5 Reasons Why AI Will Never EVER Replace Recruiters

5 Reasons Why AI Will Never EVER Replace Recruiters AI is clearly a hot topic in any recruitment office and has been for some time. With our increasing needs for instant gratification because of social media, how does this impact on the daily culture in recruitment businesses and what does this mean for the future of recruiters. AI is a disruptor and no recruiter dare ignore the way it has already changed the way recruitment operates. However, is it a threat to our existence in the near future? I wanted to present the above premise to a handful of fellow recruiters and the reaction was fairly balanced in truly believing that in a “true” recruitment consultancy, the advent of AI can never replace human recruiters. Allow me to present my case, with help from the contributors who work in finance, IT and professional services recruitment: 1. AI wont have empathy for candidates Human Recruiters build relationships over a period of time and have empathy with the job hunters and clients. AI can never hope for a candidate to get their best job; cannot express their opinion or expertise to a client about whether to hire a candidate. Humans take time to build trust with their customers and AI will never be able to draw down on these relationships to make a difference to a process. If you think about your placements, how many of them come from just “knowing” that your client will love your candidate and very often they don’t match on paper but you rely on the history you have built up of both parties and the culture fit. AI cannot experience a culture or a personality 2. Human recruiters can actually SELL a job AI is very capable of matching up the algorithms of key skills and experience versus that on a candidates CV. However, it takes a human to know how to sell and present an opportunity, focusing on the “softer” elements and being persuasive if necessary. I personally have placed people who initially had said “no” to a company but they trusted me and realized that their initial perception of the company had been wrong. I can’t be the only recruiter who has had this experience. AI is knowledgeable but AI does not have the capacity to think outside of the box of A matches A. 3. AI will never really influence the process AI is knowledgeable in acting on instructions and finding CVs based on a specific brief. However, AI cannot influence the process or challenge the job spec. Whereas human recruiters can do this and very often by consulting the clients expectations, you understand more about what the business needs and this may broaden the criteria for the right hire for them. Therefore, human recruiters are influencers and not simply box tickers which ultimately is all AI can ever be. 4. AI will never love their job like we do As functional as AI already is and will continue to be, the fact is, what has made me successful and other recruiters who work as I do, experts in their field, is my LOVE and PASSION for the job that I do. Ok, AI can’t give up and walk out to go and get another job. But it is the love and genuine care for doing the job properly that makes me successful. And AI can never replace that pastoral care for getting the job done and not just perfunctorily. 5. Recruitment is a human being industry AI is methodical and based on data. However, recruitment is the ultimate “human being industry” and therefore human recruiters will always be involved in the sector. Whilst portals and job boards already cope with Matching up a persons job need and a clients employment gap, it can never really hope to plan an individuals future career goal purely on data and analytics. It is a tactile process and this is something AI can never achieve. How is AI affecting your market and sector? Have you been pipped to the post on a job or vacancy because of a better match via AI? And how are you ringfencing your own recruitment career to ensure you embrace technology yet not be made redundant by AI?

Managing a Career and Planning a Wedding Is Possible!

