Tag Archives: Chicago Recruiters

Does Your Management Style Make You a Boss or a Leader?

When you manage people, you may sometimes ask yourself if you are leading your team the right way. President Theodore Roosevelt asked the same question since he is credited with having said, “A leader leads, and the boss drives.”

Which are you? Are you playing a role or do you know that you have a chance to positively impact the lives of your staff and actively work to do so?

What Makes You a Leader?

Harry Levinson was a psychologist who first looked into the role of the American worker in the 1950’s. He recognized a link between job conditions and emotional health, and he expressed the concept that great leaders are those who climb the corporate ladder with deep respect for the people below them. In contrast, a boss will often overlook the fact that a paper job description can only explain the roles and the tasks an individual needs to fulfill.

A leader sees a job description as more than a detailed list of tasks and responsibilities. Beyond that list must be a mutual agreement with every staff member that includes mutual trust and respect. Building that trust takes continuous commitment, but it is a commitment that a leader readily accepts.

How Leaders Separate Themselves from Bosses

A leader will be an exceptional manager because he or she treats their employees as partners in growth. They will help their employees grow and help them develop their individual skills and talents.

Leaders provide honest feedback that is given with respect. This ensures both parties can enjoy open communication for the benefit of the accomplishment of the tasks at hand. When projects are completed successfully, leaders show people how their work skills and work ethic made a positive difference. They engage all those they come into contact with so those working in areas with low visibility feel valued and not anonymous. They lead with intelligence and skill, but also show heart.

Are Your New Hires More Like Bosses or Leaders?

A recent study from Boston College recognizes leadership as part of a range of soft skills and traits. Hiring for individuals with such skills and consciously working to apply them can result in a 250 percent return based on investment and higher productivity and retention. If your organization needs more leaders to expand your growth in a competitive atmosphere, let us help you find the leaders who will help you thrive. Call the recruitment experts at Flex Execs Management Solutions today.

Posted by Joseph on August 16, 2018

Hiring Tips

Four Tips to Identify the Right Interim Professional and Ensure Their Success

The need to hire an interim professional can arise from multiple scenarios. Whether the need comes from increased demand for your product or services, from medical leaves or retirements, or from the fact that no one on your staff has the skill sets you need for a specialized project, it helps to lay out your goals and figure out what you need in a contract expert before you set out to find the right candidate.

Do you know what key metrics and objectives the interim specialist needs to meet? What challenges will they encounter during the term of their position? What skills will they need to bring to the table? These are just a few of the questions that should be addressed before the search for an interim hire begins.

Who Constitutes Your Ideal Candidate?

Those whom we place as interim professionals are generally experienced and results-oriented. They are attracted by the challenge of short-term assignments and may welcome the opportunity to work in a new and interesting industry or in a new area of the country for a short period of time.

Before starting the search process, identify what performance expectations you have and the core skills and personal characteristics you want from your interim professional. If you are hiring for a position that requires specific industry experience, make sure you know what experiences you are looking for in potential candidates. If you are hiring for a corporate-style position, industry may be a secondary concern.

Regardless of why they are looking for new work, interim experts are people who are ready to enter a new position and quickly assume the required role. The experience and capability they can bring to your business will be an asset.

Don’t Delay Recruitment Decisions

As unemployment continues to decline, the best interim professionals often have multiple offers on the table. They may also take offers quicker due to the shorter term of their position, rather than taking a longer time to ponder a full-time job offer. Have a contract ready for the perfect candidate as soon as possible and do not delay recruitment decisions for unnecessary deliberations.

Understand What Interims Need from You

Interim professionals need to have clear goals and performance expectations, all of which should be defined in their contracts. They need to understand the limits of the position and the authority they have within your contract with them. Your interim professionals will be most successful if permanent staff have a clear understanding of the role they will fill.

