Claws Out A Rant About Clients and Their Desperate Roles

Claws Out A Rant About Clients and Their Desperate Roles Time for a vent. Everybody in recruitment will have, at one time or another, been in this situation. Picture this: your client calls you with an urgent need for a candidate. Man, oh man, they’re desperate! I mean more desperate than the people who enter the Big Brother house. They need your help!  Responding to their needs immediately like the flexible recruiter you are, you  drop everything to work on this role they are so  desperate to fill (I will keep on using the word desperate to emphasize their desperation). After a lengthy search, some blood, sweat and a few tears, you manage to find 2 or 3 likely candidates who fit the remit. You send them across to your client  post haste.  You leave it a day or so then call the client for their feedback, safe in the knowledge they will praise your speedy work and give you interview slots for the candidates you spent the last couple of days finding, qualifying and vetting. “Hi Paul, yes we got the CVs. Thank you, they are with the hiring manager but he hasn’t read them yet as he is really busy. We’ll call you as soon as he lets us know what he wants to do.” Hasn’t read them yet? So much for desperation;  so much for dropping everything because they were so  desperate. Then comes the inevitable call later in the day from the candidates, asking what the client thought of their CV. You can hardly blame them, you did tell them this process was being fast-tracked to the speed of light. Nothing yet, they do have your CV and I’m sure they will get back to me today as they were desperate to get the role filled. I know you are filling in the blanks here because, lets face it, we have all been there at least once in our recruiting lives. You chase, they stall, you chase again, they stall again, the candidates grow increasingly twitchy. Then your disgruntled candidates take to social media to bemoan the fact recruiters are subhuman animals playing with lives,  building up your hopes only to dash them on the rocks. “Those buggers never get back to you! He rang me about a Firtling job in Pilling told me it was urgent, then nothing! No feedback! I think they’re just fishing for CVs. Typical. Clients, this is what we put up with on your behalf! You called us to do a job,  because  you were desperate (that word again) and so we went above and beyond to help. Then? Nothing NADA   from you; how can something so desperate suddenly not be important anymore what has changed? Recruitment is a give and take industry. You want us to drop everything (fees included) to get the person you so desperately need, then you give nothing back. Now I do understand you can be extremely  busy (hence the need for new staff), but surely the right thing would be to put aside some time to see the people you are so desperate to employ? In the long run it will only be beneficial to you, me and the candidate. A win-win-win situation. Youll get the right person who can take some of the burden off you, which is clearly grinding you down, which will free up your valuable time so that your son at home doesn’t keep calling you “that woman or man with the worried look who visits sometimes”,  and can start calling you Mum or Dad again. See, not only do we take the  hard work out of  finding the right staff, we can also help in your home life, giving you more time to spend with the family all you need to do is give a little back. In short, I think its really important to put some trust in your recruiter; trust us to find you the right people. Give up half a day to meet them, safe in the knowledge the Firtlers, Noodlers and Fettlers we send you are going to be worth meeting, and will be perfect for the role. Itll  give you back your life and give  them the job they want. A good recruiter is a Godsend for busy hiring managers; if you build a relationship with your recruiter, you will reap the rewards. *Noodling and Firtling may or may not be real or made up, but the more I write the more I believe, Fettling is definitely a thing in both Lancashire and Yorkshire, Lancashire Fettlers being obviously superior *Pilling is a town in Lancashire, by town I mean it has a Pub

4 Basic Safety Precautions When Working at Heights

4 Basic Safety Precautions When Working at Heights Working at heights presents a lot of unique risks that everyone, from handy homeowners to seasoned at-height workers, should be mindful of at all times. Between 2003 and 2011, 232 workers were recorded to have died due to falls, or 11% of all work-related deaths during the same period. Around 70% of these height-related fatalities involve workers aged 45 and above, and 37% are working in construction. What’s more, half of these fatalities are due to falls from a height of less than 3 metres. Safety must be a top priority for anyone, regardless if they’re cleaning the gutters of their single-story home, stacking crates in a warehouse, or cleaning windows in a high-rise building. So before taking on a working at heights ticket or signing up for a chore that requires you to be off the ground, give serious thought to these safety considerations: Get to know your workplace. If you need to work at heights, you must familiarise yourself with the area you will be working on and how you will conduct work once you’re off the ground. Acquaint yourself with all the nooks and crannies of your at-height workplace. Among the details you should note are edges such as that of platforms, roofs, walls, and walkways; holes, which need to be fitted with guards; how much load can the workspace support; the stability of the structure you will be working on and if it can support itself and your weight; how slippery the surface is; and your entry and exit points and how you will get to different levels of the work area. Stay on the ground if possible. Consider this: are there other practical ways to do the task on the ground? If there are, then it might be preferable to work on the ground in the first place. If it’s an option to fabricate roofs on the ground or to install air-conditioning units on ground level, then do so. You can also reduce working at heights by reducing shelving height or by preferring using tools with extendable handles over going up the roof. Stay on solid construction Solid construction refers to any surface that is capable of supporting workers, the materials they need to get the job done, and the load of other items they might require. A solid construction should have barriers around its perimeter; safe entry and exit points like fixed ramps, stairways, and ladders; as well as surface that’s easily negotiable, such as grid mesh or checker plate flooring. Use fall-prevention devices If it’s not possible to complete the work on the ground or on solid construction, then make full use of fall-prevention devices to prevent accidents and injuries. Fall-prevention devices refer to equipment or materials that, once put in place, will not need to be adjusted or altered to prevent the person from falling. Some examples of this are perimeter guards, safety meshes, and elevating platforms. One can never be too careful when working away from the ground, and working at heights remains to be one of the riskiest activities to this day. Follow these safety tipsâ€"or better yet, take a safety course for working at heightsâ€"so you can approach your work with more confidence and less risks for injury.

