{Click here to read the original article on Glassdoor.}

What Do Job Titles Signify?
A job title is a very helpful tool in the professional world. Your job title provides a concise encapsulation of your position as an employee. A job title, depending on the job, can actually express not only your level in the overall organization of your business but also the responsibilities that are required of you in that position.

What is a retention bonus?
A retention bonus, also known as a retention package, retention pay, or stay bonus, is a one-time lump sum a company or organization pays an employee as an incentive to remain with the company for a specified amount of time. The amount offered within a retention bonus package varies but is usually based on a percentage of the employee’s salary, their role within the company, and the time they will remain. Larger companies use retention bonuses to retain key employees and continue to benefit from their talent and experience. Organizations typically offer retention bonuses during a company transition to help maintain a solid working foundation within the company and ensure that leadership guides employees through the change.

Reasons companies offer retention bonuses
Companies may benefit from offering retention pay in the following ways:

• To establish reliability. Bonuses help keep reliable employees happy and loyal to the company for many years.
• To boost morale. Extra pay shows employees their work is valued and they feel motivated to perform well.
• To create loyal workers. Workers who are justly compensated for their time and expertise gain respect for the company and are invested in seeing it succeed.
• To provide consistency. An outsider, such as a customer, who consistently sees the same employees views the company as consistent and reliable.
• To reward performance. Although retention bonuses aren’t based on employee performance, employees who are fairly compensated have higher job satisfaction and are more likely to take pride in a job well done.
• To keep highly skilled workers. A bonus is an investment in experience. Experienced workers are often more confident, are more consistently productive, and have honed their skills throughout the years.

How does a retention bonus work?
Employee performance is usually not a determining factor in a retention bonus. Rather, a retention package is a monetary incentive offered to keep an employee and their talent at the company for an agreed amount of time. Both the employee and a supervisor or a qualified company representative sign the written terms of the agreement. The retention bonus contract states the amount of the bonus offered, a determined time period the employee agrees to remain with the company, and how the company will pay the funds. Typically, the bonus is paid in one large sum or spread out in smaller amounts throughout the duration of the contract.

How to decide if you should accept a retention bonus
If the company you work for has offered you a retention bonus, you are a valued employee and management has noted your hard work. Your contributions and both hard and soft skills are considered valuable assets and the organizational leadership determined that losing you as an employee would negatively affect the overall company productivity and profit. Carefully consider the following factors when determining whether to sign a retention agreement or begin negotiating.

1. The reasons a bonus is offered
Companies offer bonuses for different reasons. Consider the determining factors behind your offer. The company might offer a retention bonus to secure quality employees during a time of transition or to ensure continued success and keep talented employees from going to work for a competing organization. Evaluate your thoughts about the justifications behind the offer and consider whether you agree with the company’s motivating factors or if you find the tactic questionable. It is important to evaluate these factors in order to make the best decision and work with a company you trust.

2. Your opinion of the company and your experience
Review whether your own values and priorities still match those of the company you work with. Consider your experience with the organization so far and the leadership styles you’ve encountered. Positive company culture is important to job satisfaction.

3. The current job market within your industry
Research current job openings that match the qualifications and responsibilities you currently hold. You can begin by searching based on your specific job title. Determine the status of the job market and how easily you would find a position with pay and responsibilities comparable to your current position. Knowing your available options and whether your current salary is fair will inform your judgment in deciding if a retention bonus is right for you.

4. Your tax responsibility
Retention bonuses are considered taxable income. However, because they are supplemental wages, your tax responsibility may differ from that of your annual salary. Consider the tax rate when contemplating if you should accept a retention bonus. A tax professional can answer your questions regarding things like aggregate tax or percentage tax. It may be financially beneficial to request a raise over a bonus.

5. Your career path
The retention agreement will show the amount of time you will commit to the company. Think about how the decision to remain will impact your career path and ability to move up. If upward mobility is important to you, understand whether there are opportunities for you to do so within the company and how a role shift will affect your agreement.

Tips for salary negotiation
When deciding if a retention bonus will work for you, you may ask for more funds or negotiate for a shorter amount of time to commit to the company. Use the list below for help with your salary negotiations and to understand your stay bonus plan.

1. Request a copy of the contract to review.
You will want to review the terms and conditions of the agreement when you are clear-headed and relaxed. An office setting, with work obligations looming, may not be conducive to understanding the details. Ask to take home an unofficial copy. Although some companies may not allow it for privacy purposes, they may give you other options.

2. Pay close attention to the language used.
Retention bonuses are often large sums, and companies may use vague language within the contract. If there is a shift in management or another unforeseen event, you want to be sure that you and the promised incentive are protected from policy loopholes. Look for phrases such as, “actively employed” and “sole discretion.” Read the clauses carefully and ask that the contract includes specific details. Check that concrete language is used throughout and that the company clearly defines terms like “termination causes” and “conditions I cannot control.” You may also want to look at asking the company to agree to keep your role relevant during the specified retention period (or negotiate a severance package) should there be a restructuring.

3. Take your time.
Because you are potentially committing one or more years to working with a company, take your time to review the conditions and clauses. Communicate with the human resources manager or your supervisor and let them know when you will be ready to discuss the terms and conditions.

4. Consider declining.
Although monetary incentives are attractive, if you were already considering leaving the company because of a lack of culture fit or job insecurity, a quick lump sum may not be enough to satisfy you in the long term. Be sure to weigh your options carefully and be ready and able to commit to the role and job environment for the negotiated time period.

5. Request a meeting.
When you are ready, request a meeting to sit down and discuss the terms with a supervisor or individual authorized to make changes. Know what your conditions are and clearly express your needs politely.

