How to Start Your Own Recruitment Business The Dream Continues...

How to Start Your Own Recruitment Business The Dream Continues... Thanks to everyone who read and shared my 1st article, I’m now 7 months into the process, which the eagle eyed of you may realise is a full month later than I was hoping, with the reason for this being how crazily busy my life has become! So, if you read the 1st part of this blog, which I’m sure will have been beautifully hyperlinked by Laurence [it sure has been Laurence], you’ll know that I quit the luxury of a paid job in recruitment (after almost 8 years with the same company) to go it alone.  And wow has it been some ride! The first deal: Where to start? Well, let’s talk about that first deal. It took me just over 8 weeks to get my first deal in as ABrecruit, which I think is pretty decent considering everything that I have done is new business â€" I had to start again without the database that I had come to rely on in my last role, and bringing in new clients when you’re a newly started company with nobody else firing you CVs or leads (as I had been used to) is very tough.  I managed to source a new company, and one of the first applicants I sent them ended up securing the role with a salary he was happy with. As I closed my first deal I had a sense of elation â€" I had done it working for myself AND generating cash flow! My kids were proud of me too, with my eldest making me a certificate to say well done which is now proudly sitting on my wall and will do forever more as a reminder of quite how hard I worked for it. It was brilliant to go out for a few drinks with the guy I placed, and he was genuinely made up for me too that he was my 1st placement as the new company. I’m pleased to say he flew through his rebate period too! I’ve managed to sign up a few clients on retainers, as well as securing contract business (I used a payroll factoring company for this, link available on request) which is great as it gives me a chance to learn their businesses far better and provide a great service to them. Touching wood as I write this (because I believe in all that mumbo jumbo!) but I’ve been pretty lucky with my clients paying on time, and nobody ignoring my calls for payment since I started.  I’ve made sure that every invoice I send out has a payment due date on it and refer to it in the email I send with the invoice on to just make double sure that the client are aware! Collaborating: Something I have been doing more of lately is something that I was told to avoid at all costs in my old company: collaborating with other recruiters! Yes, I’ve been put in touch with some really great people in the recruitment industry and as well as advice I have been lucky to have some roles that I am working on with these people on a split basis, and vice versa. Networking: I’ve also started my own MeetUp group which isn’t a .Net focus, but more agnostic in terms of skills. And as a result of my networking and starting groups like this I’ve been invited to another event that is usually only for developers â€" whilst it is great for networking, I’m genuinely excited to be learning more about the development process, and would like to be the type of recruiter that people can rely on to understand their technology requirements fully, instead of just another keyword matching drone. I’m still working crazy hours (I’m yet to be privy to the ‘golf day’ culture of many company directors I’m afraid), and I barely stop for a cup of tea; but I’ve managed a weekend away with my wife and kids recently which was great â€" I was checking my emails the whole time though and even managed to get an offer while I was away! Summary: So, to summarise, I absolutely love working for myself, I see my kids far more, spend more quality time with my wife, and the flexibility of my working day has allowed me to fulfil a dream of mine for a long time too â€" I’m now the manager of an U7 football team (which my daughter is actually playing in!), and am signed up to take my Level 1 football coaching badge.  Thanks for reading and the very best of luck if you decide to take the plunge! (P.S. If anyone reading this needs .Net developers, you know where to find me!) UPDATE: How to Start Your Own Recruitment Business Part 3!

How to Be an Effective Manager When Your Employees Are Your Family Members

How to Be an Effective Manager When Your Employees Are Your Family Members A family business is a sweet idea but can turn relationships sour with wrong management. Many of the most successful small businesses started with a couple of siblings or parents who pass on the business to their children. The more a business grows, the more room there is to hire cousins, aunts, uncles and extended family. By the time you’re asked to become a manager at the business, you may be used to working alongside the same people you see at Thanksgiving dinner. Mixing family issues with business issues is a hard habit to break, but it must be done if you’re going to be an effective manager. Earn Your Degree If you have non-family members on staff make sure the non-family member employees feel just as valued as the family members. Whenever you hold a staff meeting, make sure it’s during work hours and everyone’s invited. Limit the business discussion outside of work so you don’t show up with new ideas and changes your non-family employees didn’t have a say in. Involve all your employees in the decisions you make, not just the ones you see at dinner-time. The U.S. Small Business Administration claims 90 percent of American businesses are family-owned. You’re clearly far from the only one who has to deal with working with family members, but it might feel like more of an issue at your business if it’s small and there are few non-family members on staff. You can manage a thriving small business and keep family members happy with clear boundaries and a little more confidence in your decisions.  Are you in a family business? How do you manage your family members? Comment below or tweet us @mscareergirl

