When searching for a job in an economy of high unemployment, it’s critical that you craft a resume that stands out. It’s not that hard to do, especially when you keep in mind that your resume is a sales tool — you want an employer to be interested enough in your skills, background and education to call you in for an interview.

Here are some tips to help you write a resume that will help your application stand out from others.
1) Think like an employer. Remember that businesses don’t hire people just because they have some extra money lying around in their payroll account that they decide to spend. No. Employers hire employees for one reason only: to solve problems.

Some people are hired to solve the problem of how to make money (these usually are salespeople). Others are hired to resolve the challenge of keeping the office running smoothly (office managers, administrative assistants). Still others are hired to solve the problem of keeping the computers and networks running. And so on.

Show an employer how you can solve her problems. For example, an IT director will want to highlight accomplishments in his work history that show how he solved former employers’ IT challenges (providing leadership for the development and implementation of IT initiatives, etc.).

2) Forget a writing general resume that you send out to every job to which you apply. Tweak each resume to fit each job. Make it as easy as possible for  an employer to see how you fit; don’t make a hiring manager have to dig down into your resume to find that you do have the skills and background to do the job.

3) Do away with the “objective.” You know what we mean: that sentence at the top of a resume that usually says something such as “Seeking a project management position with leadership responsibilities including problem solving, planning, organizing and managing budgets.”

Instead, write an overview statement that highlights what makes you different. For example: “Construction executive with extensive experience in green and sustainable construction, project management, estimations, materials coordination, and profit and loss administration.”

Bring your resume to Bayside Solutions. We can help you craft a great resume while we help place you in some of the Bay area’s best construction, engineering, IT, green, manufacturing and engineering companies. We look forward to hearing from you.

It takes more than money to motivate employees. In fact. while money is important to employee morale — workers need to be paid fairly for the skills and talents they bring to your company — it’s not the most important motivator. Not by a long shot

In fact, the things that truly motivate people to do a good job at their place of employment pretty much have nothing to do with money at all. Instead, people want, in no particular order:

• the chance to learn new skills
• interesting work, with variety
• A culture where managers are open to feedback, positive or negative (the proverbial “open door”)
• Respect for the needs of their personal lives (“work-life balance” and possibly flexible work hours)
• Fairness at work
• Regular and proactive communication from management
• Leaders and managers who do what they say and say what they do
• Positive feedback and praise
• Requests for employee input and heeding that input where applicable
• The chance to be promoted
• Recognition and rewards for exceptional work

That said, here are some ideas as to how to motivate employees without increasing pay.

Don’t micro-manage. Trust your employees to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done in the manner it needs to be done. Delegate responsibility to those employees you feel are up to the task and then leave them be. Be available to them, of course, and set clear, identifiable deadlines and goals. Then step back and watch the magic happen!

Encourage and then encourage some more. If some employees doesn’t meet expectations, avoid criticizing. Instead, help find where the problem lies and help them find solutions to the challenges. If more training is needed, provide it.

Offer non-monetary incentives. An afternoon off at a local amusement for an entire department if goals are exceeded, for example. Lunch on the manager to an employee of the month. Extra paid days off. And so on.

Always, always, always show respect. Listen to what your employees tell you, even if it’s critical. If they have legitimate concerns, do your best to alleviate them or solve the problem of which they speak. Trust their judgment. You hired them, after all (you didn’t hire dolts, did you?).

Encourage a culture of openness, tolerance and respect among coworkers. Train your managers to be flexible in their interpersonal skills so that they’ll be able to get the best out of their individual employees.

Look to Bayside Solutions for help in sourcing motivated workers. As one of San Francisco’s premier staffing agencies, we know how to source and screen top employees for your firm. Contact us today; we look forward to serving you.

Business cycles ebb and flow, yet keeping a highly-paid professional employee on your payroll when things are slow may not be the best use of your company’s payroll dollars.

