How to Ensure Your LinkedIn Profile Is Effective

Is your LinkedIn profile as effective as it could be? While you can see your “profile completeness” score on your profile page, it doesn’t measure profile effectiveness — how good your profile is at attracting contacts, generating leads and showing off your skills. Use this checklist to ensure your profile is thorough, effective and updated.

1. Use the name you’re known by. Perhaps your name is Robert, but most people know you as Rob or Bob. Or, for women, perhaps you worked under a maiden name for years. Use the name that most people know you by professionally. Cover all your bases by using your main name in your basic information and mention any other names elsewhere such as in the “Professional Headline” field, or in your recommendations.
2. Upload a professional photo. It’s worth the price to use a professional photographer.
3. Create an effective Professional Headline. Add a “Professional Headline” in the “Edit My Profile” page. This is a short bio that sums up what you do. Mine says, “Content Maven aka writer and editor behind meryl.net.”
4. Pick the industry that best represents what you do. Alternatively, you could use your clients’ industry if they all come from the same one.
5. Enter details for current and past positions. Highlight the activities that represent what you do or want to do by mentioning them first.
6. Write a summary that highlights your most important business information. Keep your summary clear and to the point. Remember you can list details under “Current Position.” The point of a summary is to give people instant information on what you do. I’ve looked at various summaries, and there’s no right or wrong way to do it. I used to have a bulleted list, but switched to a short paragraph. When I come across long paragraphs in the summary, I find them hard to read and follow. The shorter ones hold my attention and get the point across fast.
7. List your web sites and blog. Rather than using the name of your web site and blog, use keywords that describe what you do. For example, I use “Writer for hire and blog” instead of “your own name notes,” the name of the blog.
8. Add your Twitter ID. If you haven’t already, add your Twitter name.
9. Request recommendations. It’s OK to ask people to recommend you, but make sure you ask the right people.
10. Write recommendations. Writing recommendations can lead to receiving recommendations.
11. Add applications to enhance your profile. If you have a blog, feed your blog entries into your LinkedIn account with one of LinkedIn’s applications. You can also turn LinkedIn into an online document collaboration platform.
12. Send selected Twitter tweets to LinkedIn. While you can connect your Twitter account to your LinedIn profile, many of us tweet too often or tweet about things that would be irrelevant to our LinkedIn contacts. Instead, select just the tweets you want to show up in your LinkedIn profile by adding the hashtag “#in” to the tweet. You can turn on this feature in Twitter Settings.
13. Select what to display in your public profile. People not connected to you can only see what you allow them to see by setting your Public Profile options. The more you reveal, the easier it is for people to know if they have the right person. Here, you can also set up your Public Profile URL, which shows up as to http://www.linkedin.com/in/yourname.
14. Review your settings. Though I’ve been on LinkedIn for a long time, I still run into new features and settings. Settings cover everything from profile views and email notifications to personal information and privacy settings. You can provide advice on how people should contact you on the Contact Settings page. Mine says, “Email is the best way to reach me.”

I have been a strong and forceful proponent of social networking and self promotion in this new world order. I hope that this post will help you in truly distinguishing you from the millions of other HR professionals.

from Web Worker Daily by Meryl Evans

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to All

I would like to wish everyone a very merry holiday season and a joyous New Year. 2010 should prove to be a much better year than 2009 and I hope that my blog content will be even better and more informative for you.

Bill Stevens

Goals vs. Objectives and Strategy

First, lets give a quick clarification of definitions. Goals are your general intentions, the big picture aims or you or your company.

Your objectives are the outcomes that represent achievement of that goal. Things you can actually observe. In order to be classified as an objective, you have to measure them. You need a way of defining whether you have or have not completed them successfully.

Strategies are the action plans you’ll execute to reach the objective. Tactics are the pieces and parts of the strategy:

• GOAL: To increase our company’s footprint through participation in social media.
• OBJECTIVES: Increase our blog subscribers by 15% in 6 months. Grow our LinkedIn connections by 250 members (a 25% increase) by the end of the year. Establish a Facebook Page with 500 fans within 6 months to 9 months
• STRATEGIES: Develop a strategy or set of strategies for each one. It is a roadmap for how you will get there.

So that is the set hierarchy. Set these rules in place for 2010 to increase your exposure to the world and build your social media portfolio.

