Believe it or not, Twitter can be an important tool to keep in your job search arsenal. Face it, in this tough economy, every edge you can get is one well worth guarding. It’s hard for a lot of people to see how a quick little blurb consisting of 140 or fewer characters can make all that much of a difference while searching for a job. But the truth is it isn’t one Tweet that makes the world of difference. In fact, all the Tweets in the world won’t amount to much of anything if you don’t have a solid strategy behind your job search efforts on Twitter. Here are a few hints to help you get started.

Don’t Tweet Blindly

When you’re searching for a job Twitter can be your best friend or your worst enemy. If you don’t plan it out properly your efforts will go down as an “epic fail” in your job search history. However, if you come up with the appropriate strategy and practice a little bit of patience in order to see things through, you might be marking a huge mark in the “win” column instead. These are the things your strategy needs to include:

1)   Follow leaders in your industry. These are the people you want to know because they are industry leaders. But, you also want to get your name out in front of them as much as possible so that you’re familiar to them if and when your resume happens to cross their desks.

2)   Follow the companies where you’d like to work. The best way to learn about career opportunities, job openings, and specific needs within the organization is to follow the information they share on Twitter – religiously. Social media is the way of the world today and your research on any given company isn’t complete until you’ve subscribed to all their social networking feeds.

3)   Contribute useful information in conversations that are relevant to your field. This doesn’t mean to regurgitate old facts and numbers. It’s not the idea to come across as a know it all either. But it is an excellent opportunity to get your name associated with your industry in a positive light if you use this opportunity to do so.

4)   Keep it PG. While it’s important that you come across as a real person and not just someone interested in making a name in the industry, there’s a difference between keeping it real and providing too much information. Business owners today conduct social media searches before the interview in many cases to find out a little about you as well. Make sure your Twitter feed gives them something positive to see.

Twitter is not just a fly-by-night operation that’s likely to be gone tomorrow. In the attention deficit world of the Information Age it has proven to be quite resilient and popular. In the world of professional job searches it can be quite useful as well. For added support in your job search efforts, be sure to sign up with The Suburban Group or temporary and permanent assignments.

Social media is big business today. More importantly, it can make a world of difference when you’re trying to recruit top talent to come and work for you.

A strong social media presence is about so much more in today’s competitive market than just making a few additional sales. It’s a sign of good faith to the public that your organization is serious about maintain a strong presence in the marketplace for many years to come. For job candidates, this means you’re looking to the future.

Here are 10 social media strategies you will definitely want to employ for your business if you’re hoping to attract the best possible candidates.

1. Use a company blog for more than product information or to try to bring in new sales. In fact, you should consider announcing any openings within the organization (at all levels) on your blog. If your company doesn’t have a blog currently, it’s time to start one.
2. Use Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ to get the word out about hiring practices, open positions, and helpful tips for candidates interested in making a good impression.
3.  Take advantage of opportunities to get your name out in the social media community in a positive way by offering awards, rewards, discounts, and prizes to people who participate actively in your social media efforts.
4.  Take comments, complaints, and compliments delivered via social media outlets to heart in order to make positive changes in products and practices for your business.
5.  Find out what your customers want and expect by listening to what they say about your organization on their social media pages and yours. Try a client survey for more in-depth information.
6.  Consider hiring someone for the specific task of monitoring and administering social media for your business. This is an emerging field and there are many highly qualified candidates who can assist with all your social media needs. Having a dedicated person or persons to handle social media means that your organization is less likely to suffer negative blowback from unintended omissions.
7.  Create apps or solutions that allow candidates to access social media for your company easier and more efficiently from their mobile devices.
8.  Allow interested candidates to apply for jobs and send resumes to your company via mobile devices in order to get fast results when you have open positions. Try the LinkedIn application, or set up social media buttons on your website connected to your recruiting team.
9. Engage your target audience whether it’s job candidates or customers through social media by interacting with them frequently.
10. Make your social media presence easily accessible through many platforms. Today’s job candidates utilize the Internet in many ways. Your social media actions need to take all of them (iPhones, iPads, Blackberries, Kindles, Androids, Laptops, and Macs, etc.) into account.

