Thursday, November 28, 2019

How to Welcome and Onboard a New Employee

How to Welcome and Onboard a New EmployeeHow to Welcome and Onboard a New EmployeeWelcoming a new employee is more than making a company announcement and a babo assignment. Welcoming a new employee, to give the new employee the best possibility of integrating successfully in your company, requires a series of steps that start after your job offer is accepted. Integration and retention of your new employee start during the hiring process, and they also intensify when the new employee starts the new job. You have a lot at stake in how you welcome your new employee. These recommendations will help you get it right. These welcoming steps for the new employee continue right into his or her employment. If you do ansicht welcome and onboarding steps well, you will create a successful new employee. Heres how. New Employee Welcome Steps If you follow these recommended steps, your new employee is set up for success. Contact the new employee shortly after he or she signs and returns your jo b offer. The purpose of the note or phone call is to express your excitement that the new employee has joined your team.This call is best made by the hiring manager, the employee to whom the new employee will report. Set up the expectation that the new employee will hear from you regularly during the normal two-four weeks before the start day.Send benefits information and the employee handbook early so that the new employee may review them at his or her leisure and arrive for the first day with questions.You may have other documents that are pertinent to your business to share as well. If these are erreichbar, provide the employee with a link and early access. These actions contribute to the trust you are establishing with the new employee. If your organization has an online wiki or another intranet, provide the new employee with early access. This is especially important if you have an online staff directory with photos of employees. Your new employee will feel as if he or she is g etting to know coworkers early. Lacking an online photo album, consider setting up an employee bulletin board in each departement with employee photos and other business and employee information. Or, do both.Send an official company welcome letter from Human Resources. This welcome letter for the new employee should contain a confirmation of such items as start date, start time, work dress code, where to go, the first days schedule, and other details that the new employee needs to know. Assign a new employee a mentor, a more experienced employee with no reporting relationship to the new employee. The mentor should call the new employee to get to know him or her before the start date.Prepare for the employees first day by having everything ready for his or her arrival. An earlier article stressesthe ten best ways to turn off a new employee. Many of them have to do with the organizations failure to prepare to welcome the new employee from day one.These items seem so simple. For exampl e, dont ask an employee to start during a week when his or her new boss is out of town. Dont schedule a new employee without preparing their work area. Demonstrate respect for the new employee. Develop a checklist for new employee preparation that includes assigning a computer or laptop, installing software programs necessary, preparing a desk and cubicle or office, providing mail access and an email account, and so forth. Every office needs a list and an employee assigned to make the items happen before the new employee starts work at their new job.Decorate the new employees office area with welcome signs, flowers, and snacks. Let the quirkiness of your employees and work culture shine through in the items that you provide to welcome the new employee. Company swag is appreciated, too. A mug with the company logo and other items that welcome the new employee will make him, or her feel quickly at home. Make sure that the first days schedule is full of meeting people and onboarding ac tivities. Schedule a good portion of the morning with the new employees boss and mentor.This is your last chance to make a positive impression on your new employee. Dont let the day go to waste and contain nothing but paperwork and HR meetings. The day is for bonding with the boss, the mentor, and coworkers not about filling in forms.Prepare an onboarding schedule in advance that is customized to the needs of the department and the new employee. Make sure that the onboarding schedule fills only part of each day so that the new employee can feel productive immediately in his or her new job.One company required that the employees manager put together a 120-day onboarding plan that provided something new for the employee to learn every day. The employees boss and mentor are responsible for creating, sharing, and monitoring the onboarding schedule. Make sure that the new employee meets with Human Resources staff on the first day so he or she can ask questions about benefits, policies, a nd compensation.HR cooperates with the manager and mentor to tell the new employee what he or she needs to know and to introduce the culture and the organizations expectations of employees. This is also an opportunity to begin communicating the value of your comprehensive benefits package.Schedule lunch on the first day with the new employees coworkers and set up a schedule to make sure that he or she has a coworker with whom to eat each day of the first week. The new employees boss and mentor should also attend this lunch. The goal is that the new employee has the opportunity to meet many new coworkers from across the organization so they feel welcomed and part of their new workplace. The impressions the new employee forms during the first few days and the onboarding period will have an enormous impact on the new employees experience of your organization. It is well worth your time and attention to make the new employees welcome positive, affirming, and exciting.

Saturday, November 23, 2019

How to Use Github to Find Your Next IT Job

How to Use Github to Find Your Next IT Job How to Use Github to Find Your Next IT Job Github has a lot of functions you can write code, share your code, and collaborate with others on DevOps projects. But did you know that Github can also be a tool you can use to find your next position? Github is used by recruiters and managers hiring for high-level IT jobs to see what you can do. Here are a few reasons you should be using Github to sell yourself and your skills.Recruiters and hiring managers have made scanning Github part of their standard procedureTechnology recruiters consistently review candidates profiles on Github. Sometimes, they might peruse your profile if youre being heavily considered for a position. Other times, they use itto find professionals with a particular set of skills. Still other recruiters respond to candidates who have reached out to their tech kollektivs or demonstrated interest in projects that were similar to projects their teams had on the docket.You can u se itto demonstrate the range of your abilitiesA strong profile can attract attention from companies that seek out employees with your skill set. If your profile is JavaScript heavy, for example, youre communicating to potential employers that this is the area where you want to focus your attention.To use Github to your full advantage, tweak your profile to make sure it demonstrates that you are an engineer who can provide complete functionality to a potential team rather than someone who is just a programmer. A good way to do this is by creating a thoughtful readme file demonstrating how you think about and solve problems with your coding.Itcan help you find a company that fits your interestsGithub can give you more information about teams that might be good fits for you, too. You can look to see what companies are working on projects that interest you, and follow team members who are working on exciting side projects. Then you can have a better sense if a company you admire would be a good fit for you.But Github isnt all you should be using to land your dream jobGithub is only one tool in what should be a complex tool belt for self-promotion. First, make sure youre using the resume conventions that best highlight your accomplishments. Next, write a resume that makes you attractive to fill new jobs in engineering. After youre happy with your resume, run it through Jobscan. Jobscan helps you optimize your resume by ensuring a job postings keywords match the words youre using on your resume. As a developer is especially important to have your technical skills readable to ATS algorithms.

