Hiring Strategies Archives - Page 2 of 3

Important Questions to Include in Your Interview Process

By Angelica RainsHiring Strategies, Interviews, Training

Having the right skills in itself isn’t enough to make someone right for a job. As an employer, you will interview a lot of people who have the right skills and experiences. The best talent also has high emotional intelligence. Unfortunately, many of the generic interview questions that managers ask do not provide enough insight. The best advice about interviewing you can get is to customize the question list in a way that gauges the candidate’s emotional intelligence. Below are some questions to ask candidates.

What Failures Did You Learn from the Most?

One way to assess someone’s emotional intelligence is to see how they react to adversity. Listen closely when a candidate talks about their weaknesses and failures. Failure is the heart of success. No one is successful right away. They learn from mistakes and become better. Someone who breaks down at the first sign of failure is not going to be a good employee. Look for candidates who view failures as opportunities.

Have You Ever Noticed Someone at Work Was Struggling? What Did You Do to Help?

Ask questions that will give you an insight on how the candidate will interact with co-workers. This is just one example. You can also ask about a time they had a conflict with a colleague, among others. These types of question will tell you a lot about the candidate’s attitude and interpersonal skills. You don’t want an employee who stirs up drama and can’t be a team player. Find someone who will build people up and be a positive influence on the team.

Have You Had a Boss You Found Difficult to Work with? How Did You Deal with the Situation?

See how the candidate handles authority. The employee-employer relationship can sometimes be tense. You don’t want to hire someone who is uncooperative and resistant to authority, but you also don’t want someone who is so servile that they never speak their mind. In some cases, employees will have to work with multiple managers and will need to juggle different personalities. There is a lot of opportunity for conflict there, so you need employees who have high emotional intelligence.

It’s easy to find a candidate who checks all the right boxes on paper. But you can’t tell someone’s emotional intelligence by looking at their resume and cover letter. Find someone who will respect managers and colleagues, learn from their mistakes, and navigate conflict and disagreements gracefully.

February 17, 2021

Stronger Than Yesterday

By Angelica RainsExecutive Assistant, Hiring Strategies, Leadership

Resilience. It’s one of the secrets to survival, both professionally and personally. It’s what’s gotten you to where you are, and it’s what will help define who you will become. Looking back at some of the toughest situations you’ve endured, you may have felt there was no other choice. It was a natural instinct. And while it’s true that resilience can come innately, it’s also a learned skill. Instead of leaving resilience up to chance, consider strengthening those muscles by choice. How can we lead a more resilient life, and lead a more resilient team, in the year to come?

A Core of Confidence

Everyone has an inner critic. Who do you compare yourself to, and why? Although comparison can create competition, which in turn can fuel achievement, it’s a balancing act. While constructive criticism can deter certain behaviors in the short-term, positive reinforcement is generally better for shaping new and lasting behavior. It’s also at the core of creating confidence.

As a leader, recognize that criticism doesn’t increase competency. You are simply sharing what not to do, instead of what to do. Imagine a child learning how to ride a bicycle. Which environment shapes a more confident future cyclist: pointing out each time they fell down, or pointing out what they did to stay up?

Confidence increases productivity and causes you to choose more challenging tasks, which makes you stand out amongst your peers. You naturally create a more cohesive workplace environment; confident people celebrate the accomplishments of others as opposed to insecure individuals who try to steal the spotlight and criticize others in order to prove their worth. Speaking first and often (a sign of high self-esteem) makes others perceive you as a leader. In fact, over-confident people are more likely to be promoted than those who have actually accomplished more.

A Fondness for Failure

Consider failures as beginnings, rather than endings. You’ve probably learned more from failures than any other source of wisdom. Teach yourself, and your team, to focus on the data and facts. Embrace failure’s value as a teacher, get curious about the information it provides, and be open to where it leads you next. You may even find you fail less when you don’t fear it.

Failure is either redirecting or reaffirming. If failure caused you to take a different path, it’s because you saw it heading towards a dead-end. If failure caused you to get back up and keep going, it reaffirms you are committed to a goal and it’s worth fighting for.

