8 Practical Blogging Tips for Recruiters Who Want Talent and Billers

8 Practical Blogging Tips for Recruiters Who Want Talent and Billers I wrote a blog for recently giving my ten tips for a blog page. I created this list as I was (too often!) coming across recruiter blogs which just didn’t work, either technically, or content-wise. So many recruiters want to be noticed, to attract, to source and having a blog  is a crucial  way to achieve  this. What is the point of creating content and not marketing it? I often see (and am sometimes guilty of) writing content, but not marketing it enough. THE most important goal of writing a blog is to ensure that the blog gets read â€" and to do this you need to ensure that you give the reader a REASON to read the blog.   Few people get out of bed in the morning to read recruitment content, so you need to be clear on: What will they gain from reading it? Where will they be in their headspace? And what will they think of you and your brand?   We work with recruiters and their lovely marketers every day to help them attract attention and talent, and blogging is certainly one area which is pretty crucial.   You may be a marketer who is fed up nagging your teams to write content for you. You may even be a recruiter who’s fed up of being asked to write content… what a mess! 8 Practical Tips for Creating Great Blog Content Title: Do your best to make this catchy and contain keywords. The blog should be about the reader not you, so mention their job titles and key words that attract them. Structure: The structure of your blog will encourage readers to continue reading, so think about headings and breaking up the content (plus Google loves formatted headings). Audience: Think about who you are talking to and aim the content at them â€" AND ensure that you mention their job titles â€" eg. doctors, IT managers, social care workers, accountants, directors, etc… Be sure to empathise with them too â€" this means drawing attention to the fact that you “get” them, you understand their issues and the blog is designed to help them with their problem or at least nod at their role / business goals. Anchor links: How can you keep people on the blog and glued to you (apart from great copy?) Create links to other content on your site.   Bear in mind that external links can also help with SEO â€" ie. you point to a well-recognised web page and your own site gets a big tick from Google and that helps you with your own rankings (your marketer will love you!) Tone: Use your own tone! You don’t need to copy anyone in your business and you don’t need to pretend you are a newsreader and dull it down. Personality (mainstream!) works well online. Quotes: Perhaps you have a lovely quote style on your blog (we do and it works well). Plus we also use Click to Tweet which is a way of encouraging engagement through programming the quote to be tweetable.   You don’t need to quote someone to have a quote, a sound byte will do. Once your blog is live, your job is to get it marketed. Sharing once is not enough â€" have a plan to spread it across your channels, at all times of the day and over the weekend. And finally, THE MOST IMPORTANT tip is to get your content seen where your talent / clients are most likely to read it, and sorry, but that may not be on your own website. Whose hair can you stroke to get your blog published in places where your community really are?   Do you even know which blogs your community reads? Get cracking and find out. Remember, your goal is to get the content read, actioned and your profile seen by more clients and talent, not simply to tick a box or get your marketing department off of your back.

