearly 60% said they were hired after applying to a job using ChatGPT-written material. However, 11% said they were rejected after employers learned they used the chatbot.

How can you use AI to optimise your job search? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

___________________________________
Sources:
✍️ Dana Moukhallati
Resume Builder: https://lnkd.in/ehWeG5pS
Trisha Chapman: https://lnkd.in/eYvgcTgH

We know that personalization works. When recruiters personalize InMails, they see a 40% increase in acceptance rates. But we know that manually researching each candidate and personalizing every message is nearly impossible to do at scale. 

That’s why we’re rolling out AI-assisted messages in LinkedIn Recruiter that will help you save time and engage with the right candidates, faster.

Since we launched our Recruiter product in 2008, we have continuously invested in our technology and features to help hirers find the right candidate based on skills, shared values, and how and where people want to work — and we’ve managed the complexity of connecting all of this at scale by using AI. Today, we’re going a step further and rolling out AI-assisted messages in Recruiter to help you create personalized messages, so you can save time, increase candidate engagement, and build meaningful connections. 

This is just the beginning of how we’ll use generative AI to help you hire in Recruiter, and we’re excited to continue building and rolling out new features that will transform the hiring market and help you be even more successful in your job. 

Easily craft effective, personalized InMails to maximize candidate engagement

Using AI-assisted messages is easy. Once you’ve selected a candidate in Recruiter, all you have to do is click the button that says “draft personalized message” and a unique and personalized message will be crafted for you to review, edit, and send. You can also further customize the message by selecting additional fields like job location, skills, and workplace type, and the message will be updated for you with more details based on your preferences. 



GIF of how AI-assisted messages work in LinkedIn Recruiter

How does it work? Using our own LinkedIn in-house generative AI model trained on successful InMails, we use the information from the candidate’s profile, job description, and the recruiter’s company to draft a highly personalized message to get the conversation started. 

We’re starting to roll out AI-assisted messages in Recruiter today to a handful of customers in the United States and Europe in English, and we’ll roll it out more broadly starting in June. 

Efficiently hire the right candidates with Recruiter

Though generative AI is the new and exciting technology that everyone is talking about today, we’ve used AI to help hirers find qualified candidates fast for years — whether it’s through job recommendations for our members or recommended matches in LinkedIn Recruiter.

Most recently, we’ve used AI to update our recommended matches feature so that you can see real time personalized recommendations based on your hiring activities, candidates’ job seeking activities, and key information from your job posts, helping you to discover up to 10% more new and qualified candidates that you’re less likely to find on your own. And we’ve found that if you use recommended matches — rather than Recruiter Search alone — candidates are 35% more likely to accept your InMails.

"As a global employer with a priority on inclusivity and being data-driven," says April Samulewicz, vice president and global head of talent acquisition at Thomson Reuters, "we find Recruiter essential for sourcing and hiring top talent that drives our business forward. Thomson Reuters needs a solution that can help us discover candidates with the skills, experience, values, and work preferences that would make them a great near and long-term match. Recruiter is exactly that, and that's why we've been using it for over eight years to great effect."

We’ve also used AI to make skills a central component of LinkedIn Recruiter, so you can find and hire candidates based on their skills as opposed to work experience or where they went to school. We’ve recently launched things like Skills Match so that you can see a candidate’s skills within Recruiter and determine if the candidate is a match to the job you’re recruiting for, as well as Resume Search, which pulls relevant skills from a candidate’s resume and displays it in the Skills Match section of the candidate’s profile in Recruiter. 

"Demand for the right skills is high," says Brett Underhill, director and head of global talent acquisition and learning and development at Taboola, "and it’s critical that we find top talent globally across every function to support our business and customers. With Recruiter’s search capabilities, including its Recommended Matches feature, our recruiting team is able to quickly find and hire the right talent to support the changing needs of our business."

