Sorting through a large pool of candidates for one job opening can be exhaustive for hiring managers. It’s easy to just skim over resumes and latch onto familiar industry terms or verbiage that perfectly aligns with the role you’re hiring for. But when you sift through your list of candidates, try to look past what they’ve already done and towards what they are capable of achieving instead. Too often, hiring managers find themselves paying more attention to the prior achievements that candidates outline on their resume or cover letters. In doing this, they miss out on opportunities to connect with applicants from a more dynamic background; ones that can add value to their organization.

At Nexxt we surveyed our job seeker audience in May 2020 to understand how they were initiating or continuing on their job search journey and we have recently polled our job seeker audience again to understand how the job search job continues to change.

With the priorities of companies, employees, and job seekers changing so rapidly, we wanted to go back to the source to understand how job seekers are searching for jobs at the moment.

My first job out of college was at a startup. We had a carnival style popcorn maker in the kitchen, a fire pole connecting the 1^st and 2^nd floor, kegs on Fridays, yoga classes every Tuesday and Thursday, and a softball team, and if you’re thinking, “Wow none of this can happen right now!”—you’re not wrong.

Shared food? Germs.

Fire pole with a bunch of hands? Ew.

Close spaces with a lot of people exhaling while “finding their breath”? NOPE.

We know our employees spend 40+ hours a week in their home away from home aka at work, and we know that the more they enjoy the time they spend working with us, the more productive time we get from them. But now, we can’t provide the same environment, and we can’t provide the same perks. Sorry team, we’re going to have to get creative and come up with some new incentives.

My office knows me as the open-air office evangelist. I saw our group go from a team-derived clique system to a cohesive family unit over the first month we acclimated to our open-air office, after years of being in cubes, separated by department. It was the eavesdropper in me, I couldn’t help myself but involve myself in conversations being had in front of my face, and that, in turn, became team synergy, camaraderie, and a fair amount of heckling.

I do miss the heckling, to be honest, but we’ve all been rightfully grateful to have the ability to stay healthy and keep working apart these past few months. As states move from yellow to green, and from phase to phase, we are starting to think about how the office will change—and what, if anything, can stay the same?

While we are working from home week in and week out, the lines between personal and professional time blur together like the days of the week. In the last few weeks, I’ve found myself thinking “Oh great it’s Monday” only, surprise! it’s actually Thursday! (this has happened more than once). I find myself logging in earlier, and sending emails later, and checking my inbox when I’m walking the dog, reading the chats from my Microsoft Teams app on my phone while making a meal, and overall just obsessing about work way more than I should.

Now, like most Americans, I have nowhere to be at the moment. The only place I can be is home. But after overthinking if I should ask for a day off while simultaneously thinking about what I would even do with the time, I logged 8 hours of paid time off (PTO). Let me tell you, dear reader, it was a well allocated resource, and I hope I can inspire you to put your time off to good use too.

The modern-day workplace requires a lot of flexibility. Employees want more than a regular paycheck. They want to have autonomy, work-life balance, make meaningful contributions through their job and, most importantly, they want company trust.

Running a high-trust company means leaders are respectful, reliable, flexible, communicative and authentic with their employees. They understand and highlight individual strengths, challenge and encourage employees, and know that their team is qualified to complete the job.

If your company is such a great place to work, then why does talent sourcing continue to be an ongoing challenge? In a job market that was just flipped upside down—went from hard to source talent to not so much, but it could easily change again, and regardless of the job market, sourcing talent should never end. Technology and generational factors all play a part in attracting—and retaining—talent at your organization. Here are some possible recruiting blind spots your team may not be aware of.

With employees having to work from home these days, many companies are getting a taste of what it would be like to have a workforce that is completely remote. If you’re one of the many businesses that is considering such a transition, here are a few things to keep in mind!

I remember—way back in the 1990’s—watching Star Trek: Next Generation and thinking “Yeah, right! As if there’d ever be a time in the future when people regularly talk via video screen!” Boy, was I was wrong! It is now more normal than ever—and growing in popularity with every passing day. With the overall impact of COVID-19, many employers are utilizing video interviewing in their hiring process, and if you’re looking to hire someone—a virtual “face-to-face” interview is likely in your future.  While we haven’t reached the age of spaceships yet, there are plenty of ways to ensure that you get the most out of conducting a virtual interview.  Here are some helpful ways to harness this newfangled normal to your advantage!

Before we launch into what makes a good work from home space, I want to thank all of those working essential jobs who are keeping everyone who is staying home safe and fed. And yes, I’m at home, not sure what day it is, but I’m here, day in, day out, so I’d figured I’d talk about how to set up an effective work from home strategy.