Social media isn’t some passing fad in the world of business. It’s here to stay. Companies and organizations that manage to get out ahead of the social media tsunami are the ones most likely to bring in the top-tier candidates for their open positions.

Before you hit that “apply now” button on a job advertisement, stop and consider if you really have enough experience for the job, or not. This simple step can save you, and the hiring manager, from wasted time and effort.

There are many gray areas when it comes to the job application process. Some HR departments do a good job of writing job descriptions that accurately describe the job requirements and duties. Others create job ads that are somewhat vague, making it hard to determine if you have the right skills and experience.

Remember that the goal of an effective job search is to land an assignment that is well-matched to your skills, education, experience, and personality. While some job seekers apply for every job under the sun hoping just to get an interview, this is not a positive way to find meaningful work. Instead, it’s better to focus on the actual job descriptions and requirements to land a job that’s perfect for you.

Here are a few ways to evaluate if you have enough experience for a job you are thinking about applying for.

• Read the job description carefully, noting special educational or license requirements needed to be considered.
• Evaluate if the job is entry-level, mid-level or upper management in scope of responsibilities and experience – then review your own work history to see if you meet or exceed the requirements.
• Consider any relocation requests and if you have what it takes to take a job in a new cultural region given your background, family and personal lifestyle.
• Do a search for salary ranges for the specific industry and job title to see if you are willing to work for the wages and benefits being offered in the job ad.
• If you are changing careers, decide if you have up-to-date skills and training in the area for which you are applying for opportunities.
• In client facing assignments, consider if you have developed strong interpersonal communication and problem-solving skills to excel in the role.
• Ask yourself if you can see yourself working in that role 10-years from now, or if you have your sights set too high or too low?
• Decide if you have the ability to manage other people or clients the way that the job description says you will be required to.

Applying for work can be challenging when there are so many opportunities that seem right for you. The reality is that sometimes the job description can be misleading or omits information that you need to make an informed decision. If in doubt, pick up the phone and call the main corporate number to inquire with the HR department on what the job fully entails, before you zip off a resume.

When searching for a new career, it’s also often a better idea to get support from a quality employment agency, like The Suburban Group, to help you be more successful in a job search. Taking a moment to get objective guidance from a team of skilled recruiters can help you get closer to being matched to an assignment that’s right for your unique skills and education.

What is the ultimate hiring goal of your business? It is usually to hire the right people to perform the task at hand. No matter what the industry or the job required, your business is on a mission, and to achieve its goals, it needs to have the right staff on hand to make it happen. Is that possible? If you want it to happen, as the employer, you really do need to be the dumbest person at the boardroom table.

How Missions Are Won

If you consider how the biggest and the best CEOs in the world have become successful, invariably it is not by just doing all of the work themselves. Those who succeed are those who are successful at hiring the right people to push them to the top. No one does it on their own, after all. If you want to achieve the mission goal, you need to hire the right people to get you to that place.

Why Being Dumb Matters

Imagine sitting around a boardroom table. Would you feel the most confident if you were the smartest person at the table or the dumbest one? If you want to succeed in the industry, then you need to be the person at the table with the least amount of information and skill. By surrounding yourself with the best of the best at their skill, you ensure you can move forward. A team filled with the best at their job will ensure you can move beyond and upward.

How to Find the Best People for the Job

To find those who are best suited for sitting at your table and working with you, measure anyone you hire by how well they can contribute to the team. Here are some things to keep in mind through the process.

• What is the role of the person who you are considering bringing onto the team?
• How will you measure his or her success at the role you want that person to fill?
• What attributes does the person you are hiring need to have in order to do the job properly?
• What attributes are critical to ensuring that the team member meshes well with the rest of the people sitting around the table?

If you want to hire a professional who will help you to succeed, hire someone who fits with your team but has skills and experience that pushes them further. Be the dumbest person at the table so that you can push your team to accomplish more. The right team member has the ability to gel with your team, but also take it further than what you can do on your own. Sure, you know your business incredibly well, but as an employer, you need to surround yourself with the very best professionals around.

