Guido

LinkedIn has become very convenient and effective platform for both Job-Seekers and Recruiters nowadays. Just with one post, professionals are getting numerous responses to their hiring requirements. Reference-sharing is yet another thing that’s helping and benefiting professionals all over the network. So here are some quick tips that will help that one post be more effective and get more responses.

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The aim is to create an easily searchable and helpful LinkedIn post.

1. Share important details 

For both Recruiters and Job Seekers, just writing ‘looking for job or candidate’ is not enough! Don’t miss out important information like profile / technology / position, experience, Location & contact info. Former info helps in quick screening of your profile whereas contact info like phone number and email ID makes you accessible and get you better response rate. Be accessible!

2. Use #tags

For people not in your network but looking for similar content as your post, be searchable by using #tags. Put #tags for important and specific keywords, technology and location. Then think of more obvious keywords like #Resume & #Hiring and include it in your post.
For e.g. If I very loosely search #.net #Ahmedabad – Do you think your post will appear in search results?

3. Reference - Sharing

While sharing post for references, again, just writing your friend is looking for job/candidate is not enough! To really help them, mention quick details of their profile and how they can be contacted by relevant people and opportunities. Some people simply tag their references in their posts. That works too! The whole process of viewers contacting you and you forwarding their details to your references is time-taking and creates dependency on your availability for them. So, Keep it simple!

Additional Profile Tip

• Consider Search Filters (Actively / Seeking)

To have your LinkedIn profile more easily searchable, consider LinkedIn search filters like title, location, industry, so on and make sure that your profile has enough of this relevant information that answers to various search inputs. You can also put words like Actively & Seeking in your title for better results.


With all these tips, make sure your post is not too lengthy. It should be short, quick to read and still provide most of required important information!

The ultimate purpose of these tips and your post is to make things easier, least time-taking & really helpful for those who you want to read it.

So that's all for this post today!

The purpose of this question is to quickly get to know you and establish whether you might be a good fit for the job. The interviewer does not want to know where you were born or the story of your childhood.

To best answer this question, you want to focus on your career-related abilities, achievements, and goals that are connected particularly to the job.

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Your first sentence should be an introduction to who you are professionally, an overview statement that shows off your strengths and gives a little sense of your personality too. This is not easy to do gracefully on the fly. It pays to prepare a bit in advance.

This question is an opportunity — an opening for you to set the tone of the job interview and emphasize the points that you most want this potential employer to know about you.

Don’t waste the opportunity by simply diving into a long recitation of your resume. This also isn’t the time to ramble on about hobbies and personal preferences. Instead, try a concise, enthusiastic response that summarizes your big-picture fit for the job.

Fundamentally, “Tell me about yourself” really boils down to “What do you want the interviewer to remember about you?” Answering this opening question effectively gives you the power to make a good first impression and structure the rest of the interview to your benefit.

• What are your primary selling points for this job? This could be number of years of experience in a particular industry or area of specialization. You might also highlight special training and technical skills here. Focus on the qualifications in the job description and how you meet and exceed the requirements.

• Why are you interested in this position right now? You can wrap up your answer by indicating why you are looking for a new challenge and why you feel this role is the best next step.

How to Prepare 

Before you ever go to an interview, you need to KNOW YOURSELF in terms of qualifications for the job and match for the company.

To know this, you should:
1. Carefully review the job description to note where you meet or exceed the requirements, and
2. Research the company, and
3. Identify, catalog, list, and review your expertise, strengths, and unique value, and
4. Practice, practice, practice so you sound natural and confident.

Then, you will be ready to put yourself in the employer’s shoes and emphasize what will make you stand out for the company and for the job.

Start with an overview sentence about who you are. Include what you consider your most impactful selling features. Imagine yourself as the product that the interviewer needs to be convinced to buy. Next, focus on personal qualities or skills that make you a good candidate, without listing them off. Follow that with relevant experience, training or technical skills, and how you meet or exceed the requirements of the position. Use the job description as your guide. You can finish off with a brief description of your current work situation and why this opportunity appeals to you.

Do’s:

• Outline the educational and career history which could be useful for the role

• Talk about the relevant skills and expertise you developed throughout your education and professional experience. And, you must also be able to support this part of your answer with measurable examples. 

• Mention achievements that relate to the position you are applying for

• Explain how the abilities and knowledge you gained can be leveraged to successfully satisfy the position’s requirements

• Discuss skills that fit the job duties. Explain how you gained these skills. Give examples and references.

• Talk about goals that show you are forward thinking

• Demonstrate that you want to build a stable career

• Describe what you are looking for in your next role and why this role appealed to you

• Mention and Explain how the company can help you achieve your goals

Don’ts:

• Reciting your resume: ell them something about yourself that a resume can’t. Go beyond the facts in your resume by highlighting why this path interested you. 

• Rambling or talking for too long: Keep your response clear and organized.

• Over-sharing: Stay away from overly personal responses or sharing interests or hobbies

• Anything negative: Avoid saying anything less than positive about former bosses, co-workers, or employers.

