Jenn Steele
Posts by Jenn Steele:
The Best Websites to Use for Continuous Learning and Up-skilling
Explore the best websites for employers to utilize for continuous learning and skilling initiatives, including resources for technical training, leadership development, and industry-specific knowledge.
Why You Should Consider Adding a Rooftop Garden to Your Business
Did you know that a rooftop garden can actually benefit both your and your employees' mental state and therefore increase productivity in your business?
Your Thanksgiving Recipe for Great Recruitment
We dug out our “family recipe” for great recruitment. So let’s sit down at the dining room table, try not to break grandma’s china, and dig right in!
Top 50 Female Front-End Engineers In San Francisco
The low representation of women in the tech sector has been one of the biggest issues of 2015. It’s a huge, important issue with a range of contributing factors. Companies of all sizes are under pressure to increase diversity in their teams. Particularly in their tech teams. But how can they go about doing this? […]
10 Unconventional Tips For Employee Motivation
Every workplace and team member is different, but these unconventional ideas for employee motivation are definitely worth considering.
How to Respond to Employees in Exit Interviews: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
Have you ever been caught off guard by a surly employee in an exit interview? Or have you been unable to extract any helpful information because the person got stuck on the first question and wouldn't stop talking about it? Beginning an exit interview is like a box of chocolates; you never know what sort of employee you’re gonna get.
How to Write an Appealing Job Ad to Attract Professional Freelancers
Follow these simple rules to ensure that your company gets exactly what it is looking for when it comes to attracting professional freelancers.
We have a lot of struggles as hiring managers, and evaluating resources is pretty high on the "difficult" list. Specifically, it's tough to figure out how well your recruiter is performing until you make a hire. To make it a bit easier for you, we've put together 5 really clear signs that your recruiter, well, sucks.
7 Tips For Keeping Employees on Their Feet at Work
Getting your employees moving is the best thing you can do to improve their wellbeing. Here are 7 useful tips to help you cultivate a healthier office mentality and make your employees more active.
7 Safeguarding Procedures for HR Managers
Do you find safeguarding procedures intimidating? Perhaps you’re uncertain of the full scale of safeguarding legislation? Safeguarding issues can certainly be complex, and newcomers to HR management are often intimidated by the need to satisfy both company policy and the requirements of the law. Thankfully, there are surprisingly few legal provisions that you need to […]
5 Ways to Create a Perfect Workplace to Boost Employee Productivity
The average person spends 8.8 hours daily at work. Here's a list of tips on how to organise the perfect workplace to boost employee productivity.
7 Undeniable Reasons to Encourage Fitness in the Workplace
Are you noticing that your employees are becoming more and more lethargic every passing day? Are they getting bigger and heavier? Do you need to boost productivity in the workplace? Then perhaps it is time to encourage your employees to be more active. In today’s highly competitive business environment, corporate leaders are focusing on cutting […]
9 Data Protection Tips for Recruiters
All recruiters should be aware of any pieces of data protection legislation. This post contains various data protection tips for recruiters. A must read.
6 Reasons Why Workplace Group Activities Will Keep A Business Thriving
Workplace group activities can help when it comes to building team motivation and encouraging employees to strive and work harder while maintaining a common goal and objective in mind.
Get Candidates to Apply – Think Like an Online Marketer
Chances are, you spent so much time figuring out the perfect job description and title and skipped over the part where you told applicants what to do. It's time to take a focused look at calls to action on job ads.
How Bad HR Can Destroy Your Company
HR plays a critical role in the development of every company. Just as great HR can take your company to the next level, bad HR can destroy it. In this piece, Eugene Eaton analyzes some of the ways bad HR can be detrimental to your business.
5 Reasons Why a Clean Workplace is Good for Business
A clean workplace signifies a level of professionalism and tells potential customers that you care about your brand as well as your employees.
7 Ways to Reduce Employee Attrition
Employee attrition is never good for a business. If you are at a loss on how to stop your employees from leaving, here are a few great tips.
The Dos and Don’ts of Personality Testing
Personality testing was all the rage, oh, about 5 years ago. While the trendiness has worn off a bit (does that mean it’s hipster now?), personality tests can still give you an insight into how someone might behave (especially under stress). This can help you figure out whether they are naturally inclined for the specifics of your open role.
3 Recruiting Lessons Learned from Hiring Tele-Sales Reps
Hiring the right sales people is never easy. We’re always trying to strike the right balance between skills, experience and fit. Below are three recruiting lessons learned from our guest blogger, an experienced sales and marketing professional.