Get in touch with The Suburban Group today for support with your staffing needs.

The quickest way to get the attention of potential employers is to turn the tables on them, to some degree. During the interview process, try asking a question that impresses them. Any applicant can impress an interviewer with their answers. It’s a rare talent to come up with a question that will catch the potential employer’s attention and give them pause – in a good way.

These are nine questions that have really stood out in the minds of interviewers in the past. While you don’t have to ask the precise questions, they may help you come up with questions of your own that are designed to impress while also gauging where you stand in the minds of those giving the interview.

1)   Can you give examples of the best and worst of your current company culture?

2)   Will I be expected to mentor or be mentored in my role with this company?

3)   What is your current system to help workers collaborate?

4)   Where are the areas where your existing team could use improvement?

5)   What is the one thing this company places the highest value on and how will my work propel those values further?

6)   What’s the most critical thing for me to accomplish within my first two months of employment?

7)   How will you judge my success? What do I need to do in order to meet and/or exceed expectations?

8)   Now that you know my qualifications for doing the job, what are your concerns about my success in the role?

9)   The job sounds like an excellent fit for my interests; do I sound like a good fit for the position?

As mentioned, it’s probably wise to avoid asking these exact questions. The odds are good that many employers have heard them before, in one form or another. The point is to ask a question that makes your interviewer think; that’s how you will make a lasting impression that is likely to get you hired.

But there are a few other things you want to do during the Q & A process of the job interview. This is your opportunity to shine without referring to your resume at every turn. Use questions to highlight the fact that you are qualified to do the job, confident of your ability to do the job, and committed to the company and the job if the company decides to hire you.

It’s these qualities that will really stand out about your questions. This is what will have potential employers paying much closer attention to you, your skills, and your talents. The best thing you can do during the interview process is make a favorable impression so that your name will be the one they remember long after the last interview has been performed.

In your search for great customers and applicants for vacant positions, don’t overlook your web design in favor of heavy marketing. Small business owners need to have a website that focuses on both potential employees and customers if they hope to attract both. The right type of website design can actually encourage the multi-talented professionals to apply without driving away your current business clients. Not balancing this site, on the other hand, could lead to complex problems.

Tips to Manage Your Web Design

What should your small business website look like? What should you implement to make customers feel at home and job applicants apply? Here are some tips to help you make it work.

• Be sure to use images. Most people are visual – they need to see something in order to be interested in it. Use images that are beautifully taken but are still relevant to your business’s products or services.

• Make sure your website has some element that helps it to stand out. You want to ensure your brand is different from the competition and conveys information about you and your business.

• Keep things simple. Do not make your website so complex to navigate that people just don’t go further than the homepage. In addition to this, keep a minimal look whenever possible. That way, you can use the few elements on the page to direct people to the locations you want them to go.

• To attract job seekers, make sure your website conveys more than just the fact that you are hiring. Allow it to provide information about whom you are looking for and what you provide to qualified applicants (don’t list salaries here, but benefits.) Have a separate page for your hiring needs to keep your customers from becoming overwhelmed.

• Know your audience and your competition. It is a good idea for you to choose a website that fits within your industry’s speck. To do that, you will need to focus on a design that is attractive to whoever is in your audience. At the same time, know what your competition is doing and do it better.

• Use a company blog to educate everyone who visits your website. This blog is a great place to communicate virtually anything with your audience. Introduce new team members, talk about your hiring needs while also introducing new products and answering customer inquiries. Make this the place for people to go to get more information and to find out what your company is up to.

By taking these steps, you will see significant improvement in who is attracted to your site and why. You will also likely see more interested applicants actually filling out the application to get more information. Of course, have a link to contact you on the site. You want people to participate in your website. The proper web design can actually encourage this to happen. If your site is outdated or is lacking in its ability to get results, it may be time for a redesign.

Along with staffing agencies and online job postings, social searching is becoming one of the hottest ways for job seekers to find suitable employment today. By using social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, job seekers from new college grads to Baby Boomers are using this method conduct keyword searches for new opportunities.