5 Ways to Convey Quality to Your Customers - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

5 Ways to Convey Quality to Your Customers - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career With so much competition for the same set of customers, savvy business people have to figure out how to cut through the noise to get customers’ attention. Customers today are able to do a quick search on products and services to access consumer reports, ratings and opinions. In fact, seventy-five percent of B2B customers rely on word-of-mouth to make purchasing decisions. You’ll want to take steps to ensure the right message is getting out about your business. One of the best ways to get customers’ attention and hopefully earn their loyalty over the long-term is to demonstrate that what you have to offer is of superior quality to what “those other guys” offer. It’s not easy, but it’s well worth your time and effort. Get Specific About Your Product or Service If your company uses the best materials in the world to build its product, say that. If all your customer service representatives go though an extensive one-year training program, say that too. If your product is more durable and lasts longer that the competition’s explain how it manages this and what it means for your customers. Whatever sets your product or service apart from what your competitors are offering in the same category should be a part of your message to your customers. Yours isn’t “just another” product, right? No â€" it’s the best product of its kind. Assess the quality of your product or service against others and back up your claim. Drill down on the specific elements of quality your business offers, and make sure they’re front-and-center on your website, blog and social media presence. Measure Your Performance Against Goals Having systems and frameworks in place to measure your business according to its various goals, such as customer service quality, logistics process efficiency and more gives you real credibility. When a customer sees that your business is operating under thoughtful and established protocols to reach its goals, it will give them confidence that you’re trying to run the business in the best and most conscientious way you can. There are resources and methods available to help you demonstrate that value, including certain certifications from the International Organization for Standardization, which helps companies create benchmarks for success. Get your certification to enhance your business performance in ways that will make a difference for your customers. Pay Attention to Packaging Everything from the box your product arrives in to how your website is designed reflects your brand and its values. Because quality is a perception, make sure your brand conveys quality. Customers make an emotional connection to what speaks to them individually. People want to be associated with things that are high-caliber. When you’re choosing photography or stock images for your website or marketing materials, make sure they are crisp and reflect your business’ image well. Have well-written copy in a voice and tone that tells a good story about what your business offers. Make sure the business cards you leave behind are printed on premium stock paper. Even something you literally throw away, such as the box your product comes in, makes a statement about your company and your attention to detail (or your lack of it). Consider the impression Amazon’s “frustration-free packaging” makes, or the obvious time and attention Apple invests in the cardboard boxes their iPhones are shipped in. All of these things scream “quality” and “convenience.” Customers pay attention to the seemingly unimportant details to help them decide whether they believe the product or service being represented is a quality one. Focus on the Overall Experience Studies have shown a strong correlation between the customer service experience and customer loyalty. While quality is important, customers today are evaluating what they purchase and who they do business with based on every touch point. Every interaction matters. After you’ve successfully demonstrated that your business offers a quality product or service, you’ll want to focus on building and maintain a quality relationship with that customer, which results in loyalty. Consider Social Impact The quality of your product is sometimes not the only type of quality you need to focus on. Another thing to consider is the quality of your company itself â€" specifically, its civic engagement. All of the best companies have a strong culture of “giving back” to the communities that helped make them what they are. With that in mind, if you really want to portray your products and services as high-quality and socially conscious, look for charities to sponsor, outreach events to coordinate and generally any other opportunity to become a true citizen of the world. If a customer is on the fence between your products and a competitors’, the thing that very well might convince them to side with you is your commitment to strong social values. It’s a Labor of Love If you’ve gone into business to offer a product or service, you probably love what you do â€" and you love your product. Your customers need to love your product too, and that’s where quality comes in. You don’t get to demand your product is well-regarded or taken seriously â€" that’s a status you have to earn.

How To Create a New Business in 90 Days - Classy Career Girl

How To Create a New Business in 90 Days If you are just starting your new business, this is the exact plan that Anna recommends following to start and grow your business in 90 days. Annual plans are overwhelming to me. I like to break it down into 90 days of tasks. If a year from now you want to have a profitable business, here’s what I do in Q1 (1st Quarter). Nothing happens overnight. Subscribe  on  your favorite platform below: iTunes Google Play Music Stitcher Radio TuneIn iHeartRadio Sound Cloud How To Create a New Business in 90 Days Do you desire more than anything to be a successful entrepreneur but can’t seem to get your business off the ground or make enough money? Don’t worry. We’ve got what you need. Take a deep breath, grab a cup of coffee and tune in to this podcast episode! In this episode, you will learn: The four areas to focus on to start a business. How to create a new business in 90 days. Know how to identify your market. Learn some ways on how to grow your audience. Figure out how you can attract your ideal client and identify what they want. Once you listen to this episode, heres your next step. It’s so important to know the problem that you are solving because that will help you program your mind for success. So I have a list of 7 questions to help you assist yourself. Alright, are you ready to make your startup dreams happen this year? Resources: 90-Day Free Printable Planner Grow Your Audience Guide Other Podcast Episodes You Might Like: How to Narrow Down Your Business Idea in 5 Minutes How To Set Your Goals And Create A Plan For 2020 How to Create Your 90-Day Plan

