Is Your Career Perception Aligned With Your Boss’s?

Your boss believes in you. They know you’re an amazing employee who is going places — but the path they’ve charted for you doesn’t lead to your dream job.

A job agency in Las Vegas can help you find your way, but first, give your boss a chance. They’re not a mind-reader, so they probably have no idea your vision for your future doesn’t align with the track you’re currently on.

Here’s some advice to help you have a productive conversation with your boss. Be honest with them, because this is your career — not theirs.

Four Tips to Talk to Your Boss About Your Career

Know Where You’re Headed

Before meeting with your boss, take the time to figure out what you really want from your career. It’s important to go into the meeting knowing this, because it won’t have a productive outcome if you are unable to explain what you’d rather be working toward.

Schedule Time to Talk

Your boss is a busy person, so you can’t just walk into their office unannounced to discuss your career. Get their full attention by scheduling a meeting in advance. This ensures they’ll have time to talk, and giving them advance notice will allow them to prepare for the discussion.

Ask for What You Want

By now, you’ve done your research, so you know what skills and experience you need to take to get to the next phase of your career. If any of this can be accomplished in your current job, ask your boss to help make it happen. For example, if you want to move into management, ask if you can be in charge of your team’s internship program.

Create a Plan Together

Your boss clearly knows a thing or two about career success, so use this to your advantage. Ask them to help make a new plan for your career. Explain that you’d like to stay with the company, if possible, and work together to create a roadmap that allows you build the future you want.

Get Your Career Back on Track

As one of the leading temp agencies in Clark County, PrideStaff, a veteran-owned business and certified minority-owned business, works with some of the most well-respected companies in Las Vegas as well as new and upcoming businesses.

Our staffing and recruiting services are designed to match skilled professionals in the Las Vegas area with truly rewarding career opportunities. Ready to take your career to the next level? Apply Online Today.

Three Signs You Might be a Lazy Manager

As the boss, your employees look to you for guidance. They model their behavior after yours, so your management style speaks volumes.

If you need Las Vegas hiring support, take a pause first to look inward. Assessing whether your management style promotes productivity or laziness now will allow you to make any necessary changes before bringing a new hire on board.

Hopefully, you’ll discover you’re inspiring your team to do their best work each day. However, if any of the behaviors below could be used to describe you, learn from your mistakes and make changes for the better.

Three Signs You’re a Lazy Manager

You Focus on Quick Fixes

When a problem arises, you tend to look for an easy solution. However, putting a band-aid on it doesn’t resolve the issue in the long run. For example, if an employee resigns, offering them a larger salary might work in the short-term, but if your company culture is flawed, it’s only a matter of time before they leave for good.

Look anywhere and you’ll find a trendy new management approach marketed as a quick and easy fix, but there is a reason fads go out of style fast. Productive managers know putting in the work is the only way to get the lasting results you want.

You Place Blame on Others

As the team leader, you’re held responsible when things don’t go as planned. However, instead of accepting the blame, you don’t hesitate to throw an employee under the bus.

Productive managers never do this, because they feel accountable for their team. They also know pointing the finger at employees demolishes trust. Consequently, they’re always willing to own mistakes publicly and deal with them privately.

You Delegate Most of Your Work

Being the boss means you’re in charge, and to you, that’s a license to do very little. Some managers have trouble delegating even the smallest projects, but not you. In fact, you’ve passed so much work off on your team. that you’re currently spending the bulk of your day online shopping and browsing Facebook.

You would never catch a productive manager behaving in this manner because they know a successful team requires all hands0on deck. Sure, they’ll delegate some of their tasks, but they spend their days working hard alongside their employees.

Make Your Hiring Process Stand Out

Finding the right fit for an open position on your team isn’t easy, so leave the work to PrideStaff Las Vegas. Contact us today to find your next great hire!

