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Showing posts with label mergers acquisitions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mergers acquisitions. Show all posts

Friday, August 16, 2013

What Is the True Cost of Hiring a Bad Employee? [INFOGRAPHIC]

What Is the True Cost of Hiring a Bad Employee? [INFOGRAPHIC]

What is the cost of a bad hire? We all know that hiring the wrong employees can cost organizations a huge amount of money, but this infographic presents some startling figures. When it comes down to it, getting the right fit the first time probably matters a little more than you thought it did. Recruiters, your job is just that much more important.
This infographic by Resoomay, a software service that allows recruitment agencies and employers to screen and interview candidates using video interviews, explores the (rather astronomical) cost of making a bad hire.
how much can a bad hire set you back?
Source: Resoomay

Jorgen Sundberg

The original Undercover Recruiter, after 7 years in tech recruiting Jorgen now runs Link Humans, a social media marketing agency in London.

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Coding Is the Must-Have Job Skill of the Future


Coding Is the Must-Have Job Skill of the Future

Coding-future
Fast forward to 2020. What job skill must you have? Coding.
Well, we may be getting ahead of ourselves slightly. It's uncertain that HTML and CSS in their current form will be on the menu of the next decade. But what we do know is, for the foreseeable future, coding is one of the most important and desirable skills there is, no matter how it evolves.
Coding is the new black. And it's getting so hot that there are a slew of startups focusing on teaching coding — to your kids.
For those of us grown up and out of grammar school, there are two schools of thought: specialized education programs or teaching yourself. School can be both expensive and time consuming. While hitting the books at home via online courses is significantly cheaper, it's also draining, as there's no one to copy answers off of.
Like anything daunting, there may be some understandable hesitation about just how to jump in the water. And some basic questions to answer.

Why should you learn how to code? And where do you start?

Asher Hunt, leading mobile designer at customer engagement management company LivePerson (formerly Look.IO), sees at it as a way to control the visual UI/UX (user interface, user experience) of a site.
"Learning HTML and CSS creates a really valuable way for people to efficiently design for the web," explains Hunt. For learning CSS keystrokes, he suggests getting started with syntax and browser animations. "I say this because understanding those languages provides understandings of their limitations, and general capabilities. For every pixel I put down in photoshop, I know exactly how I'm going to code that in HTML and CSS."
The value of coding is learning how to use data to drive decisions, says C.J. Windisch, lead engineer and co-founder of location-based app GonnaBe.
"We see it everywhere from statistical analysis in baseball to politics with Barack Obama's data-driven election team," Windisch says. "Understanding data at that scale requires a computer to run numbers, not a calculator. In today's big data world, that means coding."
Windisch suggests geting your feet wet with Treehouse, a startup featuring instructional videos.
Mike Murray, GonnaBe's lead iOS developer, says proficiency in coding allows programmers to be able "to modify the technology they work with, without aid from others," thereby increasing their value to employers, and saving valuable funds.
It's all about big data, agrees Jad Meouchy, CTO at the smartphone survey company Osurv Mobile Research. And mastering that data can be the difference between success and failure in the startup world.
"A new coder better understand what that means and how to handle it," Meouchy explains. "Every company has access to a gold mine of consumer insight in the form of analytics, social networks, activity logs, et cetera.  The challenge in managing that information is developing a process to extract high-value bits and act on them quickly."
Meouchy says the key for beginners is to learn about databases, starting with basic SQL syntax. From there he suggests working "your way up to complex joins, and take a cautious peek at the new anti-SQL movement." He warns that "when solving actual business problems, stick to the fundamentals and avoid trendy, flashpan tech. If you do it right, the skillset you develop should last a decade."
If this is too jargony for you, fear not. Here's a real-life, layman's-terms example of a regretful tech entrepreneur who didn't learn. GonnaBe's CEO and cofounder Hank Leber calls coding the new literacy. It's the battle of "the tech literate vs. the tech illiterate. And 'literacy' won't refer to one's ability to read about new technology or report on it, but creating it."
Leber cites the growing unemployment rate and diminishing prospects for newly-minted college graduates as motivators.
"Not learning to code has been the biggest misstep of my academic and professional life," he says. "Had I learned it when I was in my early twenties, I'd have been 10 times as effective as a leader and businessperson. Hindsight is 20/20, but let this be foresight for young people: If you can stomach it, learn to code. You won't regret it."
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, 7io

