Author Archives: Neil Wadhwa

Why Employers Value “Soft” Skills More Than Ever Before

Employees with technical skills and targeted specialties are in high demand by companies of all sizes. With new and emerging technology, changing customer expectations, and an increasingly growing number of competitors that offer the same product or service with their own unique twist, employees are expected to know, and do, more than ever.

But employees looking for higher earning potential, and the desire to make a lasting impression with employers, need to turn back to a basic source: soft skills.

While having the ability to collaborate with teams seems straightforward, the dependence on technology, and communication/collaborating online, has caused a slight breakdown with effective communication skills.

“‘Soft skills’ refer to a cluster of personal qualities, habits, attitudes and social graces that make someone a good employee and compatible to work with,” outlines Kate Lorenz, author of Top 10 Soft Skills for Job Hunters. “Companies value soft skills because research suggests and experience shows that they can be just as important an indicator of job performance as hard skills.”

Employees who demonstrate an aptitude for soft skills, in addition to technical abilities, earn an average of 10% more than employees who excel in just one area. It’s just one of the many findings highlighted in a recent research paper by Catherine Weinberger of the Institute for Social, Behavioral and Economic Research at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and discussed by Katie Simon, author of Well-Rounded Workers: 2 Skills That Boost Earning Potential. Continue reading →

Watch for These 6 Red Flags Before Accepting a New Job

Neil Wadhwa

Much like a company waits until they find the right candidate before making a hire, you need to constantly re-evaluate job opportunities to ensure you work with a company that helps grow your personal and professional goals.

Every step of the way – from finding the job posting, to signing on the dotted line –gives you the chance to assess the opportunity and say “this isn’t for me,” or “I’d like to pursue this further.”

Pauline Millard, author of 8 Signs You Might Not Want to Take the Job, says that you should pay attention to, and evaluate, every red flag along the way to make certain that you don’t hastily accept a questionable job offer. Here are 6 warning signs to look out for before accepting a new job.

1. The Interview Questions Get Personal

Asking about your marital status, race, religion, and more, is off-limits. Not only are those questions illegal during an interview, but personal questions also disrespect all you have to bring to the table by focusing on irrelevant points, which don’t add to your qualifications.

“You’re there to talk about the job,” says Pauline, “not how you spent your weekend.”

In the same way that you shouldn’t badmouth your former employers, the hiring manger you’re interviewing with shouldn’t badmouth former company employees.

The interviewer can certainly be outgoing and friendly, but it goes too far when the questions become personal. Being asked if you socially drink is a step overboard, and sign of what’s to come should you work full-time with the company.

2. The Company’s Online Reviews are Discouraging

While Yelp is a useful tool that people can use to research local businesses, sites like Glassdoor are designed to perform a similar, more targeted, function – looking up the ratings and reviews of companies with job openings.

Employees use Glassdoor, and similar sites, to rate the companies they’ve worked for, and which you can browse to see the comments and feedback.

While you should take Glassdoor with a grain of salt – as vindictive employees may write some purposefully harmful reviews – be sure to check the date of each review to see whether these problems are recent or outdated, and look for recurring themes and concerns raised by employees.

If you receive a job offer and are still unsure if these concerns are warranted, try sending an inbox message directly to a former employee on LinkedIn to get some direct, and in depth, insight into the company and its culture.

3. The Company Has a High Turnover Rate

Looking at the LinkedIn company profile – or as noted above, browsing through Glassdoor – is an easy way to find out about the company turnover rate. If people stay with the company on an average of less than a year, it’s a sign your tenure with the company will be short and rocky if you accept a job offer from the company.

Finding out about the turnover rate during an interview is possible by asking a few subtle questions. Ask the hiring manager about his or her trajectory through the company, how the company hierarchy has changed throughout the years, and why the role you’re applying for is open, to gain insight into the turnover rate.

4. The Hiring Manager Badmouths Former Employees

In the same way that you shouldn’t badmouth your former employers, the hiring manger you’re interviewing with shouldn’t badmouth former company employees. Making discouraging remarks about former employees speaks poorly of the company and its character, and as is a glaring red flag for you to consider before accepting a position with the company. Continue reading →

Take These 5 Easy Steps Towards Positive Change

Neil Wadhwa

The road towards reaching personal goals or attaining positive change is difficult, and, at times, frustrating. It’s easier to keep things as they are rather than put in the time and effort needed to become a better person.

