5 Things You Didn't Know Recruiters Look for On Your Resume

Looking for a jjob can be exciting. It can also feel intimidating, draining, and vulnerable. You're putting yourself out there, "selling" yourself, trying to convince others of your value.

Like dating, your mindset can swing drastically from day to day, from "I've got this!" to, "This is never going to happen. No one is ever going to want me ever again."

It doesn't help that a job search is often compounded by financial pressure. You may have limited savings and a definite need to find a new position quickly.

Wherever you are in the process, it's important to remember that no matter how you feel, you are capable and resourceful. This is doable. You're simply looking for a way to contribute in the world ... and there are hiring managers out there right now looking for someone just like you.

Here are a few things those recruiters and hiring managers look for:

1. Keywords

You already know recruiters look for keywords, but probably not just how much. As career transformation coach Pat Nunno Roque points out, "Nearly 75% of resumes are rejected because they're not correctly ATS (Application Tracking System) -formatted or keyword-optimized."

Read that again--almost 75 percent of resumes are rejected right off the bat because they don't have the right formatting and keywords. 

The solution? Make sure your resume has the right keywords for the industry. If you're working with a career coach or professional resume editor, ensure this is part of their service. If you're doing it yourself, run your resume through tools like jobscan.co or ZipJob to make sure you've got the right keywords in there.

2. The connection between your resume and your LinkedIn profile

I've been guilty not aligning this in the past. In my haste to send out resumes, I've forgotten to scan and edit my LinkedIn profile to ensure that it matches.

The resume you send out needs to sync with information on your LinkedIn profile--they need to tell the same story. 

One of the first things a recruiter will do is look at your LinkedIn profile, and they like to see the same companies or organizations you mentioned on your resume, as well as the same kind of story. If you're applying for marketing positions, you should have at least one of those up there, and the bullet points on it should match what you're putting on your resume.

3. Pedigree (not) 

Most people think recruiters and hiring managers care deeply about where you went to school. Sure, it looks good if you went to an Ivy League school--but that's not what most recruiters are looking for.

Recruiters and hiring managers want to know you can do the job. Period. It's far more important to them that they see a story of growth and contribution on your resume than that you attended a specific school.

For example, a recruiter for Accenture said that when recruiting for a software engineering position in a past role, she was more interested in people who'd graduated from coding bootcamps than those with a BS in Computer Science from a prestigious college. 

Why? In part because the coding bootcamp people (especially if they'd graduated recently) were more likely to be up-to-date in terms of their knowledge base. But also because a college degree doesn't matter as much to a recruiter as whether you can do the job they need to fill. 

(It's worth noting that this came up during a conversation with a friend who wants to transition from massage therapy into software engineering and was thinking of going back to school for software engineering. "Don't do that," advised our mutual friend, the recruiter. "Save yourself the time and money and just go to a good coding bootcamp.")

4. Interesting hobbies 

Recruiters get bored scanning thousands of resumes. It's fun for them to see your unique hobbies and/or interests (and interesting to discuss in an interview).

Don't go crazy discussing your passion for chinchillas; but don't be afraid to leave a line or two at the end of your resume to drop in a few of your interests.

5. How you improved processes 

According to Laszlo Bock, Google's SVP of People Operations, one of the easiest ways to make your resume stand out is to use a simple 3 step process when crafting bullet points on your resume. 

The point of the process is to help you to clearly tell the story of how you generated change or impact in your organization. The more specific you are--especially in terms of numbers and percentages--the better.

10 Steps To Promote Healthy Habits And Encourage Good Mental Health Of Employees

Both corporates and start-ups continue to struggle with the increasing rate of employee absenteeism. This calls for strategic actions which can reduce employees’ absences and increases productivity at the workplace. A comprehensive preventive healthcare programme will come to the rescue to keep employees healthy, reduce employee healthcare expenses and improve the overall performance of the business. 

