Browsing Posts in Recruitment

Do we really only spend 6 seconds scanning your resume?

By Liza | No Comments

If you’ve hooked in to Linkedin this week you would have seen this provocative piece pop up as a headline article.

 

Here’s what recruiters look at in the six seconds they look at your resume.

 

It shows a study of a scientific technique called “eye tracking.” Researchers from the website the Ladders  tracked the eye movements of 30 professional recruiters during a 10-week period to “record and analyze where and how long someone focuses when digesting a piece of information or completing a task.”

 

It shows that we focus on your name, current title and company, current position start and end dates, previous title and company, previous position start and end dates, and education.

 

So is this all true?

 

Well, partly.

 

We’d like to discuss a few things around the way we review resumes.

 

Along with your experience we are just as interested in the impact that you have made in each of these roles, and how that relates to the role we are recruiting.

 

One thing that bugs us is that people consistently confuse their responsibilities with their achievements. Your responsibilities are the tasks you complete. Your achievements relate to the impact you have had when you complete those tasks, or when you have gone above and beyond your job description.

 

No matter how good your experience is, if you have a sloppy resume with funny fonts, strange spacing and limited or inappropriate detail, we may well question your communication skills and your grasp of technology. These are fundamental skills all employers need.

 

Do keep in mind that we are time poor.

 

If we are faced with a pile of hundreds of resumes we are going to give your resume the quick once over. So all the relevant information must be easy to read and catch our eye. Keep your heading simple and bold and space out your information so it’s easy for us to read.

 

We strongly suggest that you take your resume writing seriously.  The Ladders study showed that clear layout that made it easier for a yes/no decision. You don’t want to be the person who is a yes for that role, but a no because we cannot find the pertinent points on your resume.

 

If you are confused in any way at all about the job advertisement, or if you want us to spend time reviewing your application, call us. That’s why we put our number on the advertisement.

 

(02) 8221 0553.

 

Browsing Posts in Recruitment

It’s more than money! Science says financial incentives do not work.

By Liza | No Comments

Here at Enigma HR we love TED talks.

 

They’re inspirational, thought provoking and delivered by some of the most fascinating thought leaders in the world. Like this talk, from Dan Pink – a career analyst and former speechwriter to Al Gore.

 

For a long time we’ve all asserted that there’s pretty much a direct relationship between reward and performance.

 

That’s wrong says Dan.

 

He says science proves that people can actually perform worse (not better) when they’re offered financial rewards. While incentives are not disincentives, they can act as a distraction in roles that require right brain and creative thinking.

 

Rewards, he says, work really well for simple linear type tasks where there is a simple set of rules and a clear destination. However, rewards by their very nature, narrow our focus and concentrate the mind. For real life problems in the working world of the 21^st century, you don’t want to be looking straight at the task when the solution may actually lie in the periphery.

 

Dan says we’re rewarded and engaged when we do things that matter to us, when we like what we’re doing, when we find the task interesting and when we feel we are doing part of something that is important. Put simply there are three things are critical to true motivation – “autonomy”, “mastery” and “purpose.”

 

These are the foundation for a new way of looking at our businesses and working lives:

 

- Autonomy is the urge for us to direct our own lives

 

- Mastery is the desire to get better and better at something that matters

 

- Purpose is the urge to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves

 

What’s our take out of all of this?

 

Well, we hope to surprise you too, given what we do.

 

We say – before you throw more money at a performance problem with your staff; before you decide to offer the big dollars to attract new staff and before you personally decide to go after the big dollars, watch Dan talk and think about what really matters to you.

 

Then when you’ve done that come and talk to us.

Browsing Posts in Recruitment

How to find the right job when you have no idea how to start

By Karalyn | No Comments

Recruitment Consultants are not Careers Counsellors. We can give you advice about the next logical step in your career. We can tell you where others have gone before you. We can match you up to the roles we have on offer. But we can’t really help you, if you have no idea what you want.

 

Sound like you? Sounds like everyone at some point in their life.

 

So how do you find a job when you don’t know where to start?

 

Well, we’d recommend careers counseling, either informally or formally. In fact if we all had this before we began our careers, say in school, it could have saved us a lot of heartache from careers we feel stuck in and jobs we don’t like.