6 Essential Budgeting Tips For New College Grads

6 Essential Budgeting Tips For New College Grads A paycheck every two weeks might seem like a dream come true after four long years of bi-yearly dorm-room budgeting, but adjusting to an active income can be trying for any fresh graduate. From college to career, shifting the way you handle your personal finances will set you up for long-term success in your career, improve your quality of life, and fuel your future endeavors. What  Budgeting Looks Like In College While attending university, it’s more than likely that at the beginning of the year you would budget out the amount of money you had, received, or saved, and stuck to that fixed income. Perhaps filling in the gaps with part-time jobs, and if we were lucky, our parents would keep paying for our health insurance, cell phone, and car insurance. Paying major expenses off all at once means that even if you go broke by the end of the semester, you will still have a place to live, stuff to do, and food to eat. Planning beyond that is what defines successful career budgeting. What Budgeting Looks Like In Your First Real Job It may seem infinitely easier to budget when cash rolls in every two weeks, but accounting for a barrage of unexpected expenses that accompany sudden ‘adulting’ can be frightening. You may already be paying for some of these expenses, but there are still things to learn if you’re trying to budget with an adjusted payment schedule. It can seem like there is a new bill every week, and they all come at once, so planning around these days will keep you from some very unpleasant surprising. While setting out your career budget it’s important to consider your goals, expenses, and current income. 6 Essential Budgeting Tips For New College Grads 1. Track Your Pre-tax Income Start by taking a look at how much money you are making at your job. When taking into account your income for month-to-month budgeting, look at the post tax amount. Considering the pretax amount is very helpful when considering how much to save each month, but looking at month-to-month, it can leave you a little short. Like taxes, which are automatically taken out at most places, you should consider the money spent paying back your student loans as a non-negotiable deduction from your income. That money doesn’t count, because you will never see it. Taking these necessary expenses out of your larger budget will help set them up as priority, which is vital if you are one of the millions of college student graduates leaving with an average of $25,000 of student loan debt. Once you looked at how much money you are actually making, you can start piecing out where that income goes, and how much you need to make. 2. Time  Your Expenses Planning out your expenses is both about looking at what your expenses are (daily and long-term), but also timing your expenses well. Perhaps several of your bills are right before payday, it might seem obvious to leave enough money to pay them, but many people forget and will over-stretch themselves. Living pay-check to pay-check is no way to live, so setting up your initial expenditures is an important first step. 3. Review  Your Necessities. Start with your necessities. Are your housing expenses around a third of your income? Are you paying for all of the necessities? Yes, health insurance is a necessity especially if youre one of the 85 percent of Americans with a parasite, or part of the almost fourth of Americans with heart disease. Necessary expenses and bills including housing, home internet, health insurance, or transportation costs should not exceed fifty percent of your budget. If your rent or health insurance takes up a larger portion of money, shifting money from another category will help you. For example, the average New York family spends forty percent of its budget on rent, but benefits from lower transportation costs. Although your ‘extras’ budget should be around thirty percent of your income, this part of your budget includes food, restaurant visits, shopping, or any day-to day expenses, during your first few months, you may have to reduce this part down to find money for the necessities. The final twenty percent should go to savings, this is for future goal. 4. Compare  Your Expenses Look at your finances for the last few months and give yourself a clear idea of where your money has been going by dividing out your expenses into the different categories. Giving yourself a comprehensive look at your finances give you the opportunity to change habits that may be subtly draining your account; perhaps your daily coffee bill is more than your grocery budget, or you might want to start taking the bus to work instead of driving (splitting up the ‘extras’ budget will be hugely helpful as it is where a lot of money hides). Looking at your finances tell you what you have, where it’s going, and what you can do about it. 5. Set Savings Goals Saving money as an adult is hard, but intensely rewarding. The hardest thing to switch when between college and career is the ultimate goal. While college has an end goal of graduation, or grad-school, your career is what you make it. If you want enough money to never have to work again, you can plan for that. If you want to further your career, you need to set down actionable steps to do that. It’s all about laying goals. 6. Set Dream Goals If you’ve taken a look at your finances and can put away twenty percent, then you can look towards the future with a lot of hope. Trips, business adventures, or buying a house are all great goals, so setting aside an actionable plan to save can help you achieve your goal, even if you don’t know what it is yet. Perhaps your true passion is travelling across the globe to the most exotic locations you can find, or just travelling up to Alaska. While your current job may not allow you to indulge in a magical journey everyday, saving for a few years will give you the freedom to travel, or look into buying a house, or starting your own business. Saving twenty percent of your income sounds like a lot to save, when you start looking at vacations, or long term financial goals like starting your own business or buying a house, it never seems like enough. Putting away a little money will help you achieve those goals when they arise and at the very least will help you build your credit score, or fund further education.

