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8 Reasons Why You Should Recruit Recent College Graduates

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StrategyDriven Talent Management Article |College Graduates|8 Reasons Why You Should Recruit Recent College GraduatesMost companies wrongly believe that they should recruit experienced candidates only. But the truth is that a talented college graduate can become a better employee, than an applicant with ten years’ experience.

If you doubt whether recent graduate can benefit your company, read this article. Here are eight reasons, which prove that if you hire a young, ambitious candidate, you will make the right choice.

Cheap labor force

Let’s be frank. A recent college graduate doesn’t expect to get as high salary as a professional with 20 years of experience under its belt. So if your company operate on a tight budget, don’t hesitate to hire a graduate. It will save you lots of money.

The truth is that new graduates deal with a Catch-22 situation. To get a job, they need experience. And to gain at least some experience, they need to land a job. And it’s very challenging for an inexperienced applicant to break this circle.

So it’s not a surprise that some recent college graduates are ready to work almost for free. They are interested in gaining experience more than earning money. Why don’t you take advantage of it?

Benefits and perks

If you run a small business, it’s highly likely that you can’t offer such benefits as health insurance and retirement plan to your employees. But it’s not a big deal when it comes to recruiting recent graduates. Graduates will not decline your offer just because you can’t pay for dental insurance and vision care.

The trick is that most young professionals have no concerns regarding their health and retirement. If you want to win their attention, you can offer such small bonuses such as free coffee and cookies.

But keep in mind that you should always be open and honest with the applicants. Don’t try to trick the naïve college graduates. If you don’t provide insurance or other perks, just state it clearly.

Ambitious

Recent graduates are ambitious and dedicated to work. And they tend to set high career goals. They are ready to work really hard to get promoted.

As a rule, young people don’t mind to stay at the office after 6 p.m. or work on weekends. They clearly understand that their theoretical knowledge is not enough to build an outstanding career.

So they work as hard as they can to gain more experience and to present their talents in the most favorable light. They dream of being noticed.

So if you are looking for a dedicated, hardworking employee, you know what to do. Hire a recent college graduate and provide him with opportunities to gain more experience.

Learn fast

Naturally, young graduates are the most effective learners. They are able to absorb new knowledge and master new skills much faster than others.

So if you are going to implement a new training program, or incorporate new sophisticated software, you need graduates in your team. They will learn everything fast and then will pass knowledge to other team members.

Does your company operate in the industry, where it’s crucial to apply innovative solutions as soon as they appear in the market? If yes, then it’s crucially important to invite new graduates to your team. They will help your current employees to adapt to a new system.

Business trips

Are you looking for an employee, who will be able to travel a lot? You can look no further than recent graduates. As a rule, they have no kids and no family. So they are not attached to the place.

If you need someone who will never complain about having ten business trips a month, hire a graduate. You can be sure that it will be the right choice.

As you know, most young people like to travel, so they will be happy to accept your job offer. However, you should never hide information about the frequency of business trips. Also, you should be ready to answer all the questions related to travel expenses.

Educate new leaders

Most corporations like to hire recent college graduates. They also offer plenty of internship programs. Do you know why?
Big companies don’t want to attract leaders from the outside. They prefer to grow their own leaders who know the company from the inside. They need someone who will not break the existing corporate culture but keep developing it.

If you want to achieve success in the long run, you should also try to grow leadership from within your company. To hit this goal, you should recruit recent college graduates and do the following:

  • Empower new employees through mentorship
  • Delegate as many tasks as possible
  • Be patient and don’t set too high expectations. A new employee will not turn to be a perfect leader overnight
    Grab the talents

A successful company is always about the right set of employees. The more talents you have in your team, the more likely your business will be profitable in the long run.

An effective talent acquisition strategy is a must in the following situations:

  • Your company operates in the following sectors: technologies, medicine, or financial management
  • Your company faces intense competition
  • Your company is growing fast

It’s important to understand that an applicant shouldn’t be experienced to be talented. If you believe that a young graduate has great potential, recruit him without having any doubts. Otherwise, your competitors will do it instead of you.
As you know, there is always a lack of true talents. So if you miss an opportunity to hire a brilliant college student today, you will regret that later.

