2022 is here, and while many are still trying to navigate the fallout from (gulp*) 2020, others are bearing witness to the perennial wisdom that upheaval creates new opportunities. Industries across the board have had to retool and rethink strategies that reliably produced results until all of a sudden…they didn’t anymore. Change, the other cosmological constant, was intensified to a revolutionary pitch. 

We are all in new territory, and employers are looking for innovative, forward-thinking assets to help them capitalize on new opportunities presented by–among other things–the decentralization of the workplace. This means, in part, that candidates who are equipped to gracefully maneuver across shifting ground are in high demand. On a practical level, presenting yourself as just such a person with a living resume is a great way to start.  

A “living resume,” is one that is dynamic, ever-evolving, and reflective of your individual competence, flexibility, and potential. The following 8 strategies are steps that you can begin taking immediately in order to ensure that your invaluable first impression is memorable, impactful, and effective in 2022. 

1. First the elephant in the room–you must be disciplined. Building a standout resume takes discipline and dedication, especially when you find yourself in a comfortable position. As we all know, the days of working a few decades in the same role are long gone, which means that you must force yourself to be constantly thinking about the next opportunity. Acknowledging the uncertainty of the future and consistently acting with this uncertainty in mind is the first step; it is the “inside job” that allows you to prepare and position yourself effectively. 
   
   
2. One great way to do this is to develop a pattern of consistent and thorough documentation of your accomplishments and responsibilities. You don’t have to add them to your resume right away, but you should keep a running list of any new projects, skills, and responsibilities you assume in your current position. If nothing else, such a document will allow you to update your resume quickly when the time comes. This is especially useful if the worst-case scenario forces you to find a new job yesterday. Stress is inimical to memory, and if you have to send out resumes in a hurry, the last thing you want is to short-change yourself. Document now so you don’t forget later.   
   
   
   
3. Schedule specific time slots for updating your resume and stick to them. This isn’t exciting work, plus it forces you to think about the contingency and possible precariousness of your employment. These are strong disincentives that must be overcome. The best way to do this is to set dates for yourself. Think of it like scheduling an appointment with the dentist or going to the gym. You will never feel like doing it, but will inevitably appreciate the effort when the time comes to present your resume to a new potential employer. 
   
   
4. While working on your resume in the allotted time slot, focus on impact. Employers want concrete examples of how you have delivered results. This is particularly true regarding your demonstrated ability to encounter the unexpected. Here, numbers are your best friend. How many days before a deadline did you complete a project? How much money did you save your employer? What specific actions did you take to solve a problem? Impact is demonstrated in concrete terms. Don’t claim to have simply “improved” a situation, tell a story about precisely how your actions constituted an improvement for your business.    
   
   
5. Check on details that affect style and readability. Believe it or not, there are trends in resume writing that stand to affect your reception by a potential employer. Click here for a checklist of style considerations to make when updating your resume.
   
   
   
6. Selectively cater your resume to each position in which you are interested. It is extremely tempting, once finished, to clap the dust from your hands and bombard any and every interesting position you find with your freshly refurbished resume. This is not ideal, and in all likelihood will not work very well, especially as the desirability of a given opportunity increases. The last thing you want is for a recruiter or hiring manager to look at your resume and have to connect dots in order to understand how you are a viable candidate. Take the time to investigate the particular job descriptions in which you are interested, pull key terms from those descriptions, and explicitly incorporate them into your resume.
   
   
   
7.  After tailoring your resume, save several iterations of it for future use. If, for example, you know that you are interested in positions that are not peculiar to a specific employer (project management, corporate training, or human resources, for example), craft and save a version of your resume for each and reuse it whenever an appropriate position blips your radar. You should still tailor your resume to each position, but the number of changes needed will be minimized if you have several versions of your resume on deck.
   
   
8. Include a “hobbies” section in your resume. Your hobbies might seem irrelevant, but briefly including them highlights your curiosity and individuality. Employers want human beings, not robots, and your hobbies are a reflection of your personality. That being stated, your hobbies should not take up too much space in your resume and should not appear to take precedence over your education, professional experience, and accomplishments. Think of hobbies as garnishings–a little goes a long way.  
   
