8 Mistakes Leaders Make on Their LinkedIn Profiles

8 Mistakes Leaders Make on Their LinkedIn Profiles When was the last time you were contacted by a recruiter because they found you on  LinkedIn?  If your answer is “never”, or “more than 6 months ago”, it’s likely your LinkedIn strategy  (or lack thereof) is hurting your job search. At the senior manager and executive level, recruiters and headhunters actively search  for top talent, relying less on advertising and more on their own elbow grease to  generate a pool of appropriate candidates. More than once, I’ve found that the candidates I sourced myself were of a higher calibre  than those who passively submitted their resume, and so as a recruiter, I tended to  allocate my time accordingly; I would spend the most hours on ‘active search,’ using  internal databases and tools like Boolean searches, LinkedIn, and other social media to  identify and reach out to top prospects. If recruiters aren’t contacting you, it’s likely because your  digital presence isn’t working  for you, with LinkedIn forming a significant piece of that puzzle. Here are 8 clues your  LinkedIn profile may be ruining your job search, and how to rethink it. 1. Your LinkedIn profile IS your resume. Other than not having a LinkedIn profile, this is probably the biggest mistake I see job  seekers make.  I completely understand the temptation: you’ve just spent hours crafting the perfect resume, why not parlay it into an online presence  with a simple copy and paste, right? Wrong. It’s important to resist this temptation for a few reasons. To start with, your LinkedIn  profile and your resume have different audiences, with both groups requiring carefully  tailored, but different, messages. Beyond that, however, you’re missing a valuable opportunity to let your personality  shine through. LinkedIn is less formal than a resume, and it’s perfectly appropriate â€"  desirable even â€" to offer more insight into who you are and what makes you unique. Treat your LinkedIn profile like the mission critical piece of marketing content it is, and  make the effort to get it right. 2. Your LinkedIn job history doesn’t match your resume. Back when I was recruiting, this was always a huge red flag.  When a candidate’s LinkedIn profile didn’t align with their resume, I at the very least  wondered why, and I’d occasionally brush the candidate off entirely because I didn’t  have time to figure out the real story. I was a fairly patient recruiter and was often willing to dig a little deeper than most of  my colleagues. When I got to talking to candidates, I realised it was often because  they’d taken a non-traditional career path, such as contract work, consulting, or  freelancing, and simply didn’t know how to group experience to deliver an effective  message that worked for both their resume and LinkedIn. While your details may be mismatched for innocent reasons, consider what sort of  unspoken message it can send a lack of attention to detail, laziness, or outright  dishonesty â€" and you realise how important it is to clean up both your resume and  LinkedIn profile to ensure the job titles, companies, and dates of tenure match.  If you’re unsure how to effectively group jobs or contracts so as to truthfully and  effectively communicate your experience, consult a personal branding agency with  recruitment and marketing specialists on their team. They’ll be able to take a big picture  view, and will help you effectively define and communicate your key value add. 3. Your headline is full of throwaways. Your headline is the hardest working part of LinkedIn, and provides huge value in only  100 characters. Your goal with the headline is twofold: Ensure that you show up in recruiters’ search results by using appropriate keywords,  and entice recruiters to click on your profile by ensuring that your headline stands out. Start by putting yourself in the recruiters’ shoes. Consider the keywords they’re using to  search for candidates.  Let’s say that you’re looking to step into a VP, Finance role for a consumer brand. Do  you think the recruiter is using throwaway terms like “high performing” or  â€œprofessional” in their search? Of course not: they’re using job titles and industry terms,  and perhaps key skills and qualifications. Compare the two headlines, below. Which do you think is more likely to come up high in  the search results? High performing finance professional with extensive leadership experience. MBA-trained Chartered Accountant VP Finance I 10+ years FMCG turnaround  experience. With the headline, every word matters. Use highly searchable terms and avoid clichés at  all cost. 4. You’re afraid to be awesome. In my experience, managers and executives tend play it a little too safe when it comes  to LinkedIn profiles and this is a mistake.  