Archives for August 2018

August
12, 2018

2 min read

While you might be smart and have all the right skills to succeed at your job, if you lack emotional intelligence (EQ), there’s a high chance you’ll struggle to fully succeed in the workplace.

Related: Why You Need Emotional Intelligence to Succeed in Business

The official definition of “emotional intelligence” is “the capacity to be aware of, control and express one’s emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically.” How you carry yourself and how you communicate with others can make or break your success at work and in life. This is especially true if you’re working on a team, because succeeding together means understanding, connecting and building relationships with others. If you identify yourself as being self-aware and socially aware, then there’s a good chance you’ve got a high EQ.

Related: 11 Signs That You Lack Emotional Intelligence

However, you’d be surprised to know just how many people lack these important EQ skills. Average EQ scores have dropped 25 points while average IQ scores have increased 25 points in recent years. While this might look good on paper, a number of advantages come with a high EQ such as employee retention, increased productivity and overall increased business profits because teammates are happy and working together.

Related: Use These 7 Emotional Intelligence Tips to Be a Better Leader

If you feel like you’re lacking a good EQ, it might be time to better manage your stress, change your attitude, constructively resolve conflict and think before you speak. To learn more about the importance of emotional intelligence in the workplace, check out Initiative One’s infographic below.

August
11, 2018

2 min read

The bigger your network is, the better off you are in every aspect of your life. At work, among friends or with family, the more people like you, the more they want to help you. Whether you’re trying to get a promotion or trying to ask someone out on a date, getting in people’s good books is important for personal growth. But that can be harder than it sounds. To make it easier, here are some tips to help.

Related: How to Network, for Those Who Hate to Network

For starters, when talking to someone, always try to bring up shared interests. According to research, people are inherently attracted to those who are similar to themselves. And in a more literal sense, when actually talking to a person, you can show your similarities by mirroring a person’s gestures. This “chameleon effect” has been found to encourage the development of bonds.

Related: 25 Tips for Having Meaningful Relationships

Another important tip when communicating with someone is to always say that person’s name throughout a conversation. Using a person’s name not only shows that you remember and acknowledge who they are, but that you’re paying attention and think they are important. Beyond just saying a person’s name, you should also try opening up to them. Sharing personal things about yourself rather than just making small talk instills a sense of trust and closeness. This can be a great way to jumpstart a relationship.

Related: The Key to Success? Relationships.

From having a sense of humor to smiling and having open body language, check out QuidCorner’s infographic below for 12 science-backed ways to get people to like you.

August
8, 2018

6 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Check out any publication talking about HR these days and you’ll see that diversity and inclusion is a hot topic. And we’re totally on board and encouraged, because from any and all angles — ethically, socially, culturally and in every sense of business success — the mission to create more inclusive work environments is a positive development.

Related: This AI Tool Helps Companies Eliminate Hiring Bias in the Name of Productivity

This move to create a more diverse and inclusive workplace (beyond just playing lip service to it on a website) is pushing employers to evaluate their practices at every level — from recruitment to learning and development, to terminations and everything in between. Thought leaders and leading practitioners are reckoning with more than just outright discrimination in their talent programs, too. It’s now time to dig into the accidentally biased practices that, though unintentionally prejudiced, are problematic nonetheless. And unfortunately, they’re also pervasive.

Think you’re in the clear? Take a look at the examples below. These six slip-ups are in fact common primarily because the underlying bias is accidental (and, for many, non-obvious at first glance). See if any of these sound familiar …

1. Writing exclusionary job descriptions

Well-meaning managers and recruiters can inadvertently discourage whole groups of would-be applicants by using gendered, ageist or otherwise restrictive terms in job descriptions. Consider postings that use titles such as social media “rock star” or analytics “ninja” — these are both male-oriented words, and could turn some people off.