Twitter is, by far, one of the most productive of these social searches, because of the quick access to job postings from everywhere on the Internet all in one convenient place. The only hitch is that it can be challenging to know what Twitter feeds to follow, because there are so many of them!

To help you get started on the path to success with your Twitter job search strategy, here is a run-down of some of the best Twitter accounts to follow.

Suburban Group https://twitter.com/#!/suburbangroup of course, we want you to follow us on Twitter! The team at Suburban Group frequently posts job leads, access to cool career articles and information you need to be successful.

Ask a Manager  https://twitter.com/#!/askamanager  Allison Green helps you gain valuable insight into the minds of managers, and how to ask for a raise or a promotion the right way. Or how to peek into the world of managers to ace your next interview.

Brazen Careerist https://twitter.com/#!/search/brazencareerist a no-holds-barred environment where job seekers and career pros gather to talk about anything and everything relating to careers.

Career Rocketeer  https://twitter.com/#!/search/%40CareerRocketeer Jam packed with multiple feeds from career experts and job seeker extraordinaires, you’ll also find job leads plentifully posted.

Recruiting Blogs https://twitter.com/#!/RecruitingBlogs gain valuable insight as you hear it directly from the other side of the hiring table, as recruiters keep it real and talk about the dos and don’ts of job search and interviewing.

Resume Strategy https://twitter.com/#!/resumestrategy Get timely advice and feedback from Karen Siwak about the most important aspect of your job search – your resume.

While these Twitter accounts are just scratching the surface of all the great resources out there on the social media highway for job seekers, we encourage you to share your own favs in the comments feed below! If you need a great job, get in touch with the Suburban Group’s team of caring staffing experts, and feel free to follow us on Twitter too.

The recent recession and the overhaul of the employment market as it current stands has created a scenario in which there are thousands of people looking for jobs who are older. Many people at the age of 50 or older are finding it more difficult than ever to find the types of jobs they want and need. The problems run deep but there are steps you can take to get the job you want and need even if you are old enough to be the HR recruiting manager’s parent.

Know the Facts

Age discrimination is illegal. Nevertheless, it happens. Older workers are likely to spend more time looking for a job, even though they have the experience necessary to get a job and run circles around any entry-level employee. There are some preconceived notions working against these individuals as well.

• They are not up to date in the industry.
• They do not have the latest technologies mastered
• They require higher salaries because of their experience.

To overcome this, you will need to push aside the anxiety and worry over applying and take steps to show the recruiter that you are a real find and benefit to the company. How can you do this effectively?

Countering the Age Bump

The following are a few simple things you can do to ensure that your age does not stop you from landing the position you want. The goal here is to show the prospective hiring manager or employer what you can offer.

• First, make a good first impression. Have positive energy. Ensure your cognitive abilities are present.
• Emphasize your ability to meet any technology requirement. This may include computer skills and even social media abilities. Be sure you indicate your ability to stay up to date in the industry, too.
• Be sure to show you are willing to be flexible with management. You are willing to work with someone younger than you. You are willing to develop new skills. These are all factors that can help you to show the company you have what it takes.

From this point, you need to invest more time in finding the right companies to work for and that means expanding your job search. To do this, focus on building your network. You’ll find that many times, you know more people than you thought who could help you to land the position you desire.

Another tip is to look for the small companies. Many times, a smaller company needs experienced professionals. There are 20 times as many smaller companies than there are larger ones. Further, most are less concerned about age and more concerned about experienced professionals stepping in to do a great job from the start.

The process of finding a job at the age of 50 or older may take longer. It may be one of significant “why” questions asked. It could even be a time when you become frustrated. However, you can find the job you want and do a great job overcoming any challenges you face by focusing on the right employers and giving them what they want and need.

If you haven’t yet drafted your 2012 marketing plan, it’s time to get this meaningful task underway. Businesses need to be focused on designing marketing plans that not only help grow brand awareness to bring in sales, but also to attract the best candidates to fill challenging roles. It’s especially important for small businesses to complete their marketing plans as early in the year as possible to get off to a great start.