 

Here’s what a Careers Counsellor can help you identify:

 

- Your innate strengths
- Your preferred working style
- Your preferred work environments
- The way you like to be managed
- People whom you like working with
- Any barriers you have to achieving your goals

 

The next step from there is to look at industries or businesses that are growing and any study you may need to do. Part of that process could be talking to people who are employed in the areas you have identified as being of interest. Ask them how they got their first job in that field, what study they recommend the exciting and not so exciting bits about what they do.

 

The reason I say this is that many people who successfully change careers have started that journey from seeing a Careers Counsellor and talking to others. They have gained a level of self awareness. This has helped them in the job hunt when they’ve been grilled by an interviewer asking them about their career change. They can say with conviction: “I asked an expert, and this is why I know this new career is the right choice for me.”

 

This site has a list of Careers Counsellors in Australia.

 

When you choose a Careers Counsellor you might want to ask their experience, the journey they take you on, what you can expect at the end, and their experience in helping people in your area.

 

I’d also recommend you read this terrific article by Kate Southam in her blog: Cube Farmer. She writes on talk she gave to school leavers on how to find your first job. It’s actually great advice for people of any age.

 

The last thing to think about, is that a change is often a journey not a leap. Rarely do you hear of people who’ve gone straight from being acrobats to astronauts. That’s much too much of a jump.

 

(Lame joke, I’m sorry)

Browsing Posts in Recruitment

We’re expanding into HR Consulting!

By Liza | No Comments

We began with our consultants sourcing the right people for you.  Now we want to help you maximise the value of your people to optimise your business performance over the long term.

 

What does this mean?

 

We’re now offering work force management solutions.

 

Why are we offering this?

 

We’ve always been committed to offering services beyond recruitment. In fact our clients have always asked us informally for HR management and people advice.

 

Now we’ve developed a full range of services to meet that need.

 

Here’s what we’ll be offering.

 

Strategic HR Services

 

 

Human Resources Needs Assessment

 

An HR Needs Assessment identifies the strengths and weaknesses of your people resources.

 

You can strategically plan for, and manage your staffing to achieve business objectives.

 

We assess the current capacity and competencies of your people with those needed to achieve your vision, mission and goals.

 

To help you gain more in-depth understanding of your HR needs and priorities, we also offer climate survey services.

 

 

Strategic Human Resources Planning

 

A crucial part of an organisation’s business plan is managing its human resources.

 

We make recommendations for improvement in both operational and strategic HR management.

 

We also provide risk mitigation advice so that you can develop an action plan aligned with your business objectives.

 

We can assist in restructures and change-management plans by developing and implementing your HR strategy for growth and success.

 

 

Operational HR Services

 

Recruitment Process Outsourcing

 

The foundation of good people resource management is best practice recruitment.

 

To introduce improvements and efficiencies we assess your current recruitment processes and practices including: sourcing, screening, short-listing, selecting or negotiating.

We can offer recruitment outsourcing solutions so that your organisation can concentrate on what it does best.

 

 

On-Boarding and Induction

 

Critical to developing an engaged and productive organisational culture is ensuring you have a comprehensive on-boarding and induction program for employees.

 

To enable your employees to ‘hit the ground running’ we will ensure your organisation has the right:

 

- employment agreements

 

- position descriptions

 

- employee handbooks

 

- induction program design and content

 

 

Administration and Compliance

 

Having the right HR policies, procedures and administrative processes in place is essential to ensure your organisation complies with employment regulations and mitigates any associated risk.

 

Compliance can provide the necessary framework for your organisation to operate efficiently and effectively, and contributes overall to higher productivity.

 

We offer a complete range of best practice HR policies and procedures to adapt to the specific needs of your organisation.

 

 

Performance Management

 

Performance management is critical to the productivity and success of a business.  We can develop:

 

- performance appraisals

 

- remuneration reviews and benchmarking

 

- related policies

 

- procedures and forms

 

- position descriptions

 

- KPIs, deliverables and incentives

 

- career and succession planning and executive continuity

 

 

Training and Development

 

We can help you identify training needs through gap analysis and alignment of your business objectives with role responsibilities, deliverables, and career and succession plans.

 

From team building, to frontline manager training and coaching, we can tailor and deliver your training and development requirements to increase engagement and productivity.

 

 

So what would you expect from our team of HR Consultants?

 

Think, efficient, hassle free service without compromising a full consultative approach, focussing only on what you really need to drive your business forward.  We help you minimise costs associated with turnover, poor performance and risk exposure.

 

Our team provides proven experience and knowledge in best practice HR in the Australian market.

 

This will be the best investment in your people strategy you’ve made all year.