You’re fresh out of college, Sum Cum Laude (or hey maybe just a 3.0) and you’ve graduated from one of the top schools in your field.
You’re even the President of a few clubs and and organizations on campus.
All looks right in the world for you until you read entry-level job ad after entry-level job ad that says the following:
“Two Years of Experience Needed”
What does that mean? Well… It means a few things:
1) This is non-negotiable. Sorry, there’s no getting no around this one. When a company says that they want you to have x amount of years under your belt then they really mean it. You can really be ambitious about your career but if a company says they need you to come equipped with two or three (or ten) years then it means that they know there are certain things that you can only get after x amount of years on the job.
2) Experience trumps education almost every time. Ever since the Griggs vs. Dukes case companies have been obligated to hold years of experience in equal measure to education but there is a key difference between Education and Experience. Experience is results-based while Education is theory-based. Experience says “what you’ve gone through” where eduction says “what you might do [because the books told me what I should do].” While education is always a great supplement to experience, often times the real world and the academic world don’t align. Employers want someone who has gone through a few things.
3) “Honestly, we don’t want to have to train you.” As one of my good friends likes to say once the point is driven home in a discussion: “And there it is.” Human Resources is shifting to “Human Capital” for several reasons but one of the main reasons, in my opinion, is that bringing individuals on to a company through recruitment has become more like the larger practice of mergers and acquisitions. What do I mean? Simply stated, companies [rightfully] feel like hiring is an investment and to insure the greatest return on investment, they want to hire people that can produce immediate returns and come “ready to work.” The cost of turnover is already high when replacing a terminated employee and training budgets were the first to go in the age of the recession. While the value of training and investing in a new employee can yield unforeseen benefits for the company, most organizations stick to people who have already done the work and have a track record of being pretty darn good at it.
“Tax experts say diligent record-keeping to keep track of expenses and pre-planning your job-hunt activities when you travel are key since you’ll need to prove your expenses were primarily job-search related if you — yikes — happen to be selected for an audit. Here’s a look at what you can deduct and how to keep track:
Career coaching: If you use a coach primarily to bolster your efforts to find a job in your field, the fees are deductible. That session you used to work on achieving balance in your life or to decide whether to switch careers, is not. Keep records and notes about each meeting and claim costs associated with sessions directly related to improving the outcome of your job search.
Travel and transportation: Did you drive to a job interview 50 miles away? Fly three states away and spend two nights in a hotel — on your own dime — for informational interviews? Deductible. For mileage (reimbursed at a rate of 50 cents per mile), write down the date, miles driven and job search-related purpose on the day you travel, advises Perlman. Guessing later can prove problematic. Airfare, hotel bills, and rental car costs associated with traveling for your search are deductible. So are meals on those trips. Log the date and purpose and save the receipts for those expenses. Do the same for tolls, parking and taxi trips related to your hunt. They’re deductible, too.
A word of caution: If you travel to Orlando with the primary purpose of two days worth of informational interviews, but your family flies joins you for two extra days at Disney, deductions are murky. Your roundtrip airfare is usually deductible, says Eva Rosenberg, an enrolled agent and the brains behind tax advice website TaxMama.com. Keep a log of your time and the expenses devoted to job-hunting; if the job search was the primary reason for the trip and not an afterthought, those are deductible.
Conferences: “Finding a job has to be your primary intent” to deduct expenses, says Perlman. If the main reason you attend a professional conference or trade show is to further your job search — maybe you know the networking events are famous for yielding job interviews later — your associated expenses (from conference fees to travel) are deductible, says Rosenberg. Keep a log of costs and how you spend your time in case you’re asked to prove your intent.
Networking events: Deductibility depends on why you attend. “It’s right on the borderline,” says Perlman. “There has to be some proximate connection between what you are doing and getting a job.” Rosenberg says that’s not as hard to prove as it might sound; there’s plenty of research about the importance of networking to a job search. Translation: The deduction survives an audit, if you keep a log and detail how attending relates to your search — or to a business purpose, which counts as a miscellaneous deduction.
Childcare expenses: Experts disagree on this one. But Rosenberg says if you keep clear records — a calendar that designates which hours you used a sitter for job-search related activities, like an interview or job fair — it’s a legitimate deductible expense.