6. Propose adjusting the time period.
You may wish to negotiate a shorter time frame, especially if there are few opportunities for advancement.

7. Contemplate asking for a raise instead.
Based on your tax rate, pay scale, and the actual amount of the offer, you may want to consider requesting a raise in salary instead. Consult with a tax professional, but it may not cost the company extra money and could decrease your income tax responsibility.

8. Be flexible and patient.
Most companies and managers are willing to make adjustments, but they may need time to consider your proposal and possibly to check with others to see if they are acceptable. Remain respectful and understanding and be aware of your options. A shorter retention period may not be workable, but perhaps they can offer extra vacation time. Negotiation is a process.

Being well-informed when discussing your agreement and stay bonus can help you feel more confident when deciding if you should accept a retention bonus. Do your research to know if remaining loyal to your current company is the right decision for your personal and professional life.

The post Know What a Retention Bonus Is to Expertly Negotiate appeared first on Résumé Writing and Career Services.

{This article originally appeared on Monster}

Hit some kind of milestone? A resume update is in order.

Since you’ve been gainfully employed for a good stretch of time (score!), an updated resume might seem low on your to-do list. We get it: It’s no longer a priority. But if you don’t update a resume promptly and let it go stale, you put yourself at a disadvantage.

“You never know when you may get laid off or when a job opportunity might present itself out of the blue,” says Dawn Bugni, a professional resume writer in Atkinson, North Carolina.

For many people, “updating their resume feels like going to the dentist—they avoid it at all costs,” says Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter, executive resume writer and owner of Dallas-based coaching firm Career Trend. Granted, a constantly updated resume isn’t realistic, but there are benchmarks in your career when your resume needs a tune-up.

5 Times to Update a Resume

1. When you start a new job
The best resumes highlight quantifiable achievements—not job responsibilities. But when you’re a new employee, you don’t have any real accomplishments yet. Instead of copying and pasting snippets from the job posting onto your resume, tell the story of why you were hired, says executive resume writer Louise Kursmark, co-author of Modernize Your Resume. Got recruited? Say so.

Now is also the time to update your career summary section. Coming off the job search circuit, you should tweak this part of your resume while your value proposition is fresh in your mind, says Robin Reshwan, professional resume writer and founder of Collegial Services, a consulting and staffing firm in the San Francisco area.

2. When you get promoted
Take the opportunity to celebrate, but don’t forget to update your resume, which should always include your current position. Don’t just slap on your new job title though; explain why you earned the promotion (e.g., “promoted for outstanding performance to spearhead new project”), and “don’t be afraid to brag,” says Bugni.

3. When you complete a big project
Did you close a major transaction? Wrap-up development on a new product? These accomplishments need to be reflected on your resume. “Any time you finish a successful project, make sure it goes directly onto your resume,” says Barrett-Poindexter. Citing quantifiable results is crucial (e.g., “implemented new accounting system that saved the company $50,000 in annual operating costs”). Include such details as how many people worked on the team, what your role entailed, and the hurdles you crossed, says Barrett-Poindexter.

4. When you get laid off
Yes, it stinks to have to update a resume when you just lost a job, but do it anyway. Getting fired is one thing (in which case, you’ll need to do more than update your resume); getting laid off as part of downsizing is a different story. “Unemployment isn’t a black mark if it’s a result of the company’s performance,” says Tiffani Murray, an HR professional and resume writer at Atlanta-based resume service Personality On a Page.

Part of bouncing back, though, involves working on an updated resume. And rather than try to hide the fact that you’re unemployed—a strategy that could put off prospective hiring managers—include in your summary section why you were terminated (e.g., “laid off as part of a 20% reduction in staff”).

Additionally, you’ll want to update your work experience to reflect what it is you’re currently doing. Yet, putting that you’re now a “job seeker” isn’t very appealing to prospective hiring managers. The better move: Join a professional association and take on a volunteer position, such as an events coordinator, that you can add to your resume.

“Showing that you’re actively involved with an industry organization clears up any assumption that you’re just sitting there twiddling your thumbs while you look for a job,” says Bugni.

5. When you acquire new skills
Whether it’s an accreditation, certification, or new proficiency (e.g., learning a second language), skills strengthen your resume, so keep yours current. Industry-specific credentials can also serve as keywords to help your resume pass through application tracking systems, says Kursmark.

Do a quarterly assessment of your resume and remove any outdated skills or obsolete software, advises Reshwan. Look at job postings in your field to determine what skills are in demand.

The post 5 Times in Your Life You Should Update Your Resume appeared first on Résumé Writing and Career Services.

{Click here to read the original article on Glassdoor.}

You’ve been interviewing for a while and they’re ready to make you an offer. You really want this job, and you’re excited the interview phase is finally over and it’s time to negotiate.

You just need the details of the offer and then you’ll be ready to counter offer. So you hop on a call with the hiring manager, who describes the offer in detail.

Base salary – check.

Vacation time – check.

Signing bonus – check.

Equity – … huh? “Can you run that by me again?”

Equity – … “Um, ok. Thanks for the offer. I’d like to take a few days to think it over if you don’t mind.”

You were all set to negotiate, but this equity thing doesn’t make any sense. What’s it worth? How do you negotiate something that you won’t even get until a few years from now?

And more importantly: Can you negotiate more equity shares instead of salary?
This is a big question that will be easier to answer as three smaller questions.

Let’s walk through a simple heuristic to help you decide if negotiating for more shares makes sense in your situation.

Does your job offer include shares or other equity?
If there’s not an equity component to your job offer, then shares probably aren’t in play. If your offer includes some equity component—stock options, Restricted Stock Units (RSUs), or other equity—then you probably can negotiate for more shares.

Assuming you can negotiate more shares, let’s dig into a more interesting question: Should you negotiate more equity shares instead of salary?