• Unprofessional behavior: Keep your language, demeanor, and stories safe for work.

Hiring managers want to know that you understand the rules of behavior in the workplace and that you have high ethical standards. Don’t share any anecdotes that demonstrate the opposite.

What gets Measured, gets Improved!

The quality of your life depends on the quality of activities you’re spending your time on. And so, tracking your time is the first step to begin with.

Image source: Designed by iconicbestiary / Freepik

Tracking the time benefits in following ways:

1.      It will bring awareness of exactly where your time is being spent

Tracking exposes how much of the time being spent is productive vs waste.

With time-tracking You will start to know exactly what activities you’ve spent your time on and for how long.

Time is a limited resource. If you don’t track it, there’s a high probability that you have no clue about how much time is wasted on non-essential activities. You might even be shocked when you find the truth.

Tracking time will help you to find where you spend much and can analyze backsliding area. You can take help of time tracking software to keep on records.

2.      It will demand you to define & prioritize your goals & actions

Many times, people are not having defined clear goals. They do not prioritize their tasks. Tracking your time and taking a closer look at how you spend it might help you, or even “force” you, clarify, define and prioritize your goals and course of actions.

3.      It will bring your attention to Non-essential activities and help you Eliminate them

You will start to see how you are spending time for low priority tasks. Since, Time is a crucial resource, time tracking will help to spend this resource very carefully. Bringing your attention to these non-essential and low priority tasks, it assists you to reduce or cut-out waste time.

4.      It will keep you aligned with goals

When you track how you spend your time, you’ll be able to see if you’re on the right track to accomplishing your goals.

5.      It will help You to identify your scopes of improvements

After knowing where your time has been spent, you can identify your areas of improvements. Simply compare the actual time you spend on each activity with what you think is the best amount for each.

The ones of which actual duration exceeds your ideal duration are your areas of improvements. This is where you waste your time. One thing that obviously falls into this category is idle time. Try to minimize your idle time whenever possible.

The same thing goes for activities of which duration is below your ideal duration. These are the activities in which you do not invest enough time.

6.      It will Improve Focus & You will be unlikely to get distracted

If you use a time tracker, you need to clearly state the purpose of the time you spend. When you have a clear purpose in mind, you will be unlikely to get distracted. You know exactly what you are doing right now.

Additionally, with time tracker, you know how much time you are spending on each task and if you are running behind. This helps you discover inefficiencies, so you can make changes to better allocate your time. This way it naturally guides you to prioritize tasks and it increases your ability to focus on task at hand.

7.      You will have a sense of Responsibility & Better Discipline

This is another benefit of time tracking which may not be obvious in the beginning. You realize it only after you use it. Time tracking gives you a sense of responsibility in using your time. Why? Because you must “report” your time usage. It is as if you must report your time usage to your boss, only in this case the boss is you.

When you start tracking your time, there will be a responsibility and when you spend longer than required on any task, you are answerable for all the inefficiencies.

8.      It will provide more accurate estimates

Tracking your work time allows you to compare your initial estimates with how long it really took to accomplish certain tasks. This will help you make the necessary adjustments for similar future tasks.

9.      It will monitor your time and help you plan it better

You can go further by planning your time for each activity in the beginning of the day or a night before. In this case, you set a specific amount of time for each activity and watch yourself not to spend more or less than the allocated time. Time tracker will monitor your progress throughout the day as well as will assist you to be active and achieve your goal within the deadline.

10. It will Provide statistics that will help enable accurate Predictions and Benchmarking at work

Tracking time will provide you the information and statistics about your time spent on your every action. Good historical data on actual time spent on each task will allow you to greatly improve your ability to estimate tasks and projects and adjust work rates. With this information in mind you can quickly create accurate predictions and internal benchmarks, which ensures maximum profitability for any job.

11. Makes you more confident

All in all, Time tracking ensures that your time is more productive and less waste. It makes you more confident about your estimation, planning & forecasting of your time. It empowers you to take charge and make required shifts to accomplish your goals.


So, take this first step today and see the results for yourself! Happy Time-tracking!

The 80-20 rule, or 'Pareto Principle', is based on the idea that a relatively small percentage of any cause (20%) creates most of the subsequent effects (80%).

This applies to pretty much everything related to what you do and in every area of your life.

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The Pareto principle is just that: a principle, a rule of thumb. It doesn't actually believe that 20% of customers produce 80% of your value on the dot. Your top 23% of clients could produce 80%, 60% or even 90% of results. The point of the principle is to realize that certain actions have outsize results, and by focusing on these and making time for the rest of your work afterward, you ensure you're getting the most done.

Vital few and trivial many / Law of the vital few

The 80/20 Rule means that in any set of things (workers, customers, etc.) a few (20 percent) are vital, and many (80 percent) are considered trivial. In Pareto's case, he found that roughly 20 percent of the people in his country dominated with 80 percent of the wealth. In Juran's initial work, he identified 20 percent of product defects causing 80 percent of product problems.  It’s well known by Project Managers that 20 percent of work (usually the first 10 percent and the last 10 percent) consume 80 percent of the time and resources. You can apply the 80/20 Rule to almost anything, from the science of management to the sciences of the physical world around us.