Think about the types of people you like to work with, and how you yourself behave at  work. I’m guessing you thought of people who are vibrant, funny, warm, empathetic, and  inspirational. Now ask yourself: is your LinkedIn profile portraying those qualities? For some reason, job seekers seem to freeze up when their fingers hit the keyboard,  opting for “safe” descriptions of themselves that are, frankly, really boring. Recruiters  read hundreds of snooze-inducing LinkedIn profiles each month: don’t add to their  boredom. If you’re one of those people who lights up the room, don’t write a vanilla LinkedIn  profile. Add interest by including personal details and insights about the type of  professional you are: Write in the first person, using “I” language. Third person is too formal and stiff,  and doesn’t come across as particularly likeable. Include clues about who you are and why you do what you do, such as your  professional mantra or an anecdote that proved to be formative in your career. Let people know what you’re like to work with. Do you have a relaxed, open  door management style? Are you known for keeping things fun during high-  pressure moments? 5. Your LinkedIn profile is not scannable. A lot of the LinkedIn advice I’ve read suggests you familiarise yourself with LinkedIn’s  word and character limits, and use all the allotted space to tell your story. From a recruiter’s point-of-view, this is terrible advice. Recruitment is a high-volume,  high-pressure role, and most recruiters are extroverted, sales-oriented types who are  always pressed for time. The truth of it is, recruiters aren’t going to spend their time digging through your  LinkedIn profile for the details that matter to them. They’re going to take 30 seconds to  scan it, and then either click the “back” button on their browser, or pick up the phone to  actually talk to you. Write for a limited attention span, and go for quality, not quantity. Follow the rules of writing for the web, which means short, snappy paragraphs  and sentences that aren’t too long or dense. Mix up your profile with keywords, like job titles and industries, that the  recruiters’ eyes are naturally scanning for, and more ‘personality’ driven content  (Tip # 4) to keep it interesting. Make your role descriptions easy to scan, by including both paragraphs and bullet  points that describe mandates, accountabilities and a few accomplishments with  facts and figures, which tend to naturally draw the eye. 6. TMI (Too Much Information). Once your LinkedIn profile is published, keep in mind that anyone can access it. How  would your boss feel about what you’ve written? What about your clients, team,  shareholders, or any other stakeholder groups with which you regularly interact? While it should be obvious you need to avoid revealing competitive or proprietary  information on LinkedIn, I’ve seen candidates over share details that, frankly, made me  question their integrity and professionalism. When in doubt, leave it out, and make sure you steer clear of sensitive information,  such as: Employee performance issues, such as putting a member of your team on a  development plan. Solving problems created by a predecessor or someone else in the company. Contentious relationships or organisational culture issues. Current commercial initiatives, such as potential JVs, redundancy programs, or  expansion into a new market. Specific budget and revenue figures. 7. You haven’t put in the effort. As a professional brand builder and executive resume writer, I spend a lot of time  crafting perfect LinkedIn profiles for my clients. After years as both a HR manager,  recruiter and a resume writer, I can tell you that creating engaging, searchable and click-worthy LinkedIn profiles takes time. On average, my team and I spend at least 15 hours on the entire process of setting a  strategy and then writing a resume, cover letter and LinkedIn profile.  If you blasted through the process, writing your LinkedIn profile in an evening, you  probably did it wrong, and that mistake is likely costing you in your job search. Take the time to define your key value and marketing ‘key messages’ before you  start writing, and think of examples and accomplishments to support these  messages. Write your draft, and then step away from the computer for a day (or at least a  few hours) before going back in to edit for key words, spelling and grammar, and  content. Get the opinion of a trusted friend who knows you professionally and personally  to provide feedback. 8. You’re not active on LinkedIn. This may seem obvious, but given the fast-paced nature of most managers’ and  executives’ lives, it bears repeating: once you’ve invested the time and effort into  creating an effective LinkedIn profile, you need to actually use it. Add your contact information, such as an email address or phone number, in  your profile to make it easy for recruiters to contact you, and make it a habit to  check your LinkedIn Inbox at the beginning or end of each business day so as to  not miss opportunities. Join groups for your industry and function to increase your networks’ reach, and  make it more likely you’ll show up in recruiters’ keyword searches. Consider writing and publishing blog posts about your function, industry, or  general professional topics, such as leadership, to your LinkedIn profile. ‘Recent  posts’ show up with your name in search results, and the listings with this  feature really do pop against the other results, making it hard to resist clicking  through. Author:  Irene McConnell  runs  Arielle Careers, Australia’s #1 executive personal  branding agency. They specialize in crafting executive resumes, LinkedIn profiles  and digital career assets.