Can you impute a real value on the shares they offered?
First, you need to know if you can impute any sort of objective value on what they’re offering you. Here’s the key question: “How much are these shares worth today?”

If the answer to that question is, “Well, that depends on whether we go public and how many other investors we get, and what our valuation is for our next raise, and …” then that’s another way of saying, “We have no idea.” This will often be accompanied by statements like, “If we went public today, we estimate these options would be worth [big number].” It’s important to understand that they’re guessing.

To get a better sense of what I mean by “guessing”, play with the inputs on the TLDR Stock Options calculator and you’ll see what I mean.

In this case, I don’t recommend negotiating shares in lieu of pay. You’re better off negotiating for things on which you can impute a value—salary, vacation days, signing bonus, relocation stipend, etc.

On the other hand, if you are able to impute a value on the shares, then it might be worth negotiating for more. This is generally true for publicly traded companies where you can simply look at the current stock price and do some basic math to figure out what the shares are worth right now.

The most common way I see this is with RSUs, but there are lots of other flavors of shares and equity.
Even if you know what they’re worth today, that doesn’t mean you’ll know their value tomorrow, and it’s impossible to predict what they’ll be worth in four years. But at least you can get a baseline for negotiation.

Have you exhausted your better options?
The last thing to consider—and this is an important one—is whether you’ve exhausted all of your other negotiation options.

Even if you know the value of the shares being offered, they will carry some additional risk relative to your base salary, paid vacation time, signing bonus, etc. What if the market tanks? What if they go out of business before you can sell your shares? What if they’re acquired and the shares turn out to be less than anticipated?

Of course, your actual paycheck may be susceptible to these risks in some ways, but at least you’ll probably get paid for the work you already did at the salary you negotiated. You may never get paid out for the shares you negotiate.

I recommend prioritizing the available negotiable options from “most valuable” to “least valuable”. This is purely subjective and is completely up to you. Here’s what your list might look like:

1. Base salary
2. Signing bonus
3. Paid vacation
4. Relocation stipend
5. Shares

You can pay your mortgage or car payment with base salary or a signing bonus. You can impute a real value on paid vacation time. A relocation stipend will help you cover your moving expenses if you’re relocating for this job. But shares might or might not be worth something by the time you can access them, so I recommend putting them at the bottom of your list.

To make sure you get the best result in your negotiation, I recommend focusing on the top two or three things on your list. Starting with the most valuable things and work your way down.
In our example above, if you can’t negotiate base salary, signing bonus, paid vacation, relocation stipend or anything else more valuable than the shares you were offered, then you might consider negotiating shares in lieu of pay.

I’ll wrap up by sharing the method I recommend that my coaching clients use to determine whether they should negotiate more shares in lieu of pay. If you answer “no” to any of these three questions, then you probably have better negotiation options aside from more shares:

1. Does your job offer include shares or other equity? If not, then you probably can’t negotiate for more shares. If so, you might be able to negotiate for more shares.
2. Can you impute a real value on the shares they offered? If not, then you probably shouldn’t negotiate for more share in lieu of pay. If you can, then you might want to negotiate for more shares.
3. Have you exhausted your better options like base salary and paid vacation? If not, then start with those more valuable things. If you were unable to negotiate for those other things, then you might want to negotiate for more shares in lieu of pay.

I recommend negotiating more shares in lieu of pay as a last resort for my coaching clients. That might be a good strategy for you too.

The post Can You Negotiate More Equity Shares In Lieu of Pay? appeared first on Résumé Writing and Career Services.

Get a better understanding of what exactly an employer is looking for, and use those insights to put some extra shine on your job application.

If you’ve been searching Monster job postings for a golden career opportunity, you don’t have to look too far for a helping hand. Job descriptions themselves offer valuable guidance on which resume words to use to best position yourself as a strong, competitive candidate.

Job descriptions can vary from company to company—even if you’re searching for one particular job title—so you have to know how to interpret the information in front of you. Primary tip: Note the keywords used and be sure to use the same words in your application materials.

Why? Because many recruiters and HR professionals use an applicant tracking system (ATS) to pre-screen resumes for applicable words related to the job’s requirements. They do this to narrow down the number of applicants, which can grow to be in the thousands depending on the popularity of the open position. A recruiter doesn’t have time to look through all those resumes one at a time, so they rely on ATS to pull the most relevant for (human) review. By using the same words in your resume that you see prominently displayed in a job description, you’re increasing the odds that you’ll pass the screening test and move on to the next round.

Obviously, this entails that you customize your resume words to each position you plan on applying to. This is key. You can’t use one resume for each job because the keywords will differ from job to job according to what you uncover in each job description.

For more, we broke down the parts of the job description that are most likely to contain the best words to use on a resume so that it leads to a signed offer letter.
Resume Words: Where to Find Them in Job Descriptions

1. The Company Description
How this can inform which resume words you use: The description of the company helps you learn more about the company culture and how well it syncs with your personality.

A company describes itself as it wants to be seen, and from that, you can get clues as to what the company values, what you should research, and what kinds of questions you should ask in an interview.

For example, if a company describes itself as “a rapidly growing athletic brand for busy young professionals,” you can infer that the company sees itself as energetic, youthful, and poised for success. If that matches your personality, then describe yourself similarly in your cover letter.

On your resume, you could incorporate the phrases “rapidly growing” and/or “busy young professionals” to establish that alignment.

Then, once you score an interview, investigate the financial health of the sporting goods industry, design trends, the current generation’s buying habits, and competitors. In general, it’s smart to research the following

• the industry
• the particular position
• the company’s customer base
• challenges
• interests
• goals

Use what you learn to write up some interview questions that demonstrate you’ve done your homework. This research also helps you understand the business better from the perspective of the company.

