July 2014 Jokes

More from MT.
Thanks buddy and keep them coming!
Ev
A Heck of A Nice Guy...just not as funny of a guy as MT

10. They told me I had type-A blood, but it was a Type-O.

11.  Why were the Indians here first? They had reservations.

12.  We re going on a class trip to the Coca-Cola factory. I hope there's no pop quiz.

13.   I didn't like my beard at first. Then it grew on me.

14.  Did you hear about the cross-eyed teacher who lost her job because she couldn't control her pupils?

15.  When you get a bladder infection urine trouble.

16.   Broken pencils are pointless.

17.   I tried to catch some fog, but I mist.

18.   What do you call a dinosaur with an extensive vocabulary? A thesaurus.

Can We Contact Your Current Employer

Can We Contact Your Current Employer?
When an employer asks this question, who will they usually contact and what questions will they be asking and what can an employer legally answer?
More and more companies are asking this and my candidates aren't sure what to do.
They're worried about retaliation if their current employer finds out they are working.
How can I assure them it will be okay?
If they check "no" will that disqualify them from jobs?
Here are some of your responses:

Are you crazy?
Don Espinola CPIM

Don:
If you mean Clinically Crazy, not that I've been recently diagnosed.
If you are asking if it is Crazy as in unbelievable that employers are asking this question, it is indeed true.
I've had many candidates go through this.
If you mean Crazy as in I don't know how to answer this question, then I'm guilty.
It is better to ask a dumb question than live in ignorance as I just started saying.
Thanks!
Everet


Everet, I like your sense of humour it is exactly like mine. My point is once any of my old employers find out about my wanting to leave, then they would make it their business to make me go bye-bye.
Don Espinola CPIM

I've also run into this myself on standardized tests for companies a major insurance company and a fast growing IT server company. In both cases I was perfectly qualified but had marked "no" to that question because it was very early in the process. If someone is coming to me with an offer I can sort of understand that they want to contact my employer as a last check to make sure I'm not being fired or disciplined. I think it is asked too early in the process most of the time and I wonder how many good candidates an employer is losing because of that question.

Someone else I know very well had an employer contact them when they applied to the new company on a sort of whim when they weren't too serious about looking for a new job but the position sounded interesting. Their current employer made life troubling enough that they WANTED to quit after being contacted by the new company.
Ev



whenever i have been asked this question i always reply with a big fat NO!!!. As once with my previous employer who i thought was extremely professional tried to make my life a living hell with the new employer even though they ignored his comments but he was too ticked off that i was leaving his organization.
Shua Ahmad
Group COO at Binham Pakistan Pvt Ltd

The easy answer for employers is to clarify when they will be contacting your employer in the interview process. If it is after I have an offer in my hand I don't have  a problem when you contact my current employer. Before that point I run the risk of being fired and I do have an issue with that.

Thanks for reading and participating!
Ev
A Heck of A Nice Guy

10 Phrases Great Speakers Never Say

As a salesperson at some point you are going to have to do a sales presentation to a group or even be asked to speak at a local event.
When that happens, here are some things to remember not to say when giving your presentation.
Thanks Jeff!
Ev




10 Phrases Great Speakers Never Say
BY
Jeff Haden

Want to ruin a presentation in seconds?
While it's really hard to immediately win over a crowd, it's really easy for a speaker to lose the room within the first few minutes of a presentation.

To make sure you don't lose your audience, here's Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, serial entrepreneur and founder of TwitterCounter and The Next Web, with ten things you should never say during your presentations:

1. "I'm jet-lagged/tired/hungover."

Not sure where this comes from, but one in five presentations at any conference starts with an excuse: "They only invited me yesterday," or, "I'm really tired from my trip," or some other lame excuse the audience really doesn't want to hear.

We, the audience, just want to see you give it your best. If you feel like crap and can't give it your best, maybe you should have cancelled. Take a pill, drink an espresso and kill it!

2. "Can you hear me? Yes you can!"

This is how many people start their talks. They tap a microphone three times, shout, "Can you all hear me in the back?" and then smile apologetically when it becomes clear that, yes everybody can hear them, but no one raised their hand.

It isn't your responsibility to check the audio. There are people for that. (And if there aren't, test the volume ahead of time.)

But if you do speak into the microphone and get the impression it's not working, just relax, count to three, and try again. If you still think the sound isn't working, calmly walk to the edge of the stage and discreetly ask the moderator to check for you.

Throughout, smile at the audience and look confident. Assume everything works until proven otherwise, then stay calm and wait for a fix.

3. "I can't see you because the lights are too bright."

Yes, when you are on stage the lights are bright and hot and it will be difficult to see the audience. But they don't have to know about all that.