Managing a Career and Planning a Wedding Is Possible! As a career girl you’re one who takes our profession seriously. Showing up to work on time, putting in extra work to impress the boss and staying on top of your every day. But how do you do this after you’ve just been proposed to by the man of your dreams? It might seem overwhelming at first, thinking of planning a wedding and managing your career â€" but there is hope! Here are our best tips to helping you manage the stress of your wedding while also staying in first gear at work.   Balance   Life in general is about proper balance. Work life balance especially! After the big engagement it might become evident that your work life balance is going to get out-of-wack. Planning a wedding is a huge undertaking and can require quite a bit of effort, often taking away from other important things in our lives. Planning a wedding can interfere with what you devote any additional time to during the week. Couples can best manage the balance by sitting down and making a plan.   What extra responsibilities can you put “on hold” until after the honeymoon? Think about extra circular activities, upcoming trips, even baby showers. This may be the time when you have to look at making yourself available and saying no to some of your important, but not urgent, life obligations. Work shouldn’t have to take a backseat, if you can help it. The last thing you need after a wedding is to be unemployed! Take the steps you can to prepare for additional balance needed in coming months.   Save Time and Money Where You Can   Budget blog posts and Pinterest pins are plentiful online today. There are many things you can do to save time and money, look for those opportunities and you’ll be better off for it. Not just your pocketbook but also your career may thank you. Consider this â€" you’re stressed about the wedding, bills are piling up and you don’t have time to deal with everything. If you worked out ways to really save money it’s one less thing to distract you from your work and keep you from being productive. Many items budget savvy brides save in these five areas:   Rented wedding dress, tux and party rentals. Who said you have to buy everything, even the dress? Several brides today are renting their gowns along with tuxes and other party rentals. Many shops in your local area or online offer these items across the globe. Consider alternatives to silver, platinum and gold. These are precious metals and often brides and grooms look for wedding bands in the most expensive metal. But did you know that these aren’t as durable as say cobalt, carbide, tungsten or carbon fiber wedding bands? Choose an option that saves time and money now as well as in the future. Have your wedding at home! So many couples today are avoiding the expense associated with choosing a venue and opting for a traditional backyard wedding. Sure, your own backyard might not be the best option but think about your friends! Lots of us have individuals we know that have amazing homes, ask about ‘borrowing’ and saving the expense that comes along with an equally great locale.   Plan Ahead   Plan early and plan ahead, this is extremely important. Waiting until the last minute to plan your nuptials is certainly not ideal. Planning ahead will give you time to really project manage your wedding â€" seriously it’s a full project! Get out your calendar, set aside dedicated time to get your list of wedding planning items under way. This should help you to avoid time during work hours to plan your wedding. Sure, you might need to make a million calls on your lunch break Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays â€" but at least you’re doing so outside of work hours.   Set Expectations As Needed   Inform the individuals responsible for helping you plan your wedding that you only have available time to do so during certain hours. Set expectations with the people around you to inform them of the obligations you have with work, which cannot be affected by wedding planning. It may behoove you to also set expectations with your manager. If you are going to be required to take time off, be available for phone calls or miss meetings to attend dress fittings, event review and rehearsals you should tell them ahead of time.  Again, the worst thing after a wedding is to come back to no job. Ensure you are thinking about your work obligations while also planning your wedding in order to set expectations with your employer appropriately. Planning your wedding and managing a work life balance is indeed possible. Use these tips to help you stay happy and employed even after your special day.

5 Signs Your Personal Brand Has Disappeared - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

5 Signs Your Personal Brand Has Disappeared - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Is your personal brand doing magic tricks on you or has it really disappeared? As professionals and job seekers, its easy to get caught up in the day-to-day chaos of balancing work, personal lives, or job searching. But when life and careers get too busy, its easy to let your personal brand slip away into thin air. Before you know it, youve lost nearly fifty followers on Twitter and no one is reading or commenting on your blog. If you’re worried about your personal brand disappearing, it’s important to understand the warning signs before it disappears completely. Your personal brand is a very sensitive tool for your career, so when you don’t give it the attention it needs, it’s going to disappear before your eyes! If your personal brand is on the verge of disappearing or no longer exists, here are five signs to explain the source of your problem: 1. Low engagement from the start. When you first launched your personal brand, you didnt take the time to interact with people in your industry and interests. You also didn’t reach out to people in your network nor did you share valuable content. Because of this, you were never able to build your personal brand and expand your networks. Engagement is key to a strong personal brand and if it lacks the value people seek, you’ll quickly see your networks disappear. 2. Your brand is a one-way street. Sure, you want your personal brand to be a megaphone for your experience and skills, but its not going to grow if you dont interact with your followers. If your personal brand didn’t grow with your audience or promote conversation, then it’s a definite sign your brand became a one-way street. When this happens, your network can begin to shrink and your brand will disappear with it. This is why it’s important to listen to your networks, provide a helping hand, and share the content of others. 3. Focus has disappeared. Brands often disappear because they lack some type of focus. If you are scatterbrained with your brand, this could be a good reason why it disappeared. In order to revive your brand and its focus, it’s a good idea to start your brand over at square one. Ask yourself what purpose you want the brand to serve you and your career. Do you want to inform people? Do you want to make connections with people in your industry? Figure out how you can create a brand that will not only be beneficial for your career but will also be an asset for your network. 4. Your followers feel neglected. When you used to receive tweets or emails from your followers, did you respond in a timely manner or did you forget to respond? When you dont take the time to respond to your followers, it can easily make your brand disappear. Your network will try to reach out to you, but if you don’t respond, they’ll assume that your brand is inactive. 5. When you try to revive your brand, nothing works. If you tried engaging with your followers and sharing content, but none of your efforts are working, then your personal brand has definitely disappeared. The people in your networks are very busy and are willing to take the time to build relationships, however once you forget about your followers, it can be difficult to win those relationships back. Bringing life back to your personal brand isn’t an easy task. It will definitely take time and dedication. Although you will have to start from scratch, it’s the best way to relaunch your brand. However, make sure to keep these points in mind when you rebuild your personal brand so you can prevent it from disappearing in the future. Do you feel like your personal brand is disappearing? If so, what are you doing to rebuild your online presence? Author: Heather R. Huhman  is a career expert, experienced hiring manager, and founder president of  Come Recommended, a content marketing and digital PR consultancy for job search and human resources technologies. She is also the instructor of  Find Me A Job: How To Score A Job Before Your Friends, author of  Lies, Damned Lies Internships  (2011) and  #ENTRYLEVELtweet: Taking Your Career from Classroom to Cubicle  (2010), and writes career and recruiting advice for  numerous outlets.