Phone bills. You’ll need to show you incurred an extra expense, says Perlman. If you have a plan that allots you a certain number of minutes and charges you for extra time, those 30-minute calls to a recruiter or hour-long phone interviews might push you over the limit. Add up job-search related calls on statements where you incurred extra charges. You can deduct the overage related to the search, says Rosenberg.
The rest: Keep receipts for stamps; envelopes; copying charges and paper costs for printing your resume, cover letter or other materials for your job search; faxing costs at your local Kinko’s; cost of attending a job fair (that includes any entry fee or transportation expenses); and any other items you think might be related to your job search. A tax pro can tell you what counts, if you have the receipts.”
Source: http://blogs.reuters.com/reuters-money/2011/04/06/the-best-tax-deductions-for-job-seekers/
Straight from the IRS:
“Job Search Expenses
You can deduct certain expenses you have in looking for a new job in your present occupation, even if you do not get a new job. You cannot deduct these expenses if:
- You are looking for a job in a new occupation,
- There was a substantial break between the ending of your last job and your looking for a new one, or
- You are looking for a job for the first time.
Employment and outplacement agency fees. You can deduct employment and outplacement agency fees you pay in looking for a new job in your present occupation.
Employer pays you back. If, in a later year, your employer pays you back for employment agency fees, you must include the amount you receive in your gross income up to the amount of your tax benefit in the earlier year. See
Recoveries in Publication 525.
Employer pays the employment agency. If your employer pays the fees directly to the employment agency and you are not responsible for them, you do not include them in your gross income.
Travel and transportation expenses. If you travel to an area and, while there, you look for a new job in your present occupation, you may be able to deduct travel expenses to and from the area. You can deduct the travel expenses if the trip is primarily to look for a new job. The amount of time you spend on personal activity compared to the amount of time you spend in looking for work is important in determining whether the trip is primarily personal or is primarily to look for a new job.Even if you cannot deduct the travel expenses to and from an area, you can deduct the expenses of looking for a new job in your present occupation while in the area.
You can choose to use the standard mileage rate to figure your car expenses. The 2010 rate for business use of a vehicle is 50 cents per mile. See Publication 463 for more information on travel and car expenses.”
It is estimated that the cost of employee turnover can range from 40-400% of an employee’s annual salary. The total cost of turnover includes money, time and other hidden or “soft” costs, which when combined, are often much more substantial than expected. This post details the various components of the true cost of turnover, along with suggestions for keeping this large, elusive cost under control.
“Hard” Costs of Turnover
- Administration costs for leavers: exit interviews, payroll changes, etc.
- Covering a vacancy with temp-workers or overtime.
- Recruitment and selection costs: advertising the vacancy, reviewing applications, conducting interviews, etc.
- On-boarding new hires: induction, training, etc.
- Severance pay.
“Be cautious when you consider terminating an employee. If you aren’t, you could be writing and indefinite blank check and cashing it can be exponentially costly.” –
Joey V. Price, CEO of Jumpstart:HR
“Soft” Costs of Turnover
- Lost expertise.
- Missed deadlines and disruptions to workflow.
- Increased absenteeism due to stress.
- Decreased productivity or customer service.
- Reduced morale, which may cause remaining employees to express a desire to leave the organization.
The Cost of Turnover Often Goes Unrecognized
Unfortunately, many companies do not recognize the cost of turnover as a major problem. One survey found that less than half of organizations have a process in place to properly calculate turnover costs. Another issue is that the cost of turnover is often underestimated and deemed to be an “unavoidable” cost of doing business.
It is true that some degree of turnover is inevitable, and may even be advantageous: the goal should be to retain top talent while replacing low performers. Managers who are conscious of the rate and cost of turnover in their organizations are better positioned to control these costs.
Take Control of Turnover Costs in Your Organization
With 84% of employees planning to search for a new job in 2012, it is crucial that employers understand what causes employee turnover and how to lessen the blow.
A Harvard University study found that 80% of employee turnover stems from mistakes made during the hiring process. It’s all about prevention: don’t wait until your organization has a turnover crisis. Having an intelligent and informed hiring strategy is one of the best ways to prevent excessive turnover costs and avoid the Vicious Circle of Turnover.
Learning basic hiring strategy through an online MBA combined with real life experience is the best way to properly gauge potential employees. A back ground check alone might not be enough to determine the potential worth as an employee. Personality traits and the ability to interact socially can be key factors that help determine the worth of a person and whether they will be a valuable asset to your company.