How to build an Instagram career for a living

How to build an Instagram career for a living Reaching 2017 we cannot say that conventional careers are still the way to go as, stated as a proven fact, most people each day find their way through entrepreneurialism, marketing, social media or arts to craft a unique path to success thanks to the engagement they manage to craft with their audience.Instagram is considered the place to go for incipient photographers to promote their portfolios or boost their creativity skills, but it can turn out to be a good way of making money.“Instapreneurs” is the name marketing experts give to this new venture in social media, and these people happen to found the way to turn followers into a constant amount of income.Photo Credit â€" Pexels.comevalSurely, building up a career through social media will take time, especially on platforms like Instagram or Pinterest, as followers are harder to retain and success doesn’t seem as immediate as with YouTube; but, putting effort is well paid if you thrive on the adventure of an independent profe ssional.Let’s go through some key points to help us build a successful Instagram career:1. Image quality is the core element to considerMost people tend to neglect the fact that Instagram is a social network of its own. Popular Instagrammers have been offered promos that rank as high as discounts in exclusive hotels â€" and by popular we mean users with over 1 million followers, insane indeed but not uncommon if you look closely. So, you may ask: what do they offer that I don’t?The simple answer is photographs. Professional Instausers have taken their business seriously and developed their photography skills as they know it’s not just adding tonnes of filters and vignetting effects to make the images stand out â€" quite the opposite.You just need to ‘find your voice’ to create a unique style that surely can catch the attention of a broad audience; avoiding common mistakes as overdoing post-production effects, pixelated images or ignoring composition rules altogether.2. Dev elop your passion through imagesIt’s all about building your niche, so if you love to travel, then use Instagram as a way to broadcast your adventures. By this you shouldn’t take as the fact that you need to photograph every single aspect of each place you visit â€" that’s annoying for most users. Use your creativity to show unique places or unforgettable moments you experience, like if you were writing a diary, but with images.Photo Credit- Pexels.comIf you feel somewhat overwhelmed by the challenge, look for trendy users at your desired niche: that’s the best way to learn from seeing what professionals do.2. Don’t forget your audienceevalPeople are eager to interact with other users, but to do so, you must keep two factors in mind:Use hashtags: for the photos you post, engage on relevant hashtags to make them available for other users. No one is going to interact with you if they don’t know what you have to offer.Like, repost and comment are valid ways to boost your pr esence: Everybody likes a rub on their back if they do a good job. A nice comment like “superb job!” / “nice shot” / “really gorgeous, where did you take it?” are ice-breakers, and certainly, can help to build your very own audience.Keep a steady routine for doing your publications: by doing so, users will get the habit that your posts are done at certain timeIn case you happen to be a travel photographer, then perhaps you may want to direct users to watch your YouTube videos of the trips you made since, as you probably may know, YouTube pays for a number of views reached.Photo Credit- Pexels.comThere are a lot of valid methods for keeping tabs on how your profile is doing and the exact amount of followers you have (Instagram can be very vague after you go over 10k followers), tools like Gramblast are a fantastic resource to add to our Instagram toolkit.Remember to automate the most tasks you can â€" it’s the faster and most reliable method for not forgetting anything, especially when you have several things to handle at the same time. Buffer, for example, can help us to schedule post up for a month’s time if we desire, even shortening URLs added to posts to make them look more friendly.Also keep an eye on hashtags: 30 hashtags per post is the max amount Instagram allows. If you go over it, the photo won’t be posted or, in case it does, text won’t show up since you exceeded the limit of hashtags allowed. Tools like Hashtagify are incredibly useful for finding related hashtags for your post.Be patient and don’t expect to be a Instastar overnight â€" Building an active audience takes time and effort, but which career doesn’t? Good luck!