   
   
   Every time January 1st rolls around, we take stock of the previous year while anticipating the future and imagining how we might improve it. We set goals and mark up calendars, magnet photos of ourselves to refrigerators that remind us of where we have been or where we would like to end up. We invariably consider our careers and how they stand to be improved. If you have found yourself dreaming of new opportunities in your career, one of the simplest and most effective ways to improve your situation is to ensure that you are as appealing as possible by maintaining a living resume. 

Your resume is the invaluable first impression that sets the tone for all subsequent interactions with a potential employer. Make it a goal this year to give yourself every advantage that is within your power. Schedule time each month to enliven your resume. You’ll thank yourself when 2022 rolls around, and ‘23… 

When it comes to a job interview, what’s the one thing that differentiates you from all the other applicants with the same skill set, certifications and level of experience? The answer is simple: You, of course.

You know what you have to offer a prospective employer, and so do the people who know you. However, the hiring manager at your next interview only knows where you’ve been. In order to stand out from the crowd of other candidates, you need to be prepared to tell your story in a compelling and eloquent manner.

Knowing how to tell your story is what can turn an interview into an offer.

How to Tell Your Story to Get the Job

Connections Move People

Think back for a moment to the last five movies you saw, or books you read. Which stories stuck with you the most? Science fiction, true crime, romance, and fairy tales - no matter where your tastes lie, all good stories have one thing in common; the main characters feel like fully realized people with whom we come to care about them. We don’t even have to have anything in common with them, but their basic struggles feel familiar. Stories succeed when we can see something of ourselves on the screen or on the pages.

And while an interview is hopefully nothing like your favorite novel, it is your best and perhaps only opportunity to make a meaningful connection with a potential employer.

How Do You Use Storytelling In An Interview?

Prospective employers want to see how you think, how your experiences have made you smarter, sharper, and more efficient. Your resume only tells them where you’ve been, it’s up to you to fill in the heart of the story.  

Get Comfortable With Yourself

Come up with 5 words to describe yourself. Be honest and take your time with this exercise, do not just write down the first things that come to mind. Think back on the challenges you’ve faced and what attributes got you through.

Then ask two trusted friends or coworkers to come up with 5 words to describe you.

Do their words match yours? Or, are they wildly different? If so, drill-down and try to see what you might be missing, how your picture of yourself differs from the one others have of you.

Note: You may not necessarily use this in an interview, but knowing your strengths and how they’ve served you in the past is an important first step in defining your story.

Create A Narrative

Build a timeline of both your accomplishments and challenges, successes and failures. Then stand back and try to understand how one event led to the next. How did you wind up as a sales engineer when you started your career as a support guy? What happy accidents or perceived losses led to you where you are today?

You may be hesitant to share the pitfalls that befell you, but understanding how they all fit together frees you up to present your story in a cohesive and engaging manner. Remember, you want to make certain that you are seen as a resilient and thoughtful employee, one who is resourceful and always thinking.

Know Your Audience

Do your research on the company and your interviewer. Understanding who you are talking to, their management style, their values and interests helps you tailor your story. Read their LinkedIn profiles and/or blog posts, or turn to the recruiter or mutual contact to understand more about who you’re meeting with.  

Highlight An Achievement

Without making yourself sound like a superhero, relay how you were able to meet a situation head-on and work through to a successful conclusion. Draw on examples both large and small - how you handle daily problems can be as telling as major issues.

Listen To The Stories Others Are Telling

Listen to your interviewer and try to figure out where you fit into the story of the company, where your strengths can help, where past experiences can shed light on a particular problem they are facing. Being open and perceptive to the story of the company and then dovetailing the solutions you can provide makes you a candidate worth remembering.

Bonus Tip: Always Remain Perceptive

Do not iterate lists or stick too close to your idea of how the conversation should go. Be prepared to dial back or change your narrative to fit the reaction of the person sitting across from you.

When you take the time to understand how to present yourself so that others can see who you are, how you work and what value, you are far more likely to make a lasting impression. Leaving an interviewer with the sense that they got to know YOU is key to getting either to the next level of the interview process or better yet, landing an offer.

When J. Patrick & Associates first opened 25 years ago, the vast majority of interviews we set up for our clients were face-to-face meetings, based on a resume and our recommendation. Phone interviews were rare and arranged primarily for remote candidates. Well, times have changed, and today more and more of our clients require a phone interview regardless of the candidates’ apparent qualifications.