The Interview is in 1 Week How to Cram Your Personal Brand - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

The Interview is in 1 Week How to Cram Your Personal Brand - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career One of my closest friends recently asked for my help to prep her for her interview:   Katrina is a 3.5 GPA graduate from UCI and is applying to a government position. Shes very intelligent, pretty, and extremely hard working, but felt that the competition was going to be so intense that she would just get lost in the sea of applicants. She didnt have a blog, a twitter, and had never heard of the term personal branding before. This is a tough situation.   So much about what we talk about here in the blogosphere is how to leverage your blog and twitter to build your personal brand and position yourself to get the job.   To be honest, building a blog up to a point where it can justifiably bring you referrals and credibility can take a very long time. Katrinas interview was in 1 week, so I had a very short amount of time to get her personal brand to stand out above the rest.   Since 1 week was too short of a time to create a food and drug industry blog or to start gathering followers on Twitter, we needed to focus on the one thing that was readily available to us and that would significantly help her stand out Knowledge. Position your brand Our goal during the short 1 week we had to prepare was to position her personal brand as extremely knowledgeable in the food and drug industry. Here are the concrete steps we took to accomplish this goal: 1. Create her LinkedIn page and adjust her privacy settings on Facebook LinkedIn is the professional site that will give you the highest ROI. Most professionals are on LinkedIn whether or not they have a blog or an understanding of social media.   Katrina completely updated her profile and added an image of herself. Since this is a government job, we had to be careful about all the information they can find online about Katrina.   We decided to change her Facebook privacy settings to only allow her friends to view her profile and images. 2. Search FDA on LinkedIn and contact every single person we could find Once her LinkedIn profile was complete, we started searching for everyone who currently works at the FDA.   We sent InMails to those who had the option available and we searched Google for the contact information of those without InMails. Katrina messaged a total of 20 people who worked at the FDA.   Within 5 days, we heard back from 4; she was able to establish a relationship with these people and also get some of her important questions answered.   We now had an inside look at what its like to work at the FDA and what the interview process entails.   More importantly, Katrina was able to get 1 out of the 4 people she talked with to agree to be a source for a recommendation. 3. Search Google Blogsearch and Twitter Search for FDA and read all news in the past month Next we searched on Google Blogsearch and Twitter Search for FDA information for the past month.   Katrina needed to be well informed about the industry and company because thats how she was going to stand out.   This took about 3 days to do, but by the end of the 3 days, we had a carefully written word document that laid out all of the key happenings for the FDA.   Katrina memorized these facts for the interview and even developed questions for the interviewer based on the facts.   This demonstrated her eagerness to work for the company as well as her knowledge about the food and drug industry. 4. The clincher: Create an information website (not a blog) as a resource for all Food and Drug industry news This was the final step.   Instead of spending the time to create a blog, I developed an informational page for her with her resume, image, and industry news that she researched.   She turned her site into a complete resource for everything related to the food and drug industry. A blog would take too long to create.   Furthermore, a blog usually has areas like archives and comments that would give away how long she has had the site up for.   With the information page, the reader does not immediately know how long the site has been up or that no one is reading the information.   All you can see is the hard work that has been put into it. Result: Katrina had a magnificent interview.   She walked in feeling confident because of her knowledge of the industry, and she said it definitely showed in the way she answered her questions and carried herself throughout the interview. When asked, Why should we pick you over all of the other applicants were considering?, she highlighted her food and drug industry news website as an example of her true interest in the industry and her extremely hard work ethic to go above and beyond what is expected of her. It takes about 4 5 weeks for them to get back to her with their decision.   Wish her good luck! Author: Jun is the Founder and CMO of Viralogy, the social media rank.   His personal blog, How to Succeed as a Young Entrepreneur, gives a real, unfiltered view of the Startup Life so that current and aspiring entrepreneurs can learn from his successes and mistakes.

