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This week in The #RedBranchWeekly:

• The Other Re-Recruiting
• Hack Your Candidate Experience With Tech Tips
• Creating Culture Starts at The Top
• 3 Different Hiring Practices to Ditch
• 4 Tech Hacks For Smooth On-boarding
• Tech Workers: The Ball Is In Their Court
• Employee Engagement: Allow Them To Play, Create, and Succeed
• Why Most Performance Reviews Suck and How to Move Forward

Do you want to keep up on our current work? Follow us on Twitter @RedBranch

The Other Re-Recruiting

Are you familiar with the term re-recruiting? This week Visibility Software breaks down how re-recruiting can really benefit an organization. After all aren’t we all focusing on our employee brand these days?

#Hack Your Candidate Experience with These 4 Tech Tips

There has been a of buzz around the candidate experience for a while now. It’s great because we are making people feel valued in our industry. But when or where does the candidate experience actually start? Recruiterbox thinks that it starts with the correct technology and the correct use of it. After all when someone applies isn’t it usually through some sort of technology?

Creating Culture on Top: How Fortune’s 3 Best Companies to Work For Did It

“Maintaining an effective culture is so important that it, in fact, trumps even strategy.”

Company culture doesn’t just involve managers and employees, it needs to start at the head of the company. Just like Emily Jasper discussed this week on #nextchat, we need to create a groundswell within our companies and in order to do that we need to involve everyone.

4 Tech #Hacks for Smooth Onboarding

In this article they give you some great advice on technology you could implement into your hiring process. Most hiring managers or HR professionals have an ATS, hopefully they are using Video interviewing, and also taking advantage of a training solution. If they aren’t they might be falling behind in their efforts.

3 Traditional Hiring Practices to Ditch

In this post GreenJobInterview talks about ways to make your hiring better. There are many different processes that we can improve on daily. Have you recently considered hiring an ex-employee? How about introducing technology like video interviewing to your process to save time and money?

Tech Workers: The Ball is in Their Court

Is it difficult for you to hire technology workers? Today the market is in dire need of them. Many are saying no to positions that they are offered because the salary is not what they desire. How can we find those tech workers and attract them to our companies? For starters, you better be using technology, and you better work on that employer brand. Second, Tech workers are a hot commodity right now and they know it. So, offer them a salary that will be fair and don’t try to low-ball them.

Employee Engagement – Allow Your Employees To Play, Create, Succeed!

“Employee engagement will take a huge leap forward when they are allowed to be successful on their own terms. Allow workers some leeway in their jobs. Allow them to “play, create, succeed” and watch your company prosper.”

Why Most Performance Reviews Suck and How to Move Forward

Everyone has had a performance review in the past. Hopefully some of you had one recently that meant either a raise and/or a new position. How many people actually had one and it was complete crap? Could you tell that your manager took little to no time to complete it? How many people were just reprimanded instead of praised for all the hard work that they produced? This post will help you become better at giving and receiving performance reviews.

We send out these digests every week so stay tuned! If you have something you would like to be considered in our Red Branch Weekly post tweet it to us.

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THEN

I tried adding the HTML , XML, or JSON codes thinking they would work (because I could be a coder if I wanted to), they didn’t.

SO

I decided to add my account and assume that it was going to distribute it correctly, it didn’t.

By the way, none of these options worked for me–>

Of course, it sent out and I look like a dummy because it was all code. (Sorry you guys, no one should ever have to look at code, except maybe Jeremy Hogan).

Maren said it has something to do with our blog being hosted on WordPress differently than most. (i.e. she is cheap)

WHO KNOWS?

Anyway, sorry if that was confusing to anyone. If you have any advice on how to get the thing to work I would love to hear from you.

Email me at: eric@redbranchmedia.com

Thanks a lot Obama.

4 Facebook Job Seeker Fails

We hear it everywhere: networking is the number one way to find a job. Forty-one percent of respondents in a Right Management survey said that they landed a job through networking. Today, networking doesn’t mean what it used to. The first thing that comes to just about anyone’s mind when the term “networking” is thrown out is Facebook. While LinkedIn is the world’s leading professional social networking site, Facebook continues to be the leader in social media.