The Power of Purpose

We have the freedom to choose our actions, our profession, our financial needs, and the path of our life. Each day is not about what we have to do. It’s about what we get to do. Strength can come from the recognition that there is a bigger purpose, a desire to make a difference, and a need to have a higher meaning behind the choices we make.

Spend time focusing on this for yourself personally, and with those you lead. Some points to ponder:

Who in my life do I care to impact the most? How specifically am I going to mentor and impact those individuals?
What are five things I would put on my bucket list, and with whom would I want to experience them?
What experiences am I most appreciative of in my life? How can I help others have that same experience?
What moment in your life are you most proud of? How can you duplicate more of those moments?
What, and who, am I thankful for today?

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Steps for Success

Teach the importance of:

Taking a deep breath.
Taking another.
Focusing on the next thing that needs to be done in order to keep going.

If you wake up suffocated by the list of things that need to get accomplished today, start with getting up and brushing your teeth. When you feel anxiety over an important deadline, make a list of things that need to be done and do just one of them. If your email inbox is exhausting, unsubscribe to a few distribution lists that you never signed up for. Stop longingly looking at pictures of other people’s photos on social media, and spend that time scrolling through your own pictures and cherished memories instead. Don’t focus on the big things. Start with the littlest and decide where to go from there. Take an action, any action. Manufacture your own momentum.

Have an appreciation for your history. What are some of the toughest things you’ve experienced? How did you get through them? You probably already know quite a bit about being resilient but haven’t stopped to admire it.

Remember: you’ve got this. The person who has gotten you through the toughest parts of your life is you.

January 20, 2021

How to Set and Achieve Your Goals in the New Year

By Angelica RainsExecutive Assistant, Hiring Strategies, Leadership

With all of the challenges of the past year, it seems that most of us are looking forward to turning over a new leaf in 2021. Now is the time to start thinking about what you want to accomplish in 2021. January is full of promise and opportunities as we all look to having a fresh start. Below are some tips to set and achieve your goals in the new year.

Think Carefully about Your New Year’s Resolutions

The first step is deciding what your goals for the year will be. The key is to be optimistic but not overly ambitious. If you choose a goal that requires more effort than you can or are willing to exert, you are setting yourself for certain failure. Choose a goal that is important and meaningful, otherwise you will struggle to find the motivation needed to progress towards its completion. If you have a difficult time coming up with a reasonable plan that will allow you to accomplish your goal, it may not be the right intention. The goal should be specific, realistic, and measurable.

Prioritize Your Resolutions

While many people fail to achieve their New Year’s resolutions because they choose unrealistic goals, others fail because they pick too many resolutions to manage. It is easier to accomplish goals if you concentrate on one goal at a time. When goal setting, think about what goal you have for yourself that means the most to you. It also helps to separate your larger, long-term goals into smaller goals. This can help ensure your plan doesn’t feel overwhelming.

Plan Ahead for Obstacles

Many people experience setbacks early on as they work towards their New Year’s resolutions, which cause them to become discouraged and give up. No matter who you are or what your goals are, you’re likely to encounter obstacles as you work to accomplish them. This is part of the process. Maintain a positive attitude when you experience setbacks and remind yourself that you can still achieve your goals in spite of hurdles. It also helps to predict what obstacles might occur so you can avoid them or have more time to prepare yourself to overcome them.

While New Year’s resolutions are notoriously hard to achieve, that doesn’t mean you can’t make the most of 2021 and accomplish your career goals for the year. As long as you choose goals that mean something to you, approach resolutions realistically, focus on one goal at a time, and plan ahead for setbacks, you can achieve your goals for the year.

January 13, 2021

Why Having a Mentor Is Important

By Angelica RainsExecutive Assistant, Hiring Strategies, Leadership

A mentor can be an invaluable source of knowledge and guidance, but finding the right mentor isn’t always easy, especially if your career is just starting out. Here are some of the top reasons having a good mentor is important, as well as some tips on how to find one.

Mentors Speed up the Learning Process

One of the biggest advantages of having a mentor is that it improves your ability to learn new skills and retain more knowledge. A good mentor will already have been in your position, so they are excellent source of knowledge. They may also have tips on how to learn necessary skills faster. A mentor can point out your blind spots and identify areas where you need to improve, which can also speed up the learning process.