5 Technology Tips You Didnt Know Could Make Your Life Easier

5 Technology Tips You Didn’t Know Could Make Your Life Easier Sure you knew that your phone could let you know when someone texts or calls you, comments on your social media, and could download the latest seasonal version of Angry Birds.  But did you know that there are several things your smartphone can do that you didn’t even know it could do yet? Not all of us are tech geeks up to speed with the latest operating systems and apps.  Unfortunately, they don’t teach cell phone 101 in school, and even if they did, you graduated from school a while ago! Here are some little tips about your phone that have been under your nose the entire time and you didn’t even know could make your life a million times easier.  Like a modern day Dorothy, who didn’t know all she ever needed was already in her possession. Staying Up To Date Have you ever found yourself wondering when your Amazon package will arrive and if you’ll be home or not? Or perhaps you need to know the status of your flight but you’re not in the best area for cell phone reception, so you can’t check on your cell web browser. Introducing, *cue dramatic intro music* SMS alerts! By signing up for SMS alerts you can get a real-time alert for anything from packages arriving, to receiving coupons. It’s a great way to stay alerted without having to manually check yourself.  The best kind of time saver for a busy lady. Losing Weight Have you ever told yourself that losing weight was just too much work because calorie counting was time-consuming? Once upon a time people had to get out a calculator and a paper and pen for everything they put in their bellies. Well, that is a thing of the past. There are a variety of applications which have huge databases of foods and you can enter what calories you’d like to search for either by the title or by scanning the barcode.  The calories are immediately inputted and voila! It’s so easy you’ll never have another excuse not to lose weight again! Until somebody brings donuts to the office, then that’s a pretty good excuse. Dictation It seems like these days no one calls anyone on the phone anymore.  It’s all about text and email.  Unfortunately, some of us weren’t gifted with the ability of lightning speed text capabilities and can get super frustrated trying to keep up with all these people.  By the time you’ve read their first text, they’ve already sent you 3 more. Try enabling the text to talk option.  By speaking into your phone’s microphone it will dictate everything you say into text.  Sometimes it makes quirky mistakes, however, so just keep an eye out not to tell your boss to “pee you later” instead of “see you later.”

Most Frequently Asked Data Science Interview Questions

Most Frequently Asked Data Science Interview Questions Photo Credit â€" Pexels.comData science is one of the most paid jobs in the IT industry. You would be staggered to know that they get around $120,000 salary in a year. But do you know they are required to have very high skill set to avail such a career.Do you have any idea how difficult it is to face data science interviews? It is for this reason I have penned a couple of most frequently asked questions for data science candidates.1. What is root cause analysis?evalFor finding out root causes of problems RCAA causal factor is different in the sense it does affect an event’s outcome but the difference is that it is not the root cause. Industrial accidents, software testing, healthcare, project management are the main areas use this analysis.2. What is a resampling method and why is it useful?Classical parametric tests compare observed statistics with theoretical distributions. Resampling a data-driven methodology is based on recurring sampling within the same sampling.Resampling ref ers to methods for achieving the following:1) When performing significance tests like randomization tests and re-randomization tests labels are exchanged on data points.2) Precision of sample statistics Due to non-random sample of population, error gets introduced which is a problematic state indeed. Consider an example sample of 100 test cases being made up of 55/25/15/5 split of 4 cases which really occurred in equal population numbers, then a model would most likely make the false assumption that probability is the deciding predictive factor.Avoiding altogether non-random samples is the best antidote to cope with this bias. When this is not possible then boosting, resampling and weighting are strategies introduced to cope with this situation.eval5. Why is A/B testing used?For two variables A and B this is a statistical hypothesis testing in a randomized experiment. It is useful in reducing bounce rates, enhancing customer engagement, easing analysis, higher conversion values and so on.6. What are the benefits of using random forest?This technique is used to combine several weak learners to provide a strong learner.eval1) A common random forest algorithm can be used for both regression and classification task.2) Using random forest algorithm for classification will avoid the problem of overfitting.3) This algorithm can be used in feature engineering in that out of the total available features the most important features from the dataset can be identified.7. What is logistic regression?Also known as the logit model this method is used to predict the binary outcome from a linear combination of predictor variables. This method is popular because the results are easy to interpret.8. What do you know about feature vectors?To represent a new item a feature vector is used which is nothing but an n-dimensional vector of numerical features. In machine mastering, feature vectors are used to symbolize numeric or symbolic traits, referred to as capabilities, of an objec t in a mathematical, easily analyzable way.9. Do you have an idea about statistical strength?Statistical strength or sensitivity of a binary hypothesis check is the probability that when the alternative hypothesis 1) The test data being used for performance comparison should not have selection bias.2) One has to verify whether the results reflect the local maxima/minima or global maxima/minima.3) The test data should have enough variety so that it closely aligns with real life data4) While comparing performance, the test environment should be common with no variation for original algorithm and new algorithm.5) Even if tests are recurred there should be similar resultseval11. Which is better huge number of false positives or a huge number of false negatives?False negatives may provide an incorrect message to patients and the doctor that the disease is absent when it is actually present. This obviously leads to potential danger to the patient because of inadequate treatment. So natura lly it is required to have too many false positives in this case.In spam filtering, a false positive occurs when spam filtering mechanism wrongly classify a genuine email message as spam and therefore stops its delivery. In this case however false negatives is preferred over false positives.12. What are the assumptions required for linear regression?There are four major assumptions:1) The data residuals are normally distributed and are independent from each other.2) Between the regressors and dependent variables there is a linear relationship. It is another way of saying that your model actually fits the data3) Homoscedasticity which means for all values of the predictor variable the variance around the regression line is the same4) Between explanatory variables there is minimal multicollinearity.You can check out this resource for moreData Science Interview questions.

