Jobs
How to prove you are a valuable employee
Posted by admin on February 23, 2010 in Jobs
Value is generally a subjective concept. What may be worth something for one person may mean relatively less to another. In the workplace, it is especially hard to prove value unless you are a salesperson, judged solely by how much money you can bring into the business, or recover money, measured by how much money [...]
3 tips to set yourself apart from other job seekers
Posted by admin on February 9, 2010 in Jobs
Job seeking is not unlike other aspects of life. It is the small things that count. As someone who hires, a pool of job applicants can be classified into three broad categories: definitely interview, maybe interview and just not a good fit. In the “definitely interview” pool, in most cases, the difference between the job [...]
Questions you should ask in a job interview
Posted by admin on January 26, 2010 in Jobs
One of my goals this year is to be a better employer. I have had a lot of conversations with people who recruit or hire more employees than I do about this issue. I can boil their advice down to the following: find employees who are good fits first and foremost rather than looking for [...]
Using your references to get a job
Posted by admin on December 3, 2009 in Jobs
With the job market being competitive, potential employers are finding ways to differentiate between the numerous good candidates seeking a job. Although some employers have traditionally not called references in good times, reference checks are often used in bad times to help make critical job hiring decisions. Employers in down times have less resources to [...]
Job hiring tales from the trenches
Posted by admin on November 19, 2009 in Jobs
I have had to hire a lot recently. This is not because I have a ton of jobs that need to be filled. Instead, I am replacing employees who do not make it past probation (a future post altogether once I have some time to digest what each side did wrong) or departing employees. It [...]
Do I have rights as an employee when my company goes bankrupt?
Posted by admin on October 15, 2009 in Jobs
The effective unemployment rate (those out of work and those who have stopped looking for work) is, in some regions, in double digits. No doubt, some of this unemployment is due to businesses being petitioned or assigned into bankruptcy or receivership (typically, a receiver is a person placed in custodianship of a business to, often, [...]
What are some practical job skills I need to learn?
Posted by admin on September 8, 2009 in Jobs
In the last 4 years, I have hired 4 employees either straight out of university or within one year of graduating university. The common theme among all 4 of them were they were bright and energetic employees. However, it soon became apparent in 3 of the 4 employees that they were computer literate but without [...]
How to be a better employee
Posted by admin on July 30, 2009 in Jobs
The interesting thing about hiring new employees, such as my situation, is that you have to re-emphasis what you are looking for in your new hires. As an employer, you tend to take for granted certain things about long-standing employees. For younger workers, there is a dual challenge of figuring out how to make yourself [...]
Job Interviewing: do’s and don’ts
Posted by admin on July 14, 2009 in Jobs
One of my staff quit to go back to school and I had to hire a replacement recently. I ended up interviewing several qualified candidates but I always learn something new about interviewing and myself each time I interview (as I have candidly admitted in the past, I am not a good interviewer). In no [...]
Can your employer force you to take vacation?
Posted by admin on June 16, 2009 in Jobs
With the summer right around the corner, some employers are thinking of shutting down their businesses and going dark since it is a slower season. A reader in a such a situation was given the choice of either taking leave without pay or being forced to take a vacation (I understand that this is a [...]