How to Build an Employee Referral Plan That Works
Employee referrals are an excellent way for a company to save on costs and build a strong internal culture. In this blog post, our author lists five ways to build an effective referral program.
5 Ways to Encourage IT Specialists to Work Effectively
IT professionals play a critical role in organizations of all sizes. In this post, our author explains why IT pros may feel differently in their feelings toward motivation and job satisfaction (at least compared with other employees,) and how to inspire them to work effectively.
Promoting Diversity: Why the Videogames Industry is a Microcosm of the Problem
If you’ve ever considered how the gaming industry could better promote the need for more diversity in the workplace, then this post is for you! Here, our author explains why the games industry is emblematic of a problem that exists across a variety of industries and businesses.
The Toxic Culture Crackdown: Hiring Employees Who Whisper Less, Work More
Every organization has experienced hiring an employee that is a drag on other employees and your company culture. In this post, our author describes why it is important to check on a potential or current employee’s compatibility with your organisation, and outlines strategies to test for this.
9 Quirky Corporate Event Ideas That Your Team Will Love
While there’s no harm in simply heading out to a bar or restaurant with your team, sometimes it’s a good idea to go the extra mile and do something fun or quirky as a team building exercise. Here are some quirky corporate event ideas that your team will love.
5 Reasons Why Your Business Ends Up with the Wrong Employees
Do you often wonder why some hires work well, and others don't? In this post, our guest author suggests some reasons why you may find yourself struggling to find the right candidate and proposes helpful ways to fix the problem!
5 Tips For Hiring Your First Employee
Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Jackie Olling – Content Manager with LawPath. Her opinions are her own. So you’ve started a business and it’s grown to the point where you need to hire other people to help you run it and grow it further. Being successful up to that point is always exciting […]
5 Reasons Why Businesses Should Be More Engaged With New Hires
Workforce engagement is fundamental to the success of any organization, as it increases productivity, reduces turnover and improves the overall culture of a company. As such, engagement strategies have become the staple of a desirable workplace, putting companies under increasing competitive pressure to continuously improve these efforts. New hire engagement is a distinct category of […]
4 Ways The Gig Economy Will Change Talent Acquisition Strategies
Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Gigi Wara. Her opinions are her own. According to Fast Company, the first official Human Resources department was instituted more than a century ago in 1901. The reason: employees at NCR (the National Cash Register Company) went on strike, and the company owners didn’t want it to happen a […]
4 Ways to Prevent Team Burnout
If you are craving clever, easy-to-implement methods for tackling potential team burnout, and thus improve your overall productivity, here are a few tried and tested strategies that will keep your employees motivated.
9 Things You need to do to Retain Your Top Employees
Workplace ‘loyalty’ does not carry the same importance as it used to. Here are 10 tips to help you tempt your top performers to stay and keep on delivering what they do best.
4 Ways a Virtual Assistant Can Help Your Business
If you are feeling overwhelmed and you're thinking about hiring a virtual assistant, here are a few ways they can help you out.
5 Best Practices For Onboarding Remote Employees
Below are 5 best practices that, when designed and implemented thoughtfully, deliver optimal results for onboarding remote employees.
What to expect in 2027? Predicting the Future of Recruitment
It is often widely accepted that the sphere of recruiting is more about the human element than it is about technology. Do you agree? What will recruitment look like in 5 or 10 years?
3 Millennial Trends All Employers Need to Know
The time of the millennial has come. For this reason, today more and more employers are urged to start following these new business trends and adapt accordingly.
Meet Heather Larkin: RecruitLoop Recruiter In Greenville, South Carolina
We decided to catch up with Heather Larkin one of our awesome new recruiters from Greenville, South Carolina.
The Link Between Employee Engagement and Customer Loyalty
Believe it or not there is a strong correlation between how happy and engaged your workforce is with the level customer loyalty and client satisfaction.
How Social Media Can Become Your Recruiting Weapon
Apparently 50% of employers who use social media recruiting strategies find an issue on a profile that influences them to reject a candidate. Where would you fit on the spectrum?
5 Unspoken Responsibilties of HR Professionals
Check out these 5 unspoken responsibilities you may not have known are handled by HR.
Recruiter Tips: 3 Things to Include in a Winning Proposal
Recruiters often ask us for advice on what to include in a winning proposal, so here are three tips for how to make your next proposal world-class.
If you realize that every disaster at work – big or small – has four basic components, you can approach things more methodically and with less immediate panic.