Skipping the Four Key Elements of HR

I had a discussion with a former colleague last week and I must say it was a very interesting and spirited discussion. My former colleague said that she was tired of trying to persuade people to think in HR terms. Yikes I said to myself, thinking in "HR terms". Where was she coming from?
She went on to say that she felt that HR was losing its' edge in the company. Yikes, I said again to myself, what has she been doing from a leadership angle yet alone from a business prospective?

Well, I am sure there are a lot of HR professionals thinking like her given the economy, job losses, pay freezes, and training all but abolished. I look at this as an opportunistic time to really show wheat you as HR professionals are made of: strong business instincts, financial expertise, interpersonal relationships at all levels of the organization, and leadership acumen. If you have forgotten these key elements of HR then you really need to rethink your profession.

In these trying times this is were the true HR professional steps up to the plate and helps the CEO drive the business through the economic storm. Remember these key essentials and build on them each and every day:

• strong business instincts - see and drive innovation and execution
• financial expertise - help the CFO on true business cost relationships and justify your budget that helps build the organization
• interpersonal relationships - without them at every level of the organization you will not understand what is really happening at the grass roots level
• leadership expertise/acumen - drive change and help all employees through the paradigm shifts that will drive business change and revenue growth.

So what are your thoughts on these key elements? Drop me an email at wgstevens2@gmail.com or through my Linkedin address.

Happy Thanksgiving 2009

Every day, I wake up excited, inspired, and driven by the experience and brilliance of those people who shape the world around me. Every day, I wonder in anticipation what tomorrow will hold. As much as I appreciate the past and present, I am reminded, that today is our time to create the future. We have a choice to either push forward or hold back, realizing that there is no manual and no assurances and that we need to walk to the edge of a cliff and jump into the unknown to create for tomorrow to make life better for everyone.

Leadership and Everyday Excellence

A friend in the consulting business wrote an article on "Leadership and Everyday Excellence". Here is just a excerpt from the article that I thought was most important for business leaders and HR executives.

Everyday practical leadership does not require flawless execution of management skills, but rather, an intentional pursuit of excellence. As you pursue excellence in your choices, relationships, tasks, planning and even general thought processes, leadership development will surely follow. Living your life and performing your life’s tasks with distinction and quality is a noble quest. Excellence is the state of excelling. It implies superiority and eminence, according to the dictionary. When someone or something is excellent we believe that there is a quality or feature that stands out in comparison to others.

Does your leadership translate to everyday excellence?

Current Trends Influencing Recruitment and Retention Efforts

Ask any company what issues are high on their priority list these days and most will invariably say “attracting and retaining qualified workers” is one of them. In today’s highly competitive labor market, traditional recruiting and retention strategies just don’t seem to be as effective as they once were. National and state workforce studies indicate there are several primary reasons for this: (1) social networking,(2) changing work demographics.

I have attached a PowerPoint presentation I made last week to the HR Executive Round Table Group. I certainly had sidebars on recruitment, trending, and how the new generation of workers communicate.

Update on Employee Engagement

Business units in the top quartile on engagement had 18% higher productivity, 16% higher profitability and 49% fewer safety incidents compared with those in the bottom quartile, a Gallup study concluded.* (Workforce magazine article)

Check our the lead story in this months issue of Workforce on "Troubled Engagement"

So based on the post of November 15th you should be shoring up your employee engagement activities so your company can get into the top quartile.

Employee Engagement - Not Really

I have posted several articles on employee engagement over the past 2 years and what companies needed to do to retain and grow their human capital. Well, in the past year the recession has hit almost every company except for IBM and McDonald's (at least from a stock standpoint). Because companies have pared down their workforces, reduced costs etc, employees have become disillusioned with their employers. So what have been the driving factors for this decline in employee engagement and retention? Here are some current numbers to reflect on and digest:

• pay and bonuses - only 41% feel this is fair*
• managements' ability to grow the business - only 29% agree they can*
• advancement opportunities - 28% feel they can grow with their current company*
• retention - only 14% said they will stay*
• high frustration level with company politics
• recessional issues have caused employees to become nervous about job security
• high executive pay - more issues with spreading the wealth down stream

Are these factors that you face in your company and as a human resource strategist how are you dealing with these issues and are you driving the executive team to look deep into the organizations culture on how to manage people?

Your thoughts on this subject would be appreciated to share with other HR practitioners.

* US Strategic Rewards Survey 2009

The Future of B2B Media - Creating Unique Value

Are you collecting data, or are you actually understanding the needs and behaviors of your audience? Those are the real questions in building unique value.

