With 73 million living in the US, millennials are already the largest segment in the workplace. Plus, they may be 75 percent of the workforce by 2030, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

This generation is starkly different from the generations that came before them, but don't deny the ambition of the millennial job hunter. According to a Gallup report on the millennial generation, 21 percent of millennials changed jobs within the past year--a stunning figure that is more than three times the number of non-millennials who have changed jobs in the last year. Not only that, but only 50 percent of millennials plan to be working at their company a year from now.

Long story short, a lot of millennials are looking for new jobs.

Yet, despite this ambition, landing that dream job may be thwarted by a simple thing that is completely avoidable:

A bad résumé.

In these days when many job seekers are focused on social media to the exclusion of most everything else, millennials have to pay particularly close attention to the résumés they are submitting to recruiters. Here are 3 of the worst mistakes millennials consistently make on their résumés.

1. Having outdated and unprofessional information.
Millennials have been online for much of their lives and were introduced to a version of the Internet that is much different from the online experience we know now. However, using an email address from an old, outdated email service (Hotmail, AOL, etc.) will make you look unprofessional and not savvy with tech. In addition to updating your email address, make sure all the information in your résumé is current and up to date, and that your social media accounts (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc.) reflect the kind of person a recruiter would want to hire.

If you are working with a recruiter and you have not heard from them in a while how often do you email them to encourage a response before you are perceived to be a pest? Also what is the best way to solicit a response?

As you can imagine, this is one of my favorite topics. For starters, keep in mind that there is a big difference between an employment agency, and executive recruiters or executive search firms. Be clear on who you are working with.

Employment agencies work for you, the candidate, which requires that you, the job seeker,  pay them a fee for finding you a job.

Executive Recruiters are paid by the client for filling the role.

Executive recruiters find people for jobs, as opposed to jobs for people. 

The hiring manager pays our fee. We are motivated to fill the position with the best match possible. So theoretically, since we all work off databases, when we get a search that you are a good match for, and we crank up the ol’ search engine, it will bring your particular resume to our attention.

The biggest variable is the number of potential matches that we receive. If you are one of five, you can be assured that your resume will be reviewed. If you are one of 1,000 then the odds are not so great.

As we tell job seekers, one of the smartest things you can do to explore other career opportunities, is to make a list of your targeted roles and companies, and then do your best to stay on their decision makers peripheral. Follow your potential hiring managers on social media if they have public accounts, commenting and ‘liking’ their posts.  It also makes good sense to invest time reaching out to executive recruiters that specialize in your industry or position.

A diverse workforce is a “must have” if you want your business to succeed. Hiring diverse talent is a great way to share unique experiences, drive innovation, and recruit other diverse workers. As the population becomes more diverse, it makes sense that the workforce should represent this diversity as well. Yet, many employers are missing the mark, and diverse candidates seem to be getting lost in the recruiting funnel.

Where Is Diverse Talent Falling Out of the Funnel?
There’s good news and bad news. First, the good news: Diverse candidates ARE actually making it into your recruiting funnel. But the bad news is that they don’t make it very far. If the top of your funnel is “getting candidates to view your career site,” you’re losing them at the next stage: APPLYING after viewing your career site.

According to PathMotion’s new eBook, Diversity Recruiting: What’s on Candidates’ Minds?, 57% of talent acquisition (TA) professionals say they believe they’re losing candidates at this stage because their career sites don’t display a diverse and inclusive workforce. Additionally, these respondents also suggest that diverse talent is dropping off because candidates aren’t getting the information they need when researching a company.

As the title of this article implies, we have three strategies to help you, and if you haven’t already figured it out, updating your career site is number one.

1. Highlight Your Diverse Workers on Your Career Site
When diverse talent goes to your career site, they’re looking for answers to these specific questions:

Am I eligible for this job?
Where do I fit in?
What is the work environment like?

