Choose Staffing as a Career and Love What You Do

Raza Rauf on November 6, 2015

Our mission at Advance Staffing Solutions is to become a true resource to our client and candidate partners for general hiring and recruiting, and executive search recruitment. We work hard to provide innovative staffing services to our employers and opportunity to our candidates. We create a fun and challenging workplace where we continue to learn daily, achieve success and grow our business.

As a growing business, Advance Staffing Solutions has internal positions available. If your are looking for a meaningful and rewarding career, please email your resume to stacey@advancestaffingsolutions.com. We have opportunities in sales and recruiting in NW Ohio and SE Michigan.

Learn more about an exciting career in the staffing and recruiting industry.

Referral Contest – Win Thanksgiving Dinner on us!

Raza Rauf on October 5, 2015

Refer a friend and when they complete our application process

You will be entered in a drawing for a Thanksgiving Dinner Gift Basket that includes a gift certificate for a turkey & all the ingredients for side dishes and dessert!

Applicant must register at one of our Branch Offices between the dates of October 5th – November 13^th.

(apply on-line or call branch for appointment time)

Drawing will be held on Monday, November 16th

** In addition to this referral bonus you will also be eligible for our regular $25 referral bonus**

(To qualify for the $25 referral bonus the applicant or employee must complete 80 hours of work)

www.advancestaffingsolutions.com

How to Stay Off a Recruiter’s Blacklist

Raza Rauf on September 28, 2015

Trying to find a job today is not easy. Even with the help of the Internet and social media, landing a job you want can take months because hundreds of people apply for the same jobs as you. Turning your job search into a success can be done by working with a recruiter. One thing you must know when working with a recruiter is that you need to stay off of their blacklist. Being on a recruiter’s blacklist can ruin your job search, so follow these tips to stay off this list!

Exaggerating Skills or Claims

One of the biggest reasons why a recruiter will put you on their blacklist is because you have been caught exaggerating your skills or claims on your resume. It is understandable that people exaggerate a little bit on their resumes, but it can be very detrimental their job search. Recruiters will be able to see through lies on your resume because they read thousands of resumes per year. Avoid exaggerating about your skills or claims on your resume to stay off a recruiter’s blacklist.

Self-Employed Viewed as Unemployed

Even though this seems a little harsh, many recruiters view self-employed job seekers as unemployed job seekers, even if the job seeker has been running a successful business independently. It is difficult to change this perception in front of recruiters, but it can be done. Make sure you include some stats about your independently owned business that proves you have been working for the past five-to-ten years, and not just sitting around the house.

Aggression Does Not Work

Even though being an aggressive job seeker can be better than being a passive one, it can get you blacklisted by a recruiter if you work with one. Contacting a recruiter multiple times per week via phone or email will get you blacklisted for sure. There is no need to constantly bother a recruiter about an open job or an interview you had with a company. If the company liked you, the recruiter will reach out to you when necessary.

Failure to Fit the Culture

Job seekers could have an incredible resume and all the references in the world, but not fitting in with a company’s culture could cause you to hit the blacklist. This can be determined through screening processes, an interview with the company and much more. If this happens more than once, a recruiter might have to blacklist you to avoid wasting anyone else’s time.

Stay off of a recruiter’s blacklist by keeping aggression to a minimum, avoiding exaggeration on your resume and by fitting into a company’s culture.

Exit Interviews: Do you know why your employees are leaving?

Raza Rauf on September 24, 2015

Employees leave companies for many different reasons, but sometimes the HR team won’t be able to explain why past employees left. In some cases, employees leave for better advancement opportunities or because they are not happy with their current employer. The only way a company can know or learn why employees are leaving is by taking advantage of the exit interview, and then learning from this feedback.

Encourage Honesty

The next time you hold an exit interview, make sure you encourage honesty on the part of the employee who is leaving the company. Few employees will be brutally honesty during an exit interview, especially when leaving smaller companies, because they do not want to hurt anyone’s feelings. Try to encourage honesty as much as possible so the employee explains the exact reasons why they decided to leave.

Ask These Questions

The following questions should be asked of the employee during an exit interview:

What will you get from your new employer that you didn’t get from us?
How do you feel things went here for you?
How are your career goals being fulfilled at your new job?
Can you give us any suggestions for improvement?
Would you like to be notified of any opportunities here in the future?
Is there anything we could have done to prevent you from leaving?
In what areas did we come up short?

Reveal Undiscovered Problems

For all you know, there could be some major problems hiding at your company. The only way you can find out about these problems is via the exit interview. The questions from the previous section could help to reveal these problems, which could include issues with the culture and competition that continues to aggressively recruit your talent. An outgoing employee will be able to shed light on these issues and much more if you ask the right questions and encourage honesty.

Make Appropriate Changes

Once you conduct the exit interview, you should begin to make appropriate changes to the company. This could include improving the company’s culture, offering better benefits, increasing salaries and offering more opportunities for advancement.

Companies need to know why their employees leave for other opportunities. They also need to know if an issue at the office led to the employee searching for a new job. The exit interview is the perfect time to find out this information.

Where Are All the Temps Going? How to Make a Hiring Plan After Peak Season

Raza Rauf on September 8, 2015

As the busy season comes to a close, seasonal and temporary employees may be leaving to head back to college or to take other permanent jobs. This can reduce your staff dramatically, which can take a toll on the business and the employees who are left behind. How can you design a hiring plan after the peak season that supports year-round growth and new opportunities to bring on at least a portion of your temps? Here are some helpful tips to accomplish this.

1. Communicate with your temp agency in advance of your hiring goals

The sooner you can let your temporary agency know you intend to hire some of your seasonal workers on permanently, the better. This helps the temp agency screen all employees to find out if they are looking for something for now or for the long term.