You cannot overlook the magnitude of the impact employee absenteeism will have on the cost of operating business. It’s time to appreciate the solutions that will encourage employees to deploy a healthy lifestyle and improve their mental health. Employees are the asset of every organization and taking care of their wellbeing will have a positive impact on teamwork, productivity, attrition rate and finally on revenue.

Every workplace should conduct workshops or programmes to encourage employees to set health and wellbeing goals. Embracing a healthy lifestyle should come from within—be it hitting the gym regularly, practicing yoga, quit smoking or eating healthy.

• Encourage usage of fitness trackers at office to keep a count on every step. Advise employees to take a few breaks (minimum 5-minute break) and take a stroll while interacting with their co-workers. If employees want to conduct meetings, they should do it by standing or walking rather than sitting the whole day which will trigger multiple health issues. They should take stairs instead of the elevator.
• Many organizations today follow the practice of loading their pantry with chips, biscuits and various other snack items. Employees often get hungry amidst a lot of work pressure and tend to binge on some unhealthy snack. Corporates should start to refill their pantries with healthy food items such as nuts, protein bars, fresh fruits, whole wheat noodles and many more. Few organizations also prefer to offer free meals to keep employees happy and healthy.
• Administration or HR should come up with innovative ideas in terms of encouraging employees to lose weight. For example, they can initiate some fun activities such as weight loss competition. Reward employees with exciting gifts if they manage to lose weight within the stipulated time. The programme should be designed more like a sales target where you earn incentives based on deals getting closed. In the weight loss programme, the more weight you lose, the more rewards you earn.
• We all know the amazing health benefits of yoga and meditation. A weekly in-house yoga and meditation session guided by professionals will have an immensely positive impact in addressing the stress and mental-health related issues of employees. Sessions like these will help organizations indulge employees in preventive healthcare activities.
• Organizations with the rule of completing 9 working hours in a day should allow a lunch break of 40 mins. A shorter lunch break would lead employees to go for a quick and unhealthy food options which can be consumed easily without stepping out of the cubicle. Longer lunch breaks allow employees to eat healthy food and go out for a little walk to breathe some fresh air post-lunch.
• Sending informative emails to employees with comprehensive guidelines on healthy eating and weight loss, fact-based advice on incorporating low-fat and low-carb food in their diet chart and various ways of doing exercise at home. This requires a tie-up with a preventive solutions aggregator which can help organizations invite best therapists, yoga trainers, nutritionists and dieticians to conduct sessions or have one-on-one consultation. It will give individual employees enough space to share their problems without hesitations and get personalized advice.
• Hosting biometric screening will help to identify the specific problems of each employee. The screening will be conducted by the phlebotomist at the workplace which includes body measurements such as height, weight, BMI (body mass index), waist circumference and blood pressure. Each employee will be asked to give a blood test and answers all the health-related questions. The results will pinpoint the health issues which requires extra care to get it recovered and provide tailored solutions to address the problems. 
• Marathons are a great way to promote a healthy lifestyle. Today more and more companies are encouraging their employees to participate in the marathon by sponsoring the events. This shows the organization’s commitment to inculcating a culture of healthy environment.
• We all are aware that smoking tobacco is injurious to health and causes deaths. According to a World Health Organization report, tobacco kills more than 8 million people each year. Prohibiting smoking at the workplace is paramount to improve the health of employees. Organizations should develop policies around anti-smoking and disapprove of creating a smoking zone in the office campus. Employees usually form the habit of occupying few corners in the office campus and light up cigarette comfortably. Employers should also organize ‘quit smoking’ programme and encourage staff to join the programme and take a step towards a healthy lifestyle.
• To stay ahead in this competitive world, employees today are dealing with a lot of work pressure causing mental imbalance. Employers should start taking the responsibility of helping employees develop mental strength by giving the options of working from home, stopping them from responding to emails in non-working hours and giving them enough time to engage in some other activities or hobbies (basically maintain their personal life outside the office).