Each question can be applied to specific groups of diverse workers. For example, workers who are concerned they may be too old/young for the job, may not have the education required, or have a criminal record usually want to know: Am I eligible?

First let me say thank you for giving members this opportunity! For 25 years, I was the Corp Director of HR/Payroll, for a multi-state healthcare provider of substance abuse/addiction treatment services. Despite completing numerous applications for employment for direct hire, consultant, staffing agency job postings, executive recruiting firms, interviews on a first and second level basis for HR/payroll related positions, I am still unemployed almost two years now! What’s wrong?

I paid a professional resume company to redo my resume, called on numerous colleagues that I met throughout my professional career for advice, present/future employment opportunities and even offered to work for free in their offices performing entry level duties, to get my name back out there. I have had four job offers that  were withdrawn over the past 24 months. Why? Good question – the withdrawal letters were very generic (i.e. “decided to go in another direction” and “restructured job duties since interview, therefore, you are overqualified”).

Do I have an age issue? Here is my dilemma with a possible age issue: I am only 50 years old, but based on my employment history, employers may think I am closer to 60 or 65 years old. How can I professionally say that I have 15-20 more working years in me?

I have attached a copy of my resume for your information as well. I love my profession and very anxious to return to it ASAP. I look forward to your response and can’t tell you how much this means to me.

Thanks so much for including your resume; it makes it so much easier for me to provide specific feedback. In all honesty, I think your resume looks awesome! You have done a terrific job in listing job responsibilities as well as job accomplishments. Judging by the dates listed on your resume I would guess you were much younger than your actual age so that cannot be a factor and regardless I can tell you that 50 years of age is by no means a reason not to get hired.

You state that you have had four job offers that were then withdrawn in the next day or two over the past 24 months. This is highly unusual, and cause for further investigation. Are they pulling the offer after the background check has been initiated? As an attorney you know that if a hiring decision is canceled because of a poor background check than you are legally entitled to get a copy of that report so that you can address any potentially false information and work to rectify it.

On average, for every 100 men who work at a construction site, you’ll find three women (or, according to this study, just one). With an aging workforce and fewer younger workers taking retirees’ places, 69 percent of contractors struggle to fill hourly craft positions. And around a third of contractors have a hard time hiring high-skilled salaried employees for field sites and administrative work.

Keeping these statistics in mind, it’s safe to say that the construction industry has traditionally not had an easy time recruiting and retaining workers that are women, young people, and white-collar professionals. But, new technologies that are proliferating in the construction and engineering industries have the power to change that.

Between 2013 and early 2018, construction technology firms pulled in more than $18 billion in investment funding. The technologies in question run the gamut from virtual reality to robotics to Internet-enabled equipment. Advances in these areas make a disproportionately large difference to women, young people, and white-collar workers for a number of reasons.

Companies looking to target these populations more effectively should pay attention to these shifts, and prioritize technology in their operational and hiring plans.

Tech encourages women’s participation
Women currently comprise 9.9% of workers in the construction industry and only 3.4% of field workers. That share is expected to grow to as much as 25% of the industry by 2020.

This will come as little surprise to anyone with a passing familiarity with the industry’s culture. Women tend to feel intimidated by or unwelcome in the male-dominated field, and they often assume that construction jobs require physical strength.

As the job market has evolved, so too have the skills required of seekers. But when 75% of human resources professionals say a skills shortage has made recruiting particularly challenging in recent months, it would appear as though the workforce hasn’t quite kept pace. Now LinkedIn is stepping in to help close the gap.

On Tuesday, the professional social network announced the launch of a “Skills Assessments” tool, through which users can put their knowledge to the test. Those who pass are given the opportunity to display a badge that reads “passed” next to the skill on their profile pages, a validation of sorts that LinkedIn hopes will encourage skills development among its users and help better match potential employees with the right employers.  