On the Job by Anita Bruzzese Are Outside Innovators the Key to Success

On the Job by Anita Bruzzese Are Outside Innovators the Key to Success In 2013, Campbell Soup Co. launched its Hack the Kitchen contest to challenge innovative developers to create web or mobile apps for mealtime solutions. The winner, FoodMood, tapped into users emotions by asking Whats your mood? and the app then suggested recipes based on the users feelings and food preferences. FoodMood, developed by Pollinate Inc., received a $25,000 cash prize and a $25,000 contract to bring the idea to market. But perhaps more important, Campbell Soup with more than 19,000 workers decided that it wanted outside innovators to create new ideas. Campbells is not alone. General Electric is partnering with students and entrepreneurs to help them create new products. The first lesson we learned was dont just talk about it, meet about it, think about it just go do it,saysVenkat Venkatakrishnan, GE Appliances Innovation Leader. Its something we dont do very well. We tend to evaluate all the risks, look at everythingthe local startup community goes and builds something, does something, and figures out the rest. Campbell and GE are big companies looking to adopt a more innovative,agile mindsetthat permeates start-ups, and more organizations realize they need to do the same in order to survive. Truly creative business leaders engage less-conventional partners, such ascitizen developers, and entrepreneurs to help drive innovation, notesVentureBeat. In addition, anIBM trend studyof more than 1,500 companies found that those who excel in business goals partnered more creatively with outside organizations and recruited less traditional partners for their efforts. Driving change Clearly, there are challenges for big organizations that want to become more entrepreneurial and respond quickly and efficiently to new ideas in order to stay competitive. Brad Smith, president and chief executive officer at Intuit, recentlynotedthat implementing change is not easy, partly because teams seek routine and repetition hoping to avoid (read more here) Photo: Bloomberg