5 Greatest Myths of Working From Home

You Can Work in Your Pajamas

While it's true that when you work from home, business casual takes on a whole new meaning, the reality is that working in your pajamas is a pretty bad idea for a few reasons. First, just because you work from home doesn't mean you never interact with other people. In fact, I work from home, but I still have an average of five face-to-face meetings (via video) every day. My team would be a bit surprised if their boss showed up in pajamas.

Besides, there's also a psychological effect that comes into play. If you're working, dress for work. Sure, be comfortable, but act the part. Get up, take a shower, and get dressed. You know, all the things you'd do if you had to leave your house and go to the office. It will actually make you more productive and professional.

You Work Whenever You Want

If you work from home, you definitely have more flexibility in your schedule, but chances are you still work with a team that also has a schedule. That means that you still have a calendar with meetings and phone calls. Even if you don't have meetings, you still have deadlines. You still communicate with other people working on your team, which means that having "normal working hours," helps keep everyone moving forward together.

Even if you work for yourself, there's a pretty good chance you have, you know, customers. And if you do, there's a good chance they have schedules too.

It's Easier to Manage Work-Life Balance

If you work in an office, you don't always have the freedom to drop everything to take care of family "stuff." For example, if you have to be in the office by a certain time, it gets complicated when your kids have a snow day, or even just a late start. It's also hard to sneak out early if you have family commitments. Working from home is great though, because you can always be available for family whenever they need you. Which is awesome...right?

Oh yeah, it's awesome--except for the part where you still have actual work to do. Which means that while it might seem easier to keep in touch with the things your family needs from you, when you work in your office, no one walks over to your desk and asks you to make them lunch. No one knocks on your office door because they need you to take the dog out. Boundaries are definitely harder to maintain when rather than worrying about taking work home with you, work is literally always home with you

The Work Is Easier

Working from home lends itself to a different type of work than you might do in an office or other workplace. Often that means you aren't likely to be installing carpet or repairing HVAC systems. In that sense, sure, working from home is less physically demanding. 

But just because someone isn't sitting in an office doesn't mean he or she isn't doing real work. Not only that, but working from home frequently means you're responsible for creating your own workspace, providing your own technology and resources, and creating your own boundaries. 

Working From Home Isn't an Option Where I Work

This might be the biggest myth of all, especially now that so many companies are coming to the realization that allowing employees the freedom to work from home has real benefits. If you're under the impression that you don't have the option to work from home, it's worth having a conversation about whether it might a viable arrangement for both you and your employer. 

9 Reasons For Franchisor-Franchisee Conflicts

1.Mismatched Expectations
The biggest conflict between franchisor and franchisee is mismatch between expectations and obligations at both ends. New franchisees have very high expectations of ROI in initial years that is unreasonable.

2.Not Maintaining Operating Standards
Franchisors in India feel that franchisees don’t adhere to Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and leads to inconsistency in all the operations.

3.Inadequate Marketing
Franchisees often complain that Franchisors don’t do adequate marketing for building the brand while franchisors often retort that franchisees are not doing enough local area marketing in their territory. As a whole it becomes a big reason for conflict.

4.Market Conditions
A number of market environment factors such as dissatisfied customers, raw material vendors, as well as other suppliers, less demand for products or services and recession in the industry are some of the factors that contribute to this conflict.

5.Failure to Follow the System
Many times, franchisees buck the system and try to do things on their own. Though franchisees can also have excellent ideas to improve the whole system, yet if some of their ideas are completely off-track with the brand values then the franchisors tend to get aggressive with the franchisee.

6.Failure to Evolve
In the fast-changing world, if the franchisee is too complacent with his business to adapt to changes, he will ultimately become irrelevant and franchisor’s duty is to point that out repeatedly to his partners.

7.Regulatory Control
In the absence or frequently changing regulatory control by the government, businesses can get wiped out overnight. Many sectors of the franchise world have long complained about government regulations and their restrictive nature. However, the unique problem of the Indian franchise system is that even if everything is in place, you may still have to hang up just because you are on the wrong side of the government policy.