“We see an evolving labor market and much more sophistication in how recruiters and hiring managers look for skills. ... We also see a changing learning market,” says Hari Srinivasan, senior director of product management at LinkedIn Learning. “The combination of those two made us excited about changing our opportunity marketplace to make the hiring side and the learning side work better together.”

Earlier this year, on the morning of June 5, Sephora closed all of its U.S. stores, distribution centers, call centers and its corporate office to host hour-long “inclusion workshops” for its employees. This was following backlash the makeup giant received after American R&B artist SZA tweeted about Sephora employees accusing her of stealing and calling security on her while she shopped at a California store. In May 2018, Starbucks shut down more than 8,000 U.S. locations so its 175,000 employees could complete a four-hour anti-bias training program, also following a racial profiling incident in a Philadelphia store.

Over the past few years, it’s been effectively proven that a diverse and inclusive workforce gives businesses a competitive edge and leads to higher profitability. Consequently, millennials and Generation Z rank D&I high among what they value in employers, according to Deloitte’s 2018 and 2019 “Global Millennial Survey” reports.

D&I trainings and workshops are useful tools for businesses hoping to change workplace culture and retain a more diverse workforce, but the remaining question is how to deliver the intended message in a way that resonates with individuals in a sustained and impactful manner.

Diversity consultant, career strategist and motivational speaker Stacey A. Gordon said the answer lies in asking a simple question: Why?

D&I efforts have now become some kind of PR exercise, she said. “It’s being looked at as something you do to save face, something you have to do because competitors are doing it.”

While working as a recruiter in the early 2000s, Gordon found herself having to spend a lot of extra time convincing companies to hire women and African Americans for various positions.

“It was frustrating because I wasn’t encountering those roadblocks with other people. I thought, ‘Why is this happening?’ ” Gordon said.

Since the 1980s, companies have increasingly adopted diversity policies to improve the representation of women and racial minorities in the workplace. Today over 95% of companies with at least 1,000 employees have instituted programs to increase diversity and inclusion within their ranks.

Despite this, we know remarkably little about how people feel about these programs, and even less about why they feel the way they do. This is a major knowledge gap. Research shows that diversity programs are more effective when workers support them — and when done correctly, they offer great opportunities to improve workplace equity and, ultimately, firm performance. At their worst, however, they can stimulate resistance and actually create an even more challenging environment for underrepresented workers

To help companies take full advantage of these programs and close this knowledge gap, we conducted a study guided by the following three research questions:

• How supportive are workers of the diversity policies at their companies?
• How do policy characteristics impact levels of support?
• How do workers’ social attitudes impact levels of support?

I am 60 years old and in the midst of a job search in IT customer management. I have 20 years of proven performance with a very large software provider, managing their largest revenue producing accounts. Due to personal issue, I had to take time off, and now I’m working to find a position. My primary concern is age perception in the tech industry. I have had three firms very interested in me with several phone interviews with all three that went very well. This led to me being invited to the HQ for final interviews. These final interviews were positive and I expected an offer. However, once my package was turned over to their HR team, I was immediately rejected. No reason stated for the rejection. I am concerned that my age is a deterrent. Your thoughts are appreciated.

My initial reaction would be to not jump to conclusions and assume that the reason why you are not gaining the offer would be because of your age. They likely knew your age prior to inviting you to corporate, so it is unlikely that that would have been a deal killer at the offer stage. We so often see candidates automatically assume that they are not gaining the offer due to age, race or disability when the fact is they simply are not doing something as well as the competition.

We always do an “autopsy” when a deal falls apart and reverse engineer it to see where the candidate fell out of contention, and I think that would be smart for you to do in order to figure out what is happening, so you can correct it.

There’s a lot of talk about gender bias, racial bias, and culture bias at work, and each are important for many reasons. But perhaps one of the biggest and most problematic types of bias we face is the bias of age: we often evaluate people based on their age, and this is now becoming a major challenge in the workplace.