Make no mistake about it, a strong resume is still of prime importance, but hiring managers have taken to the phone interview as the first point of contact. Certainly, there are obvious considerations of time and money saved, but phone interviews lower the threshold for the hiring manager. Fifteen minutes on the phone with a candidate is a far more expeditious way to answer some basic questions about a candidate’s suitability and appeal than having to sit through a longer meeting.

And while you might think an interview is an interview, knowing that there are some key differences between a phone interview and one held face-to-face can mean the difference between failing to get to the next step and landing an offer.

The phone interview is your first and best opportunity to make a good impression. Follow these 8 pro-tips to ensure it’s not your last.

8 Tips for Acing a Phone Interview

Just as you do your homework in advance of an in-person interview, you must do your due diligence for a phone call. Be careful of falling into the mindset that a phone interview is somehow less important or just a necessary hurdle you have to get past to get to the real thing.

1. Do Your Homework

Research the company and the interviewer. Understanding what their strengths are and what challenges they might be facing are key to presenting yourself as a necessary addition to their company.

2. Make Notes Ahead of time

One great advantage of a phone interview is that you can use a “cheat-sheet” to refer to. Always have the necessary and vital statistics on the company close at hand so that you are prepared when asked what you know about the company.

Also be certain to print your resume, cover letter and any other supporting material you want to present and keep them close at hand. You don’t want to have to go digging for anything while on the phone, nor hem and haw as you try to remember why you left a previous position. Don’t make your interviewer feel that your attention is not 100% focused on the conversation.

Write out your questions ahead of time so that you can be sure to get the answers you need. Remember too that interviews are as much an opportunity for you to find out if the company is a good fit for you as it is for the hiring manager.

3. Clear Your Calendar

Assuming you have a scheduled interview be certain to allow yourself 10-15 minutes in advance of the call to prepare and clear your head of other business.

If you don’t have the advantage of scheduled time and the call comes in when you are not prepared to focus on it, you can always allow the call to go to voice mail - it’s unlikely it would be held against you. The better option, however, would be to say something like, “I’m not at my desk at the moment, when would be a good time for me to call you back?”

4. Dress the Part

It might sound counter-intuitive, but doing a phone interview from home in your sweats does not give you the best advantage. While no one might be able to see you except your cat, dog or pet fish, how you dress has a direct influence on how you feel. 

While you want to be comfortable and not on edge, watch your posture and body language. Your interviewer may not be able to see you but they will be able to pick up on subtle hints when you’re not fully engaged or energized.

5. Clear the Distractions

Thirty minutes or more before your call check that your cell signal is strong and even and/or that your Skype connection is stable. You might also want to disable call waiting and other features that might break up the flow of your conversation.

Put the dog somewhere else, send the kids out of the house and close the windows. There’s nothing more frustrating than loud, extraneous noises on the other end of the phone. It’s best to find as quiet and contained an environment as possible for the phone call. If your home is not a viable option, see if you can’t borrow some office space from a friend or perhaps book time a short session in a co-working space.

6. Listen First/Talk Second

Once the call comes in, answer with your name - it’s a small thing but can go a long way to showing the interviewer you are professional.

Be certain to listen attentively - even though they can’t see you, we’ve all experienced that sensation that the person on the other end of the phone is not quite with us. Let them know you are actively engaged in listening - a few well placed “I see’s,”’ go a long way to create a bond during a phone conversation.

Unlike a face-to-face interview where you have the benefit of body language and other non-verbal communication, it’s wise to wait a beat (a count of 2 or 3) before answering a question just in case your interviewer has not finished with their question. There’s nothing worse than interrupting or speaking on top of someone, especially in an interview.

The one advantage of not having physical cues during a phone interview is that it keeps the distractions down, you can make your pitch free from the very human instinct to constantly interpret visual clues.

7. Speak with Distinction 

Speaking on the phone requires slightly different inflections and an alteration in tempo. Slow down and articulate.

If you have a very low voice, you may want to try speaking at a slightly higher pitch - it will help with relay a better sense of engagement and avoid miscommunication.

Pro-Tip Not all HR and hiring managers do well on the phone. Some might ramble or be distracted themselves. If this is the case, use the opportunity to show them that you’ve done your homework and can keep the conversation focused on what you can offer the company.

