Archive for November, 2010

Looking for a Job? Search Smart




By Chelle Shell

The last unemployment rate reported by the government was in September and was at 9.60 percent. Gallup states the true rate by the end of September was at 10.1 – up quite a bit from July’s 8.9 rate. More than likely the majority of people out of work today probably never dreamed they would be in this unfortunate circumstance and just simply were not prepared. Many have worked at the same place for years so the job hunt for them is like finding a unicorn - they aren’t even sure where to start.

Looking for a job is a full-time job these days. Don’t expect to land your dream career by sitting behind your computer all day, in your sweat pants, with uncombed hair, applying to jobs willy-nilly all over the virtual world. It’s not going to happen for you if this is your “plan.”

If you’re one of these unemployed people don’t jump off of the bridge just yet. Believe it or not I do have some positive things to report and some helpful tips for you.

Despite the unemployment rate, people are finding jobs. We, here at Opportunity Knocks, hear stories from job seekers every day reporting they’ve found employment. We are also seeing an increasing number in job postings on our website and other job boards are reporting the same.

So you ask, “What did these people do different than what I’m currently doing?” Well, the answers my friends are listed below.

The common attributes of a successful job seeker:
1. They are organized and prepared.
They have their resume, cover letters, salary range, letters of recommendations and references together.

2. They have a positive attitude.
Part of this positive attitude comes from #1 on this list. They are proud of their vigilance and organizational skills. They also know change is good and they can pick themselves up and dust off their shoulders and move on. Yes their current situation stinks but they have to do what is necessary to gain momentum in moving forward with the things they can control, such as the items on this list, versus things they cannot.

3. Their online persona is in order.
They have complete LinkedIn profiles with recommendations from each job they’ve had in the past, they’ve updated their information and their resume is remarkable. They actually work their profile by joining groups and connecting with professionals in their field and/or their fields of interest. They visit their connections’ profiles and link up with their network and so on and so forth, their network grows and blossoms.

They have no “digital dirt”. No pictures or comments on their Facebook or MySpace pages about the tailgate party or the keg stands they did last weekend. They don’t tweet about useless and senseless activities like, “I’m in the 7 Eleven sucking down a Slurpee.”

They read and write RELEVANT blogs. If you are seeking employment, contemplate starting a blog about your occupational interests: business trends, related topics and current news related to your field. If, and only if, your blog is professional and totally career related list it on your resume. If it’s about your pet iguana don’t. This is what I mean by RELAVANT.

(Because I ‘m sweet, I’m providing you with a list of 50 social and professional networking sites. Just click here. )

4. They get out of the house, dress the part, walk the walk, talk the talk and NETWORK.
They join professional associations and groups related to their fields and attend all events. They register for job fairs, take professional development classes, and they do relevant (there’s that word again) volunteer work. They aren’t afraid to meet new people and partake in group conversations. Nor are they fearful to talk about their current job search or to ask for introductions. An internal referral for an open position is invaluable and much more likely to land you the interview you are so eagerly seeking.

5. They are politely persistent and their follow-through skills are resilient.
They don’t just take no for an answer. If they are turned down for a job they ask polite and professional questions such as, “Do you foresee another position opening up that I may be a better fit for me?” Or, “Would it be possible to get an introduction from you to someone else in this industry that may have openings?”

They keep track of everyone they meet and are sure to stay in contact. As new introductions are made they are immaculately quick to write and send a thank you note as people remember old-fashion common courtesy.

This whole process is a snow-ball effect. Once you start following these simple steps and start meeting people, and show them you’re smart, witty, kind and polite, you will continue to gain mass and momentum until the one person who matters the most says those magic words, “You’re hired!”

What are you doing to be successful in your job hunt? What mistakes have you made? Please share.

About the Author
Michelle “Chelle” Shell has worked in management for over 14 years in positions ranging from recruitment to public relations. In her current role as Client Development Manager for Opportunity Knocks she assists national nonprofit organizations and recruitment agencies connect with talented, qualified nonprofit professionals and HR management solutions. Chelle is active in her transitioning neighborhood association as well as local tennis associations. She is also a Board Member of ANP, Atlanta Nonprofit Professionals.

For questions and/or comments for Chelle please click on “comments” below and start typing away. Many of you have the same concerns and this will allow you to read what others have to say as well as help the masses. And don’t worry, you don’t have to identify yourself if you would like to remain anonymous.

Comment below on your thoughts or tips on job searching!

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Where’s My Raise? - How to Handle Tough Pay Conversations



We’ve gone through two tough years for compensation, and 2011 isn’t shaping up to be much better. And that means another year of tough questions from employees.

Teresa Murphy and David Wudyka have some ideas about how to make those conversations go a little better.