2. The First Few Bullet Points
How this can inform which resume words you use: They usually map out the bulk of your duties.
Hiring managers frequently front-load job descriptions with the most crucial responsibilities of the job. As you get further down the list, the bullets more than likely represent a smaller percentage of the job duties and requirements.

To stand out to potential employers, make sure your resume elaborates on your skills that mirror the duties mentioned in the top bullet points; you can simply list your skills that align with the job description’s lower-level bullet points.

For example, if a job description’s top bullet requires “advanced knowledge of medical terminology” or “the ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships with stakeholders and the public,” those exact phrases should appear in either your career summary or work history.

3. Required Experience/Skills
How this can inform which resume words you use: They tell you what to highlight on your resume and cover letter.

As with required duties, job descriptions will list the most valuable skills and experiences at the top of the list. Your resume and cover letter should follow suit. Why? Because most employers will try to hire the person who will need the least amount of training.
It’s smart to use your accomplishments to address each of the required skills and/or work experiences and to put this information on your resume first. For each major accomplishment, create bullet points that describe:

• the challenge presented to you
• the actions you took
• the results of your strategic efforts

For example, if the job description says you need “extensive experience in staffing,” you might use that exact phrase and mention that you researched and implemented the launch of a new applicant tracking system that helped accelerate hiring times by 25%.

Finding a new job is all about finding the right fit, for both you and an employer. While a job description can show you how you can present yourself as a good fit for the company by using targeted resume words, there are other ways of finding jobs that are tailored to your skills and experience.

The post The Best Resume Words Are Lurking in Job Descriptions appeared first on Résumé Writing and Career Services.

{Click here to read the original article on Glassdoor.}

Meet Sarah. She is a twenty-something who really loves her job. In fact, it is her dream job and she couldn’t imagine doing anything else. However, the commute to and from work is practically killing her. She has to leave home two hours earlier, and she gets home two hours after work. Not only is this providing her with a lot of stress, but it is also putting a strain on her relationships. Sarah feels that she can do the same job (in fact a much better job due to having a more relaxed mind and body!) by working from home, but she doesn’t know how to go about negotiating this change. She is afraid it may send a message to her employer that she is not serious about her job. It might even cost her a job!

Unfortunately, Sarah is not alone.

You can probably relate to Sarah, and there’s likely an aspect of your job that you’d love to negotiate to make life easier for you while you help your employer get better results. It isn’t easy, though, because there’s a lot at stake: the wrong move might just cost you your job.

Here’s how to negotiate an existing role, make both parties feel like a winner, and get a much better offer:

1. Come Up With The Facts (Both Internal and External)
The first step towards negotiating an existing role is to come up with facts that show that you could contribute more to the company if your role was changed to a work-at-home position. There are two types of facts you could use: “internal” and “external.” Internal facts highlight facts that you think are affecting your productivity and are as a result making your job suffer while external facts highlight research that supports the kind of concession you are demanding. I give examples below:

Internal fact: “This is my dream job, and I can’t imagine working elsewhere. However, I am not deriving enough happiness from this job, and it is affecting my ability to give you my best. I have to leave home two hours earlier, and I get home two hours late. This has seriously increased my stress levels, and it makes it difficult to put in my best effort to work with a relaxed frame of mind. If we could just take the stress away by allowing me to work from home, I would be more productive and do much better work.”

External fact: “Research shows that two-thirds of managers have found that remote employees are more productive overall.”

Highlighting these two facts quickly establishes that the status quo is hurting Sarah and that a change doesn’t have to hurt her employer.

2. Focus on the Benefits and ROI for Your Employer
While you are trying to get a better offer for yourself, it is also very important to look at how your employer can benefit from the change you are proposing. In fact, if possible, highlight more than one benefit. Prepare a list, and ensure that all the listed benefits are irresistible. When you make your offer and let them see that they will get significantly more than they are getting now, they will find it difficult to deny your request.

This can’t be overstated. According to Michael Corkery, President of Pool Guard USA, “You will most likely receive a positive response if you can establish a clear benefit and ROI to your employer. It’s critical that you provide them with information to help them make a decision. If you present your case and remain professional, you have done your best and now it’s their call.”

3. Tell Your Employer to Revert to the Status Quo After a Set Period if They Don’t Get Better ROI
A final way is to make it clear that they have nothing to lose. According to Ayodeji Onibalusi of Effective Inbound Marketing, “To close the deal if your employer has any hesitation, make it clear that you’re not just going to talk, you’re willing to deliver results. And this can best be done by telling them to simply give your suggestion a shot for a set period of time and reverse things if it doesn’t work out.”

In Sarah’s case, for example, she could say: “I’m so confident that I will give you a much better ROI when I work from home. This is because I will have more time and reduced stress, as a result allowing me to do more work with a more relaxed frame of mind. If for any reason you are not satisfied with my work, or you feel that I am not delivering better results, you can easily revert things back to the way they were. Just give me three months and then do as you see fit.”

By employing the above three techniques, you can have positive success negotiating a change in an existing role, or almost any kind of offer you want in an existing job without suffering serious consequences.

The post How to Negotiate a Better Role for Yourself appeared first on Résumé Writing and Career Services.

Job hunters are putting their vaccination status on LinkedIn and on their résumés. Should you?

As someone who’s been working in the recruiting and talent acquisition industry for two decades, Dustin Mazanowski knows how important it is for job candidates to use “keywords” on their profiles and résumés that quickly distinguish them from the pack.