8. End On A Positive Note

Thank your interviewer for their time and the information they’ve provided. If you’re interested in the position make certain to let them know that. Saying something like, “I’m very interested in all that I’ve heard and am confident I could add value to your company,” is a clear, professional message of your intent.

Send a thank-you note via email within the same business day to once again thank them for their time, reiterating your interest in the position and reaffirming the value you bring to the position.

As in any interview once it is over the next thing you have to do is let it go. As long as you were prepared, thorough, professional and personable, then you’ve done everything you can within your control. The rest is out of your hands, so change out of those work clothes, put your sweats on and let the dog back into the house.

Hiring managers and candidates alike know that recruiting and retaining an A-level sales team is key to the success of any company offering an enterprise solution. No matter how compelling the product, without top performers on your team, success is going to be elusive. Every company wants them, and yet, not every company can get them.

Certainly, considerations such as compensation, company culture, the degree to which a company is willing to invest in training, ongoing learning and career development all carry weight with candidates. But what we find is that these are not necessarily the factors that drive top talent to leave one position to take another.

What does it take to attract top Enterprise sales talent?

In a word: Pre-IPO. Well funded start-ups that have not yet gone public are enormously enticing to our sales candidates right now. And while there are risks associated with moving to a new/unknown entity, the rewards can be enormous. That is if you’re moving to the right company.

So, what is the right company?

Well, of course, that answer is going to be different for every candidate, but driven to get involved with what could be the next great technological leap, here’s what top sales leaders are thinking about when considering a new position: 

Disruptive Technologies with an Achievable Plan.

A disruptive technology is one that either displaces an existing technology or introduces a ground-breaking product that opens up a new industry. It’s exciting, it’s cutting-edge and it’s potentially important. You won’t find better salespeople than those who are looking to be engaged with the product they’re selling, who need to feel that they are helping to build something new, innovative and/or helpful. And truly, what salesperson worth their salt doesn’t want to be selling the world’s next great technological breakthrough?

But above and beyond the technology itself, savvy salespeople are considering the marketplace for this product. How corded is it? Are there too many players, is the company engaged in a red ocean or a blue ocean strategy?

Confidence.

A top salesperson got where they are based on the value of their relationships and the depth of their network. There’s no point in making a move where you can’t carry those relationships forward with you. It’s not enough to only believe in the product you’re selling, it’s vital to consider if it’s one you can sell to a marketplace/customer base you know well. How well will you be able to leverage your existing network?  And, more importantly, does this new product solve a real problem for your current customers?

Top-Level Management.

When it comes to startups, who are just as important as what. Top management leaders who’ve scaled a company before, who have the knowledge, experience and following to build a successful company are nearly as important as the technology itself. Savvy salespeople look to the management team as a good barometer for potential success. They’re looking for managers they not only they feel they can work with, but who have a track record of success and can move the company toward profit and beyond.

It’s also important to remember that more people cite a lack of faith in, or conflict with, their manager as the number one reason for leaving a position. And while you can’t know how you’ll get on with a manager, doing due diligence about the people you’ll be reporting to is a key consideration to make.

High-Scaling.

Look, salespeople know a worthwhile lead when they see it, and they can also recognize a dead-end long before it comes into view. Yes, there has to be a belief in the technology and an investment in the worth it adds to the business, or society at large, but more than that, there has to be the potential for a high return.

Always consider who is involved. Is this a purely VC backed venture, or PE? Where are they in their funding? While getting into a company while they are still in series A funding might promise higher returns later on, we are currently finding that the majority of our sales candidates are interested in series C or beyond. This may be attributable to the fact that the first quarter of 2016 has seen the lowest number of companies going public, or it may be that they are looking to move only to companies that are further along in their development. Either way, the real potential has to be there for a company to attract top sales talent.

Getting in on the ground floor of a disruptive technology ensures that a salesperson is both challenged, engaged and invested in the company’s success. The only gamble, of course, is whether the tech will catch on or not. If they’ve judged well and have gone where the smart money is sitting, they can expect to find themselves post-IPO in a very comfortable position, and their reputation as a sales leader greatly enhanced.