But settling for things as they are is the easy way out.

Don’t overwhelm yourself with too many adjustments at the same time. It’s great to be ambitious, but trying to change two or three things all at once can be stressful and difficult.

For entrepreneur Nick Crocker, lessons in personal change came early and often when he was building his first business. He spoke about useful techniques he learned to improve his personal life during TEDx Darwin, which Jessica Stillman, author, summarized in her article 10 Small Steps That’ll Help You Become the Best Version of Yourself.

Here are 5 easy steps you can follow to get on the path towards positive change.

1. Change Your Environment

Change begins with everyone and everything around you.

Take a look and see if there are people you spend time with that are generally negative and discouraging – and spend less time with them. It may be difficult at first, but when headed towards positive change, you need to be sure that the people around you aren’t going to distract you from your goals.

Tidy up your physical environment by cleaning your desk and cupboards of junk. Unnecessary clutter and weighs you down – start fresh on your way to reaching your goals in a clean, distraction-free environment.

2. Find Support

Positive change is easier to attain with encouraging and supportive people around you. If you want to get in better shape, but have trouble staying motived to get outside for a run, find a friend that will run with you and keep you on the right track (literally, and figuratively). Continue reading →

5 Culprits That Are Killing Your Creativity

Neil Wadhwa

You’re in the boardroom with your team, everyone is brainstorming ideas, and the whiteboard is turning into a work of erasable-marker art. But you’re reluctant to add creative input, even in a space designed to be free from judgment.

Andrew and Gaia Grant, authors of the book Who Killed Creativity: …And How Do We Get It Back, and the article The 7 Biggest Creativity Killers, think you might have a creativity killer watching over your shoulder, holding you back from reaching your true creative potential.

It’s time to put an end to these creativity killers. Here are the 5 main culprits, and how you can stop them.

Isolating yourself from different ideas and viewpoints will lead to you always taking the “safe” route.

Creativity Killer #1: Pessimism

It’s hard to be creative if you’re always thinking negatively.

Pessimism is an overall negative mindset in which you’re reluctant to build upon your creative ideas. Your creative pursuits may not have been successful in the past, and you assume they won’t be successful moving forward. Not only does it stifle your creativity, but along the way you also start to undermine the ideas of others.

Quick Fix: Start reframing negative experiences by focusing on what went right. Use positive language like “and” instead of “but”. Take up a new hobby and don’t stop until you’ve mastered it.

Creativity Killer #2: Fear

Pessimism’s cousin, fear, is a notorious creativity killer. Whereas pessimism is an overall negative outlook on new ideas, fear is built on anxieties and an unwillingness to take any form of risk. It removes your childlike instinct and quest to satisfy your curiosities by focusing on the uncertainties of an idea, rather than the potential benefits and positive outcomes.

Quick Fix: Embrace the fear as part of the creative process. Yes, failure is possible, and yes, failure will happen. But it happens to everyone, and should never be the roadblock that prevents you from pursuing your creative endeavours. Continue reading →

6 Productivity Tips That Have Stood the Test of Time

Neil Wadhwa

Life lessons are the most valuable when passed down from your parents or grandparents. “Sit up straight,” and “don’t put your elbows on the table” seemed simple at the time, but now echo in your ear during interviews and meetings.

For Demian Farnworth, author of 10 Productivity Tips from a Blue-Collar Genius, the lessons in productivity taught to him in the early 80’s from his grit and grind grandfather are still relevant to this very day.

Let’s take a look at 6 productivity tips that have held strong over the course of time.

1. Never Stop Learning

Demien’s grandfather knew how to, “operate a boiler, roof a house, frame a room, run plumbing, [and] rebuild cars.” Demien’s grandfather learned each new trade to always be able to provide for his 12 children, under any circumstance.

In 2014, the resources you can harness to learn new skills are endless, affordable, and can be done from the comfort of your own home. From the same computer (or mobile device) you’re reading this post on, you can open a new tab and learn to code, register for online courses, build a website, and more.

Continuous learning grants you the luxury of flexibility. Skills you learn in your free time can set you apart from the candidates during job interviews, present avenues for additional income, and make you more knowledgeable overall.