Work with a Reputable Provider to Find the Right Interim Manager

When you contact Flex Execs Management Solutions to hire an interim professional, we know that you want an individual who can help you get the results you need quickly. In short, they need to be able to “hit the ground running.” Flex Execs will do the vetting so the interim professional is ready to work.

We also know that any individual hired on an interim basis will need good communication skills and a management style that allows him or her to build productive relationships quickly. If the interim hire will be bringing a new skill set to an organization, we look for the individual’s ability to be a strategic thinker. When finding someone to fill an interim role, call Flex Execs Management Solutions.

Posted by Joseph on August 10, 2018

Case Studies

Need Staff in Various State Locations? We Can Help!

Hiring for multiple locations can quickly strain your budget and your own HR staff. Flex Execs has worked successfully in such situations and has the experienced recruiters to help you quickly find the right staff in economical and time-efficient ways.

Hiring Across Locations for Telecommunications

One of our telecommunications clients needed to hire 30 CSRs per month for a number of months. While they had located and hired some candidates, they wanted to find even stronger candidates with a skillset that better fit the persona they were looking for.

In short, they needed to find better qualified candidates with specific experience. The client also told us the interview process for hiring with their organization was thorough and challenging, making it especially important to locate source candidates who would do well in such interviews.

Take the Solution to Where It’s Needed

To accommodate the increased hiring needs, Flex Execs placed contract recruiters on-site in the client’s facilities in the three different states that required the new employees. We studied the individual characteristics of the employment market at each location and developed plans to maximize them. We used multiple techniques and were conscious of the need to “think out of the box” regarding the ways to attract the candidates that would have the skill sets required.

These interim recruiters highlighted the benefits of working for the company and paid special attention to preparing strong postings that gave applicants a sense of what it would be like to work for the company. They were clear about how to apply and made those steps easy to follow. They also articulated the role the successful hires would play within the organization.

Over the ensuing months, our client’s new CSRs were not only better equipped to handle client issues and challenges, but they were also being promoted within months. This outcome was exactly what the client desired and, in fact, exceeded their expectations.

Your Success is Our Success

Our telecommunications client continued to use us for their other staffing needs across departments.

His comment to us was, “Flex Execs did an outstanding job and our senior leadership can’t believe the level of professionals that you have brought into our organization in such a timely fashion.”

Our team stands ready to help you in the special hiring situations you face. A visit to our web site will give you an insight into how our cost-effective, on-demand solutions can work for you. Find out how Flex Execs Management Solutions can address your managerial hiring needs today.

Posted by Joseph on July 18, 2018

Case Studies

Finding Managers in Rural Locations

For a growing business, one location is often not enough. When you have multiple locations in rural areas, finding the right talent is a challenge for most companies, especially in a tight candidate market. Couple that with the lowest unemployment rates in our lifetimes, and it can mean serious recruiting challenges.

Our client told us that the successful applicants would be in highly-visible positions and would be working in various rural areas. The company needed to have the positions filled quickly but had not been having success working with other talent agencies.

Finding the Right Candidates Means Taking the Right Approach and Being Creative

Using the expertise of our recruiters and considering the unique needs of our manufacturing client, we were able to take the focus beyond finding the right managerial fit. Our team looked at what types of people would be a strong fit for their culture and engaged unique and creative recruiting strategies to identify the right people.

Placing the emphasis on leadership skills and culture fit, we were able to find interested candidates in the targeted rural areas that were a great fit for these mid- to senior-level management positions! Our Client was able to fill these critical positions within a matter of weeks with talented people that fit the bill for their needs

How Impressed was Our Manufacturing Client?

Equally important to the approach we took to drive results, we did so at a savings of nearly 40% under what a traditional search firm would have charged! The client was happy, and we were happy to hear her say, “Flex Execs has done such a great job that all the hiring managers are asking specifically to work with your company.”

Is your team looking for a fresh approach to direct hire recruiting or interim management solutions? Let Flex Execs Management Solutions help you reach your hiring goals to. Contact us today.