8.Tight Margins 
Many franchise owners experience tightening profit margins due to external or internal problems. External problems often include a faltering economy, a natural disaster that may increase the cost of raw materials, and a shortage of raw materials while internal problems arise when a company mismanages its costs or employees. For instance, lack of employee training leads to lower employee performance, which increases productivity costs.

9.Over-Promising
When it comes to franchising the last thing you ever want to be faced with is the claim by a franchisee that you “over-promised and under-delivered.” So, it’s a franchisor’s responsibility to be realistic while making commitments to franchise partners.

7 Powerful Ways to Stop Negative Thinking

1. Don’t Try to Stop Your Negative Thoughts Altogether

I’m sure you’ve heard the saying that what you focus on becomes your reality. This is the idea behind my next point.

If you spend most of your time thinking about how to stop your negative thoughts all the time, what do you think your focus will be on? Your thoughts will always be on your negative thoughts of course! This will only increase your anxiety and make you feel worse.

The more you focus on your negative thinking, the more likely it is to have an influence on you and your daily functioning. Your goal, thus, shouldn’t be to eliminate your negative thoughts completely, but to be able to recognize them more efficiently so that you can combat them when they do arise!

Simply saying you won’t ever have a negative thought won’t help you overcome your negative thinking. It can only ever serve you as a short-term strategy. This is because regardless of how hard you try, you are at some point going to have negative thoughts. And if you haven’t taken the time to develop your systems for overcoming that negative thinking, then it will begin to take over you.

2. Understand Your Thinking Styles

If you can understand your thoughts, it’s possible to begin controlling the outcomes that they are having on you.

So take a moment to assess how you think right now. Do you tend to be optimistic or do you tend to adopt a more negative point of view? Do you approach situations positively or negatively? These are the types of questions you can ask yourself to help shine some light on your thinking styles.

If you’ve determined that you’ve got a negative approach to your thinking style, think about why that might be. Do you tend to adopt negative thoughts in certain situations over others? Is there a particular event, situation, person, or place that triggers negative thinking for you consistently?

Once you’ve identified the source of your negative thinking, the next step is to begin putting a plan in place to tackle the issue!

3. Challenge Your Negative Thoughts

After you’ve identified your common negative thoughts, try to find ways that you can begin to challenge them.

Ask yourself whether the thoughts you’re having are realistic. Are they true depictions of the situation? Or, are your fears and negative approaches causing your negative thoughts to be exaggerated?

Would you support the thought if someone else had it? For example, if your closest friend said that they would never be good enough to get that next promotion, would you support that thinking? Or, would you step in and remind them how great they are?

Start using these strategies for your own thinking as well. Don’t give your negative thoughts a free-pass.

4. Release Your Judgment

It’s just the reality of being a human that we all make assumptions, have biases, and make judgments of others based on our experiences. It’s one of the foundations for phenomena like stereotyping and discrimination. But this comparing of ourselves to others can also serve as a method through which we put ourselves down.

When we set goals for ourselves, we tend to look at people who have already accomplished those goals. We look and think about how much better they are than us. Why they were able to achieve that goal and why we never will be able to. These negative thoughts rush in and drag us down.

So try to let go of these types of judgments where you compare yourself to others. You’ll feel free when you finally achieve this.

The best way I’ve found to do this is to begin reflecting more consciously on your thinking. Recognize where this negative thinking stems from within you, what stereotypes, assumptions, and biases you are allowing to generate these negative thoughts in your life. Then find ways to alter this line of thinking.

5. Learn How to Cope with Criticism

Though there is absolutely nothing wrong with standing up and defending yourself in certain situations, we can all work on being better receivers of criticisms, especially when these are serving constructive purposes.

Lots of negative thinking can occur when someone criticises us. We begin to focus only on the negative things they said. We make up reasons as to why we aren’t good enough. This is something that can easily be avoided by learning how to cope with criticism.