Creating Employer Brand Content that Moves People

Creating Employer Brand Content that Moves People What content pulls on the heartstrings and really moves people? This week we chat with Will Staney, founder and CEO  Proactive Talent all about creating engaging content for employer branding. Have a listen to our chat below, keep reading for a summary and dont forget to subscribe to the Employer Branding Podcast. What is your approach to employer branding content in recruitment? Its all about content. Its what feeds the engine. Its the fuel. Without great content, its harder for candidates to really select in or out of your hiring process. Its harder to attract top talent in your company, and engage your current workforce. Without content, you cant tell your story. It takes a mix of content as well. It needs video and  pictures to really give a transparent look at your company content, really good, authentic content is essential. But its not always easy to do. What is a  step-by-step guide to achieving success with employer branding? Tip 1: Is developing your content strategy. This is being very intentional about what kind of content is going to resonate with our audience. That includes building out talent personas, and doing some research, talking to your current employees. Where do they go to get their news? What are their interests? What bands do they listen to? All these interests help you to develop the kind of content, and the persona that does well at your organization. You can then take that data, and other  data like, what kind of roles are we hiring for? What are our high priority hiring initiatives right now? You take all that and you start to build your content strategy that helps fuel those initiatives. Employer brand and recruiting marketing strategies should tie into the actual business initiatives at your company. You align talent acquisition to the true strategic mission and objectives of your company, and you get proactive about it. You start to notice that talent acquisition and employer brandi ng starts getting more of a seat at the table because the business starts to understand. With content, you take this and then you start to build out an editorial calendar. Tip 2: Is to engage and build excitement. Your content should be something that is helping to elicit an emotional response, both internally with your own employees where it gives them that warm feeling of  pride when they watch that cool employee highlight video, or someone externally  learns something new about the company. When you can change perceptions or really engage and pull peoples heart-strings around the mission of your company, that is when you win. And so, Tip 3: Is providing accessible content and an experience. In other words, look at the different channels where youre posting certain content. Some content works well in other channels and not in others. For example blogs. People read maybe 28% of the words in a blog post. So you have to make sure that the content is very concise and that they can pull your key points in six seconds. Then you want to make your content really consumable. So maybe thats a video. Or maybe, you want to do a quick Facebook Live, or Periscope, or Twitter Video of a live, real event thats happening. That makes it really accessible  and youre giving people an experience like theyre right there watching it. Tip 4: Make it visual. People remember images six times easier than text. So whenever you can add really great, humanizing photos or videos in the blogs that youre talking about. Visuals are really powerful for helping to elicit that emotional response and to really give people an inside look. Tip 5: Is leveraging employee-generated content. The great thing is you have all these employees, especially if youre a bigger company and you have a lot of different offices. If youre an employer brand person, or a recruiter whos tasked with doing employer branding, you cant be everywhere at once.  So youve got to build an army of ambassadors, an army of employer brand agents that are out there capturing some content for you, and sending it in to you. This does two things. It allows you to get a variety of real content from real people, and your content starts looking like the other content that your friends see in their social feeds. It blends in, it doesnt look like marketing, it looks authentic. The other is that it empowers employees to be a part of telling what your employer brand and what their experience is. Employees love it. They like seeing the content they created being featured on a major corporate account, its really exciting for them. So leveraging employee-generated content is awesome. Have fun with it, create campaigns, and  competitions. When I was at SAP, we did this big selfie competition to really promote our new Instagram page when we launched it for life at SAP. And it was a huge hit. We did the same thing with our client GoDaddy where they did a #GoDaddylife. And now, there are hundreds of awesome employee photos about what they love about working there, all over Instagram. Tip 6: Is measuring your results. When it comes to employer branding, tracking your engagement rate is really important. What percentage of your audience thats following you on social, LinkedIn,  Glassdoor, are actually engaging with your content? That tells you how good and how engaging your content is.  Are your employees engaging with that content? Are they liking it? A  main goal of employer branding is to increase awareness of you as an employer. The total number of reach is good way of measuring this. Whats the number of people who have been exposed to our employer brand on a monthly, quarterly, annual basis? Overall shares are a really good metric to look at the quality of your content. If it was so good that they shared it with their whole network, then thats awesome. When it comes to the effectiveness of good employer branding and your organization, looking at things like retention rate is a really good indicator of the strength of your employer brand and your culture, that people are engaged, staying longer, and theyre enjoying the experience. That can be a really strong correlation. If the number of applicants go down, but the quality of each applicant is getting better, thats a good indication that youre doing a great job of employer branding, thats giving them enough information that they can really self-select in or out of your process. Youve probably seen some of the employer brand videos by our client GE.  They did one that went out on the Oscars. This is just a good example of a company whose corporate marketing and employer branding teams are coming together to help change the perception of them not only as a company, but change perceptions as an employer. They did a video that  was like imagine a world where female engineers and scientists were treated like movie stars. What if they were on the cover of the magazines and they were the ones that you see in the news. It really pulled the heart-strings when they announced they were committed to hiring 20,000 women in STEM by 2020. View this post on Instagram The women of #GE Aviation Headquarters in Evendale, OH are giving us major #SquadGoals. Currently, technical and #engineering sectors still have a significant gender gap. To meet future needs, improve productivity and transform the industry, a gender diverse talent pool is necessary. Join the GE squad on our journey to #BalanceTheEquation with 50:50 gender representation in entry-level technical roles by 2020. Lets sky-rocket the quality of #innovation. Head to our story to see what advice women across GE have for others interested in STEM. Happy #InternationalWomensDay. Photo by @seenewphoto A post shared by General Electric (@generalelectric) on Mar 8, 2017 at 8:59am PST Theres going to be a whole series coming out in a couple of months that we did for GE Digital, where its just real employees in a documentary style, talking about their experience, what they do, and how the products that theyre building has real world effect. I interviewed for a video, at GE Digital, an engineer who grew up in Haiti. And he was in high school when those massive tsunami and earthquakes happened. It was devastating. And after that happened, he was really interested in STEM and engineering, and he made a commitment to himself that he was going to go out there and try to use and build software that would help predict these disasters better in the future. Now  hes an engineer at GE Digital, building the IoT mobile platform that allows people in these third-world countries that have little access to electricity or internet to have better predictability of natural disasters. It was amazing. I cried interviewing this kid because hes telling me Im here and I built this. And he won this huge innovation award. And he got to go home to his parents and say, I went and I built something that will make life better for my family and friends in Haiti. I thought  Wow. I want to work here. I want to be a part of something like that. Its just amazing. Those are the type of stories that are real, and they exist in your company if you go out and ask the right questions. Pulling at the heart-strings is totally doable. Every human being has a great story. Follow Will on  Twitter @willstaney, and remember to subscribe to the  Employer Branding Podcast.