Read on to learn a few tips for writing a 2012 marketing plan to create a winning strategy for your business, from a growth and staffing standpoint.

Get a marketing plan started, now!

Whether you think so or not, every business needs a strong marketing plan at the start of the new year. You cannot have a successful year without one, because without a clear plan, your business is just staying afloat. A marketing plan is like a map, leading you through tough times and helping you find success by keeping you on track all year long. If you don’t get this started now, you may never find real success as a company, or the people you bring on board. Let’s get started now before you find one more excuse not to do this.

Remember what last year was like.

If you are like many companies, you may have had a tumultuous year with a lot of stress. While your business may have experienced a few positive moments, chances are you also experienced a lot of worry. The country is still recovering so it’s highly likely this year may be a tough one as well, but it can be a much more productive and profitable one if you get your marketing plan ready. This will help you not have a repeat of all the bad things that last year brought.

What are your goals?

The reason we asked you to think about last year is simple. Did you reach your goals? Why or why not? Did you even have goals that were realistic, or were you just merely trying to survive? As you start writing your goals for this year, step back and consider your mission statement and how it ties into your planning for this year. Then write a marketing plan based on attainable, and measurable goals.

For example, if you are a company that’s focused on being the top seller of widgets this year, then your goals will be number based. A marketing plan will look at several things, from how much your widgets should cost to consumers to materials needed and the number of staff to produce these numbers. Set a number that you feel comfortable managing, given your current and future expansion plan.

Eliminate obstacles in 2012

A marketing plan can also help you to avoid many of the pitfalls and obstacles you may have encountered in previous years. Can you learn something about the mistakes that were made in production of your widgets, the materials you used, or the manpower you needed? Did you spend too much in any of these areas? This year’s marketing plan needs to have a fresh approach, with new ways of handling problems that may arise.

If you are unsure where to start in terms of your staffing needs, be sure to get in touch with the Suburban Group today for support with making your marketing plan a reality. You’ll reach the summit and find success this year when you partner with our caring team of recruiters.

If you are trying to land a great full time job, very often the path to success means taking an alternate approach by accepting seasonal or temporary assignments.  Seasonal jobs are actually very plentiful throughout the year, depending on the industry. For example, seasonal work for the retail or accounting world may be cyclical during peak revenue periods. Other industries, such as manufacturing or food processing, may have peak hiring periods during the months preceding their highest sales times, in preparation for the demand ahead.

While the times when seasonal based companies may be short, very often there are a number of jobs available to temporary workers willing to take on these assignments. Very often , seasonal jobs provide many additional perks over regular full time assignments.  These perks may include: flexible work hours, short term incentives and bonuses, educational benefits, medical and wellness programs, work from home arrangements, and discount purchase programs.  In addition to the above benefits, many seasonal jobs offer the chance to be eligible for permanent placement with the companies who need to replace other workers; with temps getting a foot in the door before outside candidates.

When considering if a seasonal assignment is right for you, here are some factors to consider first. 

• Does the company have upward mobility – meaning are there a lot of other assignments available on a regular basis?
• Is there a generous bonus , benefits or sign on package offered as part of the terms of employment?
• Does the company offer assignments directly or through an approved staffing agency like Suburban Group?
• What benefits and incentives does the company offer to seasonal workers or temp contractors?
• How well does the seasonal work match with your skills and abilities to perform the work to meet company expectations?
• If the seasonal employment offers the ability to apply for other assignments after its conclusion, or if there will be call-backs for future work?

Additionally, you may be wondering how to go about getting offered a full time job by way of a seasonal job? There are actually a few simple ways to handle this, from the day you start working the seasonal gig. First, state that you are flexible and can work as many hours as possible. This will put you in a favorable light with management. Second, when going through an agency, let the recruiter know your desire for full time placement, so you will be thought of if the company requests this. Last, work hard and show your value to the company so that you will be considered as a potential good fit for a more permanent assignment in the near future.

For more information about seasonal and contract job opportunities, check with The Suburban Group today!

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