One of the ways that I have been able to do this is by looking at criticisms as opportunities rather than shortcomings. If someone says my writing lacks emotion, that doesn’t mean I’m a bad writer, it simply means I need to focus on this aspect of my writing to further develop it. This criticism has provided me with the opportunity to become a better writer.

If you want some tips on how to do this, check out this article: Why a Criticism Is Better Than a Compliment

6. Focus on Your Strengths

I’m sure if you reflect for a moment on the comments you remember people making about you, the majority are negative. This is because as humans, we tend to focus on the negatives and overlook the positives in our life. We dwell on our mistakes and shortcomings while brushing aside our successes and positive traits.

So try to shift your focus. This can go a long way to helping you overcome your negative thinking. The more you shift the focus of your mentality to positive things in your life, the easier it is going to be for you to think and act positively!

Try writing out a few positive things about yourself right now as an exercise. Then next time when you find yourself thinking negatively about yourself, either pull these positive statements out or write out a few new ones!

If you think that you might need some help with that, take a look at this article: How to Become Successful 10 Times Easier: Don’t Focus on Improving Your Faults

7. Seek Professional Support When Needed

The final thing I will mention about negative thinking is that you should never, at any point, feel the need to take it on all by yourself.

If your negative thinking at any point becomes overwhelming or begins to interfere with your daily activities, recognize that you may need help to conquer it. Don’t hesitate to reach out for support if you ever feel you need it. There are tons of people who are willing and eager to help you.

These supports change lives. So if you feel that you might benefit from them, make sure you take advantage of them!

5 Strategies to Keep Your Customers Long-Term

1. Focus on the user experience.

Customers want to enjoy shopping, but they also want to get it done quickly. That’s why they want to partner with companies that understand their expectations. The takeaway here is that you'll most likely keep customers coming back if you offer a streamlined user experience. Consider implementing tactics such as a single sign-in, mobile optimization, guest checkout and improved search and personalization features.

2. Conduct a post-sale follow-up for in-store and online purchases.

To persuade your customer base to come back, adopt a customer loyalty strategy that, at a minimum, includes a personal thank you and a promotional incentive. This strategy also encourages customer feedback about new products to improve the service experience.

Provide a brief survey with access printed on their sales receipt as part of the online checkout process. Incentivize the feedback request with a discount or promotion that entices them to share their thoughts on the. Analytics tools can then uncover patterns in the responses that identify areas that need improvement. 

Prioritize the effort to address problem areas immediately. Once you implement any improvements, announce them personally to the customer through an email or text. Also, share the customer experience changes across all public channels -- e.g. website and social media -- to catch the attention of potential customers and those who haven't shopped with you for a while. 

3. Add a subscription or membership feature.

New customers and loyal customers enjoy receiving access to exclusive products, events and promotions. They feel like a VIP and enjoy the convenience that such an experience creates. In return, you can increase customer lifetime value.

To add a membership or subscription component to your business model, start by considering what you can offer throughout the year. It might be a curated monthly box of samples or products themed for different occasions, such as holidays and seasons. Alternatively, you may want to use a membership model where your customer base pays a small fee to enjoy free shipping and discounts for regularly reordering certain products.

4. Implement flash sales related to items they regularly buy.

You want to keep customers who appreciate additional value. Flash sale promotions help to stimulate impulse buys. They also tend to generate excitement and surprise. As an added benefit, this strategy can also help you better manage your inventory by discounting the products with extra stock that hasn't moved.

Use your social media channels and text-message marketing to share news of these sales. Focus on flash sales that reflect the trending products and then move to standard purchases that your Customer Relationship Management database tracks.

5. Nail your service-delivery options.

Increasing the variety of delivery options for in-store and online ordering always helps the customer experience. If you have an existing loyalty program in place, you can create special delivery options like free one-day or two-day shipping services to sweeten the deal.

It’s always possible to decrease churn and even continue improving your conversion rate. You can maintain a solid customer-retention rate through many delivery options that improve customer satisfaction and encourage them to shop more often. The above follow-up strategy is an ideal place to get more information on the type of delivery options your repeat customers most want.  