Why Playing Favorites With Your Employees is Bad for Business

It’s natural that you will have personal preferences for certain employees over others, such as your top performers or those you have a rapport with or things in common. However, it is crucial to have a consistent management style with your employees and ensure you are treating all your employees the same. Learn more about why playing favorites with your employees is bad for business:

• Damages Morale

When employees feel they are treated unfairly or their manager has a clear bias, it can damage morale. Negative morale decreases job satisfaction all around, and makes employees less engaged with the quality of their work since they don’t feel respected or valued as a member of a team.

• Hinders Productivity

Playing favorites can have a widespread impact on productivity. The less-favored employees may not be as motivated to succeed, and therefore, more likely to procrastinate or not work efficiently. It can also push your employees into an “us vs. them” mentality, in which the “manager’s favorites” think they can coast and not work as hard, or the less favored employees may not be inclined to collaborate effectively with them out of envy or spite.

• Decreases Innovation

Coming up with new ideas is crucial for organizational success, but an environment in which management plays favorites is not conducive to innovation. Employees may feel like their ideas won’t be considered or they won’t be given credit if they are not among the favored, so they may not bother putting much effort into brainstorming or be proactive if they think it won’t be appreciated.

• Contributes to Turnover

If you give preferential treatment to certain employees, the others will eventually get fed up and leave to go elsewhere. High employee turnover is bad for business in a variety of ways, including additional costs for finding and training a replacement, lost productivity, decline in morale, and negative employer branding.

• Prevents Your Growth as a Leader

Favoritism in the workplace doesn’t just negatively affect your employees and their performance, it can hurt your ability to be an effective leader. When you surround yourself with people who fit your personal preferences, it can prevent your professional growth because, they share a similar perspective and background with you. In order to be the best leader possible, it’s important to work with people who are different from you, because they can provide valuable insight you may have never considered otherwise.

Add Valuable Talent to Your Team by Working with PrideStaff Akron!

Find top talent to join your team by partnering with PrideStaff Akron. We provide a variety of employment services, including direct recruiting, temp-to-hire and temporary staffing, and will work closely with you to find the right candidates for your needs. Contact us today to learn more about our staffing solutions.

Creative Interview Answers to “What’s Your Weakness?”

It’s like the final boss of the job search video game: the dreaded “what’s your biggest weakness” question. It’s the kind of query that keeps you up the night before. However, it doesn’t have to be an anxiety-inducing interview-killer. There are creative ways to turn the question to your advantage.

The “biggest weakness” question doesn’t have to mark the low point of your interview. In fact, it can represent a real opportunity. Answer it thoughtfully, and you can turn it into one of the highlights of your performance, a chance to score real points with the interviewers.

Here are some creative ways to turn the “biggest weakness” question to your advantage:

Put It in the Past

Everyone likes a good recovery tale. The most common trope of storytelling involves the hero overcoming some hardship to reach success. It’s even better when the problem is a personal flaw.

The “biggest weakness” question provides the springboard for just such a narrative. You had a problem, and now you’ve overcome it. The key is to focus on the “had” part.

When you answer the question, make sure to put the problem in the past.  Assure the interviewers that the weakness you’re discussing isn’t an issue that will affect you going forward. It’s something you’ve already struggled with and conquered.

Place It in Context

Don’t frame your weakness as a general problem. Describe a particular situation when it would impact you. This makes the issue seem extremely limited, an occasional hiccup brought on by circumstances that you strive to avoid.

Concentrate on things like “public speaking in front of very large crowds makes me nervous” or “I’ve found it hard to communicate with very negative coworkers.” The idea is that it takes a specific context to trigger your particular weakness.

Emphasize Fixes

In your response, don’t linger on the problem. Focus on the solution. Describe the steps you’ve taken to alleviate the issue.

So, if you say you’re made nervous by speaking in front of large crowds, discuss how you learned some breathing exercises that have helped get over your jitters. Or mention how you counteract your nerves by aggressively preparing for any presentation, and that added level of planning always gives you the confidence boost you need.

Using this strategy, you show that you’ve overcome your weakness. It also has the added benefit of emphasizing your problem-solving skills.

Balance with a Strength

The discussion of your weakness shouldn’t be the end of the conversation. You want to steer the interview toward your good points.