Mentors Keep You More Engaged

A good mentor will be a source of support. Mentors can assist you in goal setting and provide you with the kind of encouragement you need to stay motivated. If you feel alone, you are more likely to give up or become disengaged. Mentors can keep you more focused and give you the inspiration and guidance you need to develop your skills and progress toward your career goals.

Identify Career Objectives

If you want to find the right mentor, first you have to understand what your long-term and short-term goals are. Once you know what you want your career to look like in the future, you can start to look for professionals who have experiences you can benefit from. The best goals are clear and specific. Set goals that are easily measurable and think about the goals you have for your mentorship. What knowledge do you seek to attain and what new skills do you wish to develop? These types of questions can allow you to effectively narrow down candidates for your mentor.

Look for Someone Who Thinks Differently Than You

The best mentors aren’t necessarily people who have similar personalities as you, or even do work that is similar to yours. In some cases, you might find a mentor who works in another department. Mentors who think differently than you can challenge you and help you expand your learning and communication styles. A mentor should push you outside of your comfort zone.

Finding the perfect mentor can fast-track your career in C-level support and allow you to grow professionally in ways you wouldn’t expect. They key is to understand what you want your mentor-mentee relationship to accomplish and connect with a mentor who will provide you with support and encouragement, while also challenging you.

December 23, 2020

4 Tips to Beat the Procrastination Habit

By Angelica RainsExecutive Assistant, Hiring Strategies, Leadership

Procrastination is one of the worst habits you can have as an executive support professional, but it is also one of the most common. Though everyone does it to some degree, procrastination negatively affects focus, productivity, and performance. These four tips will help you overcome procrastination and become more efficient.

1. Understand Why You Procrastinate

If you want to beat your procrastination habit, first you have to understand why you tend to procrastinate in the first place. Start by thinking about what tasks you are most likely to avoid. Do you avoid tasks you find difficult or are you more likely to avoid tasks you find uninteresting? Do you avoid tasks when you’re feeling overwhelmed or anxious? Some people also procrastinate out of indecision. Once you understand why you procrastinate, you can start addressing the root of the problem.

2. Identify and Eliminate Distractions

Having a lot of distractions nearby can make procrastination much more tempting. What are your top distractions? Do you procrastinate by checking non-urgent emails? Do you play around on your phone or chat with colleagues? Once you identify major distractions, you can start to eliminate them. If you have trouble focusing when there are other people around you, for example, you can reduce the temptation to procrastinate by finding a quiet workspace away from others.

3. Be Realistic About Your Goals

One reason people procrastinate is because they feel overwhelmed by a task. This often occurs when a person has too much on their plate. Being realistic about goals and deadlines can make tasks more manageable and eliminate the feeling that you have to procrastinate to cope. You can make to-do lists and goals more attainable by prioritizing tasks by urgency and breaking large projects into smaller tasks.

4. Keep Yourself Accountable

To overcome procrastination, you also need to keep yourself accountable. One way to do this is to choose someone at work whom you trust to monitor your progress. Encourage your friends at work to call you out if they see you losing focus or putting off important tasks. Another way to keep yourself accountable to your goals related to procrastination is to give yourself rewards for accomplishing major tasks and projects on time.

Most people don’t procrastinate because they’re unorganized or lazy. Most procrastinators are hard workers who avoid tasks when they’re stressed or overwhelmed at work. Anyone can overcome this habit if they put their mind to it. The key is to figure out why you procrastinate in the first place, eliminate triggers, and reward better behavior.

December 16, 2020

How to Foster a Growth Mindset for Professional Success

By Angelica RainsExecutive Assistant, Hiring Strategies, Leadership

Success in C-level support is often determined by mindset. Professionals who believe in their own potential are more likely to progress in their career than professionals who doubt themselves or believe they aren’t capable of becoming better. The following tips will help you foster a growth mindset.

Practice Self-Reflection

In order to develop a growth mindset, it’s important to know who you are. Begin to understand as much as you can about your skills, talents, and challenges. This will give you a clearer idea of what areas can be improved upon and what talents are being underutilized in your current job that can still be tapped later. Self-reflection helps you gain insight into who you are and what you can become.