Posted by Joseph on July 14, 2018

Management Best Practices

How to Set Expectations for New Contract Employees

flex execs set expectations contract hires

Once you have made the decision to engage a new contract employee, your next step is to determine how to best set expectations for their assignment.

Training an “on-demand” workforce generally requires rethinking the delivery of training you may have received or the training you provide to full-time hires. How will these contract employees interact with your full-time team? What is the scope of their responsibilities? How will you set expectations for what needs to be completed and what goals need to be met in the short-term?

Here are some guidelines your team can follow to set expectations for your contractors and help them make the best contribution they can.

Simple Techniques Can Drive Success When Working with Contract Employees

Entrepreneur magazine’s business coach, Marcus Erb, suggests that managers can increase the effectiveness of contract employees by meeting with them in person. If you’re working with a remote contractor, call them directly or set a video meeting with programs like Skype, Google Hangouts or Zoom.

Meeting and setting expectations is important for all contract employees. Everyone is intimidated if they do not know exactly what their job entails. Remember that merely telling a contract employee to “check with” another employee if questions arise, leads to haphazard training and potential disappointment for everyone.

Position Agreements Set Standards That Lead to Excellence

To communicate the expectations, many experts now recommend the development of what can best be termed as a position agreement. Position agreements are designed to clarify an employee’s role. Because of that, they are applicable to any individual in that role and are not specific to only one individual.

To be most effective, position agreements tell employees exactly what results they are expected to achieve, what work tasks are required of them to achieve the result, and what standards will be expected of them as they complete their tasks.

When you write a position agreement, you are writing a document that is designed to propel the employee in the right direction in order to meet the actual goals of the company. You are holding the employee accountable for job performance so that both the employee and the manager can each know what is expected and what each can expect the other to do.

Let Flex Execs Help

Our success has been built on helping organizations in need of interim professionals. The team at Flex Execs Management Solutions is here to put our expertise to work for you. Contact us today!

Posted by Joseph on July 10, 2018

Hiring Tips

What Artificial Intelligence Can’t Do For You in the Hiring Process

flex execs artificial intelligence hiring process

The idea that it is a human being who first takes a look at the resume of a potential job candidate is on the verge of becoming outdated. Today, research shows that it is artificial intelligence in the form of a software program that can first review a resume. This form of technology will search the resume for key words to see if the candidate has used words that match with the employer’s desired skill sets.

Unfortunately, you may be losing great talent! Keywords are good, but there are different terms that candidates can use which will be missed by the system. Can you afford to let top talent slip away due to words alone.

AI has the potential to become a real time-saver for employers, but it is far from perfect. Artificial intelligence cannot replace human intelligence. Figures currently show that as many as 65 percent of people begin looking for a new job after only three months with an employer. If you’re looking for help with full-time recruitment solutions, Flex Execs Management Solutions has cost-effective, on-demand solutions to meet your needs.

What does the rise of artificial intelligence mean for recruiters and hiring managers looking to make better decisions?

The Role of Recruiters in the Hiring Process

Good recruiters help develop onboarding processes that yield positive results and avoid high turnover and new-hire discontent. In a well-designed interview, a skilled recruiter wants to gain insight and detail about the thought processes of potential candidates. Such processes will draw out behaviors and characteristics that point toward building a successful employment match.

This can be achieved by asking a mix of open-ended and technical questions. Skilled recruiters decide in advance the behavioral characteristics they want to see in a candidate. Then they develop questions that will draw out the answers they need.

What the recruiter will want to avoid are questions that allow only for short answers. If a majority of questions ask for only “yes” or “no” responses, insights into a candidate’s thought processes are limited; also limited are opportunities for interpersonal connection. These types of answers that don’t require as deep thinking may eventually be addressed by artificial intelligence solutions in some capacity.

When Flex Execs’ team members are called upon to work with clients, we work to understand the technical skills and the intangible, interpersonal skills successful candidates will need.