Just stare into the dark, smile often, and act like you feel right at home. Feel free to walk into the audience if you want to see them up close.

And don't cover your eyes to see people but politely ask the lights person to turn up the lights in the room if you want to count hands or ask the audience a question. Even better, talk to the lights people in advance so they know when you will ask them to raise the lights.

4. "I'll get back to that later."

If you happen to stumble on an audience eager to learn and interact, grab that chance and enjoy it. If someone has a question you will address in a later slide just skip to it right away.

If someone is brave enough to raise their hand and ask you a question, compliment them and invite the rest of the audience to do the same. Never delay anything.

5. "Can you read this?"

The common rule is to make the font size on your slides twice the size of the average age of the audience. Yes, that means that if you expect the audience to be 40 then on average you are stuck with a font size of 80 points.

You won't be able to fit a lot of text on the slide, which is a good thing and brings us to the next point.

6. "Let me read this out loud for you."

Never ever, ever, ever in a million years add so much text to a slide that people will spend time reading it. And if you do, make damn sure you don't read it out loud for them.

The best way to lose your audience's attention is to add text to a slide. Here's what happens when you have more than four words on a slide: people start reading it. And what happens when start reading? They stop listening to you.

Only use short titles on slides, and memorize any text you want the audience to read. Or, if you must include an awesome three-sentence quote, announce that everyone should read the quote and then be quiet for six to ten seconds so they can actually read it.

7. "Shut off your phone/laptop/tablet."

Once upon a time you could ask an audience to shut off their devices. Not anymore. Now people tweet the awesome quotes you produce or take notes on their iPads. Or they play solitaire or check Facebook.

You can ask for the audience to turn their phones to silent mode, but apart from that you just have to make sure that your talk is so incredibly inspiring they will close their laptops because they don't want to miss a second.

Demanding attention doesn't work. Earn attention instead.

8. "You don't need to write anything down or take photos; the presentation will be online later."

It is really cool that you will upload your presentation later. But if it's a good presentation it won't contain too many words (see point 4) and won't be of much use to the audience.

For many people the act of writing is an easy way to memorize something they've heard. In short, allow people to do whatever they want during your presentations.

9. "Let me answer that question."

Of course it is awesome if you answer a question right away, but you need to do something else first. Often the question from an audience member will be clear to you but not to the rest of the audience.

So please say, "I'll repeat that question first so everybody can hear it," and then answer it.

Plus, when you make a habit of repeating questions, that gives you a little more time to think of an awesome answer.

10. "I'll keep it short."

This is a promise no one keeps. But a lot of presentations start that way!

The audience really doesn't care if you keep it short or not. They've invested their time and just want to be informed and inspired. So say, "This presentation is going to change your life," or, "This presentation is scheduled to take 30 minutes, but I'll do it in 25 minutes so you can go out and have a coffee earlier than expected."

Then all you have to do is keep that promise, which brings me to the last point.

Bonus tip: "What, I'm out of time? But I have 23 more slides!"

If you come unprepared and need more time than allowed, you've screwed up. You must practice your presentation and make it fit within the allotted time.

Better yet, end five minutes early and ask if anyone has questions. If they don't, invite them for a coffee to talk one-on-one. Giving an audience five minutes back earns their respect and gratitude. Taking an extra five annoys and alienates them.

Conclusion: come prepared, be yourself and be professional. The audience will love you for being clear, for being serious, and for not wasting their time.

How To Get More Interviews While Sending Fewer Resumes

Thanks Phil for the great advice!
Ev

 

Career Advice: How To Get More Interviews While Sending Fewer Resumes
By
Phil Rosenberg

Which do you think is more effective?
1) Sending 100 resumes responding to many jobs in the hope that a couple might be interested in you
or
2) Sending a few resumes to a few jobs where you are a perfect fit and a superior candidate?

Most candidates still send too many resumes today, and many still use method #1 above … but it doesn't work well today, leaving candidates frustrated and job search even more difficult.

While this strategy is counter-intuitive, sending fewer resumes is a much more effective method. It’s more effective and gets most candidates more interviews than the "spray and pray" method.

Why? Because candidates can’t target 100 resumes per day – not even close.

Sending many resumes per day is random. Candidates who use this method randomly apply for jobs, using the same resume. The strategy here is to hope that the words on their form letter resume magically match the 7 -10 keywords an HR rep, recruiter, employer, or admin (at a small company) is searching for.

The odds are awful, which is a big reason I see candidates with an average 1.5% resume response rate (see ''2 Ways To Determine Your Resume Response Rate" at http://www.recareered.com/blog/2011/03/02/career-advice-2-ways-to-determine-your-resume-response-rate/).