Change. It’s the only constant, especially in business. Co-workers come and go during your career, and so do bosses. And while it can be unsettling to have to adjust your work routine, rhythms and style to a new supervisor, it is, almost all too often these days, a necessary evil you very well may have to face. 

But rather than seeing it as an unnerving disruption that must be muddled through, try to look at it as an opportunity for growth and possible advancement. However, in order to do that, you must handle the transition well.

Here are 5 ways to help smooth the transition with a new boss.

1. Make An Appointment

Within a few days of your new supervisor’s arrival, book a short meeting with them; 10-15 minutes. Treat this meeting like a sales call, or an interview. Your goal is to find out who they are, how they like to work and how you can best be of help. Find out their priorities and adjust your mindset to match.

Mind you, this is not the time to suck up or jockey for position, but rather to get some of the essential facts in place. How do they prefer to communicate: email, IM, face-to-face? Are they looking for in-depth weekly reports, or on the fly updates? Letting them know you are willing to be flexible and work their way will help get the relationship off on the right foot.

2. Expect Change

Yup, it’s a constant...

You’re accustomed to your department running one way, and it’s tempting to think that it’s the only way it should be done. But when your old boss left, they took their procedures and processes with them. Don’t assume that things will continue to run the same way, and don’t cling to the past. You may not initially understand or appreciate your new boss’s way of working, but you have to be patient. Watch, listen and trust - there’s always another way to do things. Just because things have been done one way for as long as you can remember, doesn’t mean it’s the best way.

3. Share Your Knowledge

Remember; you might be facing changes in your department, but your new boss is facing a new job. Whether they came into this position through a promotion or as an outside hire, they have new responsibilities and a new boss of their own. They’re looking to establish themselves, and your job should be to aid them in getting them up to speed so they can get her priorities into action. Showing yourself to be a team player sends a powerful message, and puts you in a position for advancement further down the road.

4. Bring Solutions

Get your ideas on the table. Let your new supervisor know about your current projects and those that you’d like to get off the ground. While you can mention prior successes, old wins are history, all that matters now is how you can help the department move forward and grow.

Remember, this is not the time to look for personal advancement. Your job is to help the team, not yourself.

5. Plan for Problems

Even if you and the new boss hit it off from day one, there will be problems. Repeat that: There will be problems. But you want to make certain that molehills don’t have the chance to grow into anything larger, be proactive in reaching out to your new boss. Ask for weekly or bi-weekly check-ins that match their style. You don’t ever want to let assumptions take the place of open communication, especially in a relationship as important as this.

At the end of the day, your boss is the gatekeeper for future advancement. They can help you get where you want to go, or they can see to it that you fail. By helping them succeed in their new role, you’re investing in both a productive partnership as well as your own long-term goals. 

Embrace the change!

The savvy candidate knows that the interview is an opportunity to not only be vetted by a hiring manager, but also to vet the company. Think of the interview as a fact-finding mission not only about the position, but also about the company culture. The job you're interviewing for may be everything you want, but is the company? 

Here are some important clues to look for when interviewing, and can help you decide if a company is a right fit for you. 

How to know if the company is the right fit

Lobby Life

Arriving early for an interview is always good advice - it prevents rushing into a meeting flushed or frazzled - but it also allows you some time to watch the company at work. Consider the lobby as a window into a company’s soul - take this moment to look around and listen.

Are employees friendly toward strangers and each other, or are they rushing about with sour expressions? Is the receptionist rude and dismissive or do they greet you with a smile? You’re not looking for a Stepford Wives experience here, but you will get an idea of what daily life is like just by sitting in the lobby and watching the flow of people in and out.

Your Network Knows

Just as you might research a potential employer on Crunchbase to better understand their growth, funding and growth trajectory, you need to mine your social connections to find out what it’s really like on the ground. Contact 1st or 2nd degree LinkedIn connections who have worked for, or do work at the company. Write them a polite note explaining that you have an interview set up and would love to ask them a few questions.

Keep your inquiry specific to their experience. You’re looking to hear what kind of person thrives there, what the feel in the office is like, how do they perceive the work culture, and do they find it a good place to work.

A word of caution: this is not an expedition to weed out office dirt -  what you’re looking for is a peek into the culture.