8 Little-Known Traits of Highly Successful People

Visualization

Visualization is a powerful daily practice that you can use to give your brain a road map for success. Studies by the Journal of Consulting Psychology have shown that the brain can't distinguish between a real memory and an imagined one. This means when you vividly imagine something coming to fruition, you can create new neural pathways that are going to give your brain a real clear point of focus. Visualize how an interview or speech will go, and your brain will understand the fluidity of that situation like it already happened. You can learn more about these types of visualization in my video here. 

Binaural Beats

Binaural beat therapy is booming in productivity circles and can be done anywhere and anytime with a set of earbuds or headphones (unless you’re driving), and it can do wonders for your performance by boosting energy and quality of life. Studies have shown it can reduce stress and anxiety and increase focus, concentration and motivation, as well as improve confidence and psycho-motor skills just by listening to the beats for 20 minutes or more. 

Meditation

It’s no wonder mega-performers in Silicon Valley and elsewehre put meditation into their employees's daily routines. Research has shown meditation practices may have positive effects that enhance multiple dimensions of job performance, including work engagement and job satisfaction. But the benefits of meditation don’t stop there. There are so many physical upsides as well, such as increased positive emotions, better immune health and instantly improved ability to regulate your emotions. And in time, you’ll discover decreased inflammation at the cellular level and decreased symptoms of depression, stress and anxiety. Pretty great for something you can do for free.

Nootropics

Peak performers realize that in order to stay at their best, they must also keep their brains at its optimum functioning. Nootropics are drugs, supplements and other substances -- natural and synthetic -- that enhance cognitive function, memory, creativity, energy and motivation. (Though please note that studies show you need to already be healthy in order to add these to your regimen.) I will share information on various types of nootropics in my upcoming daily journal. 

One example of a nootropic I tried was a Ketone Ester, a pure fuel source developed by DARPA to enhance soldiers's performance during demanding missions. HVMN’s products are to humans what jet fuel is to a gulfstream, and who wouldn’t want to feel like a sleek, streamlined jet taking on their day?

Sleep Habits

We all know how hard it is to focus when our sleep is disturbed; hence, proper sleep habits are a crucial step in preparing for success. Peak performers ensure this most important part of the day is protected by routinely practicing a few precepts that make a huge impact. Reducing blue light from screen time, lowering evening room temperatures, detaching from social media and and reducing stimulants are just a few of the steps I share in my book that can help you regain your quality sleep time.

Biohacking

Highly effective people have a knack for not leaving any stone unturned. Getting to the root cause of any issues or concerns is paramount as they strive to use the latest tools and resources at their disposal. Learning what other peak performers are doing to stay at the top of their game and researching the newest developments in biotechnology and brain-based therapies balances out their knowledge. Utilizing the field of Functional Medicine, doctors can revolutionize what they can do by understanding the whole body and its needs. 

Wearables

Most elite athletes or gurus in the health and wellness industry are frequently hooked up to some type of device that gives them real-time data on how they are performing in any situation. Thanks to several of these biotechnology tools, I gained a better understanding of what my body does during times of stress or sleep. I was also able to double my workout performance and deepen my ability to meditate. I share several of them in this video.  

Journaling/Reflection

According to the Journal of Work-Applied Management, “People consciously reflect in order to understand events in their lives, and as a consequence hopefully add and enhance meaning.” In my upcoming daily journal, I'll be asking readers to take a few minutes a day to journal before going to bed to set up the following day for success and to reflect on how their day went for them. But it doesn’t just cover the work mindset. My Unstoppable Journal is based on research that shows that critically reflecting, and sharing outcomes, can be frightening and cause feelings of vulnerability. However, it also leads to growth and discovery, especially when analyzing the biological aspects of your health and wellbeing. 

These traits are not just meant for an elite group. They are for all of us in order to obtain an unstoppable life!