January 25th – The #NumberOfTheDay is 29.
According to the Pew Research Center, Donald Trump is leaving the White House with the lowest job approval of his presidency, 29%.
We all have bad days, weeks, and even months at work, but what happens when you are in a consistently toxic work environment? Toxic workplaces rarely stay at work; they follow you home and begin to affect your personal life.
Some signs of a toxic workplace could include poor communication, gossipy behavior, bad leadership, unmotivated coworkers, and no work/life balance
.How can you survive a toxic workplace?
- Build a network of trusted co-workers
- Stay focused on goals
- Establish boundaries
- Don’t take work home with you
- Create an exit strategy
What else?
January 26th – The #NumberOfTheDay is 70.
According to CareerBuilder, 70% of employers use social media to screen candidates before hiring and 54% of them have eliminated a candidate based on its content.
In general, you want to avoid controversy on your social media accounts when you are in the midst of a job search. These items could include drunken college frat party photos, political commentary, religious posts, anything with an overtly sexual connotation, anything that would indicant intolerance of a certain group of people, obscene language, confidential information, or disparaging comments about coworkers or employers.
Tighten up your privacy settings and scrub anything that shows you engaging in what a prospective employer may find offensive or inappropriate.
Put yourself in the mind of a hiring manager and analyze how someone else may view your content.
January 27th – The #NumberOfTheDay is 561.
When brand messages are shared by employees on social media, they get 561% more reach than the same messages shared by the brand’s social media channel.
Why? Your reach, your reputation, and your brand matters. People trust people more than they trust brands. What you say and do matters. You often hear the term “personal branding”, but what does that really mean? Personal branding is the practice of people marketing themselves and their careers as a brand. It is essentially the ongoing process of establishing a prescribed image or impression in the mind of others. Your personal brand is how you promote yourself. It is the unique combination of skills, experience, and personality that you want others to see.
Corporate America has long understood the concept of branding. McDonald’s, Starbucks, Anheuser-Busch, Amazon, and Apple are just a few companies that have clearly defined brands. If someone mentions McDonald’s, it brings up a certain connotation, good or bad, but you know exactly what you are getting.
When defining your personal brand, what can you do differently or better than others in your field? A reader of your résumé should be able to easily identify what your brand is. Are you a turnaround expert? Training master? Sales builder? Messaging is essential to help you stand apart from others.
January 28th – The #NumberOfTheDay is 7.4
How important is the layout of your résumé? Considering your résumé is often the first impression that an employer has of you, I would say it is critical. According to The Ladders, a recruiter views your résumé for 7.4 seconds before making a decision whether to move forward or not.
Within 7.4 seconds, you need to convey your unique value, capture the readers’ attention, and make them want to learn more. Here are a few quick tips to improve your résumé layout and make the most of your 7.4 seconds:
- Be concise and use bullet points to showcase your achievements – large blocks of text will go unread
- Use easy-to-read fonts – Century Gothic, Calibri, Verdana, and Helvetica are some of my favorites
- Set your margins to no less than 0.5 inches all the way around
- Use nothing smaller than a 10-point font
- Use styling elements sparingly – bolding every other word loses its effectiveness, so save emphatic styling for when you want to draw the reader’s attention to a specific area
January 29th – The #NumberOfTheDay is 16,400
Government data tells us that the average warehouse size is 16,400 square feet.
When putting together an effective résumé, it is critical to add the proper context and scope to the narrative.
If you are managing a budget, how large is it? There is a big difference between managing a $100,000 budget or a $30 million budget. Managing a $30 million budget tells a much different story than managing a $100,000 budget.
If you are leading people, how many? 2 or 200? If you are managing a retail store, are your annual sales $2M or $25M? If you are a warehouse manager, is your warehouse 5,000 square feet with 500 SKUs or 40,000 square feet with 3500 SKUs? Don’t leave the reader guessing and questioning your ability.