Questions to Help Identify the Potential for Growth

Andrew Carnegie was one of the drivers of the industrialization of American industry. Over a hundred years ago, he said, “You cannot push anyone up the ladder unless he is willing to climb.” Today his statement is still true.

If you want employees who will ultimately advance through your organization, develop questions based upon events that have happened within your organization. Did you face a crisis because of supply issues? Ask a candidate to describe the steps he or she took to resolve a similar issue. Or, describe an issue your organization faced and ask candidates how they would have handled it.

Flex Execs is here to handle your questions about hiring issues. Looking for a customized staffing solution that addresses your team’s greatest needs? Call us today.

Posted by Joseph on July 5, 2018

Career Advice

Take Your Resume to the Next Level by Highlighting Your Accomplishments

You’ve heard it before: “Words matter.” Indeed, they do. They are especially important when it comes to making sure that your resume showcases your achievements.

The hardest thing about putting a resume together is making sure you capture the reader’s interest in the first 30 seconds. It’s not enough to just have a list of duties and responsibilities, employers today want to know how your employment positively impacted your previous or current employer – and how will you do it for them (i.e. I gave my previous employer a Ferrari, and I can do the same for you!)

One way is to quantify 1-3 accomplishments as well as listing your duties and responsibilities. Remember, a resume is not a grocery list; it is your brochure, the marketing document for YOU, Inc. If they don’t see it in the first 30 seconds they scan your resume, you may have lost your chance for the job.

Show Problems, Actions and Results in a Concise Manner

Experts tell us that people get a general impression of us within a minute or less, and that is true of a hiring manager who is studying a resume. The fact is that your resume gives off signals immediately.

Put yourself in the shoes of a hiring manager. Which of these bullet points catch your eye more?

Managed, facilitated and administered the accounting function. Oversaw the production of financial statements.
Under my leadership, the time to monthly close was cut from 10 days to 3, and the outstanding accounts receivable were reduced by 25%. This resulted in greater cash flow and a savings of 5% on loan interest payments.

Frame your actions in a simple bullet-point format that summarizes your accomplishment and the positive results it achieved. What has your employer praised you for? What have customers expressed gratitude for? You may be surprised at the list you can compile.

Lead With Your Achievements

Take the example of a client who had a human resources background. They had developed a training program that reduced the time involved in every company sales transaction, to the extent of about $0.75 per transaction. Sounds insignificant? Well, this company typically processed 1000 transactions per day, 6 days a week, for a total annual savings of about $234,000.

The cost to develop and deliver the training program was approximately $50,000, so the return on investment (ROI) was over 400%. Quite an accomplishment – but it was not on their resume, not in their cover letter and not in their answer to my question, “tell me about yourself”. In this case it took almost an hour of hard questioning to uncover and quantify this significant accomplishment! Most hiring managers won’t work that hard, so you need to make it easy for them.

Stand Out From the Pack With Positive Achievements

At Flex Execs, we do our best to help candidates showcase their achievements in the best way possible! If you are exploring the possibility of expanding your horizons, let us help. Contact Flex Execs today.

Posted by Joseph on June 29, 2018

Management Best Practices

How to Manage Demand and Meet Your Goals with Reduced Resources

flex execs meet goals with reduced resources

When demand for products and services rise, maximizing the resources available to you becomes more important than ever. The key to your success in this kind of situation will require planning and sound strategy. It also means recognizing that working smarter rather than harder will see you through the challenges that lie ahead.

Business leaders have strong, positive forward-looking expectations for the second quarter of 2018, according to the RSM US Middle Market Business Index. Additionally, Flex Execs’ interim and full-time recruiting solutions help clients quickly fill positions on an interim or permanent basis to meet their management needs. Working towards these improving outlooks, how can you help your team maximize the resources available to you to meet your goals?