Facebook is a strong leader for social networking; professional and casual alike. We all have those Facebook friends (or sad to say, we are that Facebook friend) who go about the networking job-hunt the completely wrong way. It’s a pity inducing, cringe worthy site to see. Whichever perspective you’re coming from, recruiter or job seeker, please beware of these four Facebook job seeker fails.

1) Hmmm, What’s Wrong With Them?

You know that person who is always looking for a new job, always posting how excited about they are about their new job, and then very quickly back to looking for a new job? They are sending the message that they are either unhireable, a job-hopper or a flake. Why would anyone grant this type a personal recommendation?

Offering a recommendation for someone who has trouble holding down a job means putting your professional name on the line for this person, and very few us are willing to do that (no matter how bad we feel).

Instead of status updates indicating that you are on the job hunt, send personalized messages to relevant contacts about relevant positions. Furthermore, if you’re having a hard go of holding down/finding a job, don’t make it public knowledge. Even if you’re the hardest working, most-skilled worker in the world and none of this hardship is actually your fault, it still looks bad—very bad. Read more…

Wellness Programs, the Right Way

The goal with any wellness program is to facilitate a healthy work environment. This will increase engagement and lower healthcare costs. Wellness programs, which are thoughtfully implemented, do just this, but wellness programs that are pushy and intrusive, will do quite the opposite.

The benefits of a successful wellness program are plentiful, including less down time due to illness, higher retention and job satisfaction and increased productivity. With new healthcare initiatives on the horizon, wellness programs are going to become even more popular. Smoking cessation programs, workout and weight loss programs have shown proven health benefits, and reduced healthcare costs.

Whether you’re improving or implementing a wellness program in your organization, there are some very important dos and don’ts to consider. Matthew Faustman of Forbes sums up wellness programsin a great way,

“As you might imagine, it’s a kind of carrot-and-stick question: Do employers entice employees (the carrot version) to participate in wellness programs, or do they punish employees (the stick version) who refuse to participate?” Continue reading..

photo credit: dollen via photopin cc

Self-Awareness

If you don’t have a handle on who you are as a worker, you aren’t going to be much help to your team. Self-awareness is a crucial skill that allows people to work within their strengths and be honest about their weaknesses.

Humility

Urgh this one is the worst, but you should have it anyway. No man (or woman) is an island and you are no special snowflake. It’s okay to brag sometimes but thank and defer as much as you brag or everyone (including your coworkers) will hate you.

Organization

Notice that I did not say neatness. Neatness is for other people. Not this snowflake. Being organized means that you can find something immediately and that you have a system wherein other people can find things easily when you are sick/gone/hungover.

Punctuality

Yeah, I said it. Being late is rude and makes everyone wait for you. Stop it and make yourself a 10% better coworker immediately.

Attention

If you are paying attention to someone, you are looking at them, taking in their words and using your brain to process them. You are NOT looking at your phone, or typing or watching something or even most times, taking notes unless you tell them that is what you are doing. If you are remote, then walk while you are the phone and record your calls for notes later.

Boldness

I hate how passive-aggressive we are in this society. For the most part, no one wants to say anything confrontational and we’ve replaced solid (helpful!) criticism with being nice (not generally helpful because many times you are a big fat liar). Be willing to help someone get better by letting them know what they can improve.

Discernment

But also sometimes, shut up. If you are discerning, you have both the ability to be bold and humble. Essentially, you’ll know that if someone nailed the writing of an article but misspelled a couple of words, then simply proof their articles and be done with it.

Honesty

Being honest is a shockingly hard habit for many to form. Lying (even little white lies) pervades the workplace. By being honest with your team you help them (and you, ya liar). Instead of: “I sent you that proposal on Thursday, it’s SOOOO weird you didn’t get it,” try it: “I am so sorry, it looks like I left that draft in email and forgot to hit send/didn’t realize it was due the 7th and not the 17th/got sick and forgot about it completely.”

Accountability

Along with the above, sometimes you screw up and the best thing for everyone is to just grow up and own it. True, this might result in disciplinary action, or even co-workers that are angry with you for awhile but at least you will be owning your work, which is really the first step to being a great leader.