“If it comes down to me and another person with the same qualifications and the same interview, what I wanted to do is have that extra qualification of being fully vaccinated,” the 44-year-old Chicagoan said, as his approximate four-month-old search continues for a senior role in the recruiting industry.
Jacki Hall, an experienced IT project and program manager, has the phrase “Available and Vaccinated for Travel” on her LinkedIn profile. She’s searching for a managerial role that includes international business travel.

“I hoped there were hiring companies requiring travel for an IT project manager, but who were discovering that candidates were nervous about traveling,” said Hall, 57, who spends her winters in Tampa, Fla., and her summers in Minnesota. “If there is a lack of candidates wanting to travel, letting recruiters know that I am ready to get out there might give me an advantage.”

Today’s job market is already starkly different from its pre-pandemic version. There’s a much greater likelihood of working from home, of course, but also the much greater chance of protocols concerning masks and social distancing when physically at the job.
Now, job seekers like Mazanowski and Hall say volunteering their COVID-19 vaccination status could give them a competitive edge.

“It’s better to be overqualified and state all the qualifications you have,” Mazanowski said. The “#vaccinated” mention is not a political statement, but a way he can signal to potential employers that he’s comfortable with in-person office work, he said.

Mazanowski added “#vaccinated” to his profile in July. Hall added it around mid-June, and her résumé’s personal statement also mentions vaccination. So far, neither has seen the disclosure making a noticeable change one way or another in their search.

Figuring out when to disclose vaccination status — or ask about it — is a top new question
It may make a difference going forward, said John Challenger, CEO of the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Instead of managing morale over vaccination rules, Challenger said, “employers want to focus on other things. If you are vaccinated and looking to be hired, for more employers that just portends fewer difficulties.”

Challenger said he’s seen “a small group of people” who are revealing their COVID-19 vaccination status on résumés and online profiles, and he thinks more will follow suit.

Josh Daniel, a career coach at Korn Ferry Advance, works with job seekers and employers — and on both sides, figuring out when to disclose vaccination status or ask about it is the top new question. Is it on LinkedIn? On a résumé? During the interview? “Those tend to be the big three,” he said, and he doesn’t see the dilemma going away.

Like his clients, Daniel’s still figuring out what’s the best advice. “There really is no precedent for this,” he said.

“We are exploring new ways for job seekers on LinkedIn to learn more about how companies are approaching the future of work including vaccination requirements, if they plan to go back to an office, stay remote or go hybrid,” said Suzi Owens, director of corporate communications in consumer products at LinkedIn.

More companies are requiring vaccinations for employees
Here’s where job-market dynamics get more intricate — and make it a serious matter to consider including vaccination status.

In early summer, when Mazanowski and Hall announced their vaccination status to potential employers, the number of companies with vaccine mandates was small, yet growing.

A survey of more than 950 large employers found that 21% had some type of vaccine requirement for all or some of their staff by the summer, up from 9% in the spring, according to Willis Towers Watson a human-resources consulting firm.

The same trend shows in help-wanted ads. By the end of August, the share of postings per million on Indeed.com requiring vaccination rose 242% from the same point in the previous month.
Though vaccination is specifically being required in less than 1% of all ads on the site, AnnElizabeth Konkel, an economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab, wrote that “with delta variant cases surging, employers are undoubtedly wondering how they can keep their business’s recovery on track.”

Here’s a blue-chip example: Delta Air Lines is making full vaccination a requirement for its new hires.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden has grown impatient with the nearly 80 million people who remain unvaccinated. He said last week that the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration is creating rules that will require private-sector employers with at least 100 workers to either require vaccination or regular testing.

Though some Republican governors are threatening to sue, Biden has signaled he’s ready for any court showdown (“Have at it,” he said when asked about the prospect of legal challenges to vaccine requirements from Republican governors), and some legal experts say the president has the law on his side.

Knowing a prospective employee’s vaccination status ‘could be a relief for employers’
The real possibility of new federal rules will give some companies the cover they’ve been seeking to proceed with vaccine mandates, Challenger said. In such a contentious moment, spotting a mention of someone’s COVID-19 vaccination status “could be a real relief for employers to say, ‘I don’t have to ask about this,’ ” he said.

Even though the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has said there’s no legal breach if companies ask current staffers about their vaccination status, “an employer should refrain from asking prospective employees about their vaccination status until after they have received a job offer,” according to attorneys at Husch Blackwell, a firm representing employers.

Probing too soon might get them in hot water under the Americans with Disabilities Act, which bars employers from asking job candidates about potential medical matters before a job offer, the attorneys said.

Nevertheless, employers ought to make any vaccine standard loud and clear from the start and maybe even put a statement on the job application, the attorneys added.

How providing vaccination status on a résumé could be a gamble
Hall and Mazanowski say they haven’t encountered any nasty reactions to their job-search-related revelations. That doesn’t mean the strategy is risk-free, said Challenger. Generally speaking, résumés and job profiles should steer clear of controversies that could sink a job possibility from the start, he said.
In a smaller market, perhaps in an area with a lower vaccination rate, it might be a gamble to put mention COVID-19 vaccination on a résumé before having any other chance to make an impression, Challenger said. “You don’t know who an employer is, who might see it, who might take offense,” he said.
But in a larger market with a higher vaccination rate, Challenger said the mention could be a way to quickly stand apart.

Daniel’s not ready to say there’s a risky way or a wise way to talk about vaccination status in a job hunt. It’s a case-by-case situation, he said. But keep this in mind, he said: a LinkedIn announcement is out there for everyone to see. Waiting for a mention of vaccination status in a résumé could be a “deliberate decision because you see it as marketable,” he said.

Uncertainty over Biden’s vaccination mandate for employers
This all hits on a larger uncertainty with the coming federal vaccination requirements.
“There are so many open questions about how this plays out,” said Laura Boudreau, an assistant professor at Columbia Business School.