Embrace Your Ability to Change

It is common for people to believe that things like intelligence and personality are set it stone. In reality, most aspects of who you are can change if you put your mind to it. If you think your intelligence and capability are static, your focus is on proving your worth instead of on personal growth. Most qualities that define you are really just a starting point. By pushing yourself outside your comfort zone, gaining new experiences, and expanding your knowledge, you can change many aspects of yourself, including your personality, aptitude, and skillset.

Challenge Yourself

One of the main reasons people fail to grow in their professional life is from not challenging themselves enough. When you do the same kind of tasks every day, you become comfortable with the status quo. However, when you embrace new challenges, you often discover new talents you didn’t know you had. By taking on tasks that are outside your comfort zone, you also put yourself in situations that provide opportunities to learn.

Choose Feedback over Praise

Many professionals seek out praise in their work. While praise isn’t inherently bad, it can be an obstacle to growth. When you seek out praise, the tendency is to take on responsibilities with which you know you can excel and lean heavily into the talents you already have. However, it’s unlikely you will get smarter and more skilled by playing it safe. To grow, it’s essential to perform tasks you know will require effort on your part or even tasks that can lead you to instances of failure. Be open-minded about failure and seek out feedback. This is the only way to learn new skills and expand your capabilities.

When you cultivate a growth mindset, you have the ability to continuously gain new talents, improve your intelligence, and become a more valuable employee. To shift toward a growth mindset, you have to learn about your strengths and weaknesses, come to terms with your potential, challenge yourself every chance you get and embrace failure.

December 2, 2020

3 Tips to Improve Your Hiring Process Today

By Angelica RainsHiring Strategies, Interviews

The ability to recruit top-of-the-line talent is essential for the success of an organization. Your hiring process greatly influences how your team performs as well as the level of talent you attract and retain. These three tips can help you improve your hiring process today.

1. Eliminate Unconscious Bias

Unconscious bias can decrease the diversity of candidates you attract, negatively affect your decision making, and create a toxic employee experience. There are several ways to reduce bias in your hiring process. First, make the process as standard as possible. Every candidate should be asked the same questions and be judged by the same criteria. Second, use neutral language when writing job descriptions. The job descriptions should not appeal to one gender or ethnicity more than another. You can also reduce bias by blacking out names when you screen resumes, so you don’t know their gender or race.

2. Speed Up the Process

Inefficiency is one of the main reasons hiring strategies fail. The reality is high-quality candidates don’t stay available for long. Their transition from one job to the next could be less than two weeks. A slow hiring process can prevent you from landing exceptional talent and force you to choose between mediocre candidates. With this in mind, you cannot afford to be indecisive. When you find the right candidate, act quickly. It’s also important to reach out to candidates promptly after interviewing them so they know you’re interested.

3. Clarify Expectations

Most candidates have experienced a situation in which they accepted a job offer only to discover the role wasn’t at all what they thought it would be. High-quality candidates are looking for clear expectations. They want the interview process explained to them in advance and next steps carefully communicated. They figure if the hiring manager communicated what to expect from the hiring process clearly, they’ll communicate expectations for the role just as well. That said, accurately describing the role to candidates is essential. Ask employees who work closely with the role to describe what job responsibilities new hires should expect. If the job does not match what a new hire expects, they won’t last long.

An effective hiring process is essential if you want to attract and retain the best talent. You can improve your hiring strategy by eliminating unconscious bias, making the process faster and more efficient, and setting clear expectations.

November 11, 2020

Areas of Growth in High Profile C-Level Support

By Angelica RainsCareer Guidance, Hiring Strategies, Leadership

Exceptional executive support is at the heart of any successful organization. High profile C-level support is experiencing growth in several major areas, including family office directors and chiefs of staff. Below is a closer look at some of the areas of growth in high profile C-level support.

Family Office

C-level support has become increasingly prominent in Family Office Management. Family office directors and directors of operations—the people who manage the entire family office, estate, and staff, serve a role similar to a COO. Directors can help hire staff, manage property taxes and LLCs, and handle critical HR issues. High profile Family Office businesses need experienced support staff who understand the value of confidentiality and efficiency.