Instead, consider using professional temporary professionals — think attorneys, financial analysts, marketing directors, even CEOs — to help you when the good times roll, but you’re concerned they may last just a few weeks.

The use of high-level professional temporaries is showing considerable growth. An article on MSNBC.com in January reported that a large international staffing services firm placed “placed more than 100 people — including lawyers and scientists — in interim stints that paid more than $250,000 a year.” The article reported that a large executive staffing firm that its “roster of 1,000 executives has done jobs at companies like mobile-phone content provider Fox Mobile, health care company Healthways, and private equity firm Carlyle Group.” The executive staffing firm said that  “client demand rose 50 percent in 2009,” the MSNBC.com article stated.

So when you have a critical member of your executive or management team absent from your company due to resignation, maternity leave or illness — or even if you need an experienced project manager to get you through that bid you just won that requires completion in just three months, contact  Real Street Staffing for just-in-time executive, scientific, technical, project management, and other professional-level workers.

You don’t want to wait –  leaving such critical positions to remain empty can leave your company vulnerable, especially during crunch times.

Bringing a high-level temporary CEO, manager, scientist, project manager, UNIX administrator, etc. will help you stay the course while you search for a replacement for a departing executive. Some high-level temporaries also are looking for a regular position, so you both could try “each other out” while you work to fill the position. Other executive contract workers enjoy “temping” too much to go back to a regular position, but having one there in the interim can keep your company on an even keel while you search.

You’ll also be able to avoid costly mistakes. Too many companies take a nosedive in productivity, sales and profits when an important executive or management position is left empty. Workers begin to take it easy, projects get put on the backburner, and so on. Yet having someone around to lead a company, even if it’s only for a little while, can help keep your company moving in the right direction — forward.

Look to Bayside Solutions when you need help sourcing critical members of your executive or management teams. As one of San Francisco’s premier staffing agencies, we know how to source and screen top employees for your firm. Contact us today; we look forward to serving you.

Turnover happens. Whether your company is large or small or somewhere in between, employees leave. Some businesses experience a turnover that’s slow and steady, with employees leaving only because the commute is too long, there’s no room for advancement, their spouse has a terrific new job 200 miles away, etc.

But for some companies, employee turnover is almost a constant churn. This can be quite expensive, since the cost of hiring a new employee often can be at least 50 percent of a worker’s annual salary.

And that doesn’t even count the amount of money and/or productivity lost because the other employees must fill in and do some or all of the departed worker’s tasks until a replacement is found.

Here are some ideas to help cut down on employee turnover:

Are you paying your employees fairly? Are they receiving at or above the rate of pay other companies in your industry and geographical area pay their employees?

If you can’t raise salaries, try beefing up some other on-the-job benefits such as giving more vacation time, starting flex time and/or job sharing.  For those employees who do mostly desk work, think about starting a telecommuting program. Reward those employees with perfect attendance with one or more days off. Think about starting a job sharing program

Make sure you reward your employees for doing outstanding work. Be sure to acknowledge their accomplishments publicly. Merit pay can be a terrific way to keep good employees.

Promote from within. Strive to make sure every single position in your company has a place to which an employee may “move up;” don’t let any job be considered a “dead end.”

Seriously consider offering to pay a portion of continuing education expenses, particularly for college.

No matter how great a place your company is, you will experience turnover. To help fill in the skill gap while you search for departing employees’ replacements, look to Bayside Solutions to help. We can bring in terrific temporary employees for companies in the construction, manufacturing, green, scientific and other technical industries in the San Francisco area. Contact us today.

As the economy shows signs of improving, you may start thinking of bringing on additional regular employees.

Here are some tips to help you decide if it is indeed the “the right time to hire.”

People are getting “testy.” Overwork will do that to a team. Once calm and composed people can turn sullen and morose, even curt. If you start hearing that employees are increasingly becoming short — and even rude — to customers, or that they’re starting to miss deadlines, calling in sick more and more, etc. it may be time to add another employee or two to help lighten the load.