How to be likable to people who are complaining about you

How to be likable to people who are complaining about you I am always harping on how important it is to be nice. I have written about how you will be happy at work if you have three friends there, you will get promoted if people like you and you should try to be more likable no matter how likable you think you are right now. A recent study by SkillSoft tells which factors employees see as most important to their wellbeing. Heres the list: 1. Flexible working hours 2. Working with people I like 3. Having enough annual leave 4. Having time off on short notice 5. Enjoying the job 6. Getting along well with colleagues 7. Feeling liked by my colleagues 8. Getting along well with my boss 9. Being trusted by my boss 10. Having a clear understanding of my goals Five of these top ten factors of workplace happiness have to do with interpersonal relationships. So it seems that most people understand the importance of being well liked at work. But not everyone knows how to achieve this. And to be fair, its not easy. Being well liked at work means taking a lot of risks, and when it comes to deciding to make a risky move, we are inherently reticent. Daniel Gilberts research shows we are way better at seeing the downside than the upside. Good social skills start with being vulnerable. If you want to create a relationship with someone, you need to open up a little piece of yourself so they can see inside and find something to connect with. Some relationships will be close, some will be casual, but all will be based on you figuring out how to open up just a bit. Keith Ferrazzi gave a great step-by-step approach to this process in his book, Never Eat Alone, and he gave the Cliffs Notes version when I interviewed him. But the bottom line is that in order to make a real connection with someone, you have to take a real risk. Most of the mail I get about social skills at work is from people who feel like theyve messed up. When it comes to social skills and any skill, really you can judge your own competence by how well you manage yourself in a mess. Eric Dezenhall is a publicist who specializes in managing situations where someone has messed up and the author of the book Damage Control. He says, So much of crisis management comes down to basic likability. Do we like you? Dezenhall says mental gymnastics to craftily shift the blame have unimpressive results. It doesnt matter how smart you are. What matters is if we like you. When things go wrong, the first thing you should consider is apologizing. Saying youre sorry is powerful. The public is enormously forgiving of genuine contrition, according to research about bouncing back from a career mess by Jeffrey Sonnenfelt at Yale School of management. For example, medical malpractice suits go down significantly when a doctor is willing to apologize for a mistake. However an apology only works when you are truly sorry. Dezenhall points out that an apology made just to make a problem go away often does more harm than good because it is, in fact, inconsistent with who you are and not believable. This advice brings to mind the reaction to my panel discussion at BlogHer last weekend. Not during, but after. The room was totally packed, and there were questions flying the whole time, and I answered questions how I usually do: Short and direct. Later I saw the online aftermath of the panel, and there were a few bloggers who were very upset. Of course, no matter what I say there are always a few people who are upset. And some weeks there are a few thousand people upset. In general, I read the comments, learn from those that I can learn from, and move on. I asked some friends what I should do about the unhappy BlogHer bloggers. All my friends told me to ignore it. It doesnt matter, is what they said over and over. It is at this moment when you find out that someone doesnt like what youve done that determines how well liked you are at work. You cant bow to every complaint about what you do, but you do need to get good at figuring out which people to address and which to ignore. Both decisions are risks. Heres what I learned from the criticism about me at the blog Suburban Turmoil: It is more effective to be short and direct in writing than it is in person. The comments section on the blog post complaining about me was already boisterous. So I thought I might get trounced again for adding my own comment. But I took a chance and apologized because I could do it with honesty. On the other hand, I received nearly 100 personal emails from people attacking me for the last column I wrote on Yahoo Finance, and I am ignoring them. Well, except for this one, which I cant resist publishing, from Eduard Bauer: Please stop giving horrible advice. Your detachment from reality is hurting the American economy.