Jumpstart:HR can help your organization find the right people for the right jobs and help them want to stay. We offer a variety of Recruitment Solutions to ensure that you hire people with the right skills and fit for your organization. We also offer Managed HR Services plans that identify the cost of turnover for your organization and pinpoint strategies to lower turnover and turnover related costs. Contact us today to get started!
“You get what you inspect, not what you expect”
– Business Proverb
We’re almost a quarter of the way into the year 2012 but it seems like only yesterday we were counting down the seconds until the New Year and lining up our goals for 2012 and beyond. Individually we made goals to lose weight or join more clubs and corporately we made goals to retain more professionals, get more bang for our buck in our corporate overhead and more.
If you’re like most people, you wrote your goals down or at least kept a mental note of them…
…but just how good can our goals be if we’re not measuring them? Is HR afraid of the scale?
Metrics, metrics, metrics. One of my favorite roles in HR Consulting is establishing and tracking HR Metrics. Measurements used to determine the value and effectiveness of HR strategies. Typically includes such items as cost per hire, turnover rates/costs, training and human capital ROI, labor /productivity rates and costs, benefit costs per employee, etc.
Metrics are the foundation for growth. If you don’t know where you are, how will you know what it takes to get where you are going? If you are driving from your town to the next major city, that experience is full of metrics. You’re measuring the time and distance that it takes with your GPS. You’re looking at your gas tank to see if you have enough gas. And you’re even probably going to take a bathroom break to make sure you don’t have to “go” before you get to your destination! Why is Business any different? We make goals but do not take inventory of statistical data that helps give us a clear picture of where we stand and what it takes to get where we want to be.
Fighting monsters in the dark. What happens when you drive for growth but do not take into account the metrics surrounding the move? It’s like boxing in the dark. Sure you may be able to identify some key general areas that will always improve as a result of changes but you can hardly know how effective your decisions are and that can be a time and financial drain. The best planning involves calculated investments of time and resources into the areas that matter most. Metrics help in this a great deal.
What are some common HR Metric formulas?:
| Metric | Formula |
| Absence rate | # days absent in month ÷ (average # of employees during a month x # of workdays) |
| Benefit or program costs per employee | total cost of employee benefit/program ÷ total # of employees |
| Benefits as a percent of salary | annual benefits cost ÷ annual salary |
| Compensation as a percent of total compensation | annual salary ÷ total compensation (salary + benefits + additional compensation) |
| Compensation or benefit revenue ratio | compensation or benefit cost ÷ revenue |
| Cost per hire | recruitment costs ÷ (compensation cost + benefits cost) |
| Engagement or satisfaction rating | percent of employees engaged or satisfied overall or with a given aspect of the workplace |
| Percent of performance goals met or exceeded | # of performance goals met or exceeded ÷ total # of performance goals |
| Percent receiving performance rating | # of employees rated under a given score or rating on their performance evaluation ÷ total # of employees |
| Revenue per employee | revenue ÷ total # of employees |
| Return on investment (ROI) | (total benefit – total costs) x 100 |
| Time to fill (average) | total days taken to fill a job ÷ number hired |
| Training/development hours | sum of total training hours ÷ total # of employees |
| Tenure | average # of years of service at the organization across all employees |
| Turnover (annual) | # of employees exiting the job during 12 month period ÷ average actual # of employees during the same period |
| Turnover costs | total costs of separation + vacancy + replacement + training |
| Utilization percent | total number of employees utilizing a program/service/benefit ÷ total number of employees eligible to utilize a program/service/benefit |
| Workers’ compensation cost per employee | total workers compensation cost for year ÷ average number of employees |
| Workers’ compensation incident rate | (number of injuries and/or illnesses per 100 full-time employees ∕ total hours worked by all employees during the calendar year) x 200,000 |
| Yield ratio | percentage of applicants from a recruitment source that make it to the next stage of the selection process |
Leadership Takeaway: Metrics are not to be used as a tool for micro-management but they are a tool to be used for effective leadership and guidance. Jumpstart:HR offers a unique year-long HR Outsourcing/Advising service to it’s costumers that allows us to chart metrics and for your organization and recommend growth strategies that are both measurable and cost-effective.
Human Resources Takeaway: HR is constantly asking to prove itself by the value added contributions that it brings to an organization. If you’re having trouble communicating your value to Senior Officials then it may be time to consider Jumpstart:HR as a trusted Strategic Partner. Work with us to define your specific HR goals and manage them in a long-term plan.