Chief of Staff

Chiefs of Staff serve many crucial functions. They assist with project management, communicate with direct reports, organize board meetings, help strategize, and act as the right hand to the CEO. They problem solve and manage direct reports, often shielding the CEO from direct involvement with issues that arise. The C-level support ensures day to day operations run smoothly and leadership remains organized, strategic, and productive.

Trends in Executive Support

Five years ago, these types of support roles were not being recruited for very much. Recently that has changed. These are not run of the mill executive assistants. Salaries for these roles range from $200,000 to $500,000. In this high-tech environment, the number of millionaires and ultra-high net worth individuals has exploded. C-level support professionals usually need advanced business and administrative degrees. Some even have Doctor of Jurisprudence degrees.

Business Experience

Support staff at this level also need a high degree of experience. Often this business experience comes from serving as an executive assistant and then growing into more operational roles. Most executive assistants at the C-level also have some legal background and understand business operations. These professionals may have worked as personal estate managers, director of operations, paralegals, or attorneys. Sometimes, executive support staff grew up in the world of high-profile executives and have established connections within this dynamic and high-stakes field.

Recruiting Top Support Professionals

In the past, people didn’t actively recruit for C-level support roles. But now as the number of high-profile millionaires has increased, executive support roles have become more important than ever. When hiring for C-level support positions, seek out professionals with extensive educational, professional, and operational experience, as well as a sense of confidentiality. A recruiter steeped in this world can help you find C-level support staff who fit well with the company’s culture, operational requirements, and the executive.

February 5, 2020

How to Create a Perpetual Prime of Life

By Angelica RainsHiring Strategies, Leadership, Training

As recruiters, we ask candidates a powerful question which typically elicits immediate pause, reflection, and authenticity in the answer. It is a question that catches most off guard, creates a feeling of nostalgia, and sometimes even prompts a smile. “At what point in your career did you feel most fulfilled? When did you feel you were truly in your prime, or at your best?” Unfortunately, more common than not, the answer is a story of the past. This creates a dual-sided dilemma; how do we expect others to be inspired by our vision and actions if we ourselves are not inspired by them? How do we create a perpetual prime of life for ourselves and for those we lead?

Perpetual Prime: Yourself

A commonly cited quote (original author contested) reminds us that “it’s never too late to be what you might have been.” It might help to know that celebrity chef Julia Child worked in advertising for the majority of her life and did not release her first cookbook until age 50. Legendary comic creator Stan Lee did not create his first comic until he was 39. Colonel Sanders of KFC fame did not start franchising his company until the age of 62. The individual responsible for inventing instant ramen noodles did not do so until he was nearly 50. However, this is not an article about the possibilities of succeeding later in life. It is about how to take the environment of previous success and push yourself to stay in it, year in and year out.

The best place to start is by learning from the past. What is your answer to the question above? When have you felt truly in your prime, and what circumstances were in play at that time?

Commonly, the following four statements are generally the answers we hear most often as recruiters:
I had a team around me and we were all rowing together, hard, to achieve a goal we all believed in.
I was busy, maybe even overwhelmed, but overwhelmed doing meaningful work.
I was tasked with a challenge and given autonomy but support to solve that problem.
I was surrounded by a team or a leader who pushed me to be more, learn more, take on more and grow more.

Sound familiar? You might identify with some or all of those experiences, whether they are in the past or in the present. The remaining question is “what changed?”

As leaders, we are in a position of power – a position to recreate the very circumstances that once made us feel we were the zone or at our best. We have the ability to take control of the variables that put us in those situations and control of the variables that detract.

Consider instead:

What is our collective vision, and what can be done to make it a more purposeful goal?
What mundane tasks should be outsourced, freeing up time for the most fulfilling and highest gain daily activities as a leader?
What can you do to create an ongoing learning environment with new challenges to overcome?
Are you surrounded by the best, both peer-level and those on your team? If not, what changes need to be made?