Being Human at Work Marla Gottschalk

Being Human at Work Marla Gottschalk When our oldest child entered middle school we found it necessary to meet with his principal. At that time of course, school was his full-time job â€" and there were developing signs that it was the wrong job. As parents, we felt the need to discuss a strategy to address the job-person fit. To be frank, the over-riding goal was not to boost his grades, but to protect him as a developing individual. As things stood, his role was clearly a frustrating exercise. Sadly, he was showing signs of complete exhaustion. One very astute teacher put it this way: He actually has 7 bosses and they all want something a little different. Thats not an easy task. I couldnt have put it better. He was drowning in the midst of the demands he faced. None of this emphasized his strengths â€" only his clear weaknesses in the executive functioning realm. Our son brought himself to his role as student. But more importantly, he was a human being that was faced with the learning environment as it was presented. We held no judgements as to what was right or wrong about that environment â€" only that his experience with that environment was both unique and challenging. What we asked of his principal was quite simple: 1.) That he had an opportunity to explore/discover something that brought him feelings of competence and 2.) that he still loved (or at the very least, respected) the process of learning when he left her care. She was the needed glue to help him to sift through the noise and find the signals. Being human at work poses a related challenge. When you ponder your work life, what immediately comes to mind? Do you feel supported? Respected? Are you challenged? Are you developing in a manner that is meaningful? Are the unique qualities that define the positive foundation of you, a part of that work life? Or like our son, are you faced with poor job-person fit? These may sound like unusual questions. But, they shouldnt be. When I discuss negative work experiences with clients, expressions of feeling drained, lost or frustrated are mentioned. When we are fighting for the elements that uniquely define who we are, we suffer. Our employers may miss out on our strengths. Our customers do not benefit from our talents. We wage a talent war that no one can win. This realization drove me to take a step back. What might help explain why this dynamic â€" that when ignored can become utterly devastating. I recalled humanistic psychology. A reaction to behaviorism and the tenets of psychoanalytic thought (made known by Freud), humanistic theory offers an interesting framework as we approach the job-person fit. Humanism explains that we posses a drive toward becoming self-actualized. In other words, a drive to maximize our creative potential. (This line of thought came to the forefront through the work of psychologists Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow.) Its direction and tenor could easily apply to work life: When considering people â€" the whole is greater than than the sum of the parts. There is a drive to achieve congruence between our real self and the ideal self. Some measure of unconditional positive regard is necessary to fully develop as an individual. An individual is greatly influenced by his/her environment. Social interaction is key to development. We are fully aware and have the ability to make a conscious choice. Our past experienced help drive future behavior. Human beings are uniquely capable of intentional thought and goal directed behaviors. I wonder how we can build this respect for individuals into every organization. How might current trends in HR support this effort? I know there are many of us fighting for this. Is one of them you? Dr. Marla Gottschalk is an Industrial/Organizational Psychologist. She is a charter member of the LinkedIn Influencer Program. Her thoughts on work life have appeared in various outlets including Talent Zoo, Forbes, Quartz and The Huffington Post.

Tips For Good Resume Writing

Tips For Good Resume WritingMost people take tips for good resume writing for granted, and that's a problem. They have no idea where to find the most important and practical advice, and they don't understand why they need help at all.But it doesn't take much to help yourself learn some of the most helpful tips for good resume writing. All you need is a little time and a lot of research. Here are the top three tips for good resume writing.* Use resume style guides. You might be surprised to learn that this isn't an option just any writer can take advantage of. The basic reason is that the standards for resume writing style have been set. Resume writers who don't adhere to the guidelines of traditional resume writing might face disciplinary action from the company. The reason for this is obvious: If a resume writer deviates from the accepted format, the company will see that as sloppy and unprofessional.* Write and revise. Even when you know that your resume is fine, the next time you give it a closer look, you'll see that you're missing some details. You can correct these mistakes, or you can put them aside for a later date. If you can, move on to a different section of your resume instead of trying to get the points back in order.* Search the Internet. There are plenty of resume writing tips for you out there online. Check out blogs, forums, and message boards. There are a lot of opportunities to learn about what others have done well. Even if you don't follow what's being said, the chances are you'll gain ideas about how to make your own resume better.* Find a mentor. Whether you're trying to figure out how to write a great resume or simply improve on what you've already got, consulting with a professional is a good idea. A career coach can help you with some of the more technical parts of resume writing. And, there are plenty of tips available on-line for the good, solid examples of how to present yourself and your skills.In terms of tips for good resume writ ing, that's about all you can really do. You should never do it on your own. Don't rely on other people's experience. They don't have the same insight into your true potential as you do.But good resume writing doesn't have to be something that's mastered in a few short weeks. There are simple and obvious tips for good resume writing that any professional should employ. Just follow the suggestions you can find.