Several years ago, through our research for Deloitte, we asked around 10,000 companies, “Is age a competitive advantage or competitive disadvantage in your organization?” The answer probably won’t surprise you. Over two-thirds of the companies considered older age a competitive disadvantage. This is consistent with data from the AARP that shows two-thirds of individuals age 45 to 74 have experienced age-related discrimination.

In other words, if you are older, you are likely to be considered less capable, less able to adapt, or less willing to roll up your sleeves and do something new than your younger peers.

Much has been written about this recently, because the workforce is aging at a rapid rate. People age 60 and over are projected to outnumber children under the age of five within the next year, and by 2025 we expect 25% of workers in the U.S. and the UK to be over the age of 55.

The accepted definition of Millennials is children born in the 1980s and 1990s which makes them today’s 20-something and 30-somethings of the workplace.

Also known as Generation Y, Millennials are considered the first workforce generation of ‘digital natives’. They have more formal education than any previous generation, they are tech savvy and have mastered the art of multi-tasking because of their early exposure to a wide range of media.

In the past staff tended to start on the bottom rung of the ladder in a company and climbed the ranks very slowly. Millennials, on the other hand, can leave college sometimes better qualified than long-standing staff members, and can have an expectation that they will receive fair recognition and reward for fair work.

According to a whitepaper ‘Attracting and Retaining Millennial Professionals’ compiled by international specialist recruitment consultants Roberts Walters, 91 per cent of Millenials say the opportunity for rapid career progression is one of the most important things about their job.

In 2018, 35% of the U.S. population had at least four years of college education — the most in history. But while we might have the most educated population ever, these degrees aren’t necessarily giving people the practical work skills they need.

College degree programs simply cannot keep pace with how fast things are changing in the workforce. Many students are currently being prepared for jobs that no longer exist, and many don’t have the right skills for the job they want. Skills gaps are prevalent and widening.

This becomes even more problematic as more and more of our work tasks are automated. Automation means that grads could be doing higher-value work earlier in their careers, as machines take over repetitive or mundane tasks. On the one hand, this actually suits this demographic’s demand for autonomy and responsibility earlier in their careers. But it also means that they’ll need to be better prepared for what lies ahead: more and more employers are going to require exceptional soft skills — the ability to write, listen, and communicate effectively.

Is being an out-of-state candidate an obstacle when applying for an executive-level position?

Generally, the higher up the executive ladder you are, the less important geographic location is, for a couple of reasons.

For managers with nationwide responsibilities, including extensive travel, many times companies are open to where you will be based – as long as you have access to a good airport with lots of direct flights.

Also, the more unique and valuable your skill set, one can presume that the rule of scarcity is in effect, and the recruiter will be asked to do a regional if not nationwide search in order to find someone of your caliber. In these cases, the hiring manager will be expecting to pay for relocating their ideal candidate, so it really does not matter where you live when applying for the role.

The jobs market is changing, that’s no secret.

Today, shifts in technology and demographics mean that more of us are working for longer and in totally different ways than previous generations.

And that trend shows no sign of abating. The World Economic Forum predicts that by 2025, 75 million jobs will have disappeared to be replaced by 133 million new ones as automation spreads in the workplace.

What’s less clear, however, is how to respond to that mammoth move.

Yet, according to experts, it likely starts with rewriting a centuries-old concept: The resume.

In a recent LinkedIn Influencer post, Alistair Cox, the CEO of global recruitment firm Hays, praised luminary Leonardo da Vinci for creating the resume in 1482, but opined that “as the world in which we work changes beyond recognition, so does the C.V.”

And he’s not alone in that view. Speaking to CNBC Make It, Paul Wolfe, global head of human resources at job site Indeed, said traditional resumes today do a “poor job” of representing candidates. Meanwhile, TopCV’s career expert, Amanda Augustine, said resumes “need to adapt to (employers) changing needs.”

So, just what does the new resume look like and — more importantly — how should you rewrite yours? Well, according to Cox, there are four things to keep in mind.