News of expansion or more clients  normally is happy news. But if you and your team hear of new sales that will bring increased revenue as well as extra demands and you and your team members express concern about meeting the increase in workload, it may be time to bring more employees on board.

You notice that even your best employees are missing deadlines and/or not performing at the normal high level. Work loads may have become so burdensome that deadlines that were expected even just a few months ago have become impossible to meet.

Is just about everyone staying late on a regular basis? It may be time to bring in more hands.

Are managers doing the work of their staff members — work they normally wouldn’t do — in addition to performing their own job functions?

It may not be necessary to hire full-time, regular employees onto your payroll. Bayside Solutions can provide San Francisco-area companies with skilled employees on a temporary, temp-to-hire or even direct-hire basis when business picks up. This will help you ascertain whether you need these employees temporarily or if it truly is time to bring new workers onto your payroll. Contact us today.

LinkedIn and other social professional/career networks can be powerful tools to use during a job search.

Of course, there are certain unwritten rules regarding how to comport yourself on these networks. Here is a short primer of do’s and don’ts to help you navigate them successfully.

First, remember — and remember it well! — that these are professional networks. You must always act in a mature manner. Never post messages with profanity, never call anyone an idiot, never lie. If you wouldn’t want your current — or future — boss to read what you say on a professional network, don’t put it there.

Echoing the don’t lie tip, don’t fudge your work experience or education. LinkedIn, for example, allows you to list your jobs and accomplishments as well as your educational background. It’s very easy today for a potential employer to find the truth about prospective workers. If you brag in your description about how you literally saved a company from going under and someone in your network sees that lie, he or she could out you in a very public and extremely humiliating way online, for everyone to see. Very bad for your career. Very bad.

LinkedIn allows you to “connect” to many former colleagues in your profile. If you’d like to approach someone in their networks, be sure to ask permission first. Explain why you’d like to contact the person (and be sure there’s a legitimate, professional reason to do so). If you do so, your connection very well may give his or her connections a “head’s up” — with praise about your background — that you’ll be e-mailing them shortly. Be sure to thank your connection for the introduction and be sure to let him or her know the results of the connection.

Don’t get huffy and send whiny e-mails if your connection either doesn’t respond to your request to an introduction or tells you he or she won’t introduce you to the connection. If you don’t hear anything back from either your connection or the person to whom you wished to be introduced, don’t hound anyone with e-mails or calls — there could be very valid reasons for a non-response. Constant e-mails and/or calls does nothing  but show that you’re a) desperate and/or b) immature.

In essence, look at LinkedIn and other online networking sites as virtual professional business meetings, the type where one exchanges business cards with other professionals. You’d conduct yourself in an extremely professional manner at these functions, wouldn’t you? You always should do the same online.

Network your way to a terrific Bay Area position with some of San Francisco’s best companies by connecting with BaySide Solutions. We can help place you in temporary, temp-to-hire and direct placement positions with some of San Francisco’s finest companies. We look forward to hearing from you.

We’ve all done it: hired someone who just turned out to be truly awful employee or, at the least, someone who never moved above mediocre.

Here are five common mistakes just about every hiring manager has committed, and tips on how to avoid them.

During an interview, stop talking! The point of an interview is to get to know the job candidate talking, not to hear the soothing sounds of your own voice. Listen 80 percent of the time and you’ll learn a lot of valuable information about your candidate. Watch how she responds to your question about why she left her previous employer. Note how he perks up when he talks about how he’s read your annual reports for the past five years and learned that you doubled in size in that time and then baldly states he wants to work for a winning company just like yours! You also may want to consider using behavioral interview techniques so that you can learn how your candidate handled challenges and opportunities in previous jobs.

Be sure the candidate is very clear regarding the job’s duties and expectations. Will she be expected to travel two days a week in her sales job? Does the PR person need to pitch to X number of media professionals a week? Will the administrative assistant report to two or three managers? This helps clear up any misconceptions about the job (she thought she traveled two times a month; he thought he would be supporting a group of five directors, etc.)