These are just a few of the ways we’re using AI to power our products to help you find and hire the best possible candidates quickly, so you can focus your energy on the most strategic elements of your role — like speaking to and building relationships with candidates. This is what we’re focused on, day in and day out — stay tuned for what’s to come.

...

This post was originally published on LinkedIn.

Hari Srinivasan
Authored by Hari Srinivasan - VP of Product at LinkedIn

Companies spend hours longlisting, shortlisting, testing and interviewing candidates. But when it comes to reference checking, many businesses outsource it, dial it in - or skip it altogether. So, why should you bother?

Ed Nathanson, the VP of Talent at EQRx, is unequivocal on the point: “It’s time to scrap reference checking...This practice is more than broken - it is useless,[1]” he comments.

Nathanson’s argument is that traditional reference checking is outdated, that candidates will only provide you with references who will praise them, and that referees are usually busy managers who will provide standardised answers.

We agree! Reference check templates aren’t likely to produce useful results - other than confirming that the candidate hasn’t lied extensively on their CV! The secret isn’t to scrap reference checking - it’s to do it the right way.

 

How to make reference checking work for you

Here are our suggestions for how to harness reference checking to improve your quality of hire  and create an exceptional employee experience:

  • Take it seriously.

The hiring manager should be the person handling reference checking. After all, they’re the ones who know the most valuable skills and competencies their new candidate will need to have.

Rather than asking candidates who you should contact, request to chat to specific people - their current and former managers are usually the best bet - who will know how they work and how to get the most out of them in the workplace.

The insight from someone who’s worked with them is far more likely to be a true reflection of how they work than you can test in a recruitment process, so try to speak to as many people as possible. We recommend four or five people, if possible.

  • Don’t call it a reference.

Many businesses don’t allow people give references. Ask to have a quick chat with the candidate’s line manager instead. Let their manager, or former managers, know it’s to help you understand how best to manage the person and help them start making an impact, fast.

  • Speak to people.

Skip the forms, and actually talk to references over the phone. This will allow you to ask far more detailed questions.

If you can’t find anyone willing to talk to you about the candidate, it might not be a good sign. The very best candidates tend to have lots of people who will champion and advocate for them and their careers.

Also, watch out for comments like “I didn’t really get to know them” or “I can’t really remember them.” Usually, the best people make a lasting impact - and people remember them! Look for patterns - one forgetful manager could be bad luck, but if you can’t find anyone prepared to speak enthusiastically about the candidate, you might want to start looking elsewhere.

  • Get nosy.

Once you’ve got a referee on the phone, probe like crazy - and listen to the speaker’s tone of voice, and what they aren’t saying.

Encourage referees to open up by reassuring them that you are trying to get to know the candidate better - not simply to decide whether or not to eliminate them from your selection process.

Be careful not to hear what you want to hear. If they can’t speak about the candidate’s impact at the organisation, or provide specific examples of their strengths, those should be red flags.

  • Ask better questions.

Create a standardised list of questions that the hiring manager will ask the candidate’s former employers. These questions should not just elicit information about the candidate’s honesty during the interview. After all, your interview, screening and selection process should serve to test your candidate’s level of skill and values fit.

Rather, your reference check questions should aim to help your hiring manager understand how the candidate works, what they find motivating, the kinds of tasks at which they excel, and any potential issues they may run into.

Don’t just aim to find out if they’d be good at their new role - try to figure out how to manage them, how well they work with other people, and how to get the best out of them.

 Examples of helpful questions include:

  • “What management style does the candidate prefer?”
  • “How does he/she respond to constructive feedback?”
  • “Tell me about a time when he/she had to handle a conflict at work.”
  • Relative to X’s strengths, what are they less good at?
  • Which of their achievements most stand out for you? What was the impact of that achievement? How did it affect the rest of the team?
  • Use your reference information to improve the employee experience.