Murphy is the principal consultant for HR Partner Advantage, an HR advisory firm based in Raleigh, N.C. Wudyka, SPHR, MBA, BSIE, is the founder and managing principal of Westminster Associates, a Massachusetts-based human resource and compensation firm. They made their comments during a recent webinar sponsored by BLR, publishers of this newsletter.

Three Critical Steps

To prepare for 2011, says Wudyka, HR departments should consider these three critical steps:

Know the compensation trends for the new year. You need to know the trends across the country, within your region, and within your industry (as much as possible). In comp, you have to be scanning the market and analyzing surveys. You have to have the data to make good decisions. Ideally, you have a survey that gives information that is local and in your industry, Wudyka says.

Decide upfront how you’ll divide the available compensation dollars. Before you allot and award any increases, make the broad decisions about compensation budgets.

Some companies just divide up the budget equally, but others allocate funds differently across departments depending on the value of the function to the organization.

Prepare your managers and supervisors. Most of all, says Wudyka, prepare your supervisors and managers for dealing with tough pay conversations with their teams. You especially want to manage any unrealistic expectations your rank-and-file employees may already have.

Training Your Managers

Training managers and supervisors is your armor against lawsuits, says Murphy. They’ll take most of the hits, at least initially. If they aren’t prepared for the tough question, they can give a wrong answer that makes things worse. Employees assume that managers know what they are talking about. They’ll listen and they will pass on what they heard.

Consider holding one 90-minute training session before compensations plans or allocations are public knowledge, Murphy advises.

Watch out for your managers, says Murphy. For example they may try to arbitrarily move people to be exempt because no money for overtime.

How to Handle the Most Common Complaints

Murphy shared her suggestions for handling the most common compensation complaints.

Complaint: “I’m one of your best workers!”

Honor the employee’s contributions, says Murphy, but don’t overdo it. Use concrete examples in your conversation to show that you do indeed realize how valuable this worker has been. At the same time, if the worker hasn’t been that great an asset, don’t “overpraise” what he or she has done. Overly positive statements might come back to haunt you later if the worker files any sort of claim, Murphy explains.

Help the employee to understand that the situation isn’t a reflection of individual performance, but a reflection of the overall economy and state of the organization.

Be as upfront as you can if you’ve “maxed out” your ability reward this employee. If you’ve done all that you can do to offer this worker a pay raise, make sure he or she understands (in dollar terms) how you fought for the money to offer a raise in the first place. (Example: If he or she got a raise that’s larger than two-thirds of the workforce, it’s important that this worker recognize how well he or she made out.)

Explore non-monetary rewards that might appeal to this employee and show that you recognize his or her efforts. You want to have some of these in place - leave early, work on a special project, modest gift card - so you can use them when needed without breaking the bank.

In tomorrow’s Advisor, handling the “I can’t live on what you’re paying me” complaint, and an introduction to a unique 10-minutes-at-a-time training system.

Source: HR Daily Advisor

Educational Endowments Grew 12.6 Percent



The endowments of eighty U.S. colleges and universities returned an average of 12.6 percent (net of fees) in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2010, a new report from the Commonfund Institute finds.

Conducted in partnership with the National Association of College and University Business Officers, the 2010 NACUBO-Commonfund Study of Endowments found that the highest-performing endowment in FY2010 returned 36.2 percent, while the lowest returned 4.8 percent. An analysis of a slightly smaller sample of sixty-four institutions found that the trailing three-year return averaged -3.4 percent; trailing five-year returns averaged 2.7 percent; and trailing ten-year returns averaged 3.2 percent, all net of fees.

Historically, larger endowments tend to outperform smaller ones, but preliminary data showed that institutions with assets of less than $25 million returned an average of 14.1 percent, while those with assets of more than $1 billion realized an average return of 12.3 percent. Mid-range endowments — those with assets between $101 million and $500 million — reported an average return of 13.8 percent.

“It appears that FY2010 will go down as somewhat of an anomaly,” said NACUBO president and CEO John D. Walda and Commonfund Institute executive director John S. Griswold in a joint statement. “It is unusual to see smaller institutions outperforming larger ones, as happened in FY2009 and FY2010. But smaller institutions tend to have larger allocations to the traditional asset classes of domestic equities and fixed income, and these asset classes produced good returns over a period when equities rebounded strongly from the FY2009 sell-off and fixed income benefited from declining interest rates. It remains to be seen whether this pattern will continue into future years.”

Source: Philanthropy News Digest

Reference Checking: A Lost Art



With financial resources in scarce supply, filling key openings with competent and trustworthy staff is a must. Yet experienced nonprofit leaders often bemoan the challenging and often protracted process of finding someone who is a “perfect fit.” The process of recruiting and screening applicants is more challenging when we look for perfect applicants who bring track records of raising huge sums and meeting every roadblock and challenge with unrelenting optimism.