Prison Officer 2015 Role Play Questions

Prison Officer 2015 Role Play Questions If you are attending an assessment for a job as a prison officer, one of the key testing categories is ‘Role Play’. Role play will focus on your ability to make good decisions based on limited information. In this blog, we’ll show you some of the types of competency question you should expect, and give you some great tips on how to answer them. With the help of our guide to the prison officer 2015 role play questions, you should have no problem gaining employment as a prison officer.Role Play QuestionsTo begin with you will be given a briefing pack, which will outline a particular scenario. You’ll be expected to pick up particular clues from the information given, which will dictate how you are meant to respond to the situation. You will be judged against 8 behavioral competency concepts, any number of which could be assessed in any of the questions you will encounter.Effective CommunicationPersuading and InfluencingDrive and ResilienceCaringRelationships and Team BuildingRes pecting OthersIntegrityEnvironmental SafetyScenario 1In our first scenario, you are the manager of a retail centre. A member of your staff, who will be played by the role play actor/interviewer, approaches you and tells you that another member of staff has been making racist comments about her. She is feeling very upset and feels threatened by the alleged abuse. She would like to make a complaint.How to deal with this scenario:This scenario will test the competency of your communication skills, as you need to use them to clarify the details of the situation before making a judgement. Therefore, the first thing you need to ask is-‘Hello, thank you for coming to see me today. I understand that you have had a bad experience? I’d like to explore what has happened. Please can you tell me exactly what has happened to you?’ Don’t forget that you are not just being tested on your verbal skills, but on your physical communication skills too. You need to present yourself as a calming and reassurance presence for the distressed staff member. Use nods, eye contact and hand gestures as a way of demonstrating this. After the staff member has explained the situation, you can ask questions such as:  â€˜That must have been terrible for you, are you okay for me to ask you some questions about the situation? If at any time you feel uncomfortable please stop me and we will take a break.’‘What did the person say to you?’‘When and where did this happen?’‘How did that make you feel?’‘Have they said anything like this to you before?’‘Are you aware of anybody else receiving the same treatment?’    This will give an overview of the initial facts of the situation, and help you to make a judgement. You should then demonstrate your ability to relay this judgement to the staff member.‘Thank you for the information that you have provided me with today. I can assure you that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated and a full investigation will be carried out. In the meantime, in order to protect you from any further issues, I will take you away from the staff member and allocate another supervisory member to keep a regular check on you. Please don’t hesitate to come and see me again if there are any more issues, or even if you just need to talk to someone.’Hopefully the above scenario should give you some idea of what to expect from your role play assessment. To further aid you in this process, we have provided you with one more example role play below. This will test similar skills to the example listed above.Scenario 2In our second scenario, you are working as a new prison officer. A prisoner, who will be played by the assessor, has been breaking the rules by bullying new inmates and swearing at other prisoners. It is your responsibility to talk to him about his behavior, to try and amend it. He is a relatively new inmate himself and has been finding it difficult to settle into prison life.How to deal with this scenario:This s cenario will test your competency in communicational, caring and influencing skills, as you need to clarify all of the details of the situation and why the inmate is behaving in a particular way, in order to make a judgement, therefore the first thing you should ask is:‘Hi, thanks for coming to see me. I’d like to talk to you about an issue that has been brought to my attention. It’s been noticed that you’ve been bullying some of the new inmates and also swearing at other prisoners. What’s been making you act in this manner?’At this point, the prisoner breaks down crying. He is clearly upset about something. In this instance, it is important that you demonstrate a ‘caring’ nature.‘Hey, what’s the problem? Tell me what’s on your mind and how you’re feeling? I fully understand that this is difficult for you, but you need to talk and get things off your chest.’The prisoner tells you that he has recently received a letter from his girlfriend at home telling him that their relationship was over. He is angry about this, and therefore has started taking it out on the other inmates. Now you will have to demonstrate a firm, but empathetic attitude towards his issue.‘Oh no, that’s terrible news, and I’m really sorry to hear that. I can understand the anger that you must be feeling. However, as you can appreciate, your actions towards other prisoners aren’t acceptable. It’s at times like this that you need the support of other people, and you can only gain that support by treating people with respect. Can you understand that?’If the prisoner doesn’t agree with you, then you need to demonstrate your resilience, by further explaining the situation. Once you have brought him round to your way of thinking, you can help him.‘You are clearly going through a difficult time. I’m here to talk to you whenever you need it. Instead of shouting at other prisoners, come and sit down with me and talk about your feelings. Does that sound okay to you?’ Always remember that being a prison officer is about providing appropriate support to prisoners, not about shouting at them or punishing them for their crimes.You can find more competency based questions HERE This entry was posted in Job Competencies. Bookmark the permalink. Jordan Cooke Prison Officer Eligibility Criteria 2015Good Paying Jobs That Nobody Wants

Tomorrow! Join me Alex Franzen live to talk Copywriting with Heart! - When I Grow Up

Tomorrow! Join me Alex Franzen live to talk Copywriting with Heart! - When I Grow Up Alexandra Franzen is not only a former client and a current friend of mine shes one of my business heroes. Do we notice shes not on any social media platforms, and yet she has a super engaged, rabid fan base who buys her stuff with minimal push? Thats because shes writes her website copy, her books, her newsletters with one main body part: her heart. Although shes coined the term hut, which means to use your heart + gut. She uses that in spades, too. She follows what feels good to her, whether thats doing one-on-one work, writing books, leading retreats, self-publishing erotic novels or just playing hostess at her boyfriends restaurant. Get ready to fall in love with, well, Alexs love and learn how you can bring some of that into your own business offerings. At 4pm Eastern on Friday, March 31st, well be covering: How to face the blank page with compassion Letting your authenticity shine through in your writing How to sell without feeling like a used car salesperson Leading your copywriting with your heart Whatever you wanna know â€" there’ll be plenty of time for QA! Dont forget that when you register, you get: a recording of the session within an hour or so of us wrapping up, that comes with a worksheet with blogging homework directly from  Alexandra a link to access my prior Women of the World interviews with Kim Werker, Tanya Geisler, Jodi Womack, Susannah Conway and Holly Becker â€" and the worksheets that go with em Ready to become a copywriter with heart? Register below and await the transformation! By signing up for this webinar, you agree to get communication about this interview + also to be emailed with goodness from both myself and my guest. We’ll never sell your email or spam you, and you can unsubscribe at any time.