What she’s interested to know is how any federal vaccination-or-testing rules play out with businesses that have more than 100 workers but are small enough to stay out of the public eye — especially if those businesses happen to be located in places where vaccine hesitancy runs high.

For Hall, the upside to providing her vaccination mention outweighs any risk. “The pros are that it would make me stand out as someone who wants to travel for work and who is willing to take the necessary steps to make that happen,” she said. A risk would be pushback from people questioning the vaccine, but she hasn’t faced that.

As for Mazanowski, he’s willing to take his chances. “I felt that putting that I was fully vaccinated has more upside than not having it or the opposite.”

The post Job hunters are putting their vaccination status on LinkedIn and on their résumés. Should you? appeared first on Résumé Writing and Career Services.

With the increases in vaccine distribution, it seems like the usual ways of networking could be back soon enough. If you need a refresher on how to prepare, check out this list put together by Money Crashers. In the meantime, there are still plenty of ways to build your network and connections online.

Here are four tips to help you improve your virtual networking game—and some recommended tools for maximum success.

1. Find thought leaders and influencers
Let’s say you want to find a job as an interior designer. The first step is to follow thought leaders and influencers in the industry. You can find them by searching “interior design” on Twitter and Instagram. One way to make your search more strategic, however, is to use a tool like Followerwonk. Search “interior design” + “blogger” or “writer,” and you will get a list of people who write about interior design, ranked by their number of followers.

See who they follow to grow your network. Through the people you follow, you are likely to learn about important industry news, online events, webinars, and webcasts. Sign up and participate when interesting ones come along.

2. Start listening
Once you’ve found the right people to follow, start listening to what they have to say and gathering the latest and greatest news and insights in your industry. Follow them on Twitter, Instagram, Quora, Yelp, Meetup, and Listly. Download their podcasts. Put their names in Talkwalker and Newsle so you get emailed when they appear in the news. Subscribe to their newsletters and YouTube channels, and subscribe to their content on Patreon.

3. Build awareness
Now that you’re aware of them, you can start making them aware of you. The key to successful networking is not to go around begging people for favors and being a nuisance, but to create value for them, too. Retweet their content, +1 their posts, share their content on Facebook, comment (insightfully) on their publications and videos, and include their insights in your content (with appropriate attribution, tags, and hashtags).

4. Connect 
Only then—once you know a little bit about them and have a clue about what’s going on in the industry, and once you’ve created some value for them through retweets and shares and engagement—should you reach out. Friending them on Facebook will likely come across as creepy because it is more of a personal network. But reaching out on LinkedIn and other professional network platforms is totally appropriate.

Lead with a sentence that starts with something like “I loved your article last week about…” And then let them know what you want (e.g., “I’ve written this … and would appreciate your advice” or “I’d appreciate the chance to interview you about your career for my blog” or “I’m starting out in the industry and would appreciate your mentorship. Are you available for a quick virtual coffee meeting?”

If you don’t hear back, send a quick follow-up message about a week later. Chances are the person you’re contacting is busy and misses messages from time to time due to the high volume of incoming requests. Don’t harass the person, though. Stalker is not the impression you want to leave. After two or three follow-ups, it’s time to move on to the next person on your list. But keep the door open by continuing steps 1, 2, and 3. The first secret of success is showing up—even when the room is a Zoom room.

The post 4 Tips and Tricks for Networking Online appeared first on Résumé Writing and Career Services.

{Click here to read the original article on Glassdoor.}

The pandemic changed a lot for workers, including where they work. A study conducted early in the outbreak showed nearly one-third of U.S. workers were working from their homes — and presumably, some of those workers won’t want to return to the office when their employers call them back. “Working from home can provide employees many benefits,” says Ray Luther, executive director of the Partnership for Coaching Excellence and Personal Leadership at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business, “including a much shorter commute time, fewer distractions, and a sense of freedom, that might not come from reporting to an office every day.”

But negotiating a permanent work-from-home arrangement may not be a slam-dunk. Employers have “traditionally worried about employee productivity when working from home,” Luther says, adding some managers may feel they’ll lose control of employees they can’t see in person.

It’s not impossible, though. “Employees who want to make working from home permanent would be wise to put themselves in their employers’ shoes,” Luther says. “What would my employer be concerned about, and how can I show them that those concerns are minimal risks? For most employees, if you can demonstrate high-productivity, accessibility, and still build productive relationships on your work teams, you will have addressed most managers’ significant concerns.” Here’s exactly how you can negotiate a permanent work-from-home arrangement.

Demonstrate your productivity.
To be allowed to continue to work from home, employers will want proof you’re as productive at home as you are in an office. “Quantify and qualify the work you’ve accomplished on a work-from-home trial or mandate,” says Luther. “How productive have you been on your own? How have you worked with co-workers to learn through the new office systems? Where have you helped develop solutions to the challenges that work from home has potentially caused?” You’ll need concrete answers to those questions to convince your manager you can be trusted at home.
Come prepared with proof of your productivity — and kick off your negotiation with hard facts.

Prepare an action plan.
While you’ve already been working from home, you and your manager may not have collected hard evidence of your ability to do so successfully. If that’s the case, Maureen Farmer, founder, and CEO of Westgate Executive Branding & Career Consulting suggest you develop an action plan that will help your manager assess your ability to work from home over a trial period. Talk to your manager about what milestones he or she would like you to reach during the trial — for example, 90 days — and agree to check-ins during that time to see if you’re on track. “The offer of work-from-home must demonstrate value and benefit to the employer foremost,” Farmer says.