A huge challenge facing most B2B and B2C media brands is commoditization: that when you search Google News on a story, you are presented with HUNDREDS of sources for the same story.

This affects commonly held differentiators between competing brands. Nowadays, "breaking" news is often mistakenly referred to as the person who posts it to their website 5 minutes before their competitor does. And even in the established media, "journalism" is more rare than most would have you believe. There is a huge difference between sharing news that is more and more easy to find, and offering a truly unique service that will enable business and career growth in your market.

If you take the label & brand name away from your product, is the quality and the brand distinction painfully obvious to your customers?

Moving Forward

Has your company begun a recovery plan that will distinguish itself from its competitors as the economy rebounds? Think about it, if you continue to stay in a recessionary mode when the economy recovers you will be left behind. So how do you begin this process from contraction and cost savings? Here are some helpful hints that should be driven by the HR leader:

• Make sure you have the right managers in place, match your talent to jobs needed in recovery, if not recruit them;
• Make sure your products are in line with your customers needs; survey your customers, gut check the competition, and blind test your products;
• Begin to change the cost savings environment to a more risk tolerant culture. You need a more risk agile company during recovery;
• Place more emphasis on your employees and what they need. Remember without them you HAVE NOTHING;
• Adjust budgets especially in the IT sector so your systems are easy and intuitive to your customers. Drive more revenue from the web;
• Place an HR person on your product management assessment team, use that person as if he/she were a customer.

So where are you in the recovery spectrum?

Innovation Needed Even In Recessions

NEW YORK - A theme is emerging from the flood of recent corporate earnings reports: Cost cuts are boosting profits. Investors are cheering, but they shouldn't. Even in these tough times, more CEOs should be talking about how they are seeking out investments, developing new technologies and making acquisitions.

That's what will set their companies up for a stronger future.

Intel Corp.'s former CEO Gordon Moore had it right when he said years ago that "you can't save your way out of a recession." He meant that even in the toughest times, companies have to spend money on new ideas.

"Customers don't come out of recessions spending the way they did before," said Chunka Mui, who has studied how companies can capitalize on opportunities during crises at his Chicago-based consulting firm, The Devil's Advocate Group. "They demand something different."

Surprisingly few companies are following Moore's advice of innovating during recessions.Companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 index cut 25 percent on average from their capital expenditures expenses and 5 percent from research and development costs between the end of the third quarter last year and the second quarter this year, according to S&P.

Many have been crippled by the pullback in consumer and business spending as well as tight credit conditions, which is making it harder for companies to get loans to fund their operations. That's driven some to hoard cash and make drastic cost cuts. They're slashing jobs and wages and closing stores and factories.

"A downturn like this should force people's hand," he said.At Intel, Moore's philosophy has been used consistently since he led the chipmaker starting in the late 1970s. Over the years, the Santa Clara, Calif., company's top executives continue to openly discuss the company's strategy of investing heavily in downturns.

I expect your company has cut spending and limited its innovation process to save the bottom line correct? Is it prepared for the upturn?

This is an AP reprint

Virtualizing Human Resources

Have you migrated your HR group to "on-line" yet? What I mean is have you continued to build your HR information and content on the web or company intranet. So what does this really mean and what should or can go on-line:

• benefits information
• employee self-service data such as address changes
• payroll information and electronic deposit receipts instead of paper
• virtual meetings with managers and outliers/web conferencing
• regulatory and compliance information
• all-hands company meeting information
• new hire orientation

The future of HR is going to be more on-line and web related information and conferences rather than expensive paper intensive information, travel, and compliance reporting. I would suspect that most large companies have already done this but I am specifically targeting the middle to small organizations that really are in the backwater of HR technology.

Company Training & Development

Rather than post a survey on the site I thought I would ask one of the most important questions directly to my readers. How many dollars have you allocated in your 2009-2010 budget for training and development?

I am sure that in late 2007 and in the 2008-2009 budget you saw cuts in this area because it is always one of the first line items to go when the economy changes or the company numbers are not what they should be. But if you look at the many years where training has been cut you can also see a correlation in the turnover rate of your very best performers or your high potentials. If they do not see you investing in them they will seek out a company that will.

If you can't see this then you are blind to the issue of employee investment even in bad times. I have been an advocate of keeping T & D off limits during budget cuts. It has worked.

So, what has your company done in your current budgeting process? Send me your comments to wgstevens2@@gmail.com .