As such, use the “biggest weakness” question as a way to progress into more positive territory. When detailing your weakness and the steps you took to overcome it, transition into a discussion of a counter-balancing strength.

For instance, say your weakness is that you are detail-oriented and sometimes take a long time to complete a project. Counter this by mentioning your willingness to work overtime to get the work done by its deadline.

The process of finding a job is filled with potential traps and tripwires. The “biggest weakness” question is just one example. But you can overcome any hurdle when you partner with a strong recruiting partner, like PrideStaff. They can put you in the ideal position to highlight your strengths and maximize your long-term career development.

Contact PrideStaff Bend today to learn more.

Want to Boost Your Career? Here Are 6 Easy Ways How

Not happy at work? Ready for a change? Want to get ahead but don’t know how? The Phoenix recruiting experts at PrideStaff can help. We know that by taking a few simple steps, you can assess where you are and identify what steps to take to achieve your future career goals. As a result, you’ll create a roadmap that serves as a guide to future career success. Here are a few moves to make in it:

Set manageable goals.

You might have big dreams. But when your goals are large too it can be overwhelming. Instead, make sure you’re setting smaller, more achievable goals that are easy to measure. When you do, you’ll have a better shot at accomlpishing them, which will keep you more motivated along the way.

Get more feedback.

Your boss might only conduct annual performance reviews. If that’s the case, ask for more feedback. These conversations might feel awkward at first. But when you know your boss’s perspective on your strengths and areas that need improvement, you’ll be able to focus your efforts on making the most impactful changes. This, in turn, will help improve your performance, leading to more career success.

Promote your accomplishments.

When you’re talking to your boss, make sure they’re aware of your accomplishments. They’re busy and don’t always recognize the hard work you do. If you want to position yourself for career advancement, it’s up to you to promote your abilities and the outcomes.

Invest in yourself and your career.

From continuing education webinars to blogs, books and magazines, invest some time in reading about your industry and staying informed on issues and trends. This can help you become a more valuable asset to your employer, as well as spark new ideas and greater innovations in the projects you’re working on.

Ask for more challenging assignments.

If you want to develop and grow, then you need to step outside of your comfort zone. To do this, ask your boss for more challenging work or new responsibilities. This will help you to sharpen existing skills, acquire new ones, make different connections within the company, and position yourself for more career success.

Find a career mentor.

If your employer has a mentoring program, then sign up for it. If it doesn’t, then look at your own network for someone who’d be a good source of information and guidance, as well as to act as a sounding board for your ideas.

Ready to take your career to a new level at a different company?

PrideStaff can help. As experienced Phoenix recruiters, we can connect you with the jobs and employers that are the best fit for your career goals. Contact us today to learn more.

5 Benefits of Hiring Temporary Employees

Four Breathing Exercises to Help You Relax During a Stressful Day

When you’re stressed at work, it’s easy to become completely overwhelmed. When you’re dealing with a difficult client or in the middle of a project where nothing is going as planned, you need a quick and easy way to compose yourself.

As one of the top job agencies in Las Vegas, PrideStaff Las Vegas knows a thing or two about work-related stress. You might be surprised to learn that breathing techniques can help you relax.

Four Breathing Exercised to Find Calm During Chaos

Roll Breathing

Designed to help you use your lungs at full capacity, roll breathing can be completed in any position. Place your left hand on your stomach and your right hand on your chest. Breathe in and out so your left-hand rises when you inhale and your right-hand stays still. Complete this eight to 10 times, then take it up a notch.

At the next level, you’ll keep breathing into your lower lungs, but you’ll continue by inhaling into the upper part of your chest. Take slow deep breaths as you become increasingly relaxed.

Progressive Relaxation

Close your eyes and focus on relaxing every muscle group in your body — spend two to three seconds on each area. Breathe in through your nose and take deep, slow breaths that make you feel calm and at ease.

4-7-8 Breathing

Prepare for this exercise by sitting or lying down. Place one hand on your belly and the other on your chest. Take a deep breath and breathe in as you silently count to four. Hold your breath and silently count to seven. Breathe out while silently counting to eight. Repeat three to seven times until you feel the stress leave your body.

