Florida Jobing Community Blogs

Ross C of Diamond TEC closed $40,000 in new business for the month of June 2009!   This represents his best month of sales so far in his five year tenure at Diamond TEC.    $40K in sales translates to $9,000 in commission for Ross and the summer is just getting started.

Ross is a valued employee at Diamond TEC and sales consultants like him are rare in South Florida, let alone at Diamond TEC.   Keep up the good work Ross and thanks again for everything you do for Diamond TEC!  

I just love this title.  I borrowed it from an article I just read on SHRM.org called, "Newest Social Medium Has recruiters All a-Twitter". Of course this sparked my interest instantly when I looked at my RSS feeds this morning on my Google home page. This article is great as it speaks directly to the recruiter and the value Twitter can add to recruitment. For me, twitter was quite overwhelming at first and while it was easy enough to physically do, it was not connecting what it did for me or for our business. Clearly I am not alone as the article mentions that only 10% of tweeters accounted for 90% of one month's tweets, which speaks to exactly the understanding that I ultimately came to: THIS IS AN INCREDIBLE OPPORTUNITY! If I can, if our company can, be of that 10%; goodness the impact we can make. Twitter used properly takes strategy, not necessarily time. It's important to have and build our brands on twitter, but not create our brands via twitter. It has it's own language and I think after getting set up, learning the lingo, and getting engaged I am headed to be part of the 10% that gets an ROI on it. I am grateful to our social media managers for making it all make sense for me, and also for making it a fun and engaging experience. Once I see value in something I will make time for it and I see tremendous value in this and all the internet affords us. We are in a very non-traditional age of communication and I am all about being a sponge and sharing the love!

Congratualtions to Heladio and Brenda Martinez of North Carolina who just purcahsed a 2010 World of Concrete Package from Preston Coffer at Diamond TEC.

The traveled to Las Vegas earlier this year as Diamond TEC's guest and they are already booked for 2010!   The package cost varies however as a rule of thumb any order over $4000 will qualify you for:

Round trip Air for two, Accomodations at Ceasar's Palace, plus tickets to the show.   THis years show is February 2-5 2010 in Las Vegas, NV.    To get your package booked call Preston Coffer at Diamond TEC.   800.611.0665.  ext 253

I am really excited to introduce two guys who are all things social media to our South Florida community. Brett & Zach are our social media managers and we have decided to share them with our local employers. They will be working with our community and sharing anything and everything social media based on their experiences and what we have seen that works and what does not. This is all evolving so quickly and there are no experts in the field, more continued sharing of best practices and great ideas. They will be working with local employers to build social recruiting platforms quickly and easily with industry-leading social media tools.

I am really looking forward to seeing them share how what feels like a new language to some (tweeting, friending, RT's and are you linked in?) can really be made simple, fun, engaging, and above all productive! So....without any further adoo....I highly recommend getting connected with Brett & Zach and trust me you will never look back as the world of recruitment is truly evolving before our very eyes. Have fun evolving in the wonderful world that is social media with two guys who just live, eat, and breathe this stuff! I love it cause they do the thinking!.....

Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, and 4,000 other social media tools.  How do you use this social media stuff to benefit your business?

Why?  

If you're not taking advantage of social media for recruiting and employment branding, you're missing out on a world of opportunity.  That’s why we’ve decided to launch Jobing Social Media Solutions.  

What? 

Jobing Social Media Solutions will help you build your social recruiting platform quickly and easily with our industry-leading social media tools.  It is essentially social media outsourcing at its finest.

How?

Whether you need a little assistance or a lot of help, Jobing Social Media Solutions is here to help you build and maintain your employment brand online.
Here are just a few of the services we can offer you:

·     Recruitment Social Media Assessment

·     Account Creation Management

·     Account Integration

·     Social Media Training

·     Account Promotion Strategy & Implementation

Who? 

Brett Farmiloe and Zach Hubbell are the social media managers for Jobing.com.  They consistently consult with companies, organizations, and associations on how to incorporate and implement a social media strategy that best benefits their business.    They’ve created over 1,000 Twitter accounts as a part of the Jobing.com social media strategy and provided internal training for each of the Jobing.com community team members. They are a couple of Gen Y’ers who frequently speak on the topic of how to use social media to attract and retain top talent. They are about as expert as can one can be in the emerging social media field.

Where? 

To get more information and have either Brett or Zach contact you to assess your social media needs, please go to http://broward.jobing.com/socialmedia and fill out the contact form.