Don’t place so much emphasis on the  first interview. Aim to take your first impression of a candidate more lightly than you probably are inclined to do. Realize that many people who interview can end up not being a good employee. In addition many people get very nervous during interviews and clam up. That awfully “nice” and “quiet” person could become quite testy once he’s been on the job a few weeks. Meanwhile, many truly shy people can sometimes be quite wonderful contributors to your company’s success.

Aim for several interviews (at least two) before making your choice. See if you can get others to sit with the candidate as well. You also may want to give some personality tests to see if a person’s talk matches her true personality. For example, regarding sales positions: some experienced interviewees can be very gregarious during an interview but then clam up when facing sales prospects. Test for the correct sales personality.

In addition, be aware that there’s a dark side to every positive personality trait. A “caring” person can go overboard and become too involved with office personalities. Conversely, someone who’s proud of her “I get the job done” trait could become so pushy around others as she strives to complete tasks that she alienates her co-workers.

Ask the exact same questions of each candidate for the same position. This way you’ll be able to compare candidates using the same criteria. You’ll be better able to compare candidates’ strengths and weaknesses. Develop a ranking/rating system for your interview process.

Let Bayside Solutions take the often tedious, lengthy and highly subjective interview process off of your to-do list. Our Bay Area staffing firm can bring you skilled and professional workers for temporary, temp-to-hire and direct hire assignments with just a phone call. We look forward to hearing from you.

If you’ve been working at one employer for a few months and think it’s time for a promotion, here are some ideas to help you do so.

First of all, promotions go to those who deserve them. Who do extra. Just because you’ve worked at a business for two years doing the same thing doesn’t mean a promotion comes automatically. Those who get promoted have earned it.

So, do the work. Be a positive force. Have enthusiasm. Aim to do your best every day.

Do you have the skills and education to do the position you seek? Do you walk your talk and do as you say you will. Do you have the necessary degrees, if a certain degree is necessary? Are you continually upgrading your skills? Do you do more than “just enough”?

When you’re given a challenging assignment, do you embrace it, or do you whine (and if you do whine, we hope you don’t do so at work!)?

Don’t rest on your laurels. That is, if you finished a terrific project last month, don’t sit back and do nothing. Instead, focus on giving it your all on the tasks and projects before you now. Only you care about how well you did yesterday; your boss is going to care big time about how well you do tomorrow.

Volunteer for projects. Take initiative. Solve your boss’ problems.

If you’re an assistant manager and are gunning for the manager position, do your work as a manager would. Demonstrate that you already have what it takes to be a manager now.

Document your successes. Write them down. Do them today because six or nine months from now, when it’s review time, you — and your boss — will have forgotten. You can this success document to put together a case for a promotion because you’ll probably have to….

Ask for a promotion. If you want to be promoted, you’ll more than likely have to ask for it. Be prepared to present your case to your boss in a professional manner, reminding her of your accomplishments, how you’ve helped your employer grow, save money, get new clients, run more efficiently, etc. State your case clearly and use any documentation you may have on hand (your success log, an “atta girl” letter from you boss, etc.) to prove your case.

If you’re ready to promote yourself into a new position, give Bayside Staffing a call. We have some terrific temporary, temp-to-hire and direct-hire assignments at some of San Francisco’s best companies. Contact us today.

The days when temporary employees worked as “fill-in” workers when a company’s regular workers were out sick or on vacation are long gone. Instead, temporary workers often are highly skilled workers such as doctors, nurses, CEOs, architects, designers, lawyers, computer programmers, etc.

Of course, temporary employment services continue to provide the country’s businesses with warehouse workers, administrative assistants, receptionists and general laborers, but the “face” of today’s temporary worker is changing to one who possesses high-level skills.

