June 2016 TEN Newsletter

Hi TEN Members,

Over the past few months, we decided to explore some useful tips and techniques designed to help improve your interview experience.  Some of these newsletter topics included:

• “The 3 Questions That Matter Most When Interviewing For A Job“
• “Don’t Be Afraid To Ask These 5 Tough Questions In A Job Interview“
• “10 Good Ways to ‘Tell Me About Yourself‘”
• “17 Tips to Ace Your Next Phone Interview“
• “Nobody Hires Between Thanksgiving and New Year…Right?“
• “New Job for the New Year: How to make it happen“
• “Top 10 Interview Mistakes“
• “Tips for Successful Video Interviewing“
• “Tips to Improve Interaction Among the Generations“

If you didn’t get a chance to review any of these articles, or if you would like to review them again, please click on the links above.

Below our job openings section is this month’s featured article “Eight Career Skills You Need To Be Competitive In 2016”.

For access to the entire article, please see the citations section near the end of this newsletter.  As always, we hope you enjoy reading the article below as much as we did.

Job Openings

 

Visit our candidate portal where you can search, view and apply for our latest jobs AND connect with us on FaceBook at http://www.facebook.com/enamix to see ongoing discussions and jobs that come up between newsletters. Here are our latest job openings:

• DevOps – Irvine, CA – SALARY DOE
• .NET Consultant (4 openings) – West Los Angeles, CA – 6 to 9 month contract / ongoing – RATE DOE
• Sr. Programmer Analyst – Transportation – Long Beach, CA – up to $100k+ DOE
• Full Stack Java Developer (3 openings) – Irvine, CA – up to $120k
• Sr. BSA – San Diego, CA – up to $105k
• Technical Services Consultant – Laguna Hills, CA – up to $120k+ DOE
• Technical Recruiter – Irvine, CA – up to $100k+ DOE
• Support Desk Supervisor – Anaheim, CA – Contract – RATE DOE
• Business Developer/Account Manager – Irvine, CA – $150k+ DOE
• Solution Architect – Irvine, CA – SALARY DOE
• Account Development Specialist – West Hollywood, CA – SALARY DOE
• Sales Director-SEM/SEO – Orange, CA – SALARY DOE
• Sales/Account Manager- Technical Staffing- Santa Clara, CA – SALARY DOE
• Sr. Product Manager/Director, Unified Communications – LAX Area, CA – up to $165k DOE
• .NET Application Developer – Brea, CA – up to $120k DOE
• .NET Developer-Specialist – Brea, CA – up to $105k DOE
• Senior SalesForce Developer – Brea, CA – up to $120k DOE
• Enterprise Application Adminstrator/Junior DBA – Ontario, CA – up to $110k+ DOE
• Helpdesk Supervisor – Portland, OR and Ontario, CA – SALARY DOE, also open to CTH – RATE DOE
• Helpdesk Support – Ontario, CA – up to $65k DOE
• Senior IT Security Analyst – Ontario, CA – up to $125k DOE
• Network Technician – Scottsdale, AZ – up to $60k DOE

 

Eight Career Skills You Need To Be Competitive In 2016

 

By Stephanie Vozza | January 13, 2016

Good help is hard to find. At least that’s what one-third of hiring managers say, and the talent shortage isn’t just in technical fields. Good sales reps, managers, executives, and financial professionals are among the most difficult to find, according to a 2015 survey by Manpower Group.

Sought-after people have a good mix of hard and soft skills, and those skills are always changing because today’s business climate is in constant flux. If you’re looking to get hired, hire someone new, or grow your company, here are eight skills that will help you do it in 2016:

1. The Ability to Manage A Diverse Environment

With four generations of employees in the workplace, an ability to understand and manage diversity is increasingly important, says workplace consultant Stan Kimer.

“People from different generations in general have different views of the workplace, motivations, and communication preferences,” he says. “Managers need to use different management and communications styles for each employee.”