Retaliation Suits Are Up—But HR Can Prevent Them

Retaliation suits are the one type of EEOC suit that is increasing, and Attorney Judith A. Moldover says HR managers have an "incredible role" in sparing their organizations the expense those suits invariably bring—even if you "win" them.

Retaliation claims are very fact related, says Moldover, and that makes it especially important that someone with good judgment—like an HR manager—be there to guide management through the case.

They're Not Over 'Til They're Over

By the way, Moldover says, HR's role doesn't end when the case ends—you have to keep an eye on management as long as the employee who complained is employed.

Moldover's comments came at the recent Legal and Legislative Conference of HRNY, the New York City chapter of SHRM. Moldover is with the New York City office of law firm Ford & Harrison LLP.

What Rises to the Level of 'Materially Adverse Action'?

One of the keystones in a claim of retaliation is that the employee must have suffered a materially adverse action. As a result of the Burlington Northern case, Moldover says, we have a definition for retaliation: an action that would dissuade a reasonable employee from making or supporting a charge. Furthermore, the action need not be employment related.

In the Burlingtoncase, a supervisor constantly told a female worker, "Women shouldn't do this work." Then he started saying other things to her with sexual overtones. When she complained, the company investigated and punished the supervisor by giving him a 2-week suspension without pay and making him go to sexual harassment training.

So far so good, says Moldover. But then, the same day the complaining employee was told about how her complaint was resolved, she was taken off her relatively easy forklift job and given a much harder and more physical job. She didn't lose seniority, pay, or title, but the court did find that the action was adverse.

In another case, an HR manager who reported to top management made a complaint. Soon thereafter he lost all his staff, was moved to another area, and found himself reporting to a middle manager. His new boss said to him, "I don't know why they sent you to me. I don't have anything for you to do." As with Burlington, the manager kept his title and his pay, but the courts found that the action was an adverse action.

However, in another case, a company moved an employee who had complained about sexual harassment away from the harassing supervisor. The new location involved a slightly longer commute. This action was not found to be adverse, but in fact it was judged to be a reasonable response to the complaint.

Moldover offered the following examples of other potentially adverse actions:

• Giving a lower evaluation. Even if the evaluation is only lowered from "superb" to "excellent," it could be considered an adverse action, especially if pay or promotional opportunities are affected.
• Transferring to a less desirable position. Transferring a person to another position or office could be adverse, although as noted, in sexual harassment cases, a move may be the best thing to do.
• Ultimate employment actions. Naturally, when you take ultimate employment actions, such as firing, demoting, not giving a promotion, or imposing discipline, you are likely taking adverse action.
• Lowering benefits. Removing a significant benefit could also be considered an adverse action, Moldover says.

Counterclaims Could Be More Retaliation

When an employee files a charge or complains about a manager, the manager's response is often, "I'm going to sue for defamation!"

You probably don't want to do that, says Moldover. First of all, that case is going to be hard to win, and it's going to take resources and engender bad publicity. And if that's not enough, the countersuit itself could be viewed as retaliation.

How is your company fairing and what have you done to prevent these serious claims?

Qualified Employees Still Tough to Find

With a plethora of professionals looking for jobs, one would think hiring managers can take their pick of qualified candidates.

Not so, according to a study of 501 hiring managers byRobert Half and CareerBuilder, which found that 44 percent of resumes presented to hiring managers are submitted by unqualified applicants. The 2009 EDGE Report also found that 47 percent of hiring managers cited under-qualified applicants as their most common hiring challenge.

Two-thirds, or 68 percent, of managers surveyed said they were willing to cut pay, hours and benefits to avoid losing talent through layoffs, while 36 percent said they would rehire people who were laid off.

About 61 percent said they are willing to pay for qualified candidates and would negotiate higher compensation if that meant getting the right person for the job.

While the job market remains ultra competitive, more than half of the managers surveyed said they plan to hire full-time employees in the next year.

QA Positions Available

Contract QA positions for one of our biggest clients, here are the details:

QA Specialist

This role is for a 6 month contract.Only candidates with the following skills will be interviewed: Candidates must have experience testing on UNIX/Shell Scripting and Oracle (9i/10g) database as well as experience with Quality Center or similar software. Preference on candidates coming from a POS background.Candidates should be able to start one week after an offer.