True, there are more people looking for work these days than in the recent past and high speed Internet connections, downloadable applications, virtual job boards and email shorten the time from the posting of an announcement to receipt of the first resume. But the prevalence of technology in the process does little to transform the nature of the process. Finding the best match for a demanding position in a nonprofit is not a science. Choosing wisely from a large pool of applicants is an art. And an often ignored art form within the discipline of staff screening is reference checking.

Over the years I’ve spoken to countless nonprofit leaders about the role and importance of reference checking as a screening tool. In so many cases I’ve been told that obtaining references on prospective employees is “difficult” or “nearly impossible,” given the increasingly common policy of providing only limited information, such as name, title and dates of employment. Some leaders have even owned up to the ironic inconsistency in their HR policies. Although they refuse to provide more than limited information on former employees, they continue to “check” references for prospective employees and volunteers. Close-up these internally inconsistent practices may appear to add a measure of “safety.” By limiting the availability of information on former employees an organization reduces the likelihood of a claim alleging that a defamatory reference was provided. By seeking references on prospective staff an organization may be able to avoid inadvertently hiring a poor performer or worse, someone whose behavior poses a threat to the nonprofit’s clientele or financial assets. And in the event things later go terribly wrong with a new hire, a thorough reference checking protocol—as part of a risk-based screening process—may serve to bolster the nonprofit’s defense against a claim alleging “negligent hiring.”

But it doesn’t need to be this way. At the Nonprofit Risk Management Center we urge our clients to both get and give references and we counsel leaders on how to do both safely. But safe doesn’t mean boring or nor should it refer to a process on autopilot.

I see the practice of reference checking as akin to an “art form” because it offers the opportunity to integrate both creative impulses and professional expertise into your screening process. Rather than call an applicant’s last three employers and ask rudimentary questions, consider developing reference questions that are likely to reveal truly helpful information that will help you distinguish between finalists. For example:

  • Ask the former employer of an applicant for a youth worker position: “Would you have any hesitancy placing your child in the care of the applicant?”
  • Query the former employer of an applicant for a senior finance position: “While working for your nonprofit, did the applicant have an occasion to convey difficult or troubling financial news to the Board or Finance Committee? How did the applicant balance the need for timely disclosure while instilling confidence in the leadership team?”


The bottom line is the reminder to be creative in crafting reference checking questions and bring your past experience (including hiring mistakes) to bear. Bad hiring decisions are inevitable in the life of a nonprofit leader; walking away without learning something is not.

In his terrific book titled The Complete Reference Checking Handbook, Edward C. Andler reminds his readers that truly effective reference checking requires “getting to the deeper layers of truth…” For example, the author suggests that when checking references one has to resist the urge to accept non-committal answers and move on. The skilled reference checker should never be content with vague replies and should be curious and motivated to know more and why. Andler explains that “The benefits of ‘peeling away the onion’… are well worth the effort.” Be Safe

To stay on the “safe side” in your reference checking practices, remember to:

  • Get permission. Obtain an applicant’s written authorization to verify any and all information contained on the application for employment, including employment and volunteer history.
  • Be consistent. Use the same set of reference questions for each position, but rarely if ever for ALL positions.
  • Tell it like it is. Always note exactly what a reference says in your notes; never write down your interpretation of a former employer’s comments.


Source: Nonprofit Risk Management Center

Beyond Cause Marketing: Emotive Customer Bonding



The landscape is littered with cause marketing campaigns. So much so that it is tough for any one campaign to stand out. We are bombarded wherever we shop and whatever media we consume. What is the answer to this cause clutter?

According to Jason Saul, a leading expert on strategy and performance measurement in the social sector and author of the new book Social Innovation, Inc: 5 Strategies for Driving Business Growth Through Social Change, businesses and causes must move to a totally different model for linking social good and good business.

Saul says that most companies think about society as a “responsibility” and focus on mitigating risks by doing good (charity) and not doing bad (risk management). But he urges business to embrace social strategies as the powerful business strategies that they can be. Saul, sounding very much the social entrepreneur, says that some of humanity’s biggest problems, such as lack of healthcare, poor funding for education, and the deteriorating environment are today’s biggest business opportunities.

“Emotive customer bonding” is one of Saul’s five strategies for changing the way business approaches social change. Such bonding is “a powerful new form of customer loyalty” that leverages the customer experience “to address meaningful social problems,” thereby building an almost “familial allegiance” to a brand.

Saul uses OfficeMax and its “A Day Made Better” (ADMB) initiative as an example of emotive customer bonding.

OfficeMax first asked customers what social issue was most important for the company to focus on. The answer was education. During its research of educational issues, OfficeMax discovered just how often teachers bought school supplies for their students out of their own pockets—-to the tune of about $4 billion a year. The company decided to raise awareness of this problem and provide free supplies to teachers. Thus was born “A Day Made Better.”