Brett Farmiloe and Zach Hubbell can also be reached on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, or email if you have any questions about social media.  We look forward to hearing from you and launching your social media strategy.

I was originally going to have one follow-up blog to the original ethics blog.  However, the comments have been interesting so I am breaking up the follow-up into two parts.  Here I will provide my feedback to the comments made to my blog (as of this write-up).  The third and last blog will contain my view on ethics and my comments on the situation presented in that blog and reprinted below:

Situation:  A bank has a strict policy that all tellers must have at minimum a high school diploma or a GED.  There are no exceptions.  In fact, a good friend of yours who was an excellent teller for another bank, just lost his job because of the downturn in the economy, and was turned down by the bank you work for because he did not have his GED or high school diploma.  Your friend was told that every teller in the bank has at minimum a GED or high school diploma, and that the bank even uses that fact when soliciting new accounts.  Today the teller who sits next to you, someone who is not your friend, not even someone you go to lunch with, turns to you and says, "I can't wait.  Next month I am finally getting my GED."

First, in addition to being the author of the book, "How to Get, Keep and Be Well Paid in a Job", which is a work readiness guide; I also developed a work readiness certification training program that was called the best in the Country by a member of the National Skills Standard Board in January of 2003.  I mention that fact because during the initial rollout of that program I trained the teachers.  While instructing them on how to teach ethics, I used a scenario similar to the one presented here.  I did so because I knew the situation would result in a diversity of answers regarding the correct action for the employee to take, with people digging in deeply to their point of views.  However, during all that discussion no one came up with the answer presented by Roosevelt Williams, and I found his response very well thought out.  It is both intelligent and cautious.  Bringing up the specific situation to his supervisor to help clarify a company policy was brilliant.  Management is now aware of a potentially damaging fact, and Mr. Williams was able to bring it to the attention of his supervisor in way where he was finding out about company policies, not directly "talking about" a co-worker.

Both Monica Diaz Veliz and Jan Teegardin made statements that were true.  Businesses often do hire employees below the stated requirements for a job and give the new employees time to accumulate the credentials they lack.  While that could be true in other scenarios, I tried to close that door here when I wrote "that there are no exceptions".  But more important is that I mention that the bank uses the fact that all tellers have at least a high school diploma or GED to solicit new accounts.  If customers found that statement to be untrue, they could become uneasy with the bank.  Even if they do not care whether the tellers have a high school diploma or GED, they may question the truth when the bank informs them that its checking account has no fees.  After all if all tellers really means almost all tellers, does no fees really mean almost no fees?  Losing the trust of customers can lead to customers leaving, and to negative word of mouth on the street about that business.

Adrienne Ishmael's answer shows she is an honest, compassionate person.  In my experience, I have found that the majority of people respond to this situation in a similar fashion to Ms. Ishmail.  Ms. Ismail indicated that she would be reluctant to do anything because she wouldn't want to be responsible for setting the wheels in motion that could eventually get her co-worker fired.  However, she was also very insightful in her answer pointing out that it is possible her co-worker lied to get the job.  In addition to Ms. Ishmael's reason for not taking any action, I have heard responses from people who would not do anything ranging from, "It's not my job to correct a mistake made by Human Resources", to "I'm not a rat, I'm no squealer", to "If I keep my mouth shut no one will ever know that I'm aware of that fact" to more.  I hope after reading my next blog everyone will realize that deciding not to do anything in a given situation is something that has to be thought through.  Not acting on a something does not ensure that there are no consequences for that inaction. 

Finally, Mirna Musharbash took a point of view I respect and have valued in my employees, but may have gone as the band Madness would say, "One Step Beyond".  I like when employees look at situations through the eyes of a supervisor.  It means that they care about the business, take their jobs seriously and want the business to succeed.  So I applaud Mirna Musharbash for taking that approach.  However, there is a fine line between looking through the eyes of your supervisor and taking it upon yourself to make decisions that should really be made by your supervisor.  In this case Mirna was basing the decision to bring this fact to the attention of management on how well that person performed in his/her job.  First, Mirna is not in the position to evaluate a co-workers' job performance, because I know Mirna is busy working and therefore, not in a position to observe all work completed by any co-worker.  Second is that reviewing the overall job performance of Mirna's co-workers is the responsibility of Mirna's supervisor, not Mirna.  Furthermore, even if Mirna was correct in the assessment of the co-worker's job performance that may not be the key factor in management's view of the situation.  As mentioned previously, the fact that the employee lied on his/her job application and the fact that the bank is marketing that all tellers have high school diplomas or GEDs to its customers and could lose business if customers found out that that was untrue, could be the chief concerns of management in this situation, not job performance.