Finding Candidates on Google: Picking Which Keywords to Use
Google can be an excellent tool for folks who know how to construct the right search. It all comes down to finding the right keywords and creating a search that leads you to the right candidate.
I have a confession to make: I LOVE practical jokes. At least, I love them in the office (my brothers might read this and I don't want to give them any ideas!). No matter how formal your work environment, practical jokes have a surprising amount to add to office culture.
The True Cost Of Hiring A New Employee [Infographic]
How much is hiring really costing you? What you're spending depends heavily on whether you're doing it yourself or depending on a recruiter. We did the research & ran the numbers, and it turns out that hiring can get EXPENSIVE! Whether you're spending a ton of time (that you should be spending on revenue-generating activities) or a ton of money, it's costly.
How to Use Boolean Search to Find Top Talent on Google
Companies can (and should!) use Google do the detective work to find top talent. We’re not saying you should use this instead of LinkedIn, GitHub, or a good recruiter. But skipping the power of the top search engine when you’re looking for candidates would be a big mistake.
5 Ways to Create an Attractive Company Culture
According to a study recently done at Software Advice, job seekers prefer an honest and transparent company culture. What does that mean if you're trying to recruit top talent?
Target Job Ads to the Right Candidates – Think Like an Online Marketer
If you've got open positions in your company, start thinking like a marketer. Your job ads are just that -- advertisements.
Get Your Job Ad Message Across – Think Like an Online Marketer
Here's a secret for you: stop behaving like a job recruiter. Stop thinking that you can post an ad online and your work is done, because it isn't.
End of Summer & Back to School – What’s the Impact?
With the end of Labor Day weekend in the US and Canada, many of us in the Northern Hemisphere are saying good-bye to the lazy days of summer and hello to a new school year. If you have kids (or remember being one), you know this can be a stressful time of year because of a huge amount of change.
Attract Candidates to Job Ads – Think Like an Online Marketer
The most perfectly crafted job ad is completely useless if the job seeker either can't find the ad, or the title isn't interesting enough for him/her to click on it. Take a close look at your job ad title and put your marketer glasses on in order to make it shine.
Get Your Jobs Found – Think Like an Online Marketer
By continuing to engage in ongoing SEO best practices, future job postings will benefit from a historically strong search engine ranking and incoming applications should continue to improve over time.
Is Your Recruiter Clueless? Are You Causing It?
Are you working with a clueless recruiter? Or are you inadvertently making your recruiter look clueless? Here are some signs that you’re either working with—or causing—stupidity.
How to Be a Great Boss: 7 Tips
Some bosses are truly great. Others are more like broken analog watches - right twice a day, but horribly wrong the rest of the time. Here are seven tips to help you become a great boss.
How to Interview a Salesperson & Avoid the Hot Air
Salespeople can really talk the talk. That’s good. That’s what they’re supposed to do. If you’re not careful though, their natural ability to talk anyone into what they want can lead to their taking over the interview… sometimes without you, the interviewer, even realizing it.
Here are six valuable lessons that I learned from my experiences as a new manager
InfluenceHR: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Last week, our CEO and I went to InfluenceHR in San Francisco. Michael participated in a panel on "How Emerging Companies and Products Are Disrupting the HCM Sales and Marketing Status Quo", and I attended courtesy of Influitive, the advocate marketing experts (and many thanks to them!). There's already been an excellent recap posted, so we'll just talk about our experience there and the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Firing Employees: Top 5 Lessons
Previously, Greg Weiss guest posted about "Why Treating Departing Employees Well is Smart Business". Then our own Paul Slezak told some really wacky tales in "8 of My Most Bizarre ‘Firing’ Stories". Today we'll finish our series on this uncomfortable topic with my top 5 lessons learned about firing employees.
Become the Company People Want to Work For
Love isn’t just reserved for the Big Guys doing New Things, though. Every company has the potential to make employees feel this way. What is it that companies who are loved by their employees do differently?
When you first become a hiring manager, you assume that things will be pretty simple. Sure, you might have to coach a recent college grad on the finer points of not partying all night and getting in on time, but otherwise, you figure that most folks know how to operate in a business environment. Yeah, not so much.
Why Is Startup Hiring So Damn Hard?
It seems like every company in technology is trying to hire for developers, sales, and marketing right now. Each sales candidate I've been talking to has multiple offers to consider, which makes it tough to find the right fit on a seed-stage startup budget.
Is Your Recruiter Elastic? 4 Questions You Must Ask
While it might be fun, we don't mean that your recruiter could look like Elastigirl or Mr. Fantastic here (although that would be awesome). We're wondering whether your recruiter is stretching with your needs.
