Did you know that Gallup’s research revealed that about one in 10 people possess the talent to manage?

Though many people are endowed with some of the necessary traits, few have the unique combination of talent needed to help a team achieve excellence in a way that significantly improves a company’s performance.

How to recognize a great manager?

What makes a great manager? What are the traits and characteristics of a great manager?

Gallup has found that great managers have the following talents:

• They motivate and engage employees
• They drive outcomes and have the ability to overcome adversity
• They create a culture of clear accountability
• They build relationships that create trust, open dialogue and full transparency
• They make decisions based on productivity, not politics.

When searching for candidates for a job role, it can be very easy to only focus on the qualifications and experience they state on their CV and not take into account their personality and how they may fit into your company. After all, there is logic in the idea that hiring someone who has done the job type previously, means they will be more successful.

Why are an increasing number of companies hiring for personality?

Skills can be learned

An applicant’s skills and knowledge of the field are almost always considered more important than personality in a potential hire.

The problem with solely relying on what a candidate states on their CV, is not only are the skills provided a true reflection, but that it does not convey a candidate’s personality or attitude towards a working environment. Whilst knowledge and skills can be acquired and experience gained, someone’s personality is who they already are and does not change. Once settled in a job, most people have the capability to learn the required skills very quickly, but hiring someone with a bad personality or attitude to work is a hard thing to overturn.

“In my eyes, personality always wins over book smarts. Company knowledge and job-specific skills can be learned, but you can’t train a personality.” Sir Richard Branson.

A successful team can make all the difference

When it comes to looking for a job, sometimes we need to make our previous experiences and skills stand out as much as possible in order to attract our preferred job recruiters.

The best way to do this is through using our CV, says CV distribution tool Job Nexus. If you are wondering how to format your CV for recruiting agencies, in this article, the specialist firm shares some expert tips on how to best prepare your CV for jobs, and give you the best chance possible of landing your next dream job.

Writing Your CV

Writing your CV can be tough. With so many different styles out there, how do you know which one is most likely to get you the job? It is important to know that individuality is key. Most employers prefer individuality over basic templates all filled out with the generic, overplayed content which the majority of people send in thinking it will land them the job.

Some of the most successful CVs to land jobs were those that went over the top to get the job. A good example is the story of a candidate who arranged for a box of doughnuts to be sent to the CEO of a company, including his application within the box.

Long, story short, the candidate got the job. Although this example is a little extreme, the thing to take away from it is that individuality is essential.

Reducing bias in your hiring process to increase workplace diversity isn’t something that will quickly be solved overnight. It first requires an understanding of what bias means and how your hiring process contributes to humans’ natural biases. Let’s begin by defining bias, then moving to the benefits, and finally ways to prevent bias in your hiring process.

I’m not biased, am I?

Webster defines bias as “exhibited or characterized by an unreasoned judgment.” Unconscious racism, ageism, and sexism all play a significant role in whom we hire. To solve for these unconscious biases, we need to understand how to prevent them and gain an understanding of the tools we can use to reduce bias in the hiring process. After all, it’s often subconscious and could be something a hiring manager doesn’t even realize happens.

However, once it’s brought to light and tools are implemented to reduce hiring bias, organizations can increase thought diversity and reap the benefits.

 Benefits of Reducing Hiring Bias

1. High-performing teams are more diverse. It’s important to understand the dynamics of your teams and which strengths each member brings. A study conducted by Good&Co found that for optimal team performance, teams should be a mix of 50% men and women. The same study found female managers reported higher levels of cohesiveness and better team performance compared to male managers.

2. Diverse teams will find creative approaches to solve issues. Employees will excel when they understand how their unique strengths benefit the group and overall company. Research shows that the more diverse a team, the more likely it is to consider different approaches which result in innovative, compelling ideas.

The reasons are infinite

Job hunting is one of the most stressful periods in a person’s life, right up there with a death in the family, divorce, and illness.

There’s so much at stake, and it can be frustrating. In Austin, where we’re headquartered, we operate a popular tech job group where the most universal question is “why didn’t I get the job??”

In almost all cases, you’ll never really know why.

Sorry. That’s disheartening, but it’s true. The positive side is that it isn’t always your fault. So, we’ve crafted a massive list of reasons you didn’t get the job interview or job offer that you can learn from if you read from top to bottom (we promise this isn’t the same old garbage you already know).