Develop a Strategic Vision for Accomplishing Goals

Communication among staff is a must if fluctuating demand schedules are to be met. This communication can take the form of in-person or on-line meetings coupled with calendar management, follow-up and prioritization. Whatever form it takes, integrating the communication plan into your structure is important. Good communication is the lifeblood of any relationship, whether business or personal. In business, it is communication that can anticipate peaks in demand. This, in turn, will decrease the likelihood that a crisis will develop when demand rises.

In planning for increases in demand, think creatively regarding ways to put staff to the best use possible. Airlines, retail outlets and small businesses regularly use cross training to allow for flexibility. By planning for the training ahead of need, staff is available when demand rises but resources remain constant. For example, at Flex Execs, part of our mission is to help you meet the personnel requirements that come with rising demand.

Constantly Evaluate Your Resources and Plan for Optimization

Improvement in process and resources takes feedback. Hear and truly listen to the ideas of others. Doing this will help you refine your own thoughts and develop the plans you will need to meet increases in demand. Another “plus” is that it may lead to ideas that will help reduce costs. In short, new ideas, may be as close as an active team meeting in which everyone is asked to bring his or her ideas regarding a chosen topic. By taking just this simple step, you may be able to find ways to expand personnel options, creatively expand capacity, or explore ways to share equipment with nearby businesses.

Strategy Helps Your Team Quickly Respond to Changing Circumstances

Longtime Apple executive Steve Jobs once said, “Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people.” We take that thought to heart. Flex Execs is here to be part of your team. Call us today.

Posted by Joseph on June 25, 2018

Career Advice

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Business Leaders

During our careers each of us has had many “supervisors,” but we would not call all of those individuals “leaders.” Leaders stand above the crowd and project a combination of many traits including enthusiasm, self-assurance and charisma.

George Washington was regarded as one of the most outstanding leaders in American history. According to author and researcher Richard C. Stazesky, Washington won accolades because he demonstrated leadership that was combined with an incorruptible character. What can business leaders learn from the first president of the United States?

1. Set Goals

When you set goals and manage yourself, you are building valuable leadership skills. Part of managing yourself is learning to respond to people and events in an appropriate way, all while avoiding the trap of being too reserved or inflexible. Washington was considered a “visionary leader” because he was skillful in designing and creating an organizational culture which made possible the attainment of his visions and ideas.

2. Adjust Your Strategy When Needed

Have a vision for success, but be prepared to adjust your strategies to capture emerging opportunities or tackle unexpected challenges. Adjusting strategy does not mean you have lost your vision; it means you will be flexible to adapt in order to achieve your vision.

3. Show Others Your Word is Your Bond

Develop trust by showing others you can be counted on to keep your promises and demonstrate loyalty. Washington’s soldiers and staff stayed with him during the most difficult of times because they believed in him and his ideas.

4. Know When to Listen

Great leaders have an innate sense of when to talk and when to listen. Leaders need to hear ideas in order to evaluate them. A staff that fears you will likely only tell you what they think you want to hear.

5. Let Your Leadership Demonstrate Your Character

Effective leaders take responsibility for their own mistakes, and they expect others to do the same. You can’t always be right, but you can always acknowledge what mistakes were made.

6. Put Brainstorming to Work

Encourage creativity and brainstorming. You have probably seen how often your ideas can be given new dimensions by getting the input of others. Put that knowledge to work for you. By doing so, you create lasting relationships as you build your networks.

7. Leaders Accomplish Goals – And Show Respect for Their Teams

Set goals and put them in writing, but recognize that the accomplishment of a goal must be accompanied by a respect for others. Washington knew that the use of unethical and disrespectful means to attain short-range goals could alienate others and prevent the attainment of long-range goals.

Your Vision and Our Team Can Work Together

As your career plans evolve to meet your visions of success, we are here to work with you. Building great teams means seeking out great fits for great business leaders. George Washington worked hard to build his leadership skills to build a nation. We’ll work hard to build your career to the next level. If you are looking for a new opportunity, contact the team at Flex Execs Management Solutions today.

Posted by Joseph on June 20, 2018