At some of my companies we justified paying recruiters exorbitant fees because we didn’t have time to do it ourselves. I worked at other companies where we had to make the opposite trade – we put in egregious numbers of hours because we couldn’t afford exorbitant fees. Does this feel broken to anyone else?
How to Stalk Candidates Online so They’ll Never Find Out – Or Will (if you want!)
Whether a candidate has been savvy enough to manage their online reputation is only the basic thing a quick stalk online will tell you about a potential future employee. You could also find out their interests, tone of voice and other people’s opinions about them outside of a work setting.
4 Things the WhatsApp Acquisition Teaches Us about Treating Candidates
What we find interesting in this isn't necessarily the $19 billion or the rejection itself. We are more interested in what this might teach us about how to treat candidates. Here are our four big takeaways:
How Art Can Help Lift the Lid on Your Business
Do you have an aspiring Da Vinci, Dali, or Monet in your team? Incorporating art practices such as painting and drawing into corporate training and development programs can actually help expand your business and motivate your staff.
9 Ways to Avoid a One-Night Stand (With Your Recruiter)
While it’s probably not something we boast about, one-night stands with recruiters happen more often than we’d like to admit. You need a fast hire, you canvas the scene for who can jump in and help you, make a quick decision in the haze of the moment and then once it’s all done and dusted you realize… this isn’t the Recruiter for you.
7 Rules for Phone Use in Hiring
Just this week, a friend of mine sent me an email about a recruiter who made just about every phone mistake possible - including hanging up on him! So I figured I'd draft a few rules to use - both in hiring and in general.
How to Hold on to Your Best People in 2014
Research shows that 46% of people are in a role that is not ideal, and at this time of year, many have come back to work with the idea that they are going to make a change. What can you do to prevent a mass exodus?
Why Are You Such a Scaredy Cat About Approaching Candidates?
You’ve met the perfect employee after months of looking! There’s just one problem: They don’t know they want to work for you yet. So now you’re a big, puddly mess of wishing they would just come and work for you right this instance. The thought of picking up the phone or sending them an introductory email makes you more nervous than a cat on a deflating pool toy. Here's what to do.
Awful job ads are not only a complete waste of money, they can also be damaging to your employer brand. In the race for the top candidates, a great job ad can mean the difference between finding who you are looking for and… not.
9 Ways to Burn Bridges with Future Candidates
Congratulations on finding the perfect person for your role! Now, what are you going to do with all those resumes that you no longer need?Here’s some advice: Burn them.
5 Ways Recruiters Have Pissed Me Off
I’ve worked with some recruiters from both sides of the desk – both as a candidate and as a hiring manager. Some of them I still have relationships with (even though they’re in Boston and I’m in San Francisco), but others… well, shall we say that they might have wished they hadn’t encountered me?
How To Fail at Hiring (Even with a Great Recruiter!)
You can be scoring a failing hiring grade and still do just enough to fill positions. It just takes a lot longer to fill them, and you’re probably missing the best candidates. If you’re really failing, your hires probably aren’t working out very well, either.
9 Ways Not To Look Like a Clueless Hiring Manager
You may think you can fudge it by simply asking routine questions, but the candidate knows and it will become apparent further down the track. It is crucial you have a clear idea of what it takes to be successful for the roles you are hiring for.
Why I Love Hiring Working Mothers
I love hiring, managing, and being on teams with working mothers. I've managed teams for most of my career, and I can truly say that some of the very best employees I've ever had were working mothers.
How To Handle Awkward Interview Moments
When you’re sitting across from a candidate (or on the phone with one), pretty much anything can happen. Candidates are usually nervous, and not all of them think well on their feet. Here are some tips on how to handle these moments gracefully and put the candidate at ease after something unexpected happens.
How Do You Feel When You Have Too Much To Do?
When you have too much to do, it's easy to become overwhelmed and stressed. Your productivity slows right down. Your focus and energy are spread too thin. Nothing gets done properly. Can you relate?
Can You Be Like the Boston Red Sox?
Can you guarantee a turnaround with a new team? Nope. The Red Sox hired many new managers in its history, and very few (just one) moved them from a nearly record-breaking losing season to the world series champion. But get the right people in their roles and give them some faith and support, and they might just surprise you.
4 Reasons to Love Working with Recruiters
Good recruiters MUST have fantastic people skills, or, well, they won’t be good recruiters. So you shouldn’t hate your recruiter - you should love him or her. You should like your recruiter enough to want to take his or her calls, right?