According to a recent study, 97% of executives expect to see increased competition for talent over the next 12 months.

That’s the view shared by thousands of business executives who responded to business consultant Mercer’s 2019 Global Talent Trends Study.

And, the study found, more than half of executives from high-growth companies – 52% – see the length of time it takes to find and hire new talent as their biggest people-related challenge.

‘Human capital risks’
That’s why more organizations are focusing on how to address what the study labels “human capital risks.”

They are working to understand where their workforces lack skills needed to compete now and in the future.

And they’re looking to HR to develop people strategies focused on identifying and filling those gaps.

According to Mercer’s analysis, that requires breaking down HR silos.

The consultancy recommends closely integrating talent acquisition, compensation and benefits, career development and learning and aligning them with organizations’ strategic priorities.

Training investments
With competition for talent so intense and market trends so unpredictable, developing the skills of existing employees becomes more urgent.

If there’s one thing you definitely don’t want your business to be known for, it’s a toxic work culture. Apart from being unpleasant, a hostile, negative work environment comes with serious repercussions, damaging everything from staff retention to morale to productivity - not to mention PR.

In 2018, the CEO of Lululemon, Laurent Potdevin, resigned as lurid details of a dark, toxic work culture became public. The story included all the usual ingredients: a ‘boys’ club’ culture, sexism, and a total lack of accountability and respect. Unsurprisingly, employees were miserable, and after years of suffering in silence, they finally spoke out.

Of course, they’re not the only brand with a culture problem. In January 2019, Facebook hit the headlines (again) as staff spoke of a culture where employees felt obliged to forge intense friendships with co-workers and follow management orders without question. And in 2017, Uber employees described the work culture as ‘unrestrained, aggressive and unhealthily competitive’.

While these are extreme examples, they serve as a stark warning of what can happen if you don’t pay close attention to your work culture - because a toxic workplace doesn’t just happen overnight. Like rot, it takes hold slowly and builds over time. So, how can you avoid a toxic work culture? Here are five ways to keep your workplace culture in tip-top shape...

1. Company culture comes from the top
A workplace culture isn’t optional. When you have a group of people occupying the same space every day with specific roles to fulfil, an atmosphere or culture will emerge. This culture can become negative or downright hostile if there is no direction or misdirection from the top.

It’s your job as the leader to define the company’s values, communicate them and, crucially, live by them yourself. If you expect staff to be at their desks by 9am, strolling in at 10.30 will only serve to promote an autocratic ‘them and us’ culture. Good leadership and creating a healthy work culture is all about leading by example.

So you’ve finished the job interview for your dream job (or, at least a great job) and as far as you’re concerned, you nailed the job interview! It’s only a matter of time before they call you with an offer, right? But after a couple of weeks pass without a peep, you start to get that sinking feeling…  perhaps the job interview wasn’t the slam-dunk you hoped for. At this point, you may feel that the best decision is to cut your losses and move on. But before you put that job interview in the past, be sure to follow-up with the employer.

The job interview is only the beginning of the conversation. While you certainly don’t want to come off as annoying, you want to stay on the employer’s radar.

Here is the right way to follow-up on a job interview, without being a pest

1. Write a Thank You Note

After your job interview, the first follow-up should be a thank you note; preferably a handwritten letter sent through the mail, which is more likely to be read, but an email on time is better than nothing. You should always send a note to every person you interviewed with, no later than 24 hours after the interview. Keep these things in mind in your note:

Be brief, friendly, and conversational. You’ve already had the job interview, so let your gratitude and personality show a little bit.
Restate your interest in the job and any relevant details on why you’re qualified.

Thank the potential employer for their time as job interviews can require employers to set aside a lot of time, often forcing them to push off work.

The thank you note is also an excellent opportunity to add any significant information you may have forgotten to say in the interview.

Having a well-crafted CV can be the key to getting your foot in the door at the company of your dreams.