2. Rise Early

Wake up early to maximize the amount of time you have to get things done. Take the early hours of silence in your house or office to get tedious activities out of the way, such as replying to emails and working on assignments, or do what we discussed in the first point and take time in the morning to learn a new craft.

Instead of focusing on the end goal, set milestones for yourself. Work on small portion everyday and after a few days you’ll hit your first milestone.

3. Keep a Refined “To-Do” List.

At any given moment, you’re juggling a list that may include work responsibilities, volunteering, school, hobbies, and maintaining personal and professional relationships. It’s a lot to handle.

Being too ambitious with your daily or weekly goals will cause burnout. With a lot to manage, you’ll wear yourself thin – finishing all you wanted, but at a level not up to par if you had the time you really needed.

Stay focused and keep a short, concise to-do list. A simple to-do list means you can wake up and get started instantly, no decisions to make or worries about overworking yourself. Continue reading →

Creative Thinking: An Award-Winning Musician’s 4 Keys

Neil Wadhwa

It’s a challenge producing creative content that audiences want to engage with at a time when people are swamped with messaging everywhere they look.

Like marketers, producing creative content for targeted audiences is the core responsibility for musicians. One such musician is R&B singer John Legend, who has picked up a few lessons throughout his 13 year career on how to constantly improve creativity. And his results show it, having recently scored his first chart-topper with the song “All of Me.”

By building a large library of ideas at the start, and refining them later, you give yourself more choices to pick from, as well as full quality control over your ideas as you move along.

He recently shared his keys to creativity during Interact 2014, Oracle’s Marketing Cloud Conference, which have been summarized in the article John Legend’s 5 Tips To Marketers For Improving Creativityby author John Ellett. Let’s take a quick look at John Legend’s tips below.

Be a Great Collaborator

Collaborating opens up paths and ideas you wouldn’t have explored on your own, pushing aside any preconceived notions you have along the way. Collaborating also introduces you to people with specific expertise on varying subjects, allowing you to watch and learn from the best during the collaborative process.

Sometimes, collaborations between musicians lead to… interesting results.

Get Things Done

Waiting around for inspiration can take a while. While you should always be open to inspiration, you also need to be intentional with your time and get things done. If you want to write a short story, put pencil to paper and let your ideas flow.

This isn’t to say you shouldn’t be inspired, but waiting until you always “feel inspired” to start a project or creative idea isn’t a productive approach. Continue reading →

How to Become a Productivity Ninja by Doing Less

Neil Wadhwa

How many items are on your to-do list for the day? If you’re often overwhelmed by the amount of tasks you have, or have to rush to complete them, you may be doing more work than necessary.

Sometimes, the easiest path to productivity is to simply do less. In the article The Best Productivity Trick of All: Do Less, author Alex Cavoulacos explains that knowing what not to do can have a significant impact on your productivity. Next time you’re planning your week, keep these 5 questions in mind to become a productivity ninja:

Clean out your inbox and archive anything old and irrelevant. Unsubscribe to newsletters that you never check.

1. Are Those Meetings Required?

Meetings are often scheduled on an ad-hoc or recurring basis even when they’re not required. Take a look at your schedule and see how many meetings can be replaced with a simple email. For the meetings you end up keeping, see if they can be restructured to increase their overall effectiveness, such as shortening meeting length and sticking to a hard schedule.

For meetings you’re invited to, ask the organizer if your presence will be missed if you don’t attend. Colleagues will often invite you to meetings without asking your permission first – don’t be afraid to decline. You can easily say no if the meeting isn’t critical to your job.

2. Do You Say No?

Much like declining a meeting invite, people are often reluctant to say no to taking on projects, assignments, tasks, and even team lunches. If you’re feeling overworked and notice your productivity lagging, go through your schedule and see how many times you’ve said yes to a request. If it looks like you say yes to a majority of invites, it’s time to start saying no if it isn’t a critical request.

3. Is the Task Necessary?

Continue reading →

4 Tips to Reconnect with Old Contacts

Neil Wadhwa

You’ve amassed a long list of contacts from your time spent at varying jobs, networking events, and volunteer groups. It’s understandably hard to keep up with everyone along the way; overtime, the majority of your network may become comprised of contacts you haven’t spoken to in years.

But when the situation arises where it’s beneficial for you to reach out to an old contact, how you reach out can be just as important as whom you reach out to.