The 7 Biggest Mistakes I Made as a Hiring Manager
Earlier this week, we posted a list of Paul’s top 10 stuff-ups (in American - screw-ups :)) he made as a recruiter. Since turnabout is fair play, Jenn decided to post her own list of massive errors - from the hiring manager end. While there may be fewer, they’re no less cringe-inducing!
Are You Really Willing to Lose Customers to Your Competitors?
Fact: Online consumer research prior to purchase has now risen to between 80-97%. The balance of power has shifted to the buyer. The moment you or your salesforce step into 'Hunter' mode, your potential customer becomes your 'Prey' and you will lose the sale.
Managing For Change: Why Younger Bosses Need Educating Too!
The traditional hierarchy of an organisation is changing. Where previously age often determined seniority, for the first time we are seeing an emerging trend where older workers are now reporting to younger managers. How could this disrupt the harmony in your workplace?
How Much Is One Hour of Your Time Really Worth?
Being productive has nothing to do with being busy. It’s about doing the right things effectively. Your time is precious so manage it wisely. It's time to reflect on the real value of one hour of your time.
7 Ways to Piss Off A Candidate
If you piss off a candidate it can have a domino-like effect. Don’t destroy your employer brand with these easy-to-avoid mistakes.
Important Information For All Australian Employers
It’s that time of the year again when employers need to ensure they are up to date with the latest rates and threshold increases in the Fair Work Act and related legislation that came into effect from the 1st of July, 2013.
X + Y + BB = The New Workforce
Organisations chooing to embrace an age diverse workforce will be rewarded with lower employee turnover, more engaged and motivated workers, a sustainable talent pipeline and effective knowledge management.
How to Turn Your Speaking Anxiety Into Runaway Success
According to most studies, people’s number one fear is public speaking. Death is number two. So to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy! For anyone needing to address a group of any size, here are some tips to help you become a budding speaker.
Sales Enablement – It May Not Be What You Think!
Before you think about spending money on a sales training course to help your sales team close more business, remember that in one way or another, every person in your business is in sales whether they like it or not - not just your sales people.
We’ve Cracked the Code on Top Team Performance
People may well be the most valuable asset to any business. But they are also the most difficult part of a business to run. Whilst there is no magic user manual, there are a few practical secrets that can really make a difference to the overall performance of your business.
How to be Pitch Perfect Even if You’re Tone Deaf
Think of it like this; your elevator pitch needs to be a rehearsed performance appearing unrehearsed. Not an unrehearsed performance trying to appear like you ‘kinda know’ what you’re talking about.
How Well Do You Articulate What You Do?
As established business owners, startup founders or experienced entrepreneurs we’re often called upon to give some kind of version of an elevator pitch – a punchy précis of what we do, who we do it for, and why we do it. So why do we often find it so challenging?
How To Attract The New Breed Of Job Hunter With Your Job Ad
30% of all job applications are made from mobile devices, with many job hunters browsing job boards on their way to work. Posting an online ad forms the basis of your recruitment campaign so it’s definitely worth planning your strategy carefully.
Is This Redundancy or Just ‘Failure to Manage’?
In order to avoid an unfair dismissal or adverse action claim, you need to understand that a true redundancy occurs when there is no longer a need for a certain type of work. It’s about the job - not about the individual team member.
Job titles are a sensitive issue for candidates, for HR, and for hiring managers. Employers need to ensure they don’t woo candidates based solely on an eye-catching job title. Will the actual job measure up to what you are really offering them?
2013: The Year of the Mature Worker
If 2013 is the Year of the Snake according to the Chinese zodiac, then 2013 should be the year of the mature age jobseeker on the HR calendar.
How to Promote Your Employer Brand to the Boomers
As we close out 2012, now is the time to review your current recruitment strategy and ask yourself if you are doing enough to attract all segments of the community.
Are Executive Restraint Clauses Really Enforceable?
Restraint and non-compete clauses can be a useful tool in managing employees' actions once they move on, whatever the circumstances surrounding their departure.
Six Tips to Turn Your Talent Management Programme Into a Talent Magnet
A solid talent management practice is a valuable asset in the war for talent with satisfied staff promoting your organisation as an employer of choice.
Become a thought leader to attract the best talent
Imagine you had a choice of working for two almost identical companies. Both do similar work. They’re offering comparable money. But there’s a critical difference: one is led by a figure regarded as a top expert in your field. The other by a faceless senior manager: someone competent and respected, but essentially unknown.