Creativity

College graduates are able to take a new look at old problems, which exist in your company. They can help you to find a brand new solution and optimize major business processes.

The point is that inexperienced employees tend to see everything from another angle. They are curious about everything that is happening in the company.

Graduates are like superheroes. They have a super ability to spot the issues, which you haven’t been noticing for years.

Life experience

Also, you shouldn’t forget one important thing. If a college graduate doesn’t have work experience, it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have experience at all.

Let’s say your company is looking for a content marketer. One of the applicants is 23 years old girl Jessica. She has just graduated from college. Consequently, she has no working experience.

However, it’s known that she was a volunteer at found raising organization where she was responsible for managing social media accounts. Also, she had a freelance job – she was a moderator at college essay editing service reviews website.

Well, these skills and experience are not enough for taking a management job. But if you want to add “new blood” to your marketing team, Jessica will be a perfect fit.

Wrapping it up

As you can see, it’s not a bad idea to recruit college graduates. If you choose the right candidates, they will help you to take your company to the next level.

Don’t hesitate to invite young professionals to your team. Provide them with the opportunity of career growth and they will move your business up.

About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor | Daniela McVickerDaniela McVicker is a freelance writer, blogger, and a contributor to RatedByStudents. She graduated from Durham University and has an MA in psychological science. Her passion is traveling and finding ways to enrich students’ learning experience.

4 Ways to Improve Customer Care in Your Call Center

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StrategyDriven Customer Relationship Management Article |Customer Care|4 Ways to Improve Customer Care in Your Call Center If you’re managing a call center, customer care is the name of the game. You’ll undoubtedly have all kinds of targets to meet, and it’s in your interests to make every call a customer care success. How can you make this a reality? Sometimes, customer care is less about focusing on the caller, and more about investing energy in your staff. Here are four ideas on how to improve customer care in your call center.

Service with a smile

Did you know that a smile can be heard on the phone? Picking up the phone with a smile on your face can make your voice sound warmer and friendlier, and encourage the caller to trust you. This all happens subconsciously, without the customer really being aware! It’s a free, easy way to build a connection instantly. With a smile, you can set up in the right way even the most challenging of calls. Train your staff on this simple trick, and you could see customer satisfaction shoot up!

Celebrate your staff

If you want your staff to smile on the phone, you’ve got to give them plenty of reasons to beam off the phone, too. Working in a call center can be energetic, fast-paced, and fun. But it can also be draining and repetitive. Not to mention the exhaustion of dealing with angry customers. Keep spirits high by celebrating your staff regularly. This is how BPOs in the Philippines motivate their employees. They recognize employees achievements monthly, quarterly, and annually, and provide perks that they can enjoy. Your celebration could be as simple as some targeted praise after a perfect call that you overhear. Or you could create a reward system, perhaps where coworkers nominate each other, or based off a leaderboard related to departmental targets.

Create a positive environment

So much of excellent customer service comes down to brilliant representatives. But even if you hire the very best representatives available, if the environment is poor, they will either leave or become disengaged. The culture of the call center should be all about support and positivity. Then these elements will feed into the service provided. Remember, the culture is often dictated by what happens at the top. Think about how senior staff communicate and how they handle challenges. The team will look to them to set the tone for the entire department, so it’s vital they set a shining example. Positivity is everything.

Get the right tools

Making use of the latest tools like Knowledge base software could really boost your call center and make customer service a breeze. Artificial intelligence applications can make life easier for representatives as well as customers. You should also invest in analytics tools which will enable you to track and record statistics relating to calls and customer experience. This can be useful for training, appraisals, and rewards.

It might be possible for some of the processes within the department to be automated completely. For example, you can use RPA tools for real-time automation. This can improve productivity and allow for proactive staff training. Saving time and boosting productivity means benefits for you and your customers. You could even take the bold move of asking your staff what tools might help them better do their job.

Conclusion

Getting call center operations right can be extremely challenging. If you wish to outsource call center services as a business, read this comparison guide first.