Build trust.
“Once you’ve demonstrated you can be productive, show that your employer can trust you,” says Luther, who adds that most managers’ concerns about employees working from home are rooted in a lack of trust. “How does the employer know they can trust you, and what have you done to demonstrate that trust? Are you accessible when they need you?” Luther asks. “Be prepared to make the case for why they can trust you to deliver even if they can’t see you in the office.”
One way you might demonstrate your trustworthiness is by proposing a communication plan in your negotiation, says Farmer. Such a plan would “layout the periodic and regular touchpoints with each of [your] colleagues to ensure projects remain on task,” she says. “The communication plan will offer a guarantee that [you] will be available on-demand throughout the day by phone, email, text, or message service. The employee must reassure the manager of their availability.”

Show you’re flexible.
It’s important during the negotiation to “listen to your employer’s concerns about working from home and seek to understand any objections,” says Luther. “While these concerns might not be as important to you, they provide clues where you could show flexibility so it doesn’t turn into an all or nothing situation.” For example, perhaps your manager would be more comfortable if you came into the office one day a week or for critical team meetings. “Working from home can provide many benefits for employees, even if it’s only four out of five days per week,” he says.

The post How To Negotiate A Permanent Work-From-Home Arrangement appeared first on Résumé Writing and Career Services.

During the first half of 2020, security experts, educators, and average users criticized Zoom on several fronts, which we’ll elaborate on momentarily. That said, in terms of features, stability, and reliability, Zoom remains one of the best video calling apps you’ll find. There are plenty of alternatives should Zoom not meet your standards. We’ve listed some of them below with links to in-depth reviews where available.

If you use Zoom, we recommend taking a moment to get acquainted with the tool’s key features. While Zoom is an Editors’ Choice, we’ve bumped the score down by a half point in light of recent events. For its stability and reliability, however, Zoom remains a go-to app, particularly for business meetings and personal get-togethers. For government and healthcare use, be sure to look closely at Zoom’s offerings as those sectors tend to have more stringent security and privacy requirements.

Not every setting is available to free Zoom users, and when that’s the case, there’s a note at the top letting you know. Beyond maintaining control of your meeting, here are some other Zoom tips that will help you look like a pro.

1. Update Your Zoom Apps

If you want to see that new Security option in your meeting toolbar when you host meetings, you must update our app. Check for and install updates on all devices where you use Zoom.

2. Use a Unique ID and Password for Calls

When you create a Zoom account, the app assigns you a Personal Meeting ID (PMI). It’s a numeric code that you can give out to people when you want to meet with them. However, you have a second option, which is to generate a unique ID instead of using your PMI. Let me explain how they’re different.

The PMI is handy in specific circumstances. It’s wonderful for recurring meetings with a small group, like a weekly team meeting or a one-on-one. You can use it over and over, and it never expires, so people can join without having to hunt down this week’s login code or link. It’s always the same. However, once you give out your PMI, anyone who has it can try to butt into your meetings at any time. If someone knows you’re due for a meeting and has your PMI, then it’s very easy for that person to crash it. The unique ID is different every time you schedule a new meeting. As a result, it’s inherently more secure.

There’s one more layer of security you can add here, a password. Previously, when you scheduled a Zoom meeting, the app would use your PMI and no password by default. Now those settings are swapped. The default is a unique ID with a password, which Zoom generates automatically. You can change that password if you like. You can also choose to add a password to a PMI meeting, and in that case, you must choose your own password, as Zoom will not generate one for you. Once you set a password for PMI meetings, all future meetings will require it, too.

3. Create a Waiting Room
A Zoom call can start one of two ways. It can start the moment the first person logs onto the call, or it can start when the host says it should start. For small groups of people who know each other, it’s common for people to log in and make small talk while waiting for everyone else to join. Chit-chat can be beneficial, especially for remote workers and classmates who don’t get much face time with one another. For some kinds of calls, however, you might not want to let participants chat with each other or even let the call officially start until you, the host, are ready.

In that second case, the solution is to create a Zoom Waiting Room. When participants log into the call, they see a Waiting Room screen that you can customize. They can’t get into the call until you, the host, lets them in. You can let people in all at once or one at a time, which means if you see names you don’t recognize in the Waiting Room, you don’t have to let them in at all.

The new Security button has an option to enable a Waiting Room after your call has already started. Creating a Waiting Room, in this case, will prevent anyone from popping onto your call unexpectedly.

4. Make Sure Only the Hosts Can Share Their Screen
Don’t let anyone hijack the screen during a Zoom call. To prevent it, make sure your settings indicate that the only people allowed to share their screens are hosts.

You can enable this setting in advance as well as during a call.

In advance, go to the Zoom web portal (not the desktop app) and in the settings navigate to Personal > Settings > In Meeting (Basic) and look for Screen sharing. Check the option that only the host can share.

During a call, you can use the Security button to change the setting. You can also click the up-facing carrot next to Share Screen and choose Advanced Sharing Options. There, choose to only let the host share.

While sharing your screen or an image, Zoom has a great feature that lets participants annotate what they see. For visual collaboration, it’s amazing. For naughty participants, it might seem like an invitation to bomb your call. You can disable the annotation feature in the In Meeting (Basics) section of your web account.

5. Create an Invite-Only Meeting
This feature is for paid Zoom accounts only.

One way to restrict who can join your Zoom call is to make it an invite-only meeting. That means the only people who can join the call are those you invited, and they must sign in using the same email address you used to invite them. It gives you much more assurance that people are who they say they are.

There are a few ways you can enforce an invite-only meeting, depending on the type of account you have. The long and short of it is to look for an option called Authentication Profiles.

Once you have that setting enabled, anyone else who tries to join your meeting will see a notification on screen telling them that the meeting is for authorized attendees only.