Thursday, November 21, 2019

Your Next Recruiter Should Be Equal Parts Sleuth, Seer and Charmer

Your Next Recruiter Should Be Equal Parts Sleuth, Seer and CharmerYour Next Recruiter Should Be Equal Parts Sleuth, Seer and CharmerYour Next Recruiter Should Be Equal Parts Sleuth, Seer and Charmer BortzRunning a successful business is every CEOs mission. But as business accelerates so too do expectations. Thatcan turn every dayinto a balancing act of deadlines. Finding the time to recruit all-important new hires can easily fall to the bottom of the listto the detriment of your growing business.If that scenario sounds familiar, it may be time to consider hiring a recruiter for your company.So what exactly does a recruiter bring to the table?A recruiters main job function is problem solving, says Dan Ryan, founder of Ryan Search Consulting, a talent acquisition and development firm. Recruiters have to be able to understand their employers needs, and find the best talent to fill those needs, he says.But thats not all. We have to hire talented recruiters who not only understand our bu siness but also understand the labor market, says Larry Nash, U.S. director of recruiting at EY.These common sense steps will help you find the best recruiters for your company.Zero in on the schriftart of recruiter you need most.Many companiesparticularly large businesseshire recruiters to focus on a specific level of recruiting. EY, for example, employs college recruiters as well as executive recruiters to better target talent for these significantly different roles.If youre a college recruiter, we want to know how you build deep relationships with schools, Nash says. In comparison, if youre an executive recruiter, we want to know what experience you have in finding and attracting talent at that level.If youre considering hiring a recruiter, think about the positions you need to fill and look for recruiters with expertise in those areas.Look for recruiters with social media skills.The recruiting world has become laser-focused on social media and online applications, says Ryan. And for good reasonsocial media is where youll find people. According to a 2016 Nielsen report, adults 18+ spend over five hours a week on social media.Recruiters who can utilize social media to find and attract top talent can be an asset to your company, especially recruiters with a proven track record in social media recruiting. This applies to not only LinkedIn but also Facebook and Twitter. A big part of the job is figuring out how to communicate with recruits on these platforms, says Nash. In other words, can you articulate what job youre looking to fill in 140 characters?Additionally, recruiters with a large number of followers are definitely a plus, given their exposure to the industrys talent pool.Dont overlook phone communication skills.Phone skills are crucial, since they give employers the ability to screen candidates without having to bring people in for a face-to-face bewerbungsinterview. Naturally, one of the best ways to gauge a prospective recruiters phone skills is to simply conduct a phone interview with them yourself, says Ryan.Find people who fit the companys culture.Every company has a distinct brandor whats commonly called an employer brand, Ryan says. Be mindful of what your organizations culture is when searching for recruiters. Its also important for prospective recruiters to align with your companys core values. Our purpose at EY is to build a better working world, and we look for recruiters who have a passion for doing that, says Nash.Seek out recruiters who play well with others.Successful recruiting, like other business functions, requires coordination. When recruiters, hiring managers and human resource managers all work together, they are better positioned to find fresh talent. Unfortunately, this coordination is sometimes easier said than done.One source of frictionhiring managers can feel like recruiters are stepping on their toes, and vice versa. However, its imperative for recruiters and hiring managers to work together as a tea m, says Nash. They have different roles, but they share the same goal, which is to find the most talented workers in the field.To assess the potential of your new hire as a team player,ask how they collaborate with hiring managers and HR at their current company. And dont overlook the most crucial skill of alllistening. Listening is the core skill of recruiting, says James Wright, partner at Bridge Technical Talent.Pay attention to customer tafelgeschirr skills.As ambassadors for your business, recruiters are the face of your company to the public, says Mikaela Kiner, CEO at Uniquely HR, a career coaching and HR consulting firm. Consequently, its up to the recruiter to ensure every candidate has a positive experience and is left with a good impression of your company, whether or not they get an offer, says Kiner.To more effectively evaluate someones customer service skills, you can pose behavioral interview questions such as, How would you greet new recruits? or What would you do if you had a conflict with a recruit?To help get you started with recruiting a recruiter, keep theseadditional interview questions handyWhats your approach to recruiting?Why are you passionate about recruiting?How do you negotiate with top talent?What techniques and tools do you use to find job candidates?How do you assess talent?What steps do you take when a job candidate you recruited doesnt get hired?How do you keep track of your candidate pool?How long does it typically take for you to fill a job order?Working closely with a recruiter who understands your companys values and mission will give you more time to focus on the important task ofgrowing your business and expanding your team.