5,000 people took our is it time to quit test. These are the results. - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

5,000 people took our is it time to quit test. These are the results. - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog If you are not happy at work, we have a simple test you can take to see if it might be time to quit. So far 5,000 people have taken the test and?you can see the results above. Please note that we can make no inferences about how happy or unhappy people are at work in general based on these results, because the people who take this test are clearly not a representative sample they will skew strongly towards the unhappy. You can take the test yourself here. And remember: March 31 is International Quit Your Crappy Job Day. Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related

While Healthcare Jobs Take a Hit, Sales Reps are in Demand - CareerAlley

While Healthcare Jobs Take a Hit, Sales Reps are in Demand - CareerAlley We may receive compensation when you click on links to products from our partners. Healthcares ability to maintain steady employment growth has been a ray of light during some tough economic times. Industry insiders were shocked, therefore, when the BLS reported healthcare suffered a 6,000 job hit in December 2013 and January 2014 after a decade of steady growth. At least one corner of the industry did not suffer from this dip in jobs: medical sales. On the contrary, according to a recent survey, the number of medical sales jobs posted online has grown by 16 percent compared to this time last year. Pharma and biotech jobs enjoyed the most growth, and though medical device job postings experienced a small drop due in part to the device excise tax, the job market is still strong overall. The takeaway? If you are looking for a new job in healthcare or have been considering a career change, now is an excellent time to apply for a job in medical sales. Here are some tips for starting the process to land the job of your dreams: To thine own self be true The first thing you should do after you make the decision to pursue a new job in medical sales is a bit of soul searching. What do you want out of a job? What kind of environment and culture suits you best? Do you have skills acquired from your current job or education you would like to cultivate in a new position? If you need some inspiration, consider a few of the many aspects sales reps love about their jobs. Some reps feel medical sales allows them to make a difference in peoples lives. Others enjoy the respect and autonomy of their position. And despite the fast paced nature of the job, many of the top companies are dedicated to the healthy work-life balance of their sales force. When you have built a list of the job attributes you value most, find out which companies are known for these qualities. If the idea of giving back to society is appealing to you, a position at Pfizer might just be up your alley. Like the idea of selling strong products with name-brand recognition? Perhaps you should consider Johnson Johnson or Medtronic. Let your fingers do the walking Once you have narrowed down your search to a few companies, its time to do some homework. You should become intimately familiar with each companys history, product line, and place in the industry. You should be able to ask hiring managers informed, interesting questions to display your knowledge of the business. Further, tailor your resume to fit each company you are applying to. Job listings will reveal the skills, qualities, and experience companies value most. Give yourself an advantage by fine-tuning your resume to suit each opportunity. Employers spend an average of six seconds looking at a resume. Make those six seconds count by painting the best picture possible of why youre a top candidate. Network selectively A mistake many job seekers make is flooding the Internet with their resume. They have profiles on all the social media platforms and job boards they can find. While this isnt necessarily detrimental in itself, it wastes time. Networking is a crucial step of the job search process, so focus on quality, not quantity. You should spend time on one or two social media platforms. LinkedIn should be on the list, as it will allow you to connect with medical industry insiders and keep current on the news and opportunities from your target companies. Finally, rather than posting your resume on every job board on the Internet, focus on niche boards. This will allow you to notice trends in the skills and experience employers are after, and will better prepare you for interviews when opportunities do come up. Always follow up Looking for a job in any industry requires ongoing communication with hiring managers and recruiters. One of the most important things to remember regarding these communications is you must always follow up. Even when you receive a brief email with bad news, your response should be polite and grateful for the time they took to address you. What does this do? It leaves doors open. Hiring managers and recruiters remember people who observe etiquette, and particularly gratitude. Some of them look at hundreds of resumes for one job opening, so it makes an impression when someone acknowledges the time they took to reach out to you. With jobs in medical sales on the rise, now is a great time to search for a new job. Employers are looking for driven, focused individuals who can channel their passion for the industry into profit. So decide what you want, find the companies who can offer it to you, and let them see you are the perfect candidate for their sales team. What do you think? What are you doing to land a new job in medical sales? Robyn Melhuish is the Communications Manager at MedReps.com, a job board which gives members access to the most sought after medical sales jobs and pharmaceutical sales jobs on the Web. Connect with Robyn and MedReps.com on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.This is a Guest post. If you would like to submit a guest post to CareerAlley, please follow these guest post guidelines. Good luck in your search. Joey Trebif