However, figuring out how to make your CV fully representative of your experience and also stand out is easier said than done, according to jobs website Glassdoor.

Glassdoor found that hiring managers and recruiters generally only spend about seven seconds reading your CV before deciding whether to move forward or not.

While most people know the basics of how to put together a decent work history, below Glassdoor outlined some tips you probably haven’t heard before that can help your CV stand up to the seven-second test.

1. Only include your address if it works in your favour

If you’re applying to positions in the city or town you already live in, then go ahead and include your address.

In this case, it lets the hiring manager know you’re already in the area and could theoretically start working right away.

But if you’re targeting jobs in another area and you’d need to move in order to start working, it’s probably a good idea to leave your current address off of your CV.

Why? Recruiters are sometimes less excited to interview candidates from another city, since they often require relocation fees.

Thank you for taking the time to answer questions! I’ve been an entrepreneur for 30 years and just sold my last small business. I seem to be painfully over-qualified for many jobs, or woefully short in requirements for most C-level businesses looking to hire for those positions. My skill set is best-suited for C-level positions, but I have no direct experience that they’re requiring. Any advice?

You may not be so happy about my advice after I share my thoughts on your question, but I would not be doing anyone any favors if I did not tell it like I see it.

We see this problem often, when candidates are transitioning from owning their own business and going into corporate America. There is no question that running a business involves a unique set of highly valuable soft skills, from the ability to multi- task, to not being risk adverse, and having confidence in one’s abilities. And certainly most small business owners are skilled in many different tangible skills as well, from bookkeeping and sales, to vendor management and operations. HOWEVER, just because someone has held a President or CEO title in their own company does not make them over-qualified for lower level jobs in the corporate sector.

I would suggest you make a conscious effort to forget about titles altogether, and strictly focus on skill sets when looking for a potential match. To be frank, I read and re-read your question a few times and it sounds like there is a discrepancy between your tangible skill set, and the jobs you are aiming for.

I immigrated to Canada 14 years ago, found a job in project management in 2008 but lost it in 2009 during the recession. I tried to upgrade my education by learning French. Already I had my English level assessed at band 8. But no opportunity came my way. Depressed, I got a security guard license and started working as a concierge at a condo building. My supervisor who had become a friend of mine, decided to move to another city about six months ago. Soon, I felt myself unwelcome by the new management and quit my job. Now at 66, I don’t know what to do. I’m not very outgoing and feel shy to ask for favors from strangers. Is there any advice that you can give?

For starters, in the future rather than quitting, I would strongly encourage you to speak with your superiors if you feel that they are not happy with your job performance so you can improve it, rather than quitting.

Moving to another country and learning a second and then a third language takes an immense amount of courage and intelligence, so I would not short-change yourself. You obviously have a lot of attributes, and should make a list of all the positives that you can offer an employer. Then do searches on the internet for the types of jobs that require those skill sets, and go about trying to contact the hiring managers with the goal of gaining an interview. Most important, I think you need to change your mind-set to think of finding a job not as asking a stranger for a favor. In fact, it is exactly the opposite!

Not everyone is an extrovert and comfortable approaching strangers but when a company has a hiring need and you have the skills they are looking for, you are not in any way asking for a favor but rather offering a solution to their needs.

Stress can make it challenging for leaders to connect with people by making you isolated or invisible. Some stressed leaders even drive people away. But there are ways to motivate people to partner with you and your team to achieve shared goals, even as you continue your quest to combat and prevent stress. The key is in how you approach them to make the ask.

Care about direct reports
When you care for your direct reports, there’s a domino effect. Often a manager’s direct reports lead teams of their own, who either lead teams as well or deal with customers. When you kick-start this domino effect, you can spark a culture of caring at your company.

What to do? Caring doesn’t mean bringing doughnuts to work once a month. Caring means listening. Whenever you interact with your direct reports, start by listening to them. Don’t finish their sentences or abruptly cut them off. These behaviors quickly signal a lack of caring. Caring also involves being vulnerable. Disclose an interesting tidbit about yourself, even if it seems tangential to your work.