Todays lesson in Danish - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Todays lesson in Danish - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog If youre wondering how the heck to pronounce arbejdsglaede (the Scandinavian word for happiness at work) youre not alone: Yeah, Danish is a horrible language. Get the right pronunciation (and find out what arbejdsglaede means) at www.whattheheckisarbejdsglaede.com. Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related

Which of the Following Statements About Electronic Cover Letters is True?

Which of the Following Statements About Electronic Cover Letters is True?Which of the following statements about electronic cover letters is true? Some applicants feel that the only way to impress their professional peers is to write their cover letter by hand. Others feel that they have to spell everything out so it can be easily read on a computer screen. While all applicants can benefit from the advantages of the latest technology, this doesn't mean that everyone has to use the same words or pictures to convey what they want to convey in their letters.Some professional recipients will question why an applicant would submit their application using their own words. Others think that it's possible to overdo the details that are included on a resume. However, when an applicant addresses the incorrect assumption about the use of technology in professional applications, they run the risk of being held accountable for their falsehoods. The following statements about electronic cover lett ers are true and accurate.It is possible to write an electronic resume or electronic cover letter without using a computer. Additionally, it is not possible to use a computer to prepare a professionally written document. Therefore, the use of computers in professional applications is not necessary. Personal computers can be used to provide a touch of professionalism, but personal computers cannot be used to create a professionally written document. This concept is sometimes referred to as 'preserving the human element' in professional applications.Most professional applicants know that employers' screening committees do not check applications. They take some initiative to get this information, but it doesn't change the fact that employers rarely do more than skim applications before they assign an offer of employment. The majority of human resources executives only need to make a quick decision when they are presented with a short list of applications. If an applicant makes this mis take, it could result in hiring a less-qualified applicant.A much larger percentage of employers and hiring managers are not familiar with the internet application submission service. They don't understand the potential need for search engines and other software to help identify qualified candidates. This means that applicants will often receive job offers even if they haven't been recommended to the department.It is important to include all of the requirements on your resume, including prior work experience, which includes experience within your area of expertise, but it is also important to remember that your education must match up with the skills you're seeking. An individual who is unaware of his or her skills may have difficulty successfully applying for a position. The potential for discrimination against a candidate based on their gender, race, or disability is very real. When an applicant seeks assistance, they should be aware that employers may be unwilling to hire someone who is considered 'too qualified.'Despite the fact that employers do not typically screen their applicants prior to offering employment, it is important to keep in mind that there may be a bias that prevents a woman from obtaining a promotion that is based on her husband's work history. Any employer who accepts the premise that their decision to hire a person would be based on one single factor should be fired. Professional applicants who are interested in representing themselves and their resumes without any outside involvement should consider using an employment lawyer. This may be a major disadvantage, but it can be extremely advantageous if the employer does take a second look at the applicant's resume.{T which of the following statements about electronic cover letters is true? | which of the following statements about electronic cover letters is true? - It is possible to write a great cover letter, but it isn't necessary to use a computer to do so. - Writing a well-written ele ctronic cover letter does not mean that it has to be made entirely by hand. - Professional applicants are cautioned to keep in mind that employers are not obligated to consider a computer application when making a hiring decision.