6. Lock a Meeting Once It Starts
If you start a meeting and everyone you expect to join has, you can lock the meeting from new participants. While the meeting is running, navigate to the bottom of the screen and click Participants. The Participants panel will open. At the bottom, choose More > Lock Meeting.

7. Kick Someone Out or Put Them on Hold
Sometimes an unruly participant manages to slip through the cracks. As the meeting host, you do have the power to kick someone out of a call or put them on hold.

To kick someone out: During the call, go to the Participants pane on the right. Hover over the name of the person you want to boot and when options appear, choose Remove.

By default, an ousted guest cannot rejoin. What to do if you make a mistake? You can allow a booted party to rejoin. Enable this feature by going to the web portal and navigating to Settings > Meeting > In-Meeting (Basic). Toggle on the setting called Allow removed participants to rejoin.

Alternatively, you can put someone on hold. During the call, find the video thumbnail of the person you want to put on hold. I like to think of it as putting someone in a time-out. Click on their video image and select Start Attendee On Hold. Once they’ve learned their lesson, you can press Take Off Hold in the Participants panel.

8. Disable Someone’s Camera
Hosts can turn off any participant’s camera. If someone is being rude or inappropriate on video, or their video has some technical problem, the host can open the Participants panel and click on the video camera icon next to the person’s name.

9. Prevent Animated GIFs and Other Files in the Chat
In the chat area of a Zoom meeting, participants can share files, including images and animated GIFs—if you let them. If you’d rather not, then be sure to disable file transfer. It’s on by default, so you have to actively disable it.

For your own meetings, open Settings in the Zoom web app (it’s not in the desktop app). On the left side, go to Personal > Settings. Then click In Meeting (Basic). Scroll down a little farther until you see File Transfer. That’s where you can disable it.

Administrators of paid Zoom accounts have even more options for exactly how to disable file transfer for certain meetings or certain groups.

10. Manage Who Can Chat
If you’re hosting a Zoom call and have invited strangers to join, someone in your crowd could harass another participant by sending them private messages. Or people could start talking behind your back. You can prevent this by disabling private chat. When you disable private chat, it doesn’t affect the public chat, which everyone on the call can see and participate in.

Open Settings in the Zoom web app (it’s not in the desktop app). On the left side, go to Personal > Settings. Then click In Meeting (Basic). Scroll until you see Private chat. When the button is gray, it’s disabled.

You may want to manage the chat in other ways, too. From an active meeting, click on the Chat icon in the toolbar at the bottom. A chat panel opens on the right side. At the bottom, click on the three dots and decide who participants can chat with: no one, host only, or everyone.

Use These Additional Settings for Large Meetings
Not all Zoom disruptors are bad actors. Sometimes participants make mistakes and don’t realize that a yapping dog or crying child is causing a disturbance for everyone else. Or someone might accidentally upload a file they didn’t mean to. Any time you host a meeting of more than one or two people, there are some settings in Zoom you should review and familiarize yourself with before the call.

The post Top Zoom Tips for Better Video Calls appeared first on Résumé Writing and Career Services.

{Click here to read the original article on Monster.}

The coronavirus pandemic has changed the business world forever. Even company executives that were resistant to remote work-from-home set-ups are realizing that their companies can operate without everyone needing to be in the office 9 to 5. Some companies may ditch their office spaces altogether and allow people to work from home permanently or have a rotating schedule to limit the number of people in the office at a time.

In fact, according to the Monster Future of Work: 2021 Outlook, allowing remote flexibility tops the list (43%) of U.S. company policy changes as a result of the pandemic, with flexible work schedules (40%) right behind. What’s more, 46% of companies say these policy changes are permanent.

Those changes indicate that there’ll be less face-to-face time at work. Whether you just started a new job, are searching now, or will make moves in the future, it will be helpful to know how to set yourself up for success if you’re starting a job remotely. Here are four tips on managing the so-called “new normal” of remote hiring and working from home.

Understand expectations

Whenever you start a new job, it is always a good idea to set up a meeting with your boss to learn her expectations, what success looks like in your role, and to set tangible goals you can work toward. Your boss might not be used to checking in and providing feedback when she doesn’t see you face-to-face in the office.

Be proactive and ask to set up a short weekly one-on-one meeting to see what you are doing well and what you can work on and to share your progress and goals. Similarly, before starting a new project or assignment, understand what your boss expects and when it is due, and ask any clarifying questions.

Get to know your team

When you’re in the office, it’s easier to observe the workplace culture, how your team works, and the goals and objectives of the organization. It’s also easier to get to know your co-workers, but you can still establish strong relationships when you are in a remote work-from-home scenario. If you have a small team, send an email to each person to introduce yourself and tell them that you’re excited to work with them.

Normally, you’d sit next to a peer, go to lunch together, or chat before or after your meetings. Recreate that by asking a few people on the same level as you if they have time for a 10-minute phone call or videoconference or a “virtual lunch.” You’ll get a chance to learn more about how the team operates, how people communicate remotely—is it all through email, through Slack, or do people pick up the phone and call? —and you’ll have someone to turn to when you inevitably have questions.

Impress your co-workers

Whether it is remote, work-from-home, or in-person, the best way to make a good first impression with your colleagues is to impress people by doing a good job and being great to work with.

The soft skills that will impress people the most in the “remote work world” are communication, time-management, independence, and prioritization.

Reread all your emails and chat messages before sending them to see if there are ways you can organize the information more clearly like by having lists, bullet points, or action items.

Check-in with your manager and people you work closely with more often than you might otherwise and keep them aware of what you are working on and what you’ve finished, and ask if there is anything else you can help with. Better yet, if you see projects that need to be done or ways something can improve, offer to tackle them. Your co-workers will be impressed by your organization, dedication, and proactivity.

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