Having a strategy to leverage diversity will give a company a competitive advantage. They’ll be able to recruit the best talent from the widest pool of candidates, motivate and retain top employees who feel a part of the team, and develop the best solutions to business issues by starting with a diverse set of ideas and input, says Kimer.

2. Knowledge of Other Cultures

CEOs name cultural competence as one of the most critical leadership skills, according to a recent DDI survey, but managers rank working with people from different cultures as their weakest skill, says Paula Caligiuri, professor of international business and strategy at Northeastern University.

“The disconnect poses an opportunity for those who can demonstrate cultural agility in 2016,” she says, adding that the skill includes tolerance of ambiguity, perspective taking, resilience, and humility.

“Culturally agile professionals are not necessarily those with the greatest number of frequent flyer miles or passport stamps,” she says. “Developing cultural agility is more of an active process requiring social learning in a novel context with opportunities to practice new culturally appropriate behaviors, make some mistakes, receive feedback, and question one’s own assumptions.”

3. A Global Mind-set

An ability to work with diverse cultures also helps companies compete as they conduct business in other countries. In today’s business climate, it’s increasingly crucial to have an understanding of the political and societal impacts on business across multiple countries.

“Almost any company can do business worldwide and employ talent all over the globe,” says Kimer. “The fastest-growing economies are in Asia and South America, and a key skill will be knowing how to market, sell, and communicate in these global markets.”

4. Effective Conflict Resolution

Companies are placing an increasing emphasis on team members who can work well with others, address issues as they arise, and mitigate major conflicts, says Nihal Parthasarathi, CEO and cofounder of the learning opportunity website CourseHorse.

“Also in this bucket are soft skills, such as ‘nonviolent communication,’ the art of finding the right words to voice your conflict,” he says. “This is critical and often dictates a hire/no-hire [decision] for us.”

5. A Willingness To Learn

Another skill needed to be successful is flexibility and openness to learning something new, says Karen Southall Watts, author of Messenger: The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Communication.

“Gone are the days when a professional in any field could consider their education done and over,” she says. Instead, you must be willing to learn and accept that you will always be adding new skills.

“Specific skills like how to use particular software or equipment can be taught relatively easily when you’ve got an open and ready learner with solid reading, listening, and thinking ability,” she says.

6. The Ability To Successfully Outsource

One-third of the U.S. workforce is freelance, and sites like Upwork have 10 million independent contractors doing more than $1 billion of work each year, says innovation consultant Jane Young. But companies need to be able to effectively hire and manage outside talent.

“The primary skill required for successfully outsourcing a task or project is the ability to describe what you want clearly and concisely,” she says. “It’s important to bear in mind that English may not be the freelancer’s first language, so articulating your requirements simply, with examples where possible, will help avoid any misunderstandings, delays, and disappointments.”

Consider splitting the project into stages, providing checkpoints, suggests Young. “The more checkpoints you build into any freelance project, the sooner you’ll pick up potential problems, giving you the opportunity to adjust course,” she says.

7. Strong Communication Skills

As technical skills continue to be in high demand, an ability to pair them with communication skills will be critical to advancing your career, says Daniel Alexander Usera, career consultant and professor at Arkansas State University.

“A lot of times degree programs and employers focus on the hard skills, but then end up with employees who do not know how to work with other people or can’t communicate a complex thought in an effective manner,” he says. “Although STEM degrees will continue to be in high demand, those skills are not as impactful if the person can’t function in a team-based, information-sharing context.”

8. An Understanding Of Analytics

Analytics are relevant to all facets of your business and career, and to get ahead, you will need to be able to read and understand them, says Ken Bodnar, chief technology officer of the online auto auction Selectbidder.com.

Analytics can help target a larger customer base by analyzing the demographic of your current customer. They help support projections, and they can increase revenue stream by offering areas to exploit disruptive uses for your products and services.

Your eNamix Strategic Staffing Team

© eNamix 2016 | 15707 Rockfield Blvd., Suite 150 | Irvine, CA 92618 | 949.916.9810

Citations

http://www.fastcompany.com/3055352/the-future-of-work/eight-career-skills-you-need-to-be-competitive-in-2016/2