How To Up Your Chances Of Success In Anything

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StrategyDriven Practices for Professionals Article |Success in Business|How To Up Your Chances Of Success In AnythingWhen you begin your journey into success, no matter what it is, your end goal is always to reach the pinnacle. Perfection is an impossible feat, but you have to strive for that – otherwise, what’s the point? For as long as you remember, you’ve always been told about following your dreams and making the most of life, but the pep talk always tends to be left at those clichéd soundbites. Many hear motivational speeches and shrug their shoulders because they’ve heard it all before, and it hasn’t made a difference to their lives at all.

The good thing is that success, especially in the business world, can be found by absolutely anyone. You don’t need to have anything special about you in order to hit heights that not many have before. Anyone who has ever managed to find success in their lives has been nothing other than your regular, typical person. We like to place them above us and treat them as though they’re extraordinary when they’re simply a human.

You want to be at the top. You want to be like those you see and read about. If you have any lingering doubts about whether you can align yourself with the best, don’t worry, you absolutely can. Let’s look at some ways you can increase your chances of skyrocketing the project(s) in your life.

Stick To Your Plan

You need to have a structured idea of how to do things. You need this because making things up as you go along will only get you so far. A plan acts as a roadmap for the future as well as a priceless piece of information to refer back to. When you forget a certain aspect, you can just look at the plan and refresh your memory.

Never Stop Learning

You may think that you’ve gotten everything you need stored in your noggin (especially when you’ve managed to find a reasonable amount of results), but there’s always more you can fit in there. Those at the top of the game always behave as though they’re just starting out when it comes to taking in information. There will always be somebody that knows a little more about a certain topic or niche than you.

Remember That You’ll Always Need Help

Much like how you’ll never know all there is to know, you’ll also not be able to do everything by yourself. Even if you’re in a group or you have employees handling stuff for you, you’ll no doubt still need to pick someone else’s brain or an extra pair of hands. Contacting an IT Support firm for tech issues, a freelancer for the nitty-gritty or someone super specific should always enter your mind when you’re at an impasse – or even if you’re not.

Make Sure It’s Something You Enjoy

You’ll always get better results when you’re enjoying the ride. Think of everything you’ve ever done that numbed your mind – you went slowly and couldn’t wait to get away from it, right? When you do stuff that you like, the extra motivation to get it done isn’t necessary as you’re already knee-deep into it naturally.

Cyber security fatigue: what is it and how can your business avoid it?

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StrategyDriven Risk Management Article |Cyber Security|Cyber security fatigue: what is it and how can your business avoid it?Cyber security fatigue occurs when people become overwhelmed by cyber security issues, to the point they start ignoring security best practice, treating threats less seriously, and missing important warning signs.

Unfortunately, it is still the case that humans are the weak link in cyber security – and cyber fatigue has a role to play in this. Most businesses understand that they need to provide their staff with cyber security training. Staff are, after all, an important line of defence. This is an important step in protecting against cyber fatigue, and there are others that are important too.

Cyber security fatigue can be highly damaging, as a poor cyber security culture can make businesses more vulnerable to attacks. Here are five ways to avoid cyber security fatigue.

Share the responsibilities for security

One of the most common reasons for cyber fatigue is a belief amongst employees that cyber security is the responsibility of the IT team. Cyber security is a company-wide responsibility that should be practiced from the boardroom down. If employees don’t see senior management upholding best practice, they won’t be inclined to follow.

Cyber security has become too broad for it to be left to be dealt with by a single department. Every member of your team has a role to play in helping to foster a strong security culture.

Consult with experts in cyber security

Too many organisations suffer cyber fatigue because they attempt to work with cyber technology that simply is not suitable for a business of their size – or they misunderstand the level of on-going management required for the technology to remain effective. Many security systems generate a huge number of alerts which then need to be investigated.

To help reduce cyber security fatigue, seek the advice of security experts like Apiiro before making new investments and, if required, to help manage and monitor systems. If you do not have this kind of expertise in-house then you should work with an outside agency who can provide advice, guidance, and assistance to ensure that you are making the right investments.