How Pareto’s Principle can Help

The value of the Pareto Principle is in reminding us to stay focused on the “20 percent that matters”. Those tasks in the 20 percent, very likely, will produce 80 percent of the results.  Thus, it’s critical to identify and focus on those things.

And When the fire drills surrounding the “crisis of the day” begin to eat up precious time, remind yourself of the critical 20 percent you need to focus on.  If anything in the list of activities and action items have to be left undone – be sure it isn’t listed in that critical 20 percent.

Furthermore, it’s not only important to do things right, but also to ensure you’re doing the right things.  Pareto's Principle should serve as a reminder to stay focused on investing 80 percent of the time and energy on the 20 percent of work that’s really important.  It’s not just important to “work hard” and “work smart”, but also to work smart on the right things.

How to Apply The 80-20 Rule - Action Exercises

The 80-20 Rule can be applied to work with some of the variations mentioned below:

• The best way is, as is so often, the simplest:

1.  On any given day, identify the tasks that most matter in your work.
2.  Do them with excellence.

         Think 80-20, act 20-80, and supercharge your time management at work!

• Write down all the broad categories of tasks you do at your job. You can make a little table that shows the number of hours spent at each category (say, 1 hr for E-mail, 1 hr for contacting clients, etc.) and on another column write down a value estimate for what percentage you believe it contributes to your productivity. Eliminate, simplify or delegate low %'s and focus on high %'s.

• HBR suggests writing down your top six priorities of the day—and then crossing out the bottom five. Work on the top one for 90-minutes first thing in the morning. Every time you're about to waste time on things like Twitter or checking email, write down what you are about to do (to stop you in your tracks).

• If you have trouble prioritizing your tasks, the Inc. business blog suggests another strategy:

When you make a "to do" list, prioritize each item by the amount of effort required (1 to 10, with 1 being the least amount of effort) and the potential positive results (1 to 10, with 10 being the highest impact.)

Now divide the potential results by the amount of effort to get a "priority" ranking. Do the items with the lowest resulting priority number first. Here's a simple example:

Task 1: Write report on trip meeting.
Effort=10, Result=2, Priority=5

Task 2: Prepare presentation for marketing.
Effort=4, Result=4, Priority=1

Task 3: Call current customer about referral.
Effort=1, Result=10, Priority=0.1

See your new priority-based order? You do Task 3 first, Task 2 second, and Task 1 last–if at all.

This way, you ensure you do those important low-effort tasks that make up 80% of your success.

Identify core of your work & distinguish the most valuable tasks.

Get the most important work done first!

The most important use of the 80/20 rule is defining the “core” of your job. What are the central actions and roles that make up your job? All jobs have a lot of daily to-dos and minor activities, but underneath it all are the central tasks that are most important — the things that cause problems for the company or the customer if they aren’t done. What are the few things that, done right, will mean you’re doing your job well? What does your boss look at when he thinks about the work you’re doing — what numbers matter most to him? What responsibilities? What about your clients and your coworkers?

Use the 80/20 rule to identify your core tasks and make sure you do them with excellence.

The most valuable tasks you can do each day are often the hardest and most complex. But the payoff and rewards for completing these tasks efficiently can be tremendous. For this reason, you must adamantly refuse to work on tasks in the bottom 80% while you still have tasks in the top 20% left to be done. Before you begin work, always ask yourself, “Is this task in the top 20% of my activities or in the bottom 80%?”

Finally, apply the principle to your own day: Is there a time of day you’re most effective? The one hour where you’re wide awake, most energized and undistracted? That’s the time to tackle your toughest, most valuable challenges. If you align the best 20% of your day with the top 20% of your list of work, you’ll get more done in that sprint than most accomplish in a 10-hour day.

Parkinson’s law & Batching

The 80/20 rule coupled with Parkinson's Law & Batching can reduce the amount of time spent on anything.

 1.  Completeness

• Ensure accurate titles
• Mention location
• Specify Industry
• Add Skills and competencies
• Use Relevant keywords

2.  Profile Photo

3.  Headline

4.  Summary

5.  Network

6.  Recommendations

7.  Activity

1.     More Responsibilities, More Learning

2.     Loads of Opportunities

•  Working at a startup will allow you to try on a lot of different hats, even that weird one that you didn’t think you would ever like but find out that you did. 
•  Founders and employees work together, so you get the opportunity to learn from the best.
• Lack of hierarchy means not everything a company needs done will have a dedicated person on-hand to do it. Employees work without supervision. They are provided opportunities to make smart decisions and take responsibility for the consequences. Therefore, the chance to steer progress motivates you to perform well.

3.     The Innovative Environment

4.     Pioneering mindset of Entrepreneurs

5.      You will be challenged but work will be recognized

6.     Lively work environment

7.     The Benefits & Perks 

8.     Work that matters