In fact, according to an American Staffing Association Intelligence Report,
Staffing Employees: Extraordinary Human Resources:

• Staffing employees are better educated than the overall workforce, with 74 percent having at least some college education (compared to only 62 percent of the overall workforce.
• Staffing employees who prefer temporary and contract work are more likely to hold a bachelor’s degree and earn higher wages.

In addition, many people who work for temporary employment firms do so because they enjoy the variety and the chance to learn new skills temporary assignments can give them.

They also see temporary work as a bridge to a regular position on a company’s payroll. In fact, many people who work for a staffing service see the service as the way to find a full-time position. As the ASA Intelligence Report states:

“Everyone knows that there’s no such thing as a truly permanent job. But most staffing employees and most staffing clients want something staffing firms have to offer: a bridge to permanent employment.”

• Most staffing employees who want a permanent job get one eventually—43 percent get hired by the staffing client.
• Almost 25 percent of those who got a permanent job say they did so faster because of their temporary or contract work.
• Fewer than half of staffing employees are actively seeking permanent employment on their own — most are either using their temporary job as their only way to search for a position. (some just prefer the temporary/contract work).

“As the world economy evolves and agility becomes absolutely essential for success in the global marketplace,” the report states, “the smartest companies are taking bold approaches to staffing,” the report states. “Increasingly, they are eschewing the traditional hiring model. They are moving away from hiring processes that can take weeks or months to recruit, interview, screen, and negotiate with candidates to fill a single opening. They no longer see the wisdom in filling every position with a permanent employee whose real cost to a company only begins with a salary and extends to benefits, payroll taxes, vacation time, holiday pay, and a host of other expenses.”

To read the full Intelligence Report, click here.

If you’re a company doing business in the Bay area, Let Bayside Solutions help you maximize your human resources efforts. We’ll be happy to demonstrate how using our staffing service can help your company become more agile and more profitable. Contact us today!

Most of us want to do well at work. We take pride in a job well done and in putting the effort necessary to help the company for which we work succeed.

There’s probably no one among us who doesn’t like recognition for our work, whether it be through an “atta girl” from the boss, a commendation from the company’s CEO or a promotion and raise.

Still, just doing good work and hoping higher ups notice and reward you for it without you asking will get you… probably not much other than the self-satisfaction of doing a job well.

Here are some tips to help you impress your boss:

As you perform your duties, keep the whining to a bare minimum. Don’t commiserate with your co-workers; don’t let yourself be sucked into a never-ending vat of negativity that occurs all-to-often at workplaces. You don’t have to be Pollyanna, but you should work to keep a positive attitude while at work. If you must vent, do after hours (and never with co-workers; word gets around).

Volunteer for projects others avoid. In fact, to become more visible to higher ups elsewhere in your organization, offer to work on company-wide projects, such as the HR diversity counsel, or the United Way committee. Take initiative and get things done — without being asked.

Become the go-to person for something. In another words, hone some skills in at least one aspect of your position that are difficult to master, so that when your boss needs someone to handle this critical aspect of a project, she knows to go straight to you.

Give 100 percent. Meet your deadlines (or, if missing one is unavoidable, come to your supervisor as soon as you know so: explain the reason why the deadline will be missed and be sure to give your boss a new deadline. Do what you say you will do; be reliable.

Keep your skills up and learn new ones. Ask you boss if you may attend educational conferences. Sign up for one-or two-day workshops (with your boss’ permission). Show your supervisor you have a yearning for learning; never just coast along.

Keep a “bragging file” of all the things you accomplish. Note any times you completed projects before the deadline, under budget, etc. This file will come in very handy when you sit down with your boss for your annual review. In fact, if you’re itching for a raise/promotion, writing a short report detailing all you’ve accomplished can go a long way to helping your boss see in black and white why you deserve a promotion and a nice raise to go along with it.

If you’re looking for your next terrific position and live in the Bay Area, give Bayside Solutions. We can help place you in temporary, temp-to-hire and direct placement positions with some of San Francisco’s finest companies. Contact us today!