Don’t let this list get you nervous, the idea is that there are infinitely complex numbers of reasons humans reject each other, many of which can’t be helped. Remember, the hiring person has a lot at stake, so does the employer (it costs a lot to hire, onboard, and retain employees), not just you.

The hiring process can be inhuman and indignant and your resume goes into a black hole or you never get feedback after a phone or in-person interview, but arm yourself with as much knowledge about the process and avoid as many objections as possible. We’re pulling for you!

Getting ghosted after a great date stings. Getting ghosted after interviewing for your dream job sucks even more. Per a recent survey by recruiting software company iCIMS, 76 percent of people say that not hearing back from a potential employer is more frustrating than being blown off by last week’s Tinder match.

“If a romantic prospect doesn’t text back, it’s easier to blame it on immaturity,” says psychologist and workplace expert Amy Cooper Hakim, PhD. “But you expect a level of professionalism—which includes proper communication, even if it’s a no, in a career setting.” And when a recruiter disappears, it can feel like you’ve failed yourself and your future.

But sadly, this happens all the damn time. More than one-third of job seekers say they were rejected from a gig by never actually getting any response at all, according to a recent study by career data firm Clutch.

One reason? The bulk of the hiring process is now done online, with automated programs scanning through stacks of résumés and e-mails.“Ghosting is more likely to happen when employers don’t think about candidates as humans with feelings, emotions, and goals,” says Jessica Miller-Merrell, founder of Workology.com. 

So even if you schmoozed it up with a would-be boss in person or dazzled a manager on a call, it still may be easier for them to remember you as a résumé online.

The four benefits of persistent problems:

#1. The prospect of becoming your best self.

“Leadership is a matter of how to be, not how to do.” Francis Hesselbein.

Discomfort and distress are the hammer and anvil of becoming.

Personal growth gives meaning to persistent problems because problems help you become yourself.

“Leadership is synonymous with becoming yourself…” Warren Bennis

Becoming yourself requires conversations with the problems you face.

2 questions to ask nagging problems and recurring distress:

Why are you here?
Who are you calling me to become?
You lose yourself when solving problems is all you think about.

#2. The potential of an open mind.

An open mind reflects the potential of a new future. But the promise of a closed mind is repetition.

You aren’t open minded if you haven’t recently changed your mind.

Persistent problems are useful when you:

Acknowledge you don’t know. Potential begins with knowing you don’t know.
Practice curiosity longer than others.
Rise above, “I’m right,” and allow others to be right.
Try new things.

#3. The power of choosing your attitude.

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” Victor Frankl

The difference between success and failure is the attitude you choose toward the road ahead.

#4. The possibilities from taking action.

Personal development is the result of action, not simply contemplation. As you act, do three things.

Work on yourself.
Open your mind.
Choose your attitude.
Arrogance short-circuits growth because it blames, excuses, and pretends.

Humility fuels growth because it accepts reality, takes responsibility, includes others, and doesn’t need to be right.

The value of a problem is the opportunity it creates.

Building a storytelling resume isn’t about holding story time to lull the reader to sleep. Instead, storytelling resumes are akin to miniature action movies. They include a beginning, a middle, and an end – or “rising action,” “climax,” and “falling action” in storytelling terms.

The problem with most resumes is that they leap from rising action (challenge + action) to falling action (result), omitting the climax along the way. For example, in describing a market and culture renovation, a careerist might say:

"Transformed regional culture, triggering $1.5 billion boost in regional orders and revenue plus market share gains in 36 months."

While the above is a solid achievement, a more energized action movie resume would deepen the metrics-focused story by ALSO including contextual language (in addition to the metrics-loaded statement, above). So, supplement the above with the following context:

"Converted underperforming, weak team into winning high-performers capable of wrangling down challenges of bureaucratically weighted geography and formidable competitors devoid of meaningful collaborations. Led and influenced complete culture revamp, igniting market share and financial improvements."

If you want to ensure you have a job in the next decade, you'd best be able to flaunt your "learnability."

According to a report from staffing and recruiting firm ManpowerGroup, "learnability," or "the ability and desire to quickly grow and adapt one's skillset to stay employable for the long term," is a key skill employers will be looking for.

Stefano Scabbio, president of Mediterranean, Northern, and Eastern Europe at Manpower, previously told Business Insider that, given the rapid shift in desirable skills, "learnability is the only driver that can help you move forward in your career."