Social Networking websites such as Facebook, Twitter and Myspace can work against job seekers. More and more employers are checking these sites for information about the prospects they interview, and reportedly, many are surprised by what they find. Some things are quite blatantly detrimental to a candidate, (not to mention possibly incriminating), such as evidence of excessive alcohol consumption, references to drug use or other illegal activities. But even less obviously offensive content can tarnish an otherwise professional image, including inappropriate or revealing photos. Just posting links to unsuitable material can be judged harshly. Sexist, racist or otherwise intolerant remarks, even when posted in jest, can be misinterpreted and reflect badly on the author. So, if you absolutely have to post pictures of you and your buddies chugging beers at the tailgate party and you truly deem it necessary to use profanity when dissing the opposing team, then please, for your own sake, check your privacy settings!

In the past six months or so, we’ve all learned new acronyms and new definitions for words we thought we already knew.  We’ve heard countless news reports about TARP or the troubled asset relief program for banks and other financial institutions.  And, of course, there’s been much made of the stimulus program and its focus on “shovel ready” projects that will help to reinvigorate the economy. 

Eventually, I suppose, all of this investment will trickle down and have a beneficial impact on those of us responsible for talent acquisition.  Patience, however, is not a virtue in the c-suite of most organizations today.  They’re under too much pressure to accept our relying yet another acronym: HOTAIRE or Hold On, The Advertised Improvements Roll-out Eventually.  They want—indeed, they expect—results right now. 

How can you respond?  I think the best approach is a combination TARP and stimulus strategy for recruiters.  It should focus on some of our most troubled assets and fix them with “shovel ready” solutions.  Here are my suggestions. 

The Troubled Asset: the Career area on most corporate Web-sites. 

Most Career areas have the look and feel of a store.  They provide a transactional experience—hey, we’re a buyer of labor, you’re a seller of labor, so let’s do a deal—that appeals only to active job seekers.  It leaves the passive prospect cold.  And, of course, it’s the passive prospect we most want to attract and recruit. 

What “shovel ready” project will enable you to fix that problem?  Launch a blog on your site.  There are only two things that will attract and hold the interest of passive prospects: credible information on what it’s like to work in your organization and interaction with their peers.  So, design your blogging program not as a something your recruiters do, but rather as a way for the best and brightest in your organization to recount their experiences on-the-job.  Think of it as a platform for your “A” level performers to strut their stuff to their peers.  It will transform the look and feel of your Career area from a store to a farm, a place that nurtures relationships with exactly the kind of talent you want to recruit. 

Blogging done well takes time and effort, so how can you get your already busy “A” level coworkers to sign up?

• First, limit each person’s participation to a three month assignment.  Make their involvement a short term project not a penance.
• Second, position a person’s selection to blog as career-enhancing inside your organization.  Make sure it has a positive impact on their performance appraisals and salary review.
• Third, select three new bloggers—representing different career fields and work experiences –every three months.  Give your bloggers some company and some competition.

Then, stand back and watch your all stars battle it out, both to be selected as a blogger and to be the best blogger on the Web. 

The Troubled Asset: the resume database in most corporate applicant tracking systems. 

Employers invest hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars building up a resume database and then do very little with it.  Their recruiters may conduct a perfunctory check of the archived resumes when sourcing for a new opening, but typically that’s about it.  They see the database as a static stack of electronic files, rather than as a platform for building relationships with the people behind the files.  Yet, those people are prospects who don’t have to be sourced and have already expressed an interest in the organization.  In effect, they are a ready-made way to cut both the cost and time to fill vacancies. 

What “shovel ready” project would enable you to realize those savings?  Start communicating with the people behind the resumes.  Launch a campaign of regular email messages that push out information about your organization and pull in updates to their careers.  The communications should be no less frequent than quarterly, but no more frequent than monthly.  The goal is both to pre-qualify individuals for your future openings (by keeping their record current) and to pre-sell them on your organization as an employer (by sharing information about its work and successes). 

People are all but overwhelmed by email these days so how can you get them to accept, let alone ready your messages?

• First, make the program opt-in.  Respect their right to say they don’t want to participate.
• Second, make sure the content of your messages is interesting.  Avoid marketing or even recruiting collateral and instead, send them brief vignettes of the on-the-job experiences of your top performers—the people who would be their colleagues if they worked for your organization.
• Third, get the mechanics right.  Ask them to add the email address of your messages to their white list so they won’t be caught up in their spam filter and use a common subject line so they learn to recognize your messages when they arrive.

