Sunday, January 5, 2020

Metromile Company Award

Metromile Company Award Below is a post originally written by PowerToFly Partner Metromile, and published on October 26, 2018. Go to Metromiles page on PowerToFly to see their open positions and learn mora.More exciting news for us at Metromile this week ????Metromile has been named to this years CB Insights Fintech 250, a list of the most promising fintech companies.Thanks to CB Insights for including us on this list were in great company One of the biggest challenges in almost all industries today is achieving gender parity. Gender diversity provides huge benefits in the workplace. pWhile some industries have made significant advancements in gender diversity, some industries lag further behind... and the construction industry is well-known for being in the latter category. If someone says, construction workers, youll likely picture a group of men in yellow hard hats analyzing an architects plans or laying bricks on top of a scaffold. An d men at work signs only help to reinforce this image.pThis stereotype is rooted in reality. When was the last time you actually spotted a woman on a construction site? Or hired a female plumber or carpenter? Your answer is most likely never. In fact, the Bureau of Labor Statisticsreports that only 3.4% of the total of 8.3 million construction employees are women.pBut the construction industry has a lot more to offer than steel-toed boots and hard hats, and it needs women to help advance the industry in this era of rapid change. Here are 5 reasons why women joining the workforce or looking to make a pivot should consider a career in construction.h21. Fuel Innovation/h2pNot only is diversity the socially and morally right thing to do, but it is also actually an excellent geschftlicher umgang strategy. pResearch presented in the Harvard Business Reviewshows that diverse teams develop more innovative ideas. This is further supported by a study conducted by Gallupon the performance of g ender-diverse teams versus single-gender teams, which found that the difference in backgrounds and perspectives led to better business performance and problem-solving. h22. Capitalize on Demand/h2pThe construction industry is currently experiencing a labor shortage. The industry itself is booming and projected to be one of the fastest-growing industries, with total spending projected to exceed $1.45 trillion in 2023/a. However, most construction companies are unable to meet the rising demand. pAccording to the Associated General Contractors of America/a, more than 80% of contractors are experiencing difficulties filling hourly craft positions that represent the bulk of the construction workforce.pAnd demand isnt limited to individual contributor roles. Given the industry boom, there are a number of open stable and high-paying roles (any project managers out there?) waiting for the right candidateh23. Leadership Opportunities/h2pAccording to the Bureau of Labor Statistics/a, women co mpose only 7.7% of the total 1 million managerial positions in construction.br/pBut given the highly collaborative nature of construction work, more women in leadership roles would help drive innovation and enhance productivity.Furthermore, as a woman in construction in a leadership position, youd have the unique opportunity to drive change for the industry and make it a more attractive option for other women.h24. High-Income Potential/h2pSalaries for many skilled positions in construction are on the rise, making a construction career a prime choice for women looking for a high-paying job,pThe 2018 Construction Craft Salary Surveyconducted by the National Center for Construction Education and Research revealed that salaries for many skilled craft areas are increasing. Project managers and project supervisors topped the list at $92,523 and $88,355, respectively. The next set of highest-paying jobs include those of combo welders ($71,067), instrumentation technicians ($70,080), pipe w elders ($69,222), power line workers ($68,262) and industrial electricians ($67,269). Of the 32 categories of workers in the survey, 19 positions earned an average salary of $60,000 or higher.h25. Sense of accomplishment/h2p The construction industry can give employees a unique sense of achievement. Yes, the job is stressful and the work can be demanding, but nothing beats the feeling of being able to build something from the ground up. pHow many professionals in other industries can point at a school, a hospital, or a skyscraper and say I helped build that?pThe construction industry has a long way to go in combating gender bias and supporting women in the workforce, but given the current demand for workers, theres no better time to pick up a sledgehammer (figurative or literal) and smash the gender stereotypes plaguing the construction industry.