The company picked 1200 U.S. schools, and on one day, Oct 1, 2009, sent 4,000 OfficeMax employee volunteers to classrooms, surprising teachers and students with free supplies worth about $1200. These included staples such as paper and pencils but also digital cameras, supply carts, and furniture.

OfficeMax partnered with Adopt-a-Classroom, a nonprofit that matches donors with classrooms to offset the personal expenses that teachers shoulder in order to equip their classrooms.

Adopt-a-Classroom helped OfficeMax identify deserving schools near a thousand OfficeMax locations and recruit worthy teachers. Several celebrities, ranging from Penny Marshall to Dakota Fanning to Dustin Hoffman, helped bring attention to the effort.

OfficeMax designed this campaign to both benefit the business and inspire a national movement of grassroots support for teachers. You can imagine the delight of teachers and schools. One school principal quoted in Saul’s book said, “A Day Made Better improves teacher morale, provides more supplies for our children and our classrooms, and ultimately impacts the quality of education we offer.” The campaign resulted in an 832% increase in new classroom adoptions by Adopt-a-Classroom and a torrent of media coverage.

But, the commercial outcome was just as important to OfficeMax. The company sought especially to influence a “prototypical customer” called Eve. Eve, not surprisingly, is a thirty-or forty-something woman who purchases office supplies and is likely a mom, a teacher, or both. She cares deeply about education and is emotionally attached to efforts to improve education. ADMB was designed to create an emotional connection with the thousands of Eves that happen to drive much of the market for office supplies.

The commercial outcome was a big increase in website traffic after the promotion, the redemption of coupons included in brochures as part of ADMB, which generated revenue, plus OfficeMax won several bid contracts with school districts as a direct result of the campaign. In addition, ADMB gave meaning to the thousands of employees involved in ADMB from packing boxes of supplies to delivering them to the teachers during the event.

ADMB is now an annual event and has become identified with OfficeMax’s brand and culture. The program even escaped the budget cuts that were made during the recession because, as Saul says, “The company recognized the deep value the program has brought to its target market and the company itself by forging deep emotional connections to ADMB and OfficeMax more broadly, all while addressing an important social problem.”

What makes ADMB such an unqualified success? Saul points out four attributes that make it work:

  • It has a clear business objective. It has to drive real return on investment and focus on a key business priority. It is not a short-term sales promotion.
  • It leverages the core business. It uses the primary engine of the business to solve a social problem.
  • It creates new value. It uses emotional connections to tap latent value in the social capital market. It creates customer loyalty and engages employees.
  • It makes a meaningful social impact. Donating a few cents from a product sale to a charity doesn’t cut it. It has to create a meaningful bond and make a meaningful difference.


Emotive customer bonding is only one of these five strategies that Saul identifies in his book:

  1. Create revenues through submarket products and services
  2. Enter new markets through backdoor channels
  3. Build emotional bonds with customers
  4. Develop new pipelines for talent
  5. Influence policy through reverse lobbying


Together they form a catapult to the next iteration of corporate social responsibility. As Saul so well puts it, “…it’s no longer enough just to ‘associate’ with a good cause–even one that makes sense for your company….Emotion requires intensity, and intensity requires deep, meaningful engagement.”

This book should be read by both businesses and nonprofits. A multitude of case studies illustrate each strategy, providing a heaping spoonful of motivation and inspiration for both causes and companies. I was certainly convinced by Saul’s argument: to reach the next level of social innovation, charities and businesses will need to approach social change in a new way.

Source: About.com

Corporate Giving Mixed for 2009



The majority of U.S. corporations gave less to charity in 2009 than in 2008, but the total dollars contributed grew, a new study says.

Almost six in 10 companies surveyed by the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy trimmed their giving last year, with four in 10 cutting donations by 10 percent or more.

But the increase in giving by 36 percent of companies helped drive overall donations up 7 percent to a total of $9.93 billion in 2009, the highest total in four years.

A jump in in-kind donations from pharmaceutical companies helped fuel the growth, as did corporate mergers in which giving budgets were combined.

In-kind donations, which grew 16 percent last year, also helped make up for the two-thirds of companies that reduced their cash giving, which in turn fell to its lowest point in four years.

On average, about 29 percent of cash giving was directed to health and social-services organizations, growth of about 1 percent over 2008.

The only other category to see growth in cash donations was community and economic development, which saw an increase of 34 percent.

Even though the number of corporations supporting overseas charities fell last year, contributions to overseas organizations grew 15 percent from 2008 to 2009, driven in part by a few large, multi-year grantmaking programs and donations of pharmaceuticals to needy countries.

Looking ahead to 2010, the report estimates 40 percent of respondents will increase giving, while 10 percent will reduce contributions and half will make no changes.

Source: The Nonprofit Quarterly

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