The information the hiring manager gathers about the candidate can be a fantastic way to personalise your new hire’s onboarding experience. You may identify areas in which they could benefit from training, or spot projects which would particularly suit them. Our Operations Lead, Ajay Palekar, explains how we do it at Learn Amp:

"We always try to speak to at least four of the candidates’ former line managers. We find this gives us the most useful information - not just about the candidates’ strengths and relative weaknesses, but also how to get the best out of them if they were to join us. Things like - “Give this person a high level of autonomy”, or “This person benefits from very clear upfront guidance,” for example.”

Overall, you get out what you put in. To transform reference checking from a box-ticking exercise into a useful insight into your new hires, you need to put the effort in.

This means a phone call, rather than an email, whenever possible. And it should go without saying that a lukewarm reference is definitely a red flag. After all, the candidate has provided this reference as someone they feel will praise them - so anything less than an absolute rave is a clear warning sign.
...
Source > Gabby Cummins - Chief Operating Officer


Companies with high levels of self-awareness in their workforces not only offer a great employee experience—they also generate better business outcomes. Learning to be self-aware, then, should be a key part of the employee journey. With the right L&D approach, leaders and employees can develop internal and external awareness, improve learning reflection and self-assessment, and use agile tools to stay goal-focused.

How well do you know your employees? How well do they know themselves? If they rated their own performance, would it align with your assessment of them?  

To put it a different way, how would you rate the self-awareness in your business? 

It’s an important question. Research shows that companies with high levels of workforce self-awareness achieve better performance outcomes[1]. Self-awareness was found to be the most valued trait in a leader, according to a Stanford Business School survey[2].  

Self-awareness in the workplace has the potential to:

  • build leadership skills

  • improve decision-making

  • strengthen team collaboration and communication

  • enhance business performance

  • improve staff retention

In the world of hybrid and dispersed work, it's not just leaders who need to be self-aware. More than ever, employees need to be independent, autonomous and self-driven enough to control their own performance, development and working relationships.
So how do you promote a culture of self-awareness in your company? Here, we’ll look at three steps you can take, and how they can build a self-aware working culture that works for your bottom line.

What is self-awareness anyway?

According to author Mark Manson, self-awareness is ‘our ability to observe and accurately identify our thoughts, feelings and impulses, and determine whether they are grounded in reality or not.’[3]. 

A self-aware person can think clearly about their experiences and challenges, and to consciously marshal the appropriate resources to act and react wisely make wise choices about how to act and react. Being self-aware also enables people to be attentive to others, and appreciative of the different talents and experiences they bring to the table. 

Self-awareness is at the heart of who we are. It is a trait, a characteristic that some have more than others. But at the same time, it is a skill that can be cultivated and developed.

Here’s how to help do just that in your workplace:

1. Build both internal and external awareness

There are two facets to self-awareness. Internal awareness is the ability to identify and understand your own preferences, strengths, weaknesses. It helps you see and assess the potential consequences of your choices and actions, without being blinded by emotional reactions.

External self-awareness means being able to see yourself from the outside. You are better able to appreciate the viewpoints of others, make empathic decisions and build stronger relationships[4]. External self-awareness is vital for interacting effectively with colleagues, partners and customers[5].

Internal_External self awareness

A balance of internal and external self-awareness allows leaders and employees to understand their own performance, while also collaborating and complementing each other for better team and organisational performance.  

To develop both internal and external self-awareness in employees, encourage self-rating. Self-assessment lets employees reflect on how they see themselves, while a manager’s assessment shows how others see them. Aligning these two perspectives helps employees develop a more realistic assessment of their own performance.  

While self-assessment and prescribed tests have been shown to do produce similar understandings of skill level., That said, self-rating carries the added bonus of boosting self-awareness and self-confidence. Studies with US naval officers have shown that those whose self-rating is in sync with how their subordinates and superiors rate them tend to perform better in their positions[6]. This suggests that trusting your employees to rate themselves while helping them align with the organisational goals will motivate them towards better results.