You can target one or two resumes reasonably well per day, maximum. Sending fewer resumes allows the candidate to research the company and customize each resume to specifically meet that employer's unique needs.

An effective and customized resume can get a 15-25% resume response rate (face to face interviews with hiring managers divided by total resumes sent) using a "send fewer" strategy.

Notice this ratio doesn't include recruiters (nor informational interviews) – while both are nice, they aren't job interviews…they may be a preliminary step to an interview, or they may not be.

Why does this work?

When you send fewer resumes, you spend more time customizing and targeting each position. Candidates tend to do more research (See "4 Killer Ways To Use Research In Job Search: Best of reCareered" at http://www.recareered.com/blog/2010/07/16/4-killer-ways-to-use-research-in-job-search-best-of-recareered/) when they send fewer resumes.

Candidates tend to select jobs they are "perfect for" if they send fewer.

I advise my clients, even unemployed clients, to send no more than five resumes per day. That's only if there are five perfect fit jobs, otherwise sending fewer than five works more effectively.

When you send fewer resumes … you focus.

When you send fewer resumes you also take more care on each, and really spend time on wording, bullet locations, look of the resume, reformatting.

So try sending fewer resumes and let me know – how did it work for you?


Phil Rosenberg is President of reCareered, the web’s central hub for job search advice. An active blogger about social media and career change, Phil’s articles have been republished by several of the leading job, career and recruiting sites.

The 5 Best Questions a Job Candidate Can Ask

Jeff thanks for the great questions.
Recruiters do you agree that these are good questions for the candidate to ask?
Ev

The 5 Best Questions a Job Candidate Can Ask
by
Jeff Haden
Inc. Magazine Contributing Editor

While you certainly have questions you like to ask (like these three), and maybe you ask one question to identify a superstar... if you’re an experienced interviewer you may almost always feel it's a waste of time when you ask the candidate, "Do you have any questions for me?"

Why? The average candidate doesn't actually care about how you answer their questions; instead they try to make themselves look good by asking "smart" questions. To them, what they ask is a lot more important than how you answer.

On the other hand, great candidates ask questions they actually want answered because they're actively evaluating you and your company… they're deciding whether they really want to work for you.

Here are five questions great job candidates ask:

“What do you expect me to accomplish in the first 60 to 90 days?”

Great candidates want to hit the ground running. They don't want to spend weeks or months "getting to know the organization." They want to make a difference right away.

Plus they want to know how they’ll be evaluated – so they definitely want to understand objectives and expectations.

“What are the common attributes of your top performers?”

Great candidates also want to be great long-term employees. Every organization is different, and so are the key qualities of top performers in those organizations.

Maybe your top performers work longer hours. Or maybe flexibility and creativity is more important than following rigid processes. Or maybe landing new customers in new markets is more important than building long-term customer relationships. Or maybe spending the same amount of time educating an entry-level customer is as important as helping an enthusiast who wants high-end solutions.

Whatever the answer may be, great candidates want to know because 1) they want to know if they fit, and 2) if they do, they definitely want to be a top performer.

“What are the one or two things that really drive results for the company?”

Employees are investments, and every employee should generate a positive return on his or her salary. (Otherwise why are they on the payroll?)

In every job some activities make a bigger difference than others. You want your HR staff to fill job openings... but what you really need is for HR to find the right candidates because that results in higher retention rates, lower training costs, and better overall productivity.

You want your service techs to perform effective repairs... but what you really need is for those techs to identify ways to solve problems and provide further benefits -- in short, to generate additional sales.

Great candidates want to know what truly makes a difference for your company... because they know helping the company succeed means they will also succeed, on multiple levels.

“What do employees do in their spare time?”

Happy employees 1) like what they do, and 2) like the people they do it with.

Granted this is a tough question to answer. Unless the company is really small, all any interviewer can do is speak in generalities.

Even so, great candidates want to make sure they have a reasonable chance of fitting in with the culture -- because great job candidates almost always have options.

“How do you plan to deal with...?”

Every business faces a major challenge: technological changes, competitors entering the market, shifting economic trends... there's rarely a moat protecting a small business.

So while a candidate may see your company as a stepping-stone, they still hope for growth and advancement... and if they do eventually leave, they want it to be on their terms and not because you were forced out of business.

Say I'm interviewing for a position at your bike shop. Another shop is opening less than a mile away. How do you plan to deal with the new competitor?

Or say you run a poultry farm (a major industry where I live): What will you do to deal with rising feed costs?

A great candidate doesn't just want to know what you think; they want to know what you plan to do -- and how they will fit into those plans.

Now it’s your turn. If you’re an interviewer, what are great questions you’ve been asked – and what do those questions indicate? Or, if you're interviewed, what questions do you like to ask?