Separate The Wheat From The Chaff

Company policy is one thing, how it’s actually implemented a whole other. It’s all fine and well for an employer to state that they support employees working from home, or that they always try to promote from within. But whether or not they actually operate in accordance with these policies is what you need to be looking for. Ask for specific examples of people who have moved up the ranks, as well as attrition rates.

Who leaves and after how long can tell you a whole lot about the tenor of the company.

Be watchful also for aspirational policies - perhaps they are programs a young start-up might hope to one day implement, but are not in the position to follow through on at this time. If this is the case, you’ll have to weigh the company they are, against the company they hope to be, and decide if it’s worthwhile.

What It's Like Interviewing For A Company Is What It's Going To Be Like To Work For Them

The interview process can take a very long time from start to finish In fact, according to a recent article in Fast Company, a software engineer may have to endure 35 days or more during the interview process. So judging a company by how long they take to make a hiring decision may not be the best metric.

What you do need to look at is how they operate during the interview. A company's vetting and hiring processes are highly valuable data sets to consider. Everyone knows first impressions matter, but when considering a new employer, it’s the 2nd, 3rd and 4th impressions that reveal how the company operates on a day to day basis.

Keep your eyes open throughout the hiring process to make certain that the company is a good fit for you. For more on company culture, read here.

It happens to the best managers - your team was cruising along, making deals and running like the well-oiled machine you built it to be.

But then something happens. The latest flu makes the rounds in the office picking your employees off one by one, or people are having a hard time refocusing after vacation. Whatever the reasons, it's time for you to refocus your team and get things ramped back up.

5 Ideas to refocus your sales team

Wipe The Slate

A stockpile of work can be overwhelming, but there’s nothing worse than having fluff making the pile even higher. Take the time to go through projects and clear out irrelevant and outdated tasks. What seemed like an important project back in early July may no longer be applicable. Clear the decks so you can get the team working toward clear and achievable goals.

Make A Plan

Even if you had the whole year mapped out, now is the time to realign and reprioritize. The best way to get your team back into fighting shape is to present them with a game plan. Clear priorities and a newly energized effort help set the tone. We are back and ready to start cranking out the deals!

Resurrect Boundaries

Dress code and Friday closing times aren’t the only things to get loosened up in the summertime. Boundaries and conventions have a habit of slipping as well. Take these days in the early part of September to re-establish the conventions that help make you the most productive. Close the door to your office or put your phone on Do Not Disturb for a few hours in the morning in order to give yourself the time you need to refocus. Do what you need to do to send the signal to your team that its nose to the grindstone time.

Authorize and Engage

Sometimes the best way to get the blood going, and to show your team they're valued, is to change things up. You've hired a crackerjack team, now it's time to push them. Give an individual a new responsibility, enhance a particular group’s reach. This isn’t about playing favorites, but it is about creating new avenues for development, both individually and for the team as a whole.

A Little Competition Goes A Long Way

There’s nothing like a little friendly competition to get people back into fighting form. Creating a sales competition is a great way to get the blood going again.

If a sales competition is not pertinent to your business, then try a fundraising challenge or even plan a sporting event. The idea is to get the team reinvigorated and re-engaged both together, and individually.

Take the time to reinvigorate and re-engage your employees, and the benefits will be seen long past the close of the quarter.

It can be tempting to put off thoughts about your career during the holiday season, convincing yourself that you’ll get to it in early January after the parties and celebrations are over. But the truth is, the weeks between Christmas and New Years are the perfect time to assess where you’ve been, and more importantly where you want to go next. With the exception of those positions with high year-end demands, business takes a slower pace in late December. So while others put a halt to their job search during the holiday period, take some time in between lunches, parties and spending time with family to work through these 4 tips to to jump-start your career for the new year.

4 Tips to Jumpstart your career for the new year

1. Review your year

The best way to move forward is to know where you’ve been, so it makes sense to begin your year-end career tune-up with an assessment of the past year What worked? Make a list of your achievements both large and small. Make note of any certifications or trainings completed, awards received, sales quotas crushed, or any other professional milestones . Does it surprise you how many there are? Allow yourself a moment or two to revel in the satisfaction of a job well done.

Now make a list of things that didn’t work out as well as you wanted. . What systems can you put in place to help streamline your work-flow? What were some of the opportunities you should have taken? Rather than seeing them as failures or losses, think about what you could do in the future to yield better results.