A sense of humor

Sometimes we laugh at people. Sometimes people laugh at us. Sometimes we all laugh together at cat GIFs. Either way, while work is important, it’s ALSO important to relax and enjoy a funny joke.

Adaptability

This is especially important on smaller teams. I know in the past I have been guilty of stonewalling a new product or system simply because I didn’t want to deal with it. That’s not okay. It made things harder for bosses, co-workers and eventually me, since the only option when you won’t fish, is to cut bait. Learn to adapt to new tools, team members, bosses and finally Salesforce (barf).

Ownership

It’s difficult in a larger company to really own your work, but it’s the stuff that great entrepreneurs and employees are made of. Even when you are working with others on a project, treat every aspect of it as if it were your own (without the pissing contest). If it’s not work you would sign off on, DON’T.

Pride

It’s weird right? That you would need both pride and humility. But the thing is, you need personal humility and pride on behalf of your team. If you can’t boast about everything that your team has accomplished or your company does, chances are…you’re a major bummer. Don’t be a bummer.

The Skills

I’m sorry. I know you thought I was gonna say some Deepak Chopra stuff about culture (which is important) but even if you don’t have the skills when you’re hired, you need to learn them…fast. The problem with co-workers is that eventually they’ll notice when they are picking up all the slack, over explaining the most basic of systems and covering for you when the boss asks for month end deliverables. And even the best sense of humor doesn’t cover for that.

photo credit: Kaptain Kobold via photopin cc

However if you have always dreamed of playing an integral part to a business by working in the HR space, you might be interested to learn a bit more about what you could be doing on a daily basis. Here are just a few of the key responsibilities of an HR specialist:

Hiring and firing

The first thing to think about is whether you could handle the ups and downs that come with the role. You will have really good moments where you can tell someone they have got a job, but you will also have to do the opposite from time to time. It is inevitable that someone will lose their job for whatever reason, but you need to be able to deal with the situation in a professional and cool manner without it getting too personal.

Monitoring and recording illness

You would be expected to record the days when certain staff members are not able to make it into the office due to illness. This might be on a paper file or something more advanced such as CIPHR People software (click here to read more). If employees are consistently reporting illness over a long period of time, it may be the case that they need an official warning for missing too many days without valid proof of sickness.

Organising training days

When you aren’t monitoring staff for their absences, you will be able to do things with a bit more of a positive twist. One such example is organising training days and seminar sessions for employees. These can vary but they can be anything from companywide events to small venues with limited spaces. Training is something that is very important to staff as they want to feel like they are progressing within the company and are valued.

Coordinating appraisals and reviews

Of course, they will have a chance to air their opinions when they have their appraisals and reviews. The frequency of these will be laid out in each employee contract, so it will be up to you to ensure they are done on time and in full. Again, you might rely on software to remind you when each one is due; this will help you to coordinate with senior managers who need to be involved in the process.

Handling grievances and disciplinary reviews

You may also need to have extra meetings with an employee and their manager if they are involved in a grievance or disciplinary. These do occur now and again, and you want the end result to be a positive one for both parties if possible. Sometimes it is necessary to bring in external mediators if your company does not have one employed.

Those hidden hiccups that can halt even the most promising candidate from taking and accepting an offer – can interrupt your work and delay your success by weeks, sometimes even months, and yet they seemed to come out of nowhere completely unannounced.

So what should you look out for as a recruiter, and how can you avoid falling victim to these unexpected delays and disasters? Well, we’ve put together a list of the top 5 most common recruiting disasters, and how you (as the forward thinking person you are) can avoid them at all costs. Because the job is hard enough – without additional problems getting in the way!

1.  Your candidate accepts the role, then changes their mind

This is the worst thing that can happen, if a job offer has been made and the candidate has committed to it – but then they change their mind. It’s a tricky scenario – especially as a recruiter. On the one hand, you need to get to the bottom of whatever reason they gave – and is it something you could’ve prevented earlier? If so, then address this and work with your client, or department to fix any issues that may make this happen again. In terms of ensuring this never happens – it’s a hard thing to predict, and thus it’s a hard thing to prevent. Sometimes candidates will simply have a change of heart. The most you can do to stop this happening on a regular basis, is to fully research and get to know your candidate. Do they have a good employment record? Talk to other recruiters and see if any of them have come across your candidate before… all of these things will help you gather a more comprehensive mental picture of them, and if they’re committed to taking the job role.

