How to Decline a Job Applicant

declining job applicants

7 Tips for Telling a Candidate They Didn’t Get the Job Hiring new employees is always an enjoyable experience.  For starters, you get the chance to increase your staff while bringing in new skills.  Filling a vacancy also lets you increase your team’s capacity, enhancing your flexibility in terms of maneuvering work assignments around your department.  But along with the good comes the

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Become a Better Interviewer: 16 Common Mistakes to Avoid

become a better interviewer

16 Mistakes We Make When Interviewing a Job Candidate Ever feel like you are just asking random questions to a job candidate during an interview?  Do you watch the clock just trying to fill the minutes with conversation?  Interviewing job applicants to fill an open position on your team is no easy task, and conducting a meaningful interview is a skill

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The Recipe for a Great Team: 12 Key Ingredients

what makes a strong team

12 Key Ingredients to High Performing Teams in the Workplace   It’s well understood that good teams get the best results.  Sports provide a great analogy for this: we are all familiar with those underdog teams that pull together when it matters most and make a championship run.  Everyone on the team does his or her part and they motivate each

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Justifying More Staff: Avoid These 9 Mistakes

Increasing headcount

  One of our most popular articles here at MRH discusses a basic strategy that we’ve used to justify an increase in staff.  And it’s no surprise: based on our research, 50% of managers say the biggest challenge they face is the size of their staff.  We’ve said it many times, but will mention it again.  Between salaries, benefits, insurance and other

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3 Ways To Plan Resource Levels

ways to plan your staff

3 Resource Planning Methods to Help Predict Staffing Needs Most businesses and organizations go through an annual headcount planning process for the upcoming year.  We all know that such activities are important to running a productive organization.  And yet, while resource management is critical, doing it well and doing it right is easier said than done. There are a number of methods

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7 Things I Look For When Interviewing Job Applicants

conducting interviews of applicants

Evaluating A Job Candidate’s Interview Performance   Whether you’re on a hiring spree for your startup or trying to fill a key role in your organization, interviewing job applicants reveals a lot about your candidates.  We recently filled a critical role within our company, and while all three final candidates were internal to our business and knew the organization well,

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9 Challenges You Face When Hiring in an Emerging Economy

Hiring staff in developing nations

Tips for Hiring and Retaining Employees in Developing Nations Whether you’re hiring in India, recruiting in China, or opening an office in the Philippines, the obstacles are often the same. Because of their rapid growth, hiring and staffing a team in an emerging economy will always present unique challenges in terms of language, skills and retention. But if you equip

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How to Build A New Team from Scratch

how to build a successful team

7 Steps to Building a Successful Team: People, Purpose, Performance The opportunity doesn’t come often for us, but getting the chance to build a brand new team from scratch is one of the most enjoyable experiences a manager will ever have.  After all, building a successful organization requires planning, creativity, execution and oversight…all at once.  For me, the first such opportunity

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How to Justify Hiring Specialists

business case to hire a more expensive employee

Questions for Building a Business Case Any manager who has hired new employees has dealt with challenges related to wages.  Why else do recruiters ask for a candidates salary as part of the initial screening process?  What they’re really asking is “can I afford you?”  I actually had one hiring manager tell me “This guy is making more than I do, we could never

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8 of My Favorite Interview Questions

favorite interview questions

The Art of Interviewing Job Candidates One of the most difficult and important decisions you will make as a manager of people is selecting who to hire and planning how to staff your team.  Such decisions should not be taken likely – as the boss, you are responsible for the getting results. Additionally, hiring the wrong people is tremendously disruptive

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How to Design an Office – 8 Tips for Managers

tips for remodeling office

8 Workplace Remodel Tips for Managers Doing it Themselves A workplace is more than just the four walls that surround people. Rather, a modern workplace is an environment in which ideas are born, where breakthroughs are made, and where profit is generated. Impressive campuses likes those of Apple or the trendy refurbished factory that now houses a Brooklyn start up

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How Hiring the Right People Leads to Profit

customer service employee skills

Interviewing Candidates for Customer Service Positions Many organizations make hiring decisions in very practical terms: Are they willing to relocate? Do they have the required education? Do they possess the minimum number of years of experience per the job requirements? These are all valid questions to ask yourself and are certainly variables to consider when making routine hiring decisions.  When

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A Simple Strategy That Will Help You Hire More People

business case to hire a more expensive employee

Overcoming the Frustration of Being Under Staffed How many times have you seen a colleague ask for more resources?  After all, their team was very busy and they could really use some more people.  You’ve probably witnessed that discussion more times than you can count.  Now, how many times have you heard the person they were asking – their own manager,

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