Then, get ready for a significant response.  The simple act of signaling your continued interest in applicants is so rare among employers, you are likely to get a lot of takers. 

Hiring activity is way down at the moment, so now is the time to invest in improvements that will upgrade your performance once recruiting picks back up.  While there are many ways to make such an investment, I think you get the best return by focusing on your most troubled assets and on solutions that are “shovel ready.”  Do that, and you greatly diminish the possibility that you will need a career-damaging bailout down the road. 

Thanks for reading,

Peter

Visit me at Weddles.com 

Peter Weddle is the author of over two dozen employment-related books, including his latest, Work Strong, Your Personal Career Fitness System. 

© Copyright 2009 WEDDLE’s LLC.  All Rights Reserved.

Can you make use of Weight Watchers and Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) peer support features to help run your job hunt, career or life in general? Keith Ferrazzi author of best seller “Never Eat Alone” says, “Yes!”

I first heard about his book “Who’s Got Your Back” when my wife saw a Ferrazzi’s interview on “Good Morning America.” The same day a business contact mentioned the interview as well. Then my boss forwarded me a link to his interview on Larry King. Something’s up so I figured I’d check it out.

After reading the book I quickly understood why “Good Morning America” gave Ferrazzi so much attention. (See GMA's Ferrazzi interview.) .) I have to assume he’s got a monstrous publicity machine supporting him, but his content makes their job easy. It makes so much sense. Ferrazzi’s interview, you can see the success they achieved and how this idea can help you.

To demonstrate his program, “Good Morning America” formed a “lifeline relationship” group as prescribed by the book. Their group had four people. The first one wanted help with their job search. The second wanted help losing weight. The third wanted help moving ahead with their career and the fourth wanted help growing her small business. If you view the “Good Morning America”

Ferrazzi’s research revealed that people lack intimate relationships to support them in achieving their goals. They either don’t take the time or aren’t open to getting that intimate. You’d think spouses, family and friends could fill in here, but typically can’t be truly honest for fear of affecting the relationship. But consider what an alcoholic gets from a sponsor to help stay sober. Think about what someone losing weight gets from their weekly Weight Watcher weigh in group. They get people willing to hold them accountability when they fall short on their commitments.

“ Who’s Got Your Back” recommends forming this band of “lifeline relationships” like a personal board of directors using a mindset of generosity, vulnerability, candor and accountability. He discusses generosity because we have to give before we can receive. Many of us feel like we are imposing on others when we ask for help, but he argues that enlisting others to support us is actually an act of generosity. People typically want to help and feel rewarded just by being a part of your success. You are being less than generous by NOT including them.

Ferrazzi wants us to risk being vulnerable. It’s the only way others can feel safe being truly honest with us. We need them to help us see our shortcomings so we can at least be aware of them and consider addressing them. Safety may feel good on the surface, but it may be postponing our dealing that problem until it runs us aground with consequences too painful to ignore it any longer.

Having a mindset of candor doesn’t mean people will rip us to shreds, but it does mean they are committed to giving us the feedback we need. They know we need it to succeed. Finally, we must be open to being held accountable. If these people take their job as serious as an AA sponsor or a Weight Watcher group, you’ve got what Ferrazzi recommends.

This makes so much sense to me and more so because Ferrazzi is using proven methods. He’s using approaches proven by Weight Watchers that’s been around since the 1960’s and AA started by Bill Wilson in the 30’s. Ferrazzi’s approach is to enlist peers taking the same approach but on a different aspect of our lives.

The book spells out different ways to search out people for your group. It’s a bit like dating so not everyone will fit. It may take some trial and error to get the right mix, but it’s worth the work because of the results you can achieve.

I’ve started to develop my “lifeline relationships” after reading this book. I know I need all the help I can get with all I have going on in my life. I’ve launched a program to help people form job hunt clubs using these concepts. This can make a huge difference in improving the results achieved by job hunters.

I’ll keep you posted via CareerJockey.org and the Jobing blog on the progress I make. I plan on reporting the success stories I find from the job hunt groups I see forming. Please share your results with us.

Armellini Express Lines is hiring drivers at their 3 terminals located on the east coast of Florida.   Due to the time sensitive nature of the fresh cut flowers we haul, we run teams.  The advantages of our team operation include more hometime, the opportunity for our drivers to earn more pay, less layovers and downtime. 