We’ve been discussing board service in the space for the past few weeks and it seems to be a very timely subject with a lot of interest. In our last article we talked about figuring out where you might best fit into a corporate board, given your skills, interest and experience.

Now that you’ve zeroed in on the size and type of board you’ll target and knowing what strengths you’ll offer them, the next step is to polish those skills. As my mom always said, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” So be patient with yourself. Things will work out.

The sooner you begin preparing for a corporate directorship, the better. And to help you begin to prepare, here are some early actions to consider for the purpose of fine-tuning your skills.

Seek out for-profit private board experience. “Although any board experience is beneficial, corporations are likely to value for-profit board experience over a directorship at a nonprofit,” says Steve Mader, managing director chairman at recruiter Korn/Ferry International. Find a small company or start-up and approach it about serving on its board

There are many misconceptions about the concept of flexible working, particularly within the banking and finance industries. It can often be associated with working mothers, or as a means of reducing the hours in the working week, but this is not the case. In practice, flexible working is a modern and dynamic tool for empowering driven professionals to deliver upon their day-to-day responsibilities whilst managing busy lifestyles. Consequently, many businesses choose to refer to this practice as ‘dynamic working’ for this very reason. When implemented effectively, dynamic working boosts productivity, supports a healthy work-life balance, and contributes towards a high trust, high performance working culture.

This new way of working has emerged as a direct result of the shifting demands of the millennial generation within the workforce. For example, millennials are increasingly prioritising their mental health and how a job impacts this.Companies are now in a position where, in order to remain competitive in the market, they must respond to this shift and ensure their benefits package to potential employees reflects the wants and needs of a modern workforce. A failure to do so will likely result in being seen as out of touch and the best and brightest talent looking elsewhere.

What suggestions do you have for job seekers who are preparing for a phone interview with a recruiter? 

Preparing for a phone interview is essentially the same as preparing for a live meeting, with a few key differences.

By its very nature, occasionally phone interviews can catch you off guard. If that happens and you’re not prepared to do your best, it is totally appropriate to ask to schedule a time that you can talk, and just explain that it is not a good time to speak freely. This will give you time to adequately prepare for the call.

Avoid using a cell phone if possible, because of spotty coverage. Arrange to be in a quiet place where you can devote your full attention to the call.

Have a pen and paper ready to take notes, as well as the job description so that you can easily share how your experience matches what they are looking for.

Research the company and the person you are going to be speaking with by reviewing their LinkedIn profile.

Create a short list of questions regarding the role, their ideal candidate and opportunities for high-achievers.

Use the technique of repeating or re-phrasing questions. It tells the caller that you listened carefully, and gives you time to think about your answer.

An ideal employee may be a tech hirer's unicorn, but recent research from mobile coaching company BetterUp shows employees who feel a strong affinity of workplace belonging perform better, are less likely to leave, and take fewer sick days. 

When a company fails to foster a sense of belonging, and employees feel excluded, productivity suffers, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars lost, the study postulates. As a response, BetterUp promotes interventional, transitional, behavioral change within a company, which it alleges will prevent or alleviate the feelings of exclusion. The research also shows interventions can often prevent or alleviate feelings of exclusion, thus building a more productive work environment.

Companies should "practice inclusive leadership" and "equitable team behaviors" and be wary of workplace exclusions, said Gabriella Kellerman, chief innovation officer for BetterUp. If an exclusion has been identified, managers should ask employees about the experience and ask how they are coping. 

She said, "Workplace exclusion can happen unintentionally, so the first step is to create awareness of the detrimental impact that exclusion has on both employees and employers. Getting ahead of the problem by instilling organizational values and behaviors that support a culture of inclusion, mentorship, and allyship early on can help prevent the problem from the beginning."