Wednesday, January 1, 2020

A Six-Step Hiring Strategy to Identify Soft Skills

A Six-Step Hiring Strategy to Identify Soft SkillsA Six-Step Hiring Strategy to Identify Soft SkillsA Six-Step Hiring Strategy to Identify Soft SkillsBy Bruce Tulgan, author of Bridging the Soft Skills Gap How to Teach the Missing Basics to Todays Young Talent(Wiley)Never forget, one very good hire is much better than three or four or five mediocre hires. No matter wherbeie you are on the skill spectrum, build in soft skills criteria systematically in every aspect of your staffing strategy and hiring processStep OneFor every single position, build a profile and job description that includes not just the key hard skills for that role, but also the key soft skills. Use our competency model to start your brainstorming, but make them your own.Once you identify the high priority soft skill behaviors for each position, name them yourself. Describe them in detail. Build those criteria into the basic job requirements in no uncertain terms from the very outset. Be prepared to turn away candid ates who do not meet behauptung soft skill criteria, just as you would turn away candidates without the necessary hard skills.Or, if you are forced to hire people without the required soft skills, make sure youhave a plan in place to address those soft skill gaps from the first day of employment, just as you would have a plan in place if you hired an employee without the necessary technical skills.Step TwoLook for talent from sources well known for the strong soft skills you need. If you are hiring out of schools and training programs, definitely find out which ones include soft skills in their standard curriculum.But dont wait for them to come to you. Be proactive about seeking candidates from those sources. Look for candidates If you can build relationships with key influencers in those sources teachers, career counselors, leaders, active members of organizations, military outplacement personnel, and so forth.Step ThreeInclude your high priority soft skills behaviors in your empl oyer branding and recruitment campaign messaging. Thats why its so important to name your high priority soft skills to have meaningful slogans to capture them.Remember, the goal of any recruiting campaign is to deliver a compelling message in reservierung to draw a sufficiently large applicant pool so that you can be very selective. Your goal is not necessarily to draw applicants who are all very smart and great team players but, at the very least, you want to draw applicants who aspire to be very smart and aspire to be great team players.You want to draw applicants who are looking for a job in which they can learn and grow and build themselves up. We call it a self-building job. You want to draw applicants for whom the idea of self-building is a big turn-on, not a turn-off.Step FourIn a tight labor market, the pressure to hire leads to hard-selling a job to a candidate, even if that person is not ideal for the job. In fact, so many employers are so starved for young talent that th ey just cant bear to turn potential employees away, even in the face of huge red flags.If someone comes late for the interview or falls asleep during the interview or has typos in his resume and timeliness, good health, or attention to detail are important soft skills for this job then those red flags are telling you,DONT HIRE THIS PERSONStep FiveBuild a selection process that places a heavy emphasis on high priority soft skills. Heres a shortcut Scare away young job candidates who only think they are serious by shining a bright light on all the downsides of the job.Whatever the worst, most difficult aspects of the job may be, start your selection process with vivid descriptions of those downsides. Then see which candidates are still interested in the job. They are the ones worth testing and interviewing.We recommend using research validated testing whenever possible to get a quick baseline reading of an applicants aptitude in key areas of the job, including high priority soft ski lls. Whatever test you settle on, just make sure you can implement and evaluate it with relative speed. And make sure you know in advance exactly what you are looking for.What are you testing for? If you need an employee who can write well, simply hand the applicant a piece of paper and ask him to write something. If you need an employee who can speak well, ask her to prepare a brief presentation and then present it. If you need an employee who can solve problems in spatial relations, give her a puzzle. If you need an employee who can solve math problems, give him some math problems to solve. If you need an employee who can be on time, schedule three interviews, at three different times. And so on. Of course, some soft skills are harder to test for than others.Then comes the job interview, the one employment selection process almost every manager does, but very few do well. When it comes to interviewing, the best practice is still the simple model of behavioral interviewing. Althoug h there are entire courses taught in behavioral interviewing, I often teach it to managers in my seminars in three minutes. Behavioral interviewing simply means asking applicantsto tell you a story and then listening carefully to the story.When you are doing behavioral interviewing, make sure to ask applicants, not only about their use of hard skills, but also their use of soft skills Tell me a story about a time you solved a problem at workor Tell me a story about a conflict you had with another employee at work. How did you solve it?Finally, consider one last stage of selection, we call the realistic job preview. This might be a probationary hiring period, or a prereal job internship, during which you can try out the employee and the employee can try out the job for a while. Make sure to assign the person real tasks that mirror the actual tasks, responsibilities,and projects he or she will be asked to do if he or she accepts the job. Make sure to include the grunt work.Another vor kaufsrecht is a period of job shadowing or tagging along with another person in your organization who is doing the same job this person will be doing if hired. This approach is sometimes used in hospitals.Step SixIf there is any lag time between the time an offer is made and accepted and day one of the actual job, take advantage of that time. Perhaps the employee needs to finish school or the employer must complete a security screening. Use the delay to keep sending the message about your high priority soft skill behaviors Send books or videos or other targeted learning materials. In every way you can, keep sending themessage that those soft skill behaviors really matter.From Bruce Tulgans new book, Bridging the Soft Skills Gap Teaching the Missing Basics to Todays Young Talent (Wiley/Jossey-Bass, September 2015.)Listen to a https//www.youtube.com/ Podcast with Bruce Tulgan The Importance of Soft SkillsAuthor BioBruce Tulgan is an adviser to business leaders all over the world and a sought-after keynote speaker and seminar leader. He is the founder and CEO ofRainmakerThinking, Inc., a management research and training firm, as well as RainmakerThinking.Training, an on-line training company. Bruce is the best-selling author of numerous books including The 27 Challenges Managers Face (2014), Not Everyone Gets a Trophy (2009), and Its Okay to be the Boss (2007). Follow him onTwitter brucetulgan.