2. Encourage employees to ask ‘what’ instead of ‘why’

As we’ve seen, self-reflection helps employees assess their performance, recognise their competencies, and identify how they want to develop. However, to be productive, the approach and the questions employees ask themselves need to be the right ones.  

The most obvious self-reflection question might seem to be ‘why?’: ‘Why didn’t I make that sale?’ ‘Why didn’t I get that promotion?’ . Questioning the reasons for underperformance might seem a good way to discover what we need to improve, but it can be risky.  

Why? Well, when we ask ‘why?’, we're often not really looking for a constructive answer but rather feeling self-pity. ‘Why?’ can easily descend into ‘Why me?’ or ‘Why oh why?’ That’s hardly a productive way to reflect. What’s more, it can lead to negative feelings towards work, which might prod people to start looking elsewhere.  

Instead, encourage employees to use ‘what?’ questions in their learning reflection[7]. The question ‘why?’ focuses on the past. What? looks to the future, focuses on objectives and helps us develop and act upon more useful insights. Rather than ‘why didn't I get that promotion?’, ask ‘what prevented me getting that promotion?’ Or better yet, ‘what skills could I develop to help me get that promotion?’.  

By adopting a more forward-looking, solution-focused approach to self-reflection and self-assessment, employees can generate greater job satisfaction, ambition and retention.

3. Treat development conversations as a Retro and Sprint planning

Self-awareness is about where you are now, in the present moment. Being self-aware is just the first step; choosing how to use that awareness to achieve better outcomes is the real objective. This is where applying agile tools and approaches, such as sprint planning, to L&D can really pay off. By setting short, focused tasks and goals, complemented by regular learning reflection, employees and teams can learn, reflect and course-correct, while staying consciously goal-focused. 

Bringing these agile approaches into employee development conversations can really enhance self-awareness in employees and teams. An employee who wants to gain a promotion, for example, can reflect on where they are on their career path, and plot out the steps needed to reach their goal. They can identify what skills they need to acquire, the learning they want to undertake and at what level and develop an iterative action plan with interim objectives.  

Taking a self-aware sprint-style approach to learning and development, incorporating regular learning reflection and action, can help employees to keep moving towards greater performance and productivity.

Invest in your self-awareness

Businesses of self-aware individuals collaborating in self-aware teams and supported by self-aware leaders are likely to do well. Employees who are fulfilled and satisfied in their jobs will perform better, achieve more, progress further and remain with the company longer[8]. All of which makes for a more profitable company. 

Self-awareness makes us more effective workers, leaders and colleagues.

 

 

Did you know that children ask almost 300 questions a day? But as people get older, they become increasingly reluctant to ask questions. This shouldn't be the case. In fact, questions are the most under-utilised tool for driving personal and business performance. Asking the right questions is a guaranteed way to boost business success. Here's why.

 

Why questions are the key to success

There’s a common misconception that asking questions - especially in a business environment - is a sign of stupidity. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. Various studies have shown that the ability to ask the right questions is a sign of intelligence, and one of the characteristics of highly successful people.

Someone who asks questions has a number of qualities that are desirable in a business atmosphere:

  • High level of engagement: To be asking pertinent questions, a person has to be highly engaged in the topic matter.
  • Curiosity and inquisitiveness: Curious people, eager to learn about the world and asking thoughtful questions, are the type of people who can help generate fresh new ideas.
  • Desire for learning and development: Asking questions means that you’re opening your mind to new possibilities and information.

 

Questions: the secret to driving business performance

We’ve already seen how someone who asks questions has the type of qualities that any type of business would want in their employees. But how can questions benefit a business as a whole?

  • Generate new ideas: By fostering a non-judgemental environment in the office when asking questions, you can be sure that people will be more willing to think outside the box. From this, new ideas will flow.
  • Come up with solutions: Asking questions encourages you to break out of your normal thinking patterns. This can be a gateway to creativity and thinking about solutions you hadn’t considered before.
  • Help encourage thinking and understanding: Questions need answers. While seeking the answers to questions, you’re pushed into a deeper state of thinking, and by doing this you can develop your understanding of a topic too.