Another thing to be careful of: labeling certain skills, degrees or experiences “required” when they’re really just nice-to-haves. Research shows that women are significantly more likely than men to interpret listed requirements as literally required and forego applying if they don’t meet the exact qualifications.

(Tip: Tools such as Textio Hire and Koru’s Job Description Analyzer can help you refine and optimize your job descriptions.)

Related: What Google Learned Fighting Hiring Bias, Bad Meetings and Failing Products

2. Overlooking (or not expanding beyond) certain job boards

Think about where you post your jobs: Are your listings reaching a diverse audience? Do you stick only to mainstream job boards? Are you partial to niche sites, exclusive networks or certain college job hubs?

None of these approaches are inherently bad but be mindful of how wide (or not) of a net you’re really casting. It’s fine to target these sites and networks, but not at the exclusion of other job boards and communities that could just as well send you great candidates.

3. Filtering for big-name schools or brands

We totally get it. Recruiters are slammed and need to sift through hundreds, sometimes thousands, of resumes. So, it’s understandable that they’ve historically used markers like alma mater or previous employer to quickly cut down a giant pile of resumes. But, consider the baked-in privilege and prejudice that’s perpetuated with this approach. By favoring certain universities or companies, you’re adopting other institutions’ admissions or selection criteria, which are undoubtedly rife with their own biases.

Related: How to Stop Unconscious Bias Before It Starts, Against the People You Hire

Check out how diversity in a talent pool changes for campus recruiting initiatives when filtering for school or GPA. As the data shows, if you screen by top brand colleges, you reduce the opportunity for underrepresented minorities by 23 percent.

Better to select for criteria that are proven to be predictive of performance.

4. Using non-diverse interview panels

Even the most informed, most kind-hearted, most self-aware humans among us are not entirely objective. No one is immune to developing implicit biases, the automatic assumptions and generalizations based on society’s stereotypes we all subconsciously make. Unfortunately, these skewed views often go unchecked in the interview process due to using a non-diverse mix of interviewers. Having multiple backgrounds and worldviews in the interview loop helps counter incorrect presumptions and illegitimate hiring decisions.

Related: Why It’s Still So Difficult to Hire a Diverse Team

5. Using unstructured interview processes

When you’re hiring for a particular role at your company, do your interviewers ask a consistent set of questions or do they ask whatever’s on top of mind? Do each of the interviewers follow the same framework for assessing and ranking candidates from interview to interview?

It seems obvious that standardizing all elements of the interview process is the only way to make it fair, but too often, things are a little (or a lot) less streamlined. And when things are loose, the door for bias is left open. Moreover, they aren’t effective anyways. An unstructured interview adds only 8 percent to the predictive power of knowing someone’s raw intelligence alone.

6. Letting likeness or likeability sway decisions

We have all heard of “the beer test” and “mini-me hiring,” or at least the general concepts behind them: hiring someone based on if you’d enjoy having a beer with them, or hiring someone who reminds you of yourself, respectively. These are pretty plainly biased ways of choosing a new team member, but people aren’t always aware they’re engaging in them (diverse panels and structured interviews really help here).

Two related issues under the likeness/likeability umbrella are: hiring based on communication skills (really, interviewing skills) and hiring for “culture fit” (when your culture itself contains biases). In the former, a strong interviewee can beat out a more qualified candidate just by virtue of being more likeable or sounding more competent. In the latter, a great candidate can be overlooked because he or she is deemed “not a fit” — which itself is a perfectly fine reason to pass on someone, but only if your cultural principles are free of bias.

The HR world has certainly made progress on reducing bias and increasing diversity, but there’s still a long way to go. The more recruiters and talent leaders examine their organizations’ hiring habits, the more they uncover, and the more things improve. Take these examples and run with them — and let’s all keep looking, listening, and learning.

August
7, 2018

5 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

It seems like almost everyone has a side hustle these days. According to Bankrate, more than 44 million Americans have one. Having a side hustle is a great way to make a little extra money, do something you enjoy and feel empowered. But, do you dream of quitting your 9-to-5 and turning the side hustle you love into your full-time gig?