Join a social network before you need a job

Join a social network before you need a job The more you like your job, the more you should network. If you have a great job, you probably have a lot to offer people. Do all your favors now, when you dont need any in return. The problem with networking to get a job is that you are not that attractive when you need a job. Who wants to network with unhappy people? Recently I interviewed a bunch of recruiters for my column, and they were absolutely gung-ho about social networking. Recruiting advisor John Sullivan told me that referred candidates have a 50% higher retention rate than candidates who come to the company via a job site. To land that referral, he recommended, among others, LinkedIn. This surprised me. In the past, I have delete emails from people who ask me to be in their network. I never considered that the networks were so useful. So I took the advice of the recruiters and I checked out LinkedIn. I was immediately impressed. To get a job, if you are qualified for the job, all it really takes is a third-party connection. I was shocked at how quickly the world opens up to you with a social networking site. And I was surprised by how much we can help each other by offering up our networks to friends in a searchable, useful way. My first instinct was to search for who has the most contacts, but I couldnt figure out how to do that. So I filled out a cursory profile, which the recruiters say is a no-no. (You should fill it out in great detail so people know what you have to offer.) Then I started trying to figure out who I knew that would be on the site. The first few names I tried did not work. But that was because I tried the people Id be most comfortable asking to be in my networks (its a request that seems a little weird to me, still). Instead, I started trying the email addresses of the people I know who are comfortable with technology and good at networking, and the first four names I tried were listed. One is Dylan Tweney. After about an hour of dealing with LinkedIn, I had four contacts. Dylan has 150. I asked him how he does it, and he said he sent email to everyone on his email list. I had contact envy. There were some people who have more than 500 contacts. I wondered how they did it. Then I heard that the CEO of Linkedin who has more than 500 contacts will not speak to analysts unless they can get to his network. One senior banker at a top firm has been trying for months. It gives me hope: It seems that people who have large networks are not those who make the most money, its those who offer the most to their friends.