2. Your candidate isn’t old enough to take the job role

This is a rare one, but it does happen. It’s especially common with over-eager students who are desperate to get into the working world as soon as possible. If you’ve found a great candidate (who seems perfect for the role, and the company, etc) but you discover they haven’t actually finished college or university yet – it’s not actually the end of the world. Can you offer them a graduate scheme or internship instead? This can then keep them in your sights, for any full-time roles that may crop up when they reach the right hiring age.

3. You’ve found the perfect candidate but they’re located in another city

Potentially a disaster if the candidate isn’t willing to relocate or commute – but you’ll never know the answer to these questions unless you ask. It seems foolish to miss out on a perfect candidate for something that can so easily be worked around in 2014. Ask your candidate if they’re willing to travel for work, or if they’d be open to relocating for their new job. If their answer is ‘yes’ then your problems are solved! You can always discuss with your client what kind of packages can be offered too for those willing to relocate, maybe there is a larger pay bracket, maybe you offer loans to those who are moving and need financial help to do so. All these things help. If they aren’t willing to move however – look into other possibilities before giving up. Does the position lend itself to home working? Would they be willing to commute Mon-Fri if you put them up in a hotel during the week? Does you client have any offices in the town where the candidate is based? All these can help sort out a potentially disastrous situation.

4. You liked the candidate but your client didn’t

We all know how it goes, you find a great candidate, put them forward for the role – but your client just doesn’t agree and can’t see the same potential you saw. This is hugely frustrating – but it’s something you need to accept. At the end of the day – the final say comes down to your client. The most you can do here is perhaps set up a second interview so that both parties can meet again – in a more relaxed setting. Going forward though, to prevent it happening again – it’s worth getting a more detailed list of what your client wants. And perhaps more importantly, what they don’t want. Find those red flags, and make sure you aren’t putting anyone forward who may send them flying up.

5. Your candidate lied on their CV

This is a horrible situation to be in, and the only way to avoid it (and looking a fool because of it) is to simply do your research. Make sure you talk to the candidate thoroughly and make sure you have checked their references and their employment history. This is simply a case of being super vigilant. Don’t put forward anyone to your clients until you’re absolutely sure they are who they claim to be.

Author information:

Sean Revell specializes in helping employers find the right candidates and applicants find the right jobs within the hotel industry on behalf of Leisure Jobs, the UK’s largest leisure specific job board.

Getting Around those Four Nasty Words: “That’s Not My Job”

Managers and co-workers cringe when they hear the words, “That’s not my job”. It’s like hearing a bratty 3-year old say, “I don’t wanna”. There is going to come a time when a worker will be asked to do work outside of their normal set of tasks. That’s just how business goes. Whether someone on the team is fired, has quit, they’re on vacation or sick, there will be, on more than one occasion, the need for workers to expand their duties.

It’s one thing for a manager to constantly pile work on an employee outside of their area of expertise, but it is quite another to ask an employee to pitch in and be a team player. As part of an organization, there are deadlines and goals to be met, it should be understood those goals and deadlines are everyone’s responsibility.

Hire Right

Everyone will cite, “Works well with others” as one of their strengths in an interview, but do they work well for others? When sourcing and hiring candidates, companies should look for candidates who areeager to push the company forward, as an individual and as a team member. Candidates who see the big picture, realize that the end result is what matters, not how you get there. Continue Reading…

One of the things we offer here is social media management. Through this, we have the privilege of communicating with many interesting people on a daily basis. Listed below are some of our favorite tweets at (@RedBranch) this past year*. Thanks again for making 2013 an amazing year for us.

*Twitter wouldn’t let us go back farther than September.

We also included some of Maren’s Facebook posts, which are hilarious! We have some interesting conversations here.

If you made it this far you should follow us on Twitter and also like us on Facebook.