Turning the Tables on Workplace Bullies

Turning the Tables on Workplace Bullies “Where’d you come up with this crap?” Steve snarls. Your stomach plummets. Your breathing stops.   Steve has once again taken you apart in a staff meeting.   As everyone’s eyes turns to you, you struggle to find the right words for finishing your presentation. Bullies like Steve excel at preemptive attacks that leave their targets defensive, flustered, and tongue-tied. Do you work alongside a workplace bully who takes you apart with demeaning insults? Learn to turn the tables on any bully by taking control of yourself and the interaction. Here’s how: Control yourself Imagine a large, angry tiger leaping toward you, its teeth bared in a ferocious snarl. If you truly imagine this, you may feel your breath catching and the urge to run. Even if you run, the tiger is able to outrun you and sinks its claws and teeth into your back. When you react to an attack, you rarely think clearly and sometimes don’t think at all. You temporarily stop breathing or breathe shallowly and rapidly. When that happens, you momentarily lose easy, simultaneous access to both mental hemispheres, the left and the right. Fear or anxiety caused by the bully’s intimidation “pulls” you toward processing information in your right hemisphere, the hemisphere that comes into play when you emotionally react. To handle a bully’s attack, you also need the ability to think and to put your thoughts into language. These functions, along with the ability to strategize, are located in your left hemisphere.   This explains why you may occasionally be unable to speak when upset. If you are able to calm yourself by slowing and deepening your breathing, you increase your ability to access left and right hemispheres simultaneously and to couple analysis and problem-solving with emotional reaction. Take control by asking a question What happens if I slam you with a putdown and attack me back or respond defensively? I put a game in motion and you play it â€" by my rules. What if you instead you respond with a question?   You’ve just taken control of our encounter. Suppose a bully knows you’re sensitive about your appearance, and says to you, “You look like a dog”? You might redden and tighten your jaw in response to this snarky comment. If others are watching, they may pity you. If you instead ask, “What breed?” you sidestep the attack and take control of the interaction. If your bully confronts you in front of an audience, they then laugh with and not at you. Ignore blame and move toward a solution Suppose you work for a bully boss who regularly yells at you, “Is that all you got done?” If you respond, “You don’t understand how long these things take,” you sound defensive. If, however, you ask “What would you like me to work on next?” you diplomatically move you and your boss forward toward a solution. Call the bully on his game Bullies often smirk and say, “Just kidding” after they jab you. If you protest, they blame you for feeling stung, by asking, “Why are you making a big deal about this?” Challenge this maneuver. Imagine the bully says “you’re a fool,” and you say, “that’s not true and it’s rude.” If the bully then says “just kidding,” you can respond “I don’t think so.” How could you have handled Steve? You could have asked, “What exactly do you mean?” Chances are, Steve wouldn’t have had a response, but if he had, you could have then said, “Steve and everyone, here’s why my proposal makes sense.” © 2016, Lynne Curry; adapted from Beating the Workplace Bully, AMACOM, 2015. Curry is author of Beating the Workplace Bully and Solutions, President of The Growth Company, Inc. and founder of www.workplacecoachblog.com and www.bullywhisperer.com â„¢.  Beating the Workplace Bully offers readers twenty-eight chapters providing solutions for handling bullies.

11 Cases When Freelancers Must Say Goodbye to a Client CareerMetis.com

11 Cases When Freelancers Must Say Goodbye to a Client â€" CareerMetis.com Freelancing can be so amazing in several aspects, but it’s not all rainbows and lollipops. Freelancers are in a special way their ’own boss’, but they are constantly faced with different clients and projects, and not all of these experiences are pleasant.If you’re a freelancer trying to avoid this unpleasant situation, pay attention to these cases, because they are warning signs that something is wrong.1. Bad CommunicationevalevalDon’t get into a business with a client who’s not a good communicator. Bad communication actually disables freelancers from doing a good job, because they’re basically shooting in the dark without knowing all the necessary details and requirements, and what the client actually wants.2. HagglingDon’t even get into a conversation if you immediately start talking about the price. It’s one thing to mention your rates, but it’s another thing when a client is constantly trying to knock down the prices, but still requesting high-quality services . A good client will appreciate your knowledge and skills, and won’t argue with your price if it’s reasonable.3. Free TestMost clients use this ‘free sample’ request to trick freelancers into doing a perfectly decent job for free. They will pretend it’s not up to their standards, and the next thing you know, they will use it for their business. Remember, no free samples. Everything you do has a price.4. No CompromiseWhen a client is unwilling to open their mind to a new perspective and especially unwilling to take suggestions, you should thank them for their offer and walk away. This is very limiting to freelancers since they will never have a say in the process, even when it could potentially harm the client’s business.5. UnderminingevalFreelancers are their own boss, but this job isn’t easy at all. You’re constantly on the lookout for new opportunities, constantly having to prove yourself to someone new. Never accept projects from someone who is trying to undermine your role in the project. They need your expertise, right?6. Micro-ManagementIf your client is constantly asking for updates, e-mails, screenshots, time-tracking every single activity, you’re probably dealing with someone who wants to control every segment of your work. Stay away from these clients because they won’t give you the freedom of choice, and they never seem to be satisfied with work.7. IndecisivenessWhen a client is always seeking changes, and constantly blames it on you, it means that he/she doesn’t really know what he/she wants. Indecisive clients will always find you irresponsible for their inability to decide.8. Broadened Scope of WorkevalAvoid clients which tend to give you more work once they set a price for the original job, and all of sudden they remember three different things you need to do for them, that wasn’t a part of the original agreement. They’re just trying to get more for the same buck.9. No CollaborationWhen you start a project but the clien t doesn’t want to have anything to do with it, take this as a warning sign. This means they are unwilling to help, or they literally have no idea what the project is actually about and they are just a middleman for someone else.10. Responsiveness IssuesBeware of those clients which disappear right after you reach an agreement and start your project. This is a big warning sign that you’re in it alone, and that they might even reappear out of the blue asking for the finished project.11. Avoiding Upfront PaymentsSome freelancing websites require you to lay down a small deposit on a project as a guarantee to the freelancer they are going to get paid for a successfully done project. IF you encounter a client that’s unwilling to do an upfront payment, making up excuses, be sure that he’s unwilling to pay for the entire project as well.