2. Update your goals

Now that you’ve taken a good look at the past, it’s time to assess where you are and where you want to go.  Working off the lists you made, make an outline of your goals for 2020. Define your career targets, both long and short-term. Doing so  is a necessary step toward achieving both success and personal satisfaction By assuming agency in determining how your career develops is not only more satisfying, it is likely to lead you to better opportunities.

Lay the groundwork for where you’d like to be at this time next year. Research new certifications and education opportunities. Perhaps it’s time to get another degree or begin researching other sectors your skills can transfer to.

 This will help you clearly define what you want, what you have to do to achieve it and how long it will take to meet your goals.

3. Embrace the season (for networking!)

Amidst the reviewing and revising, make sure to get out and enjoy the holidays! Luncheons, cocktail hours and holiday parties are the perfect time to expand your network, build relationships, and reconnect with old contacts. When you can, spend time with people you don’t usually have the opportunity to speak to - rather than sitting next to someone you are familiar with, take the chair next to someone you’d like to get to know better. Ask for introductions. Ask a contact in a company you might be interested in working for out for a coffee or lunch. Approach a manager you respect to offer insights into how they work.

Take advantage of this time of year to cultivate relationships that not only enrich your value in your present job, but can also help you in your next position.

4. Update your resume & social media presence

You may not be in the job market today, however, bringing your resume up to date is the career equivalent of keeping your car gassed up before a big storm. You never know when you might get a call from a headhunter or a contact with a fantastic opportunity. It pays to be prepared.

Take your list of achievements and use it to update your work history and job description, certifications, awards or significant recognitions.

Once your resume is up-to-date, take it a step further and make sure your LinkedIn profile is working as well as it should be, and reflects who you are. 

5. Be ready for the new

When you make room between finishing up year end projects and holiday festivities to do some career housekeeping, you’ll find that come January, you’ll be energized and ready for all the new year has in store for you.

The run-up to the holidays has begun and now begins the full-court press to the end of the year. Budget requests are either in or due, annual numbers are getting tallied and performance reviews being conducting.

Looking at the bigger picture it might seem counter-intuitive to want to get that new hire started before the end of December, but here are 6 key reasons you should be doing exactly that.

6 Reasons to Close New Hires before the end of the year

1) It's A Seller's Market

The talent pool in many IT sectors is, at best tight. You don't have to look any further than the Cybersecurity job market to know that top candidates are in demand. There's truly little need to sit around and wait for a company that's slow to pull the trigger for many IT professionals. And while you may have tantalizing benefits and enviable company culture on offer, chances so do your competitors.

2) You Risk Losing The Slot

Whether it's due to expansion in your sector, the growth of your customer base, or the loss of a team member, you have the opening for a reason. You didn't initiate bringing a new employee in on a whim, you've got a need you need to be met.

And while you may be certain that the budget for the new year includes funding this opening, just remember: the only thing you can count on is change. There are a number of unknowable variables that might affect your budget for the new year - beat the uncertainty by getting the talent you need in place now.

3) Top Talent Waits For No One

This might be considered a corollary of #1 above, but the best candidates are simply not on the market for that long. Not only do they not need to wait for an offer, but they also won't.

While it is never advisable to make hiring decisions under duress, it's equally as ill-advised to surrender to a long and drawn-out hiring process.

You've got to be willing to move decisively to get the talent you want. 

4) You Risk Surrendering To The Void

Once we hit the end of the year the harder it will be to assemble everyone you need to sign off on hiring decisions. Vacation schedules, end-of-year travel, and meetings can make it near impossible to get decision-makers assembled and focused.

It's important that you get what you need to shore up your department before everyone scatters and decisions have to be tabled.

As for candidates, conventional wisdom counsels one pull in the oars and not think about looking for a new position until the other side of January. The time between Thanksgiving and New Year then becomes this kind of looming void which top candidates and valuable talent are looking to avoid like some kind of gaping sinkhole that's temporarily swallowed up the job market.

What this means for you and your open desk is if you wait until after the holidays to start final interviews or moving toward an offer, it very well might be mid-to-late January before you get any momentum going.

Can you really afford to wait that long?