 

To facilitate this, companies ought to make sure that they’re creating an atmosphere of open-mindedness, so that everyone feels comfortable asking questions without fear of judgement or reprimand.

 

Why asking the right type of question is important

So, we’ve established that asking questions is important. But asking just any question might not get the results you want. It’s definitely the case that asking the right type of question is the key to harnessing questions as a powerful tool.

Let’s take a look at some examples.

On the one hand, you have questions which can lead to personal growth and understanding, as well as sparking new ideas and solutions. Such as:

  • “How can I improve on this for next time?”
  • “How can I help out/be of assistance on this project?”
  • “If I were a customer, what would I want from our system?”
  • “How can I measure the impact of the feature we’ve just released?”

On the other hand, questions which carry some sort of negative sentiment can be unhelpful, and create an atmosphere of negativity rather than problem-solving. For example:

  • “Who is to blame for this?” (Instead, ask “How can we solve this problem?”)
  • “Why don’t you understand this?” (Instead, ask “How can I help you to understand this” or “Shall I explain this in a different way to help you understand?”)
  • “Why aren’t customers enjoying this feature?” (Instead, ask “What can we do to improve customers' enjoyment of this feature?" )

 

Why asking the same question over time can reveal trends AND fosters company transparency

While there’s an obvious advantage in asking different questions to generate different ideas and solutions, asking the same question at regular intervals can be beneficial too. What are some examples of situations where this might be useful?

  • Employee feedback survey: Surveys are a great way to check the pulse of your organisation. You can use them to receive regular feedback, gather ideas and check your employees for happiness and alignment.
  • Team performance survey: If all team managers are assigned the same performance survey to assess how their team members are doing, then performance measurement across different teams (and even offices) can be unified. By taking these surveys monthly, a manager will be able to see how their team is progressing over time, too. You can then notice trends which help you to provide insights.
  • Customer feedback survey on a feature: By taking a monthly pulse of how your customers are liking a feature, you can track how the developments you make to that feature affect their happiness. Hopefully you should see the satisfaction rating go upwards over time!

 

In all these cases, since the questions are the same each time, it’s a great idea to automate the survey to run on a cycle at an interval of your choosing - weekly, once a fortnight, or even monthly. That way there’s no risk of forgetting about it.

When asking the same questions across the company, there's also the added benefit of fairness and transparency, since everyone - no matter which team or what office they're in - is being asked the same set of questions.

It's also important to have good reporting on surveys, so that you can see results over time at a glance. This way you can monitor the answers - whether that’s employee happiness or team performance - and act accordingly, if you feel something needs to be changed.

 

Great! I'm ready to ask more questions now. What's next?

We hope we’ve encouraged you to see that there’s far more can be gained than lost from asking questions. Asking the right type of questions is a sure-fire way to develop not only personal understanding and intelligence, but also a way to generate ideas and solutions which could be hugely beneficial to your business.

...
Source > Tanya Milne - Product Executive


The latest amendments to the CCMA rules (and a large number of LRA forms) are out and effective as of 24 April 2023.

The driving force behind these amendments is Adv Cameron Morajane, the current Director of the CCMA.

The SALLR team is proud to present the upcoming fast track sessions in association with the CCMA.

You are cordially invited to attend and gain valuable insight as to the considerations taken into account by Adv Morajane and his CCMA team when the drafting took place.  We are certain that Dr Brian van Zyl will, as usual, provide a valuable independent analysis of these amendments.

Enclosed, kindly find the relevant brochure – the fast-track workshop sessions are to be held countrywide from Monday, 15 May 2023 to Friday, 26 May 2023.

Also attached hereto, kindly find the media and user advisory notice of the CCMA dated 24 April 2023.

We look forward to your participation. 

your hardworking SALLR team

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