Sara McCord, author of How to (Non-Awkwardly) Reach Out to Old Contacts, explains that reaching out to old contacts the right way can be the difference between getting a reply back, or getting ignored. Here are 4 ways to properly reconnect with old contacts:

A retweet, “like,” or comment, is an effortless way to keep the relationship “warm,” and makes it easier to connect for a quick lunch or meeting down the line.

1. Be Specific With Your Request

Be as specific with your request as possible when reconnecting with someone who has advised you in the past.

Instead of leaving your requests too open-ended (“I could use some advice”), be granular and include examples. If your manager from 5 years ago gave great presentations and you’re looking for tips on how to do the same, include specific details about what made the presentations so memorable, and areas you’re looking to improve upon. A clear and concise message removes any uncertainty your contact may have with fulfilling your request.

2. Reference Tangible Memories

Most people looking to reconnect with old contacts are trying to reach out to someone who hasn’t advised them in the past. Asking for help from a contact for the first time can add a new dimension to the relationship; you’ve never asked this person for a favour, and he or she may not even remember the details of your relationship properly.

Instead of trying to oversell (“I miss you!”) or undersell the relationship (“I’m not sure if you remember me, but…”), use a tangle memory in your message. If you worked on the same project at one point, took a class together, or were introduced by a mutual friend at a dinner party, mention this in your message. Finding a shared memory helps your contact remember the details of your relationship, and is more likely to respond and help as a result. Continue reading →

Powerful Tip for Positive Thinking During your Job Search

Neil Wadhwa

Searching for a job is a full time job. Every new cover letter is another mountain to climb. Every new Taleo profile to create is another ocean to cross. It’s easy to get discouraged even for the biggest of optimists.

But Lily Zhang, career counselor and author of The Simple Trick That Will Make Your Job Search Way Less Painful, has a message for any job seeker stuck in the grooves of despair: focus on the things that have been working for you, and that are in your control.

Celebrate the little victories along the way in order to remain optimistic and encouraged.

Lily has found her clients are able to bounce back on track by following that one quick trick.

Next time the job search has you feeling discouraged, write down all the things you’ve been doing right:

Have you reached out to people in your network?

Are you actively attending networking events?

Has a side project helped you realize what you’re truly passionate about?

Have you been thorough with conducing company research before your interviews?

Continue reading →

5 Body Language Tips to Master for Career Success

Neil Wadhwa

Is the nervous pacing before a client meeting a reflection of a lack of confidence, or the cause of a lack of confidence?

According to Christian Jarrett, author of The 4 Ways You Can Use Body Language To Influence Success, it’s the latter – levels of emotion and confidence are often determined by your body language. Fortunately, you can use this to your advantage.

Not only will deliberately smiling help you access positive memories, smiling will actually make you feel happy.

Learning how to harness your body language into positive energy will give you an upper hand in presentations, negotiations, and client meetings. Let’s take a look at a few ways body language can be used to influence workplace success.

1. Understand the “Power Posture”

The “power posture” boasts confidence-boosting effects from the name alone. It involves opening your body and filling more space (and the more space you manage to take up, the more “powerful” the posture is).

What are the power posture benefits? Studies have shown an increase in testosterone, pain tolerance, and risk taking, all follow a power pose. A recent study conducted by Harvard University showed that students performed better during job interviews if they spent just two minutes in power poses beforehand in preparation.

Power pose examples include clenching your hands behind your head and putting your feet up on your desk, the “star-shape,” where you spread your arms and legs out wide, or simply standing with your legs shoulder width apart and your hands on your hips.

2. Use Gestures While Speaking

Gesturing while speaking is more than an idiosyncrasy – it can actually assist with your mental processes. Gesturing lets you visualize important information, allowing you to free up memory to better comprehend problems and produce stronger results.

A study by Susan Goldin-Meadow, professor at the University of Chicago, confirmed these findings in a recent study. Subjects who gestured were able to solve math problems and simultaneously remember a string of characters, as opposed to subjects who couldn’t gesture and struggled with the same exercise.

Gesturing also leaves a strong impression with those you’re speaking or presenting to. Gesturing is used to emphasize what you’re saying – as long as the gestures are not out of control – and audiences take this as a sign of competence and knowledge. Continue reading →