Is Confined Space Training Right for Your Business CareerMetis.com

Is Confined Space Training Right for Your Business Original Image Source â€" Depositphotos.comHaving consistent workplace training is one of the most important things a business can implement. It does not matter which line of work you’re in â€"training should be required for growth, safety, and employee progression.Some professions have an increased risk of danger, so always make it a top priority to evaluate the area of work. Working with confined spaces can cause a long list of potential hazards for employees; being adequately prepared can be a matter of life or death.High-risk industries such as construction, mining, and transportation require employees to work in confined spaces on a very regular basis. Aconfined spacecan take shape in the form of a chamber, tank, vat, silo, pit, trench, pipe, sewer, flue, well or similar space with an enclosed nature â€" many of which can be found within those high-risk industries.evalIt’s important to outline the risks in your line of work to determine whether your workforce would benefit f rom confined space training, or any additional health and safety training that’s relevant to working in confined spaces.It might sound obvious, but it’s paramount that a workplace understands exactly what a confined space is. Some spaces of work are small, but by law, they might not qualify as a being ‘confined’.A confined space is typically defined by the following characteristics:An area that that limited means of entry and/or exitSomewhere that is large enough for a person to enter and perform a taskSpace is not designed for continuous occupancyIf any of these statements describe the type of work that your employees perform, it could be time to reassess any current methods of training, think about the kind of activities you perform day-to-day that might relate to confined spaces, or implement some important required-by-law training for your workforce. Employees must be aware of the dangers that face them when working within confined spaces â€" equipped with the knowledge on how to look for hazards and how to respond quickly in dangerous situations.OSHATherefore, it’s continuously emphasized that having a fully trained workforce will save lives and better manage the health and safety of themselves and those who work close by, especially in emergency situations.A risk assessment should always be carried out to determine the level of risk when attempting to enter or work within a confined space. Being aware of the potential hazards can help preparations for what kind of dangers you might face, or alternatively if the risk of danger is far too high to attempt to carry out a job.As an example â€" ways of determining great risks can be shown by using a video camera to look before entering or possibly testing the air to see if it’s free from harmful toxins. If you were to then find the quality of air to be damaging, employees will be required to wear adequate breathing apparatus as protection.A thorough and thought-out confined space risk assessment sh ould aim to highlight the following:The duration of the workWhat kind of tasks are to be performed?The training requirements of the employeesWhat kind of physical effort is required?Whether the employees are physically well enoughHow many employees will be involved â€" inside and outside the confined space, and rescue teamsEnvironmental factors should also be considered â€" including, access, lighting, oxygen levels, and evacuation proceduresThese risk assessment steps are aimed towards predicting potential dangers and minimizing risks when a job is carried out. Risk assessments help to carry out a safe system of work and are used within many, if not all, hazardous industries. A method statement can also be carried out prior to a job.evalMethod statements detail exactly how a job will be executed in order, highlighting safety and detailing how a safe system of work will be performed. It will usually give some background information about the job, who will be working at the site and how steps will be implemented throughout the duration.Adequate confined space training will mention how these can be written out in an advantageous way. Method statements aren’t mandatory, but they provide another way of assessing and planning situations.What You Can Learn on a Confined Space Training CourseevalConfined space training courses should offer practical and written assessments for employees to learn about the various hazards and safety procedures that are involved.A well-equipped training center can offer a mobile training unit for practical assessments, giving the opportunity to learn how to properly enter and exit confined spaces.High-risk equipment is often provided to emulate an authentic confined space situation, this allows trainees to experience what it would be like to work within realistic and hazardous conditions. Training courses can range from low risk confined spaces to high risk, tailored to the line of work you are in and what dangers you would face with in the line of work.Managerial training is also vital, as these are the people responsible for the employees entering potential dangers. In this case, you can expect the training to involve the use of environmental monitoring equipment, documentation associated with confined space entry and an emphasis on dealing with hazards.Regulations and standardscan depend on the country the confined space work training will be taking place in. The training course you choose must be compliant with any relevant legislation to be law-abiding and should be in partnership with a recognized examination board.Without these qualifications, you should never attempt to enter this line of work for your safety and others. In the UK, theConfined Space Regulations 1997exists to make sure that there is a safe system of work in place. evalEntering a confined space must be planned beforehand with emergency arrangements in place with resuscitation equipment. In the United States, the previously mentioned OSHA p rovides the guidelines for maintaining safe work environments‘by providing training, outreach, education, and assistance’.Training should be given to everyone that is involved in the process of confined space working.This includes workers who â€"Enter or work within confined spacesIssue entry permitsImplement risk control measuresMonitor conditions while work is being carried outActs as a standby person with those working in a confined spaceBuy equipment for confined space workThis is important to remember, as it’s not just those entering the confined spaces that need to be trained and this could be something that’s forgotten about.The BenefitsThe obvious benefit of providing confined space training is keeping your workforce safe â€" but another key factor in business is saving money.Accidents that happen in the workplace often equate to time off, costing the company’s money in sick pay. Taking the time to train your staff might be costly, to begin with, but spending money on something as worthwhile as employee training is likely to save thousands in the long run.evalTraining your staffencourages leadership and confidence â€" with common sense being one of the most useful health and safety tools it’s important to give employees this kind of recognition. Showing that your employees are valued by enrolling them in training can give them incentives to stay with your company on a long-term basis. Not only this, but legislations, laws and industry requirements often change, meaning regular employee and employer training must be up to date with modern-day business needs.Confined space training is not only taken by businesses; industries such as farming should have a trained workforce as they enter manure pits or water tanks on an often-daily basis. You should think carefully about the tasks your industry carries out either regularly or non-regularly, as it can be easy to forget that yourself and others are entering potentially dangerous confined spaces i f it’s part of a long-standing routine.If any of this sounds like the industry you’re involved in, it could be time to double-check if your workplace training is up to date, whether a refresher course is needed if it’s been a while since you last trained, or maybe your workplace has no training at all â€" make a point to contact your local training provider.