Friday, April 26, 2013

Social Search Engine Marketing Throws Search Experts A Lifeline


Social Search Engine Marketing Throws Search Experts A Lifeline

by , Yesterday, 1:57 PM
Subscribe to Search Marketing Daily
Anchor-BAside from smartphones and tablets, social search engine optimization has emerged as the next focus for many marketers in enterprises during a time when more C-level execs continue to give attention to search engine optimization (SEO), video offers search and social opportunities, and small and national businesses capitalize on local search, according to a study released Thursday.
Social signals continue to make their way into search results --making social search engine optimization the next major trend in organic listing. Enterprise SEO requires a search across traditional techniques and social media channels. Some 49% of the survey participants said social sharing will have more importance when it comes to improving search rankings in 2013 compared with 2012, followed by 31%, much more importance; and 19%, about the same, according to results of a BrightEdge study, which cites Forrester Research numbers suggesting that search engine optimization will become a $2.2 billion industry by 2016.
To improve SEO ranking with help from social, marketers must understand the exact correlation between social sharing of pages and rank. Identifying this correlation and analyzing the content being shared helps marketers reinforce what’s working and what's not. When asked how important it will be to understand the correlation between social sharing and page rank, 47% of survey participants said more important compared with 33%, much more important; 19%, about the same; and 1%, less important.
Understanding topics will also become "more" important when it comes to social media users and sharing information. The key will be identifying user interests expressed in social media and catching consumers' attention by providing content that targets these interests. Some 45% said it will become more important this year to identify trends, compared with 24%, much more important; 30%, about the same; and 1%, less important.
When asked to name multiple social media channels that marketers will focus on this year, some 86% said Facebook; 68%, Google+; 43% LinkedIn; 41%, Twitter; 29%, Pinterest; and 25%, YouTube.



Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/198917/social-search-engine-marketing-throws-search-exper.html?edition=59262#ixzz2RZG4qtdw

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Just Who Uses Social Media? A Demographic Breakdown


Just Who Uses Social Media? A Demographic Breakdown

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You think you know social? How about who uses it? Well, you might not know it as well as you would have guessed.
A new study from the Pew Research Center and Docstoc shed some light on just who uses social and on what platforms. Some of the findings seem in line with what you would probably guess, but others were surprising.
If you think the smarter, more attractive sex is more socially prolific than us men, well ... you're right. Women use social media 9% more than men do. Despite having more distractions, people living in cities have the most social media activity, at 70% of the population. Perhaps it's the connectivity of large-city life.
In terms of racial and ethnic groups online, Hispanics lead the pack at 72% engagement, with African-Americans trailing at 68%, who are ahead of Caucasians at 65%. And in a strange twist, despite being somewhat economically disadvantaged, 72% of adults with annual household incomes below $30,000 use social networks, more than those with higher wages.
How about most popular social networks? That would be Facebook, with 67% of adults using the Zuckerberg-founded service. A distant second was LinkedIn with 20%, with Twitter coming in third at 16%, and Tumblr falling dead last at 6%.
Take a look at the details below:
Image via iStockphotohocus-focus

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

A Non-Negotiator's Guide to Negotiating


For most of my life, I was a terrible negotiator. I accepted lowball offers, I never demanded the raises I deserved, and I overpaid for everything. I knew that you needed to “drive a hard bargain” and “be willing to walk away from the table” if you wanted to get the best possible deal. I just never seemed to be able to do it, ever.
It reached the point that my husband actually forbid me from negotiating the price of a car, a home, or even a used toaster at the flea market. And while I wouldn’t usually take too kindly to being silenced, I had to admit that I saw his point. In a negotiation, I was the weakest link.
Two programs of research helped me to see what I was doing wrong – specifically, how I was thinking about negotiations the wrong way.

Epiphany #1

When people are about to enter a negotiation, they see it as either a threat or a challengeStudies show that people who see negotiation as a threat experience greater stress and make less advantageous deals. They behave more passively, and are less likely to use tough tactics aimed at gaining leverage, compared to the hard-ballers who feel negotiation to be more of a challenge than a threat.
This makes so much sense to me. My husband absolutely sees negotiating as a challenge. He looks forward to a good haggle. I do not. Reading about these studies, I realized that I have always seen negotiations as threatening, and just wanted them over with as quickly as possible, no matter what it cost me. Why prolong a stressful, threatening situation when you can throw in the towel and move on?
But why do I see negotiations as threats, and not challenges? To answer that, I needed…

Epiphany #2

There is more than one way to look at any goal. Some of us think about our goals as achievements or opportunities to advance – having what psychologists call a promotion focus. Others see their goals as opportunities to keep things running smoothly, to avoid loss, to do what you ought to do – this is called aprevention focus.
Promotion and prevention-focused people work differently to reach the same goal. When we are promotion-focused, we are creative, embrace risk, work quickly, and are fueled by optimism. When we are prevention-focused, we are more thorough and deliberate, more analytical, and better fueled by defensive pessimism (i.e., thinking things might go wrong if you don’t do something to prevent it.)
When it comes to negotiating, having a promotion focus will give you the clear upper-hand. The promotion-focused (like my husband) see negotiation as an opportunity to gain something, and studies show that this helps them to stay focused on their (ideal) price or pay targets. The prevention-minded (like myself) see negotiation as an opportunity to lose something – they worry too much about a negotiation failure or impasse, leaving them more susceptible to less advantageous agreements.
When it comes to getting what you want, it pays to focus on what you have to gain, rather than what you might lose, so that you can see it as a challenge (rather than a threat), and be better able keep your eyes on the prize.
Now, when I enter any negotiation, I make a deliberate effort to refocus myself beforehand. I stop and reflect on what I have to gain by getting a great deal, or by fighting for better compensation – the opportunities for happiness and growth they will afford me.
You wouldn’t believe the deal I got on our last toaster.

HEIDI GRANT HALVORSON

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Dr. Heidi Grant Halvorson, of Columbia’s Motivation Science Center, is an author and speaker.  In Succeed, she revealed surprising science-based strategies we can use to reach goals.  Her new book is Focus:  Using Different Ways of Seeing the World for Success and Influence.