5) Shore Up Your DNA

Keep in mind the effect an unfilled opening has on the rest of your team. The more your team members are asked to pick up the slack, the more focus gets scattered and productivity goes down. The long term effects on your bottom line can be very damaging. Remember, one of the very best retention tools you have at your disposal is keeping employees engaged and stimulated. Over-taxed is the polar opposite of what you want.

On the plus side, new hires shore up your company DNA. They inject new energy, drive and focus. The contributions they add not only help drive success and profit as a direct result of the work they are doing but also in terms of keeping your business a thriving place to work.

6) Embrace The Void

The end of the year is the perfect time to get a new hire on-board. With fewer distractions, fewer calls to be made, half the number of meetings on the docket, your new employee has the time and ability to get through the necessary training and/or certification processes they need to do their job well.

There's likely no other time of the year, not even August, that will afford you the same kind of a slower pace to get your new hires up to speed.

It's time to begin thinking of the end of the year as the perfect time to get your new hires on board so that you can hit the ground running in the new year.

With top talent at a premium in sectors from cybersecurity to AV/IT, hiring great employees is more challenging than ever. And the last thing any company wants to face is hiring someone who doesn't work out. After all, replacing an employee can cost as much as 6 to 9 months of that employee's annual salary.

Here are 5 hiring mistakes to make certain you avoid.

1. Chasing Perfection

All too often we see hiring managers clinging too tightly to their checklists. Of course, there are certain prerequisites of any position, but if you are too set on an ideal you run the very real risk of missing out on a truly great candidate.

Or perhaps you are set on the idea of what your team should look like, the hiring equivalent of choosing from a take-out menu: one from column A, two from column B, etc... But if you let go of pre-set ideals and consider candidates with diverse backgrounds and unexpected skills, you will enhance the team as a whole. An outsider's perspective can be refreshing and add the kind of new energy and boost your need to move the needle higher.

Remember: working with people who are different from us makes us more creative, more diligent and harder-working.

2.  Not Truly Knowing The Job

It's one thing to know what function you're hiring someone for, but it's another thing to really understanding how the role functions on a day-to-day basis.

One of the best tools at your disposal to understand any given role on your team is the exit interview. And while that might sound counterintuitive, it makes perfect sense. After all, what better way to understand what works and what doesn't than to hear from people who are on their way out?

Yes, certainly there will be those employees whose opinion you will have to take with a grain of salt, but if you take care to ask the right questions and really listen to the answers you receive, you stand to learn an awful lot about the job you are now faced with filling.

So before you go into interviews to fill a role, take the time to talk to the people who have done the job. If you do, you'll not only be able to represent the position accurately, but it will also help you look for the candidate best suited to do the job.

3. Forgetting That Time Truly Is Of The Essence

Every search has its own parameters. Some jobs demand to cast a wide net due to location, skillset or competition for talent. Others need to be filled as quickly as possible in order to ensure that critical concerns are handled. But no matter the extenuating circumstances your company needs to have an established hiring protocol.

While it may seem an obvious system to have in place, too many companies do not have clear hiring policies in place. But taking the time to build a set of protocols not only makes it easier for your hiring managers, but it also sends a stronger message to candidates that you are a desirable company to work for.

In terms of how long you should spend on a search, that will depend on the job you're filling. But take care to never allow the process to go on for too long, otherwise, candidates will either lose interest, continue to take meetings at other companies, or decide you are not interested in them and take themselves out of the running.

4. Trying To Get Away With Less

Trying to undercut the competition might look good on paper, but it will not help you to attract top talent. If you're offering compensation that is not in line with your sector you are not only going to be less appealing to candidates but you're also selling yourself short.

The best guideline to follow is a candidate's current compensation package. If you are not able to meet what they are currently making or beat it, adjust the candidates you are considering. Otherwise, you'll just be wasting your time as well as the candidates.

5. Forgetting You're Also Selling

It's easy to forget that while you're vetting a candidate, they too are interviewing you. They're looking to see if your company supports a culture where they'll feel at ease, supported and can foresee an upward path for themselves. Since more of our time is spent at work than at home with friends and family, the contemporary worker wants to know that they'll be spending their time somewhere they'll feel valued.

Just as college recruiters have become marketing machines, pitching students why they're the best choice for their education, you too have to sell candidates on why your position is the one that they should take.