It is normal to find yourself entrenched in the day to day routine of work, family, and life. Many people go through the day on autopilot of knowing what is expected and performing to that expectation. It is not necessarily easy or comfortable to take the time to answer the questions posted in this article and start to understand true aspirations, motivations, and desires. It is certainly not comfortable to initiate change and uproot unproductive teams or face the reality of uninspiring objectives, but it is necessary in order to create an environment in which everyone feels at their best.

Perpetual Prime: Your Team

Being a leader can often times feel like being a parent, where every word is heard and every action is emulated. That leads us to another question: who was the best boss you ever had? Most answers include things such as “he/she had a vision and could articulate where we were going and how we would get there” or “their impact was felt daily as they worked tirelessly towards our goal” or “he/she put me in a position to succeed and I felt there was a strong belief in my abilities and potential.” Sound familiar? Although we are all different, we are also often alike. Creating a professional environment in which your team feels they are all in their prime takes work, but it is not a unique challenge.

In fact, someone once felt it with you; think about it! The best boss you ever had took responsibility for inspiring you, for making you feel heard, and for believing in you at times more than you believed in yourself. As leaders, we owe it to those who have put their careers in our hands, and the formula exists for what to do. It has been done for you already in the past. In fact, Google has even made leadership a replicable quality! Google’s people analytics team started by researching the qualities that make managers great at Google and then built a training program that teaches those exact qualities. Once the program has been completed, Google measures the behaviors of the leaders to ensure that they’re making improvements and morphing into managers that Googlers want to work for.

We don’t need to make it as complex as Google has. Start with becoming the boss you most admired and recreating the circumstances that used to make you feel you were in your zone. So goes the leader, so goes the team; once you feel you are in a perpetual prime of life, you will be surprised by how many others follow.

January 8, 2020

Retention Tips: How to Retain Your Best Talent for the Long Term

By Angelica RainsExecutive Assistant, Hiring Strategies, Leadership

Retaining your best employees is an essential strategy in growing your business. Poor retention drives up an organization’s costs and can negatively impact the team’s morale and confidence. Here are some retention tips to help retain your best talent for the long term.

Overcommunicate Expectations and Details

One of the main reasons new employees quit is because the job isn’t what they expected. Throughout the hiring and onboarding processes, overcommunicate expectations and other important details. New hires should know exactly what to expect when it comes to their job responsibilities and the company culture. Also clarify what their priorities need to be in order to succeed in the role.

Establish What it Takes to Accomplish Their Goals

Employees need to know what to do in their position that will allow them to accomplish their daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly goals within the company. Often, employees leave because they don’t see how they are contributing to the company in a meaningful way. Instead of putting out fires, they need to know they have a purpose. Part of your job is to communicate to employees clearly and consistently how the role will allow them to contribute to the company. If you make that clear from the start, then they will have a much greater chance of reaching (and exceeding) those goals and feeling the sense of accomplishment that comes along with that success.

Set Employees up for Success, Not Failure

To ensure that new hires are happy at the company, set them up for success from the beginning. During the onboarding process, help new hires understand what challenges they will face in their new job, and provide them with the appropriate resources, such as a mentor, to overcome these challenges. You also want to give them tools to learn about the company and their role as quickly as possible. Finally, you want to provide new hires with opportunities to socialize with their peers so they can start to feel like part of the team right away.

Give New Hires Time to Train and Attend Regular Meetings

The most common complaint that new hires have is that they don’t feel like they have adequate time for training and meetings. New hires need the appropriate amount of time to train and attend meetings so they can learn their role and learn what they need to about the company and its culture. Otherwise, they might not figure out how to perform their job fast enough, become overwhelmed, and leave.

Have a System Place

With the above in mind, you have a system in place for training new hires and providing them with the onboarding they need to succeed. You might also want to incorporate a mentorship program to help accelerate the learning process and help make the new hire feel more comfortable.

Retention is essential for a successful business. You need your best employees to stay loyal to the organization so you’re not wasting time and money constantly searching for talent. To improve retention, make sure expectations are clear, establish how the role will help them accomplish their goals, provide them with the tools and resources they need to succeed, and give them sufficient time to train.

January 1, 2020