Provide regular training sessions

If staff are educated about good security practices but the information isn’t presented in the right way, it can lead to them feeling overwhelmed or uninterested. It is vital, then, to offer regular training sessions and to ensure that these sessions are relevant and engaging. Sessions can be ‘gamified’ and you could consider commissioning a simulated phishing assessment to see how employees respond to a real-life scenario.

It is also important to regularly review the content of these training sessions. Cybercrime is a fast-moving and evolving challenge with new issues arising all the time – your training sessions need to be up-to-date if they are going to be useful.

Regularly review your security tools and practices

“With threats continuing to grow in both volume and sophistication, performing a pentest to understand how an attacker might breach your business’ defences and the appropriate action needed to address the risk is an important part of effective cyber security.

Insecure network configurations, authentication problems, as well as flaws in application source code and logic, are just three in a long line of underlying vulnerabilities that could be exploited by criminal hackers. With your organisation’s attack surface continuing to grow, keeping out the bad guys is an uphill struggle.” Redscan, 2018 Computing Security Awards Winner

Cyber security challenges are constantly changing, with new risks evolving and others becoming less relevant. So, one of the most important ways to reduce cyber security fatigue is to know when to conduct the most relevant activities, and to ensure that your efforts remain effective.

You may also benefit from investing in new technologies that can minimise the risk of cyber fraud – reducing cyber fatigue by removing some possible attack surfaces. A great example of this is esignature software which allows for individuals to electronically sign documents, giving them authenticity and the protection of a full audit trail, making them harder to forge.

Learn from mistakes of other businesses

It is important for organisations to learn from the mistakes of others. Do not ignore reports of breaches in the news – these can be some of the most useful case studies. Should a new type of social engineering scam be reported, for instance, ensure you should train your staff about how to identify the warning signs.

When a type of attack is successful against a business then it likely to be repeated against others. This is why it is essential to raise awareness of the dangers.

Adjust Your Mindset and Become More Business Savvy Today

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StrategyDriven Professional Development Article |Business Savvy|Adjust Your Mindset and Become More Business Savvy TodayYou know better than anybody that getting distracted happens far too easily these days. We create such a busy schedule for ourselves that we become overwhelmed and overworked, so our productivity levels slow down dramatically. You want to learn to adjust your mindset and become more business savvy right now. Whether you’re focusing working well in a team or you want to expand upon a new business idea, there are so many ways to improve your focus. Consider some of the following techniques and you will soon be able to open your eyes to new methods of success.

Always Look Out for Opportunities

All savvy, business minded people will keep their eyes open for new opportunities whenever they can. It is not uncommon for something beneficial to pass you by, because you weren’t paying attention, so start being more alert. You might have been exposed to a business broker opportunity recently, but you didn’t take the time to learn about the benefits. Of course it is natural to want to focus on your own business goals, but you shouldn’t pass up any golden opportunity to make money and enhance your career.

Never Stop Learning

Being open minded and willing to learn will make you a great business person some day. Even the savviest and smartest of entrepreneurs are open to taking courses, attending events and reading new studies. You should never assume you know everything about your industry, especially when there are emerging competitors coming onto the scene every single day. You need to remain a fountain of knowledge and learn as much as you can about your trade. You will only be able to reach your full potential if you are open minded and willing to take on new information regularly.

Write Down Your Goals

If you want to enter the world of business one day, you need to understand your own goals. When you have the ability to focus on the task at hand and chase your dreams, you will be much more focused. Writing down your goals is the best way to create a tangible action plan that you will actually be able to stick to, so why not give it a go?

Take Advice From Others

It is so important to be a good listener when you run a business. Taking advice from other people can be invaluable, so always take the time to talk to experts from your industry. They will be able to give you a whole host of information you might not have known.

Being focused won’t come easily to everybody, especially when you already have a lot on your plate. It takes plenty of hard work and dedication to get to where you want to be in the business world, but that doesn’t mean you need to stress yourself out. It is quite easy to adjust your mindset and become more business savvy. All you need to do, is look around you and embrace the opportunities that are available. It might take time for these ideas to come into fruition, but you will see the benefits as time goes by.