The Black Hole Employee Debacle

The Black Hole Employee Debacle What is a Black Hole Employee? Last week was the first time I heard the term ‘Black Hole’ employee as I was attending a talk given by Tony Hsieh and Fred Mossler of Zappos.com. The term was coined, I believe, by Fred. Little did I know I was likely considered a Black Hole employee by former managers. What is a Black Hole Employee? The term refers to employees who you give a task to and you don’t need to worry about it anymore because the employee will get it done. Managers love Black Hole employees. These individuals make the lives of a manager much easier. The managers don’t need to worry about the task, check-in on the task, etc. It frees up the managers’ time and energy. The Downside of Being a Black Hole Employee I believe at times, though, the Black Hole employees unintentionally get overlooked by their managers. Managers only have so much time in the day. There are employees who do not perform as well, who don’t take care of tasks and who take up much more of a manager’s time. These individuals get the time and attention of their manager because it is necessary for business success. However, carving out time for the Black Hole employee is necessary for business success too. They are already strong contributors, but don’t overlook their goals and ways they can and want to develop in their career. A Big Impact on Your Business While the Black Hole employees are likely very engaged in their work, you will want to spend time with them to make sure they continue to be engaged. The loss of a Black Hole employee will have much more of a negative impact if they decide to leave. While it’s easier to overlook spending time with strong employees, make sure to schedule it into your regular routine. The impact of this time spent could be enormous to the individual and your organization.

Confidence. - When I Grow Up

Confidence. - When I Grow Up Go Confidently print from Sarah Frances Art. Ill admit it and risk the big head you might think I have: Ive never had a lack of confidence. In fact, my mother has said its the #1 thing she wanted to install in my brother and me when we were children, and I think my parents succeeded in spades (although it shows itself differently in my brother, which is a whole different post to be written by someone else). Growing up, I was told I was smart, pretty, talented, special, sweet, and pretty much The Best. As both a child and an adult, Ive had my fair share of failures: careers, relationships, you name it. But the thing isI never really let it stop me from believing that I could do it. Sure, I picked the hardest things to pursue: acting and then, of all things, life coaching. And I knew they were gonna be  hard. And I knew they were gonna take  time. And I knew that not everyone was gonna  understand. And I knew that there was gonna be a chance I could  fail. And I knew that thered be people who thought I was  crazy, a hippy-dippy, flaky, ADD, indecisive or all of the above. But that confidence Ive always had? It gave me permission to discover, to try, to work, and  to believe. I think thats what happens when youre encouraged to dream, and make those dreams come true, throughout your whole life. Even when its not  practical. Even when its not likely. Even when its not responsible. Even when its not traditional. But the experience of chasing those dreams? Of the wins and the failures? Of learning what youre made of, what lights you up, what you trust and what brings you joy? Thats what confidence is made up of, and what Ive found to be the most important way to build the grown-up, passionate, lucrative business of your dreams. See? This video I made last summer proves it: This post is part of the Jump Blog Tour hosted by Stephanie Hall and Ashley Wilhite, the co-creators of Jump: Into your business, your life, your dream, a must-have digital guide for new coaches creatives. They believe in the transformational power of taking the jump and creating a business you love. This all-inclusive eBook will teach you how to start a business, find your niche, brand like a pro, and make the jump with confidence. Find out more here.