"Learnability" might sound like an empty buzzword. But ask Steve Cadigan, founder of Cadigan Talent Ventures and the former vice president of talent at LinkedIn, and he'll tell you the ability to "learn and apply quickly" really will "differentiate you from the competition" — and it comes down to how you frame your work experience.

Cadigan said you can demonstrate your learnability in a job interview by talking about past situations in which "you faced something new, you learned it, and you applied it."

Wikipedia supplies this definition: “Employer brand describes an employer’s reputation as a place to work, and their employee value proposition, as opposed to the more general corporate brand reputation and value proposition to customers”.

It’s a problem for banks – they have an image problem, customers dislike and distrust the banks especially since the financial crisis, and they are finding it hard to recover consumer trust. Given that digitalization is forcing the sector to re-evaluate their role and how they portray and sell themselves, brand image is a difficult topic for the banks.

For some graduates, banking is not the hot ticket that it used to be, despite higher than average starting salaries in the sector. Accenture found that perceptions about organizational culture play a role here:

I was asked to participate in several projects this week that kept me busy. I will share my blog on ambiguity and change next week. I think you’ll find its worth the wait. I wrote this blog for a client who was recruiting the next generation of leadership for their teams. The older team members had a negative stereotype about millennials.

Here’s the message I shared on why I thought it was time to start involving younger leaders. This is not my normal consulting style, but I felt that if I didn’t change their mindset about millennials the organization would not survive.

How do you bring new talent into your organization?  What’s the biggest challenge for leaders in almost all midmarket organizations? I find the biggest challenge is how entrepreneurs attract millennials to their organization.

Don’t worry; I’ve got significant experience working with millennials in high school, college, and the workplace. You’re going to enjoy working with them!

Today, I share several key secrets to help you attract, develop, and retain the most talented millennials.  I’ll share what I’ve learned from many of the world’s most gifted organizations. All successful organizations today invest time and resources to develop and retain their most talented millennials. These organizations are building a great future by understanding several key ideas in creating a great management pipeline.

Research has found that performance evaluations, positive and negative, can influence employees’ motivation to work. Studies have shown that this is because the performance evaluations tell employees how well they perform compared to their peers, and in turn, how central they are to their organization.

However, performance evaluations only address how well employees meet the expectations of their current job. Little is known about how feedback regarding leadership potential can impact employee motivation. This information could be helpful to leaders who are trying to groom future organizational leaders.

Researchers (Steffens et al., 2018) conducted two studies. The first was to determine how feedback on leadership potential could impact employee leadership ambition and organizational commitment. The second was to determine how such feedback could impact employee perception of procedural fairness and subsequent job performance.

By all indications, global unemployment is lower than any point in history, which is good news for bread-winners but not so great when you're hiring.

Given the shortage of talent across most industries, what's the best way to attract and retain good employees? There are multiple standard approaches you could take like offering a higher starting salary, providing a decent benefits package or giving perks like free child-care, meals, and even sleep pods.

For many companies, however, these levers aren't as easily pulled. If you find yourself in that situation, here are three alternatives approaches to help you sell the best version of your company.

Design your recruiting collateral from a marketing perspective.
I've worked with many organizations which have excellent marketing collateral for selling to their customers, but when it comes to presenting themselves to prospective job hunters, they struggle.

Nothing screams cultural disconnect like browsing through an impressive website and social media presence only to find that the careers section has been written by someone from HR or legal.

When you apply for a job it's tempting to do anything you can to stand out. Sometimes that's a good idea. If, for example, you're a long-shot candidate, it might make sense to make a joke, try something bold, or make a big statement through your cover letter to get the recruiter's attention.

There are limits to how helpful that can be, and there's absolutely bad attention. Your goal in applying is to get an interview. It's not to have the recruiter talk to other people about your candidacy without even considering calling you in for an interview.

These are common mistakes that happen during the interview process (not just on cover letters). If you avoid them you'll have a much better chance of getting hired.

1. Don't insult the company

It's fine to tell the company all the positive things you bring to the table. You can even talk about your history of improving processes, increasing sales, or otherwise making the companies you work at better.

You should never point out what you think the company is doing wrong. That's presumptuous and a tad obnoxious. It's also possible that you don't have the full picture and by being bold you'll just look silly.

finews.asia speaks to Natasha Madhavan at financial recruitment specialist Selby Jennings in Singapore about hiring trends in banking, as the upcoming introduction of non-traditional, non-bank players are set to shake up the sector.

Natasha Madhavan, as a recruiter in the banking and finance industry, how is tech and digitalization shaking up hiring in this sector?