Related: How to Turn Your Side Hustle Into a Full-Time Gig

That’s the ultimate goal, but it can be difficult to achieve. The daily grind of working a day job and coming home to work on your side hustle can wear you down. You might think you don’t have enough time or money to turn your dream into a reality. So, how can that be possible? In fact, there are some simple, low-cost hacks to take you from hobbyist to professional.

So, whether you write, sell products online, flip houses or plan to start a podcast, with a little luck and a lot of hard work, you can take your side hustle full-time and make more than you would have working for someone else. Now, pull up your bootstraps and check out these four tips to take your side hustle to the next level.

Determine your goals.

One of the first steps to starting any business is to determine your goals. You have to know where you want to go, and when, in order to keep your business on the path to success. Not only will setting your goals keep you more organized, but it will keep you accountable and motivate you to keep pushing forward.

Once you’ve written down your goals, you should create smaller but necessary tasks that you can complete in less than an hour. For example, if you have a goal of writing three blog posts a week, you can break down those individual tasks to create: a blog idea, an outline, the necessary research, a draft and a revision.

Another tip is to use a time-tracking tool, like Time Doctor, to keep you on pace.

Get organized.

If you’re the type who has all your ideas written down on notepads thrown haphazardly all over your desk, you’ll need to get more organized, to create a successful business. A scattered mind will do you no good at managing and completingthe tasks you need to get done in a day.

You can use a free tool like Trello to visually plan out tasks, projects and company goals.

Image source: Trello Board. https://trello.com/

By organizing all your business ideas in one place, you’ll be stay on track and get more done. Create a daily to-do list as well as a calendar to track project-due dates and meetings, to make sure you’re completing the goals needed to turn your side hustle into a business. When you know what’s coming up in the pipeline, you’ll be more effective at prioritizing and meeting important deadlines.

Related: Your Side Hustle Can Become a Million-Dollar Business. These 5 Examples Prove It.

Build your brand.

Building your brand is one of the most important strategies to take your side hustle to the next level and develop an identity for your business. Get a great logo crafted and create a style guide for your brand that covers colors and font you’ll be using; then design your website around it.

Zendesk has created a brand and logo for its company that is recognizable, consistent and distinctly its own.

Image source: Zendesk Brand Consistency. https://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/34227/15-businesses-to-admire-for-consistent-stellar-branding.aspx

Your brand needs to be consistent across all platforms, including print and social media. That’swhy it’s important to create a branding style guide that you can refer to. When you make your side hustle look more professional, people will take you more seriously. As you’re building your brand, visitors will form a connection with your business, which will look more and more like a legitimate business and not just a hobby.  

Start marketing yourself.

With your side hustle you might be doing work only for people you know, or selling to friends and neighbors, but to take it to the next level, you need to widen your audience by marketing yourself. One great tactic to utilize here is a website for your personal brand. Another: Building your email list.

An email list is an awesome way to talk to targeted leads directly any time you have something to say, whether that consists of educating them with useful content or announcing a sale. The users on your email list are going to be the easiest to convert to customers for your business.

Julie Ewald was a freelancer who founded her own company. She uses this pop-up to encourage visitors to her site to sign up for her email list.

Image source: email opt-in pop-up from Julie Ewald. https://julieewald.com/

Another great way to market yourself is to get onto social media. You can reach a whole new audience for your business by promoting your business on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. By using the power of email and social media, you can connect with an engaged audience and skyrocket your sales without ever having to pay for advertising.  

Related; 50 Ideas for a Lucrative Side Hustle

In sum, starting a business can be scary. But you’ve already proven you have the chops to become the boss of your own company by starting a side hustle. By following these strategies you can take your brilliant side hustle from a part-time gif to a full-time labor of love and become the entrepreneur you’ve always wanted to be.