A survey by the Associated Press found that over half of recent college graduates (53.6 percent) are either unemployed or underemployed. How can you help your college-aged son or daughter avoid that fate?
Give them Peter Weddle’s new guide, The Career Fitness Workbook. It’s available at Amazon.com.
The book has a number of special features:
The Career Fitness Workbook is available at Amazon.com.
Renewable Recruiting Excellence
Sourcing and recruiting are hard work. At least, if they’re done right, they are. And hard work performed without let-up or recuperation time has serious repercussions. It wears you out, saps your productivity and drains your creativity. In short, unrelenting hard work sets you up for failure.
As anybody with more than fifteen minutes of experience knows, there is too much work for too few hands in today’s workplace. Whether it’s called “doing more with less” or “a strategy to improve productivity,” the end result is the same. Every recruiter is drowning in a tsunami of unending requirements, deadlines and pressure.
This environment is a threat to recruiters’ well being and their careers. They enjoy their work, so they should come home exhausted but fulfilled by their accomplishments. Today, however, exactly the opposite is happening. More and more recruiters feel exhausted before they even get to work. They are depleted of energy and thus unable to perform at their peak.
Consider some of the data presented in a recent article in The New York Times, entitled “Relax! You’ll be More Productive.”
This situation is simply unsustainable, at least if the goal is to have sourcers and recruiters do their best work on-the-job. Which begs the question: how do you establish a strategy for renewable recruiting excellence?
What the Research Shows
According to that article in the Times, we humans need to be reinvigorated in at least two different ways. One, of course, is periodic breaks that last more than a day or two. Those breaks are called “vacations,” but they live up to that name only if one is able to vacate the premises, both literally and virtually.
No less important, however, is the surprising conclusion by a growing body of multidisciplinary research. It discovered that we humans have a finite capacity for excellence that is measured in much shorter increments. We need to pause and stop what we’re doing every 90 minutes if we want to deliver peak productivity and performance on-the-job.
These breaks need not be lengthy – 20-30 minutes is sufficient – must they must be filled with recuperative activity. For example, if a person breaks to fight with their spouse or talk to a teacher about a problem their child is having at school, they might as well keep working. The stress or anxiety of the pause will wear them down just as much as a meeting with an obtuse hiring manager.
What kinds of activities provide genuine recuperation? Naps, of course, can do the trick, which is why more and more employers are actually setting aside special rooms for employees to catch a couple of winks. And, at the other end of the spectrum, a physical interlude – a walk or brief work-out – can also clear the mind and help recharge a person’s batteries.
While employers should take the lead on introducing renewable recruiting excellence – after all, they’re the ones that benefit from the higher levels of productivity and performance it produces – sources and recruiters will probably have to get it done on their own. Thankfully, there’s plenty of research with which to make the case, but why go to all that trouble? What’s in it for them?
The ultimate beneficiaries of renewable recruiting excellence are sources and recruiters themselves. Their health improves. Their enthusiasm is replenished. And their capacity to do their best work is restored. In today’s economy, those attributes pay a double dividend: they increase both the respect and the satisfaction a person brings home from work.
Thanks for reading,
Peter
Visit me at Weddles.com
Be At Your Best With the Best Tools
The best recruiters use the best resources to get the job done. And, when it comes to reaching top talent online, their choice is clear. It’s WEDDLE’s Guides for Recruiting Success. Get yours today!
WEDDLE’s 2011/12 Guide to Employment Sites on the Internet. This is the 10th edition of the Guide the American Staffing Association called the “Zagat” of job boards and social media sites.
WEDDLE’s Guide to Association Web Sites. This book details the recruiting resources and capabilities that are available at the Web-sites of over 3,000 professional and technical associations.
Finding Needles in a Haystack. This one-of-a-kind guide lists over 25,000 keywords and keyword phrases, across 5,400 job and position titles in 28 industries and professions.
Outside-the-Box Training Sessions
WEDDLE’s is pleased to offer a number of uniquely insightful and practical training programs for corporate and staffing firm recruiting teams. The courses can be tailored to your specific industry or career field focus and delivered onsite at your facility or via Webinar.
The programs include:
For more information about each program and its cost, please contact Peter Weddle at 203-964-1888 or peter@weddles.com.
Sourcing Your Own Career Success
As recruiters and HR professionals, we spend 33 percent of our day (or more) on-the-job and 100 percent of our job helping others to achieve career success.
Don’t our own careers deserve equal attention? Absolutely! And the one best way to do that is by sourcing career success with WEDDLE’s books. They include:
A Multitude of Hope: A Novel About Rediscovering the American Dream. This modern-day epic traces the journeys of three out-of-work professionals searching for answers in today’s seemingly nonsensical job market. Along the way, they discover the secret to “career security” and the pathway to real and lasting success.
The Career Fitness Workbook. This self-paced instructional guide introduces a complete regimen of activities that will help you successfully compete for and hang onto the job of your dreams. Think of it as “the habits of highly effective career activists.”
Recognizing Richard Rabbit. This fable for adults will entertain and delight you and help you out of the boxes that keep you from becoming the champion inside you. It is a novel and engaging way to recognize the talented person you are meant to be.
The Career Activist Republic. This blockbuster of a book provides a provocative yet positive assessment of the changing world of work in the American economy and describes an innovative strategy that will enable you to avoid the pitfalls and capture the opportunities in this new environment.
The Success Matrix: Wisdom from the Web on How to Get Hired and Not Be Fired. This anthology collects the best of Peter Weddle’s columns on job search and career success. It is the only book you’ll find that provides a candid and totally up-to-date look at how to get and stay ahead in today’s workplace.
In addition, read Peter Weddle’s WorkStrong blog for Career Activists. It’s a quick and easy way to stay on top of all of changes underway in today’s workplace and, best of all, it’s delivered right to your e-mailbox. Just click here to register.