There has been a lot of structural change within the banking sector in the past few decades thanks to a wider agenda of digital transformation. For instance, as more banks promote digital banking and cut down on their brick-and-mortar retail shops, there may be less demand for bank tellers but more demand for back-end online platform engineers. We’re continuing to see this happen on multiple fronts as banks explore how they can better utilize technology to cut costs and be more lean and agile.

We’re seeing increasing demand for candidates with data analytics, quantitative and actuarial skills in the market. In times like these, I encourage candidates to keep an open mind and enhance their personal skills in today’s technology-driven market. If you’re entering most workplaces today, not just in financial services, you will need to be adept at using and learning technology because it has become an integral way of how we work and live.

With 31% of us saying they experience discrimination when job seeking, one HR tech believes AI could be the answer

When asked what factors were affecting their ability to get interviews or new job roles, 51% of respondents said they felt age played a part, while 25% said gender.

“Bias is an intrinsic part of the human character but by harnessing technology in the right way we can start to counteract this” — this is the bold claim of Adrian Ezra, CEO of JamieAi, a UK-based HR-tech start-up.

His firm has a goal: to make hiring bias a thing of the past via AI.

By pairing technology insight with human expertise, JamieAi promises to deliver cost-effective, transparent and unbiased hiring for data professionals.

This is, of course, no mean feat; bias in hiring processes are rampant.

According to research JamieAi commissioned, where 500 job hunters were interviewed, 31% of respondents said they have experienced discrimination looking for work.

In today’s talent market, candidates hold all the cards. From increasing demands for very specific skill sets to new types of jobs emerging and a trend towards slower time to fill positions, today’s candidates can be incredibly selective about their next career moves compared to those just 10 years ago.

They wield significant power in recruitment and hiring, with more choices of companies, in almost any geography, and as such are choosing the employer, rather than the employer choosing them. For recruiting teams, this shift requires a change in mindset where they need to actively market the employer to prospective recruits, making employer branding an increasingly important part of any recruiting team.

With plenty of review sites and social media platform to share their experiences on, candidates, even unsuccessful ones, can give real-time feedback and have a huge impact on the employer brand.

Considering this, it is of utmost importance for companies to invest in measuring and managing the experiences of their candidates at every step of the hiring process. This intelligence not only helps companies improve their attraction, recruitment, and selection workflows but it provides great information on how to best retain great talent. In order to make the most of candidates’ experiences – both on the candidate and employer side – it’s important to take a few things into account.

Flexibility is driving change across businesses of all shapes, sizes and sectors – with both young start-ups and more established, traditional financial firms set to reap the benefits. A fixed ‘nine to five’day at an uninspiring desk is becoming a thing of the past. However, workplace flexibility runs much deeper than this: it is about meeting increasing employee demands for ownership of their working day, alongside providing a business with the freedom to be able to react and adapt to change. In light of Brexit, wider macro-economic uncertainty and new challenger entrants, coupled with the intensifying ‘war for talent’, this two-pronged flexibility will prove crucial for even the most traditional firms.

Organic Growth

The financial services sector faces uncertain yet exciting territory ahead. Firms of all sizes need to have the tools to adapt, expand or contract swiftly – within days rather than months. The straight-jacket of a five- or ten-year conventional lease clearly restricts the ability to respond to uncertain political events and navigate through the ever-changing global economy. A flexible solution, with a term of 12-36 months and the ability increase or reduce the amount of space occupied during the period, offers freedom to respond quickly to market conditions and gain the edge over a challenger or competitor. The benefits of this flexibility cannot be underestimated.

Hiring a new team of staff can be both a costly and time-consuming task, so leaving it to a team of professionals may well be the ideal way of securing the best possible outcome. Businesses new and established are turning towards using recruitment agencies within their recruitment process, giving themselves over to the experts who know the sectors they work within like their backs of their hands.

Have Access To The Best Staff With Expert Knowledge Of The Industry

Generally speaking, recruitment agencies target job seekers who have the skills that the sector they work within asks for, meaning that the people they are able to access are the best in the industry. People who have their details stored on the database of a recruitment agency may well be passive or active job seekers, meaning that the perfect candidate might not be actively looking for a new position but receiving an alert for your business may make them interested in a move to a new company.

Hire Exactly What You Want, No Matter How Specific

Recruitment agencies have taken the time to build relationships with the job seekers on their books, building their profiles and using their facilities to highlight their job seekers' skills and emphasize these to prospective employers. Recruitment agencies are able to use the information they have on file about candidates effectively to march the most suitable candidates to a job opportunity that has arisen.