Equal Breathing

Inhale while silently counting to four, then exhale while silently counting to four. If you can handle it, go all the way up to eight practicing this equilibrium technique. When finished, you’ll enjoy increased focus and an overall sense of calm.

Build a Better Future

Every job has stressful days, but if you’re always tense because of work, it might be time to move on. PrideStaff Las Vegas wants to help you find a job you enjoy. Contact us today to find out what we can do for you!

About PrideStaff Las Vegas

As one of the leading temp agencies in Clark County, PrideStaff, a veteran-owned business and certified minority-owned business, works with some of the most well-respected companies in Las Vegas as well as new and upcoming businesses.

Our staffing and recruiting services are designed to match skilled professionals in the Las Vegas area with truly rewarding career opportunities.Ready to take your career to the next level?

APPLY ONLINE TODAY

6 Reasons Why You Need to Start Recruiting Finance Talent on LinkedIn

LinkedIn has become a central pillar of any recruiting effort. It has particular value for targeting candidates with specific skills or refined expertise, the kind of workers that are difficult to find through a traditional job search. That makes the social media giant perfect for recruiting finance talent.

Workers in the financial sphere often require a very distinct mix of competencies. It’s also a competitive market – finding and keeping talent in the industry represents an unmistakable challenge.

The tools provided by LinkedIn help you overcome these structural obstacles. You can locate top finance candidates, people perfect for driving your business to the next level. Here are six reasons to start using LinkedIn to recruit finance talent:

A Wide Net

Don’t limit your search to your geographic area, or to a particular business niche. Finding good finance talent is difficult enough without the hampering yourself with an overly narrow search.

By using LinkedIn, you gain access to its vast user base. The platform allows you to tap into its millions of highly-skilled members, opening the door to candidates you would not be able to reach with more traditional efforts.

Target the Talent You Need

While a deep talent pool is necessary to find the perfect fit for your organization, too much volume can render a search unwieldy. A traditional employment posting draws hundreds of meaningless applications. You get contacted by people who are either underqualified or candidates lacking the kind of financial expertise you need.

LinkedIn helps you eliminate this problem. Its features allow you to target the skills and experience you need most. Quickly and easily narrow your search to the candidates most likely to take your staff to the next level.

Take Luck out of the Equation

Much of the traditional job search process comes down to dumb luck. Candidates have to be looking for a job when you are looking, and they need to stumble onto your particular post. Your talent pool comes about in part due to random coincidence.

Tapping into LinkedIn opens up the search beyond these traditional limitations. You can review potential candidates who currently have a position. This allows you to seek out perfect fits – people who don’t even know you are looking.

Streamline the Process

Typically, a recruiting effort requires a significant time lag. You post an ad, collect resumes, sort candidates, conduct interviews and finally, hire the best candidate. It can involve a significant resource investment and a long timeline.

LinkedIn provides tools that allow you to cut this down. You can streamline your search, simplifying your search and limiting the cost of finding the perfect candidate.

Part of a Wider Social Media Effort

The business world continues its migration to social media. Advertising and brand management now involves a significant investment in platforms like Twitter and Facebook. LinkedIn provides a key avenue to bring that engagement to your recruitment process as well.

As such, you shouldn’t just stop your efforts at LinkedIn. Use it as a kind of gateway, opening up a new way to find finance talent. Continue your efforts on other social media platforms, using them to develop your employer brand.

Seek Out Contractors

Not every task requires a long-term commitment. You might need a particular financial skill set for a particular project or as a part-time supplant to your current staff. LinkedIn can help you here too, letting you leverage the gig economy to find experienced contractors and freelancers.

Use LinkedIn to scout contractors and freelancers. You can tap their expertise for a specific situation, or review them in a “try before you buy” strategy.

Recruiting now involves a number of different options. Integrating them all into your overall strategy can get complicated. A top-flight recruiter, like PrideStaff, can sort out the best tactics for filling your particular position, bringing you the best talent available in the most efficient way possible.