Are You Tough Enough to Haul Flowers?

Every year the International concrete and masonry community get together in Las Vegas, NV to share best practices, attend seminars, and enjoy Las Vegas for a week! For the past two years Diamond TEC has been an integral part of the shows success and in 2009 Diamond TEC was recognized as one of the best show booths at the show! Not bad considering more than 1500 companies show up ever year to display their products and meet and greet the more than 50,000 attendees.

Diamond TEC offers two ways to pay your way to the show ( Feb 2-5 2010)! The best way, and the cheapest for you, is to join our sales team and travel with us as an exhibitor. The second way is for you to purchase a minimum of $2500 dollars worth of diamond blades from Diamond TEC and travel as our guest to the show for the week. We pick up your air fare and show tickets as part of the deal! For our premier guests, the folks that purchase $4200 or more from us, the air, the hotel, and the show tickets are part of the package!

Last year Diamond Tec took more than 25 of its best clients to the WOC 2009 all expense paid. This year our goal is 40! Call us at 800.211.0665 ext 253 to be a part of all the excitement. It will be the best call you ever made!

The Network of Indian Professionals (NetIP) is a professional, non-profit organization dedicated to the overall achievement and advancement of South Asian professionals. The primary focus of the organization is to foster a bond among South Asian professionals to unite and support each other locally, as well as to give back and contribute positively to the communities in which we live and work.

Join us this year at:

The 18th Annual NetIP Conference
Held in the Dynamic and Vibrant City of Toronto
Friday, Sept 4th to Sunday, Sept 6th 2009

• Engaging Panels and Workshops (covering finance, healthcare, entrepreneurship, culture, media arts)
• Film Screenings & Community Outreach Events
• Chic & Elegant Parties
• Captivating Entertainment (including a Bollywood-themed gala affair)

Create Memories of a lifetime and gain an opportunity to forge lasting friendships, as you mingle with elite South Asian professionals, network with industry leaders and meet top notch speakers!

For more information, visit www.NetIPConference.org.  

In this competitive job market, it's the little things that can put your resume at the top of the pile.  According to many recruiters and human resource managers applicants rarely include a cover letter with their resume.  Why not eliminate the "mission statement" and include a letter instead.  Mission statements are often vague and worse, they sometimes look like an applicant has just listed all the SAT words they can remember.  A clear, concise and sincere cover letter gives a much better idea of the candidate's writing ability, personality, and attitude.  These things can really help to determine weather they will be a good fit for the company. Every little bit helps, so why not?

Diamond TEC congratulates Diamond Debbie on completing her first 90 days at Diamond TEC>   Debbie has earned $1000 or more per week since her very first week here at the company.   She is always a positive impact on the sales floor and her can do attitude helps put her in a class all by herself.   The best part is.......she found Diamond TEC on Jobing.com and she did not even know what a diamond blade was until she came to work here!   Go jobing and Debbi.......Keep us the good work -  Preston

In “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” Stephen Covey describes seven principles, that if established as habits, are key to leading an effective professional and personal life. In his book “The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness" Covey takes the idea a step further. Becoming effective is surely something to be desired, but what would it take to achieve greatness?

The first seven habits are focused on how to run your life effectively, how to manage your relationships with others effectively and how to keep learning so you can maintain this effectiveness over time. Habit 8 is “Find Your Voice and Help Others to Find There Voice.” This book makes a few passing references to the first seven where it makes sense, but its goal is different. It’s wanting to help you search for significance and how to apply your influence and leadership to that end. It discusses how to identify your chosen place in this world so you can best apply your skills, personal interests, and passion. All these are intended to drive you to make a real difference in this world and more so if you can apply your influence and leadership to maximize the contribution made be those in your sphere of influence. The book doesn’t come out and say it, but it analyzes characteristics of great leaders and how they are able to accomplish what others might say, “Can’t be done.”

The book includes a DVD with videos to summarize and illustrate the points made in the book. All of them are very well produced and appropriate for clarify the points in the chapters where they appear. Covey complements the book with a well put together online community website that provides additional resources and recommendations on how to make the most of the published material. It’s more than just a book, but a lesson plan with study materials for growing yourself (and your team and organization possibly).

I am reading this book a second time and will soon be teaching it to others in the organization where I work. It forms the basis of a good leadership program and, if facilitated right, can be used to improve teamwork and interaction. We’re using it to challenge people to become leaders of those around them whether they are in titled leadership positions or not.

I’m sure I’ll be writing more about this as I experience this content with others.