5 Career Lessons From Young CEOs - CareerEnlightenment.com

4. Maintain good relationships.It’s crucial for the boss to have good relationships with employees. Being visible in the office paves the way to getting acquainted with the employees and their needs. Employees in turn will feel comfortable enough to discuss company issues relative to productivity and the general good of the company. Having simple and light conversations with employees from time to time is an effective way to foster good relationships in the office. Matthew McCauley, the 37-year old CEO of Gymboree, has this to say: “I love to exchange wits and spring back ideas off people, no matter what their role is.” McCauley routinely asks for feedback from staff throughout the company in all departments. This open strategy seems to be working as Gymboree’s sales continue to scale heights by the millions.5. Have fun.People who become CEOs at a young age might seem deprived of a happy and cheerful social life, but that is a misconception and not altogether true for most of them. Office work can be very demanding but don’t let it eat you up. Allot some time for rest and recreation. A day that’s just work, work and more work is very unhealthy. Find ways to enjoy the day in the office or to unwind after office hoursAge is not a determinant factor to success â€" hard work is. Always keep a positive attitude toward your work. You will be so much better for it.Note: For a limited time, subscribers of Career Enlightenment get a Resume AND a Coverletter for just $50, optin below to make sure you get the coupon code.

Make Sure That Your Resume Gets the Maximum Exposure Possible

Make Sure That Your Resume Gets the Maximum Exposure PossibleResume writing is a serious process. A quality resume doesn't just sit on the desk in front of you. You need to make sure that it gets into the hands of your potential employer and that they see it.Before the actual reading of your resume, you need to make sure that it is neat and polished. One of the biggest mistakes that new writers make is that they try to cram everything into the resume. There are some things that are important, but you do not want to write your entire resume in a hurry. If you are working full time, have family and friends to take care of and all of the other stresses that a new professional face has to deal with, you might want to consider hiring an outside professional resume writer.To make sure that your resume gets the maximum exposure possible, it is important to be honest about what you are offering. You do not want to be selling yourself short and telling potential employers that you do not know how to write a good resume. Instead, offer up what you can offer and make it a presentation that makes it clear that you have thought about your resume.When you begin writing your resume, make sure that you understand the instructions clearly. You should make sure that you understand them so that you don't make any mistakes along the way. This is one of the most common mistakes that new writers make and is one of the biggest reasons why they do not receive the kind of response that they are looking for.In order to be effective, a resume must be written to target a wide variety of different types of people. There are many different kinds of people who have different expectations when it comes to job searching. The kind of resume that is written for one person may not be the best resume for another.While you do not want to specifically tailor your resume to one specific position, you dowant to make sure that you take the time to get as much experience as possible. Even if you are new to the work place, you can always get the opportunity to attend some seminars and workshops in order to really get your feet wet. Experiencing different situations will help you see your resume from a different perspective.One way to ensure that your resume is effective is to make sure that it is keyword optimized. Keyword research is an important part of the process of writing a resume. You should make sure that you include keywords that target various fields and a number of different job search terms. By doing this, you will ensure that you are able to see your resume in a variety of ways.Finally, make sure that you read your resume over several times before submitting it. After you have gone through the same draft of your resume several times, you will notice all of the areas that need improvement. Once you have addressed the issues, you will be able to send your resume to the appropriate people and see the outcome. Once you have addressed all of the necessary details, you will have a resume that is effective.