Importance: The QA Specialists test new and modified programs to ensure the program performs the correct functions and is technically stable. Role (In Order of Importance):

• Conduct QA testing of GUI functionality and message format by executing test plans
• Research and develop an understanding of the requirements for the product
• Test how the users will use features*Test performance requirements*Prepare and update test plans
• Participate in implementation of projects*Provide technical documentation where necessary
• Resolve escalated issues
• Document procedures for more complex escalated resolutions
• Report progress on projects monthly and as requested
• Other duties as assigned

Knowledge/Skills/Abilities:

• 3+ year's experience in QA testing required.
• 2+ year's experience testing UNIX/Shell Scripting required
• 2+ year's experience testing Oracle required.
• Knowledgeable in Quality Center or similar software required.
• Ability to follow all company policies and procedures as well as internal departmental procedures to ensure consistency in QA.
• Excellent communication and writing skills to write clear user and technical documentation required.
• Continuing education attitude to remain up-to-date on changing technologies.*Bachelor's Degree preferred.
• Willingness to take ownership for own work to continuously improve performance.

Required Qualifications Only:

• 3+ year's experience in QA testing required
• 2+ year's experience testing UNIX/Shell Scripting required
• 2+ year's experience testing Oracle required
• Knowledgeable in Quality Center or similar software required
• Excellent communication and writing skills to write clear user and technical documentation required
• Bachelor's Degree preferred

There are other positions open too. Product Manager, Java Developer, Financial Analyst. Click on the link above

Friendster Awarded 5th Social Networking Patent

In today's world social networking is how you communicate, recruit both actively and passively today. The key social networking sites Facebook, Linkedin, Jobster (maybe), Ning, and Friendster are actively recruit and communicate with professionals and non-professionals. If you are not social networking then you are missing the boat.

As a point of reference, Friendster Inc. said it was awarded its fifth social networking patent by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

The Mountain View company said it has been granted five patents since July 2006, and the latest one focuses on technology where social network information maintained in one database can be shared with a second database. It also describes how the operators of the second database can use the social network information to better manage services provided to their customers and target particular information to their customers.

The company said it now has more than 115 million members worldwide. The privately held company is venture-backed. You look at their members, Facebook with over 200 million and Linkedin with 75 million the old way of recruiting with job boards just does not work. Linking with key individuals does rather than going through the HR departments where lots of job seekers get lost in the shuffle. Same with just networking, when was the last time you got a response from a job board or email to an HR department?

Top HR challenges

For 2009 here are the top ranked list of the top HR challenges (in North American business)

1. Acquiring key talent/lack of available talent


2. Building leadership capability


3. Driving cultural and behavioral change in the organization


4. Retaining key talent


5. Increasing line manager capability to handle people-management responsibilities


6. Succession planning


7. Constraints on headcount (”making do with less”)


8. Increasing workforce productivity


9. Lack of consensus about the organization’s strategy/direction


10. Encouraging organizational innovation


11. Resourcing and managing HR issues in “new geographies” for the company


12. Managing human capital during and after an acquisition or merger


13. Implementing people changes resulting from changes due to operational performance


14. Workforce planning


15. Measuring the contribution of human capital to business performance


16. Reducing overall human capital costs


17. Coping with an aging workforce

Does your organization's issues compare with these, let me know at wgstevens2@gmail.com .

Base: Survey of 154 senior HR professionals in the U.S. and Canada

Source: “The State of HR Transformation,” North America, Mercer Human Resource Consulting, 2006

Discovered via Workforce Management (10 September 2007)

How Women Are Redefining Work and Success

Business Week report in their Work-Life Balance segment that, "Women are using their increased economic power to bring about more creative, manageable work schedules.

"The article features broadcasters Claire Shipman, of ABC News' Good Morning America, and Katty Kay, of BBC World News America, and how they each struggled prior to deciding to turn down promotions and plum assignments so they could tend to their families.

As the BW article notes, "It wasn't that they weren't ambitious, they just weren't interested in the grueling climb up the corporate ladder. They yearned for a path to success based on results, not hours clocked." They tell tell their story in their book Womenomics: Write Your Own Rules for Success.

Shipman & Kay show the increasing impact of professional women on companies' bottom lines, and give practical advice on how to create "a more sane" work life.

In the BW piece their is an excerpt from the book that looks at the trade-offs many employees are willing to make to get a better work-life balance, and how companies are reacting.

This is a topic that will, hopefully, generate a lot of thoughtful inquiry and a rethinking of our long standing models or organization, management and work.

I thank Peter Roche for this addition to my blog.