Contact PrideStaff today to learn more.

What Should You Do When You See Gaps in a Candidate’s Resume?

Resume gaps tend to be viewed as a red flag, but if you automatically reject candidates because they don’t have a seamless work history, you could be missing out on landing committed top performers. Especially when you’re facing a skills gap or competitive job market for candidates, giving candidates with breaks in employment a chance could improve your talent acquisition, if approached objectively.  Here is what you should do when you see gaps in a candidate’s resume:

• Be Open-Minded

Don’t jump to any conclusions when you spot a gap on a candidate’s resume. There may be a perfectly acceptable reason for their time away from the workforce (such as taking time to care for family or experiencing personal health issues), it could have been out of their control (such as a toxic work environment or company layoff) or they could be a habitual job hopper. Be open-minded and willing to learn more about the context of their gaps, then you can decide for yourself whether it’s a red flag.

• Ask for an Explanation

When interviewing a candidate with resume gaps, give them a chance to provide information about their work history so you can decide for yourself whether or not it’s indicative of their work ethic or reliability. Ask for an explanation regarding their lapses in employment. Be direct, but non-accusatory so they don’t feel defensive, such as “Can you tell me why you left your last job?” Ask follow-up questions as needed about how they spent their time away from the workforce and if they’ve learned any new skills or took actions to keep their expertise fresh.

• Evaluate Their Skills and Accomplishments

Focus on learning how a candidate performed when they were working, rather than just about their time being unemployed. Evaluate their skills and accomplishments – a candidate who has objective metrics in their past work history will likely be a strong contributor, making it unlikely their resume gaps are red flags regarding reliability or professionalism. Alternatively, if they are lacking solid evidence of their previous work performance, combined with a spotty work history, it may not be worth taking a chance on them.

Hire the Right People with PrideStaff Akron!

Attract qualified candidates for your open positions with the help of PrideStaff Akron. Our mission is to learn about your unique needs and assess candidates for optimal fit.

Contact us for more information on how PrideStaff Akron can help you with your employment needs.

Why It’s Important to Have a Project Manager

On paper, a project manager may look like an unnecessary HR expense. Does this employee really deliver significantly towards profitability and your bottom line?

You may not think so at first – but launching key projects without a good manager at the helm is a recipe for failure.

There’s no doubt that qualified project managers can be costly – up to 20% of an overall project budget, according to some estimates. But, as much as you may think you can’t afford this expense, in reality, you can’t afford not to hire a reliable project manager. They are what hold the team and client together and successfully navigate everyone – and everything – through to completion.

Great Project Management Defined

The best project management equates to much more than staying on budget and on time. It can be what sets you apart in terms of delivering a quality, timely and effective product or service, as it keeps everyone on the same page to get there.

Here are some reasons why the right project manager is so vital:

• They ensure good customer service. This means delivering the finished product or service on time, within budget, and with real value. And, if things veer off course at any point, a good manager will bring them back on track without significant interruption.
• They bring leadership and direction to projects. Effective project management provides coaching, motivation and vision. It removes barriers, ensures ongoing communication between team members, and inspires everyone to perform at their best.
• They build clear lines of accountability. With the right project manager in place, there is no confusion about who’s in charge and who controls what’s going on at any given time. They enforce the process from start to finish because, ultimately, it’s their responsibility to ensure that a project succeeds.
• They provide a consistent focus on results. Project managers prevent any vagueness or confusion about what each team member is supposed to be doing, at what time, and for what reason. The foresight and maturity to see the big picture is what differentiates high-performing project managers from those that are subpar.
• They are critical to quality control. A dedicated project manager helps ensure that the quality of your product or service consistently hits the mark. Without the right person in this role, tasks may be underestimated, schedules unrealistically tightened or critical processes rushed.

Do you want to hire only the best in project managers to meet your business needs? If so, consider working with a PrideStaff Modesto recruitment expert. Our mission is to deliver the talent value that matters the most to you. We’ll tailor our own service and performance metrics around your business needs. Contact us today to learn more.