Professional Development: Dead-end jobs are found in organizations that don’t track metrics that a relevant to your career growth and development. When interviewing for a position, ask what kind of tools the organization uses to track staffing and career development. If your organization doesn’t do such things then it may be time to hire your own personal HR Department. Jumpstart:HR offers personal career development coaching sessions to help you get the most out of your career.
Today is Valentine’s Day but it’s not just for spending time with the one you love! Odd’s are you’re going to be spending most of your time at work – a place where most Americans devote 8.6 hours a day according to the U.S. Department of Labor. So while you’re checking online for last minute reservations and dinner ideas, why not take some time to reflect on some of the ways you can fall in love with your job.
Here are some of the best ways to reconnect with your career and reignite the passion:
- Try being grateful about having a job in the first place.
- Remember where you job that you came from – would you rather be there.
- Share the experience that you’ve gained with others through a mentoring relationship with a younger colleague or student.
- Eat lunch with a co-worker instead of at your desk.
- Go to the holiday party – and have fun!
- Give your colleagues written “thank you” letters for a job well done.
- Take initiative to solve a problem that’s been bugging the office for a long time.
- Connect with others in your profession… ask them why they are passionate about their job.
- Smile when speaking to a customer.
- Write down a list of your accomplishments in the last 30 days, 6 months and 1 year.
- Find a Career Mentor who can help add clarity to your purpose.
- Reflect on all of the ways that you have been able to help others as a result of being at your job.
- Realize that you’re there because you’re valued. If you weren’t you wouldn’t be there!
- Repeat items 1 through 13!
Did I miss something? What are some of the best ways to “fall in love” with your career?
Job seekers, Imagine this scenario:
You’re on the web and you come across your “dream job.” The job is just perfect for you but there’s just one important thing missing…
Your “qualifications.”
If you’ve ever been in that situation, I’m pretty sure you’ve heard one of two things after you applied for the job:
“Thank you for your application, however we have decided to go with someone more qualified at this time.”
or… “…silence… no response…”
The match for job seeker and employer is no different than any other relationship. The employer is looking for the “best fit” and if you don’t have the qualifications, it is not in your best interest to apply for the job and here’s why:
It makes you look bad. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve come across resumes for candidates who have expressed interest in a position but did not have the desired qualifications. No matter if you are an employed job seeker or an unemployed job seeker, job search is not a charity, it is a serious business decision. So, if you are not qualified then you have to understand that it’s nothing personal against you but you just do not meet the minimum expectations and HR may question why – after reading the job description – did you even seriously consider applying for the job.
You get really paranoid. Nothing invokes paranoia more than waiting on something you’re not qualified for. Why? Because on one hand you know you’re not qualified and on the other hand you are hoping feverishly that the employer thinks you are. That’s a recipe for disaster and high blood pressure. Increase your odds of actually establishing a connection by applying for jobs that you are qualified for and you may notice more call backs from employers who are looking for your skill set and background.
The odds are against you. Your unqualified resume in a pile of highly qualified resumes is just a small fish and a large pond of really large fish. We have this backwards psychology that goes into effect when we see a job that we’re not qualified for. It says “no one else is qualified for this either” or “this is perfect for me and no one else!” Unfortunately, those two things aren’t true and in fact the truth is the exact opposite. I can tell you from experience that recruiters who post jobs online have to go through a ton of resumes. Some good and mostly bad. If you want to stand out, apply for a job that you excel at and not one that is out of your range.
Leadership Takeaway: Culture begins with you. Teach your recruiters to source and interview only the best talent for the job. If you create a culture of greatness then it is very easy to spot and shy away from talent that cannot compete in your organization.
Human Resources Takeaway: Training your recruiters on the key skills to look for in qualified candidates will help ensure time isn’t wasted with candidates who do not fit what you are looking for. Utilize key automated screening tools that prevent job seekers who don’t qualify from even applying to the position.
Professional Development Takeaway: If you’re not a fit, that can be a good thing. Understand that by obtaining the desired qualifications, you can one day be qualified. Also, if you were to be hired for the position and you couldn’t keep up with it then you would be looking at possible termination or re-assignment. No one wants that. Take your time.
To see more job search strategies in my latest book “Never Miss the Mark: Career search strategies provided by HR Pros.“
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