You receive a personalized email from a recruiter claiming to be filling a senior level executive position and you could be the perfect candidate – too good to be true? It probably is. There are a variety of fake job and recruiting scams going around that offer no opportunities except to separate interested candidates from their cash.

How the job recruiting scam works
There are multiple flavors of the scam, but the general process is the same. You get a personalized email from a “recruiter” filling a senior level spot. The email will suggest that they got your name through a referral and that you have just the credentials they’re looking for (even though they haven’t interviewed you or gotten any information from you yet). In some cases, the scam may originate on legitimate job sites like Indeed.com. Here is an example of an email I received in November, 2018 (note that it is nearly identical to emails others received with a different recruiter and company name)

If you research the company, you may find a well-constructed website listing their credentials, recruiting team, etc. But don’t be fooled. Anyone can set up a fake website. The ProRecruiting Solutions website claims the company has been in business since 2007, yet the site only went live in August, 2018, a couple of months before I received the email (both the site and phone number are no longer active, but you can see an archived version here). To help support the myth, should you choose to research the company further, they even put out a press release touting their growth (also in August).

In my work helping other organizations improve the diversity of their teams, I've come across many companies that are doing it all wrong. They have the best intentions but don't fully understand what is needed to create a truly inclusive culture. Based on my experiences, I've learned some tactics that can help you avoid these diversity and inclusion mistakes.

Limiting Diversity to the HR Department
Diversity and inclusion are not concepts that reside solely in the HR department. Typically, I've seen organizations that give diversity lip service through job descriptions that mention a diverse workforce or general content around wanting to be inclusive in building their teams.

While these are important factors to include in recruitment, hiring and people management processes, creating a diverse and inclusive organization must originate in the culture that is defined and managed by the executive team. It's a feeling that has to permeate the entire company. As a leader, focus on the value that individuals with unique perspectives, skills and knowledge can deliver as a competitive advantage.

It’s a well-established stereotype that large-scale companies are about as approachable as a concrete wall. The clichés say it all: Those who “sell out” to work for the “man” become corporate cogs, dedicating their working lives to the daily grind.

The language we’ve assigned to corporate work brings to mind gray cubicles, professional drudgery and drab cultures. Larger enterprises have a reputation for offering excellent salaries and poor experiences -- and for some, the tradeoff might not be worth it. For all their perks and benefits, corporations’ lack of approachability may prevent company recruiters from accessing the top-tier talent that should, by all rights, be within their reach.

Companies of any size that believe salary to be their main selling point are missing the full picture. A 2016 survey conducted by HR consulting firm Korn Ferry polled more than 1,000 professionals about their job searches. It found that the top reason candidates chose one role over another was company culture. Career progression was second in importance, while salary rested firmly in third place.

So what can companies do to compete beyond dollars and cents?

Personal finance and budgeting play a role in everyone’s life. It’s no secret that your ability to wisely allocate financial resources has a significant impact on your quality of life. 

Unfortunately, most individuals — including your employees  — are probably not as financially capable as they ought to be. High schools and colleges have stopped making financial literacy a requirement to graduate, and so many individuals are completely unaware of personal finance basics of personal finances. 

At this point, you might be wondering why you, as an employer or someone in HR, should care about this. Why should it matter to you that employees can successfully manage their finances? Well, here are just some of the reasons why you should invest (or advocate that your business invest) in personal finance training for employees:

The need for recruiting a diverse workforce and forging an environment that promotes inclusion is no longer the elephant in the room. Corporations around the world are making special efforts to make their organizations places where talented employees from all walks of lives and cultures find acceptance and appreciation. The need for creating inclusive workplaces is today propelled not just by social and moral responsibility but also by the realization that diversity brings long-term benefits. Opening your arms to a wide talent pool brings benefits that often traditional recruiters fail to comprehend.

An anecdote here might help to drive home the point.

A senior marketing manager interviewing fresher candidates for a sales opening once gave his interviewees a few sheets of paper and asked them about ideas on how to sell them. While someone made a notebook out of them, another turned them into toy boats. One of the candidates who was a formidable athlete during student days pulled out the idea of converting those sheets into a sporty activity book for children by creating interesting puzzles and crossword games! The marketing manager was sold out for the last candidate despite the fact that he had an unremarkable academic career with no other field experience.