2. Provide rewarding projects that challenge seasonal workers

One of the ways to identify employees who may be suitable for long-term hiring needs is to assign tasks and projects that challenge them. This often brings out the leaders in each group of temps, who may be looking for better work opportunities in the future.

3. Understand the skill and knowledge gaps you have

Your seasonal employees may possess the right skills and knowledge that you need to plan your staffing after the peak season passes by. Conduct a thorough analysis of the present skills of your team to find out where there are gaps. Then offer employment opportunities to your seasonal workers who have the right skills to close these gaps.

4. Offer to rehire seasonal workers for next year

You can plan your hiring by offering to rehire the seasonal workers who perform well and who express an interest in coming back again next year. Consider that some of your seasonal workers will be college students who will be looking for careers once they graduate. The sooner you can get them to commit to coming back, the better for your business.

5. Give seasonal workers an incentive to stay employed

If you want to hire at least a portion of your seasonal workers who have done well, you can also offer a sign-on bonus for those who accept permanent placement with your company. Try offering some employment perks too, like benefits and a new office environment to work in.

Use the above tips to help retain your best seasonal workers and boost your company growth as part of a smart recruitment plan. You can secure top seasonal and temp workers from Advance Staffing Solutions.

Want to Stay in Your Temp Job? Start Building Relationships!

Raza Rauf on September 3, 2015

Building strong relationships at the office is not just for permanent employees, but also for temporary workers. Even though you might only be working at a temp job for two weeks or a couple of months, it is still imperative to build strong relationships. When temporary workers build strong relationships, it puts them in a better position to remain at their temporary job for an extended period or as a newly hired permanent employee.

Drop Criticism from Conversations

An excellent way to build stronger relationships with your co-workers at a temporary job is by dropping criticism from your conversations. It can be very easy to criticize co-workers for what they do, or don’t do, but it should not be done. When you criticize people on a regular basis, it makes it very difficult to get along with those people. You must remember that everyone makes mistakes, so be sure to focus on the positives when talking with co-workers.

Smile and Speak with Enthusiasm

Smiling when you speak with co-workers will go a long way when trying to build stronger relationships. You should also speak with enthusiasm, and not in a monotone that bores others. Co-workers will warm up to you when you greet them with happiness and a smile. Even if you do not get the opportunity to speak with them for a prolonged period, a quick smile when passing in the halls can help improve relationships.

Compliment Co-Workers

A compliment can go a long way toward building better relationships with co-workers. Compliments should never be backhanded, but should be sincere whenever you give them. People love to receive compliments, especially at work. The next time you talk with a co-worker, try to compliment them on a job well done on a recent project or about something from their personal life they told you.

Ignore the Rotten Egg

It goes without saying that there will be one rotten egg in the office who will attempt to make life miserable for those around them. Even though this person will make it their job to make your life miserable, you must ignore them as much as possible. Do not take it personally: Instead, build better relationships with the rest of your co-workers in an attempt to ignore the rotten egg.

If you enjoy the temporary job you are working right now, make an effort to build stronger relationships with co-workers there so you can have your contract extended or picked up permanently.

5 Ways To Find Hardworking Millennials

Raza Rauf on August 18, 2015

Millennials are overtaking the workforce as baby boomers continue to retire, which is why companies are trying to find new ways to land hardworking millennials. Some are incredibly easy to find because they work internships with a company before receiving an offer of employment. Others might not be so easy to find because they do not want to be found, or are not actively looking for a new job. Use these five tips for finding hardworking millennials.

Check Their Hunger for a Job

One of the best ways to find a hardworking millennial is to check their hunger for a job. There are millennials out there who accept an entry-level job and then walk away from it two weeks to one month later because they feel that they are above the work they are doing, simply because of where they went to school. In order to avoid this type of behavior and attitude, you must perform a hunger check. Tell the candidate up front that they will be doing entry-level work, and if the conversation ends, so be it. If it doesn’t, you might have someone hungry for the job.

Brutal Honesty During the Interview Works

The second method to finding hardworking millennials is to be brutally honest with the candidate during the job interview. Explain to the candidate exactly what the job entails, what you don’t want at your office and what you do expect at the office in terms of behavior and attitude. If the candidate is still sitting there at the end of your speech, they must really want the job.

Be Open to Shaking Things Up

There are companies out there that love employing millennial workers because they know how to handle them. They are open to shaking things up at work. There is nothing wrong with being a fair boss who is also tough on employees. It is one of the best ways to get strong work from employees. In some instances, you have to be like a tough parent with millennials in order for them to perform at the levels they are truly capable of.

Candidates Show Themselves in Interviews

Whether you know it or not, candidates will show their true selves during job interviews. Even if you think they are putting on an act simply to impress you and receive the offer, at some point they will show you who they truly are. If this is the case, and it scares or frightens you, do not hire that candidate. You will only live to regret the decision.

Help Millennials Advance

Do your best to help millennials advance when you find strong ones, even if it means they climb the corporate ladder at a different company. This will help your company build a strong reputation for taking care of employees, which will make it easier to recruit top talent in the future.

Try to use all five of these methods in order to bring in the best talent possible for your company. If you need more help finding and bringing talented millennials or other employees into your workplace, contact Advance Staffing Solutions today!

1st Annual Advance Family Summer Fun Day

Raza Rauf on August 14, 2015

The staff of Advance Staffing Solutions and their families enjoyed a beautiful day at the Roller Coaster Capital of the World, Cedar Point. Most managed to get into this group shot during a refueling lunch and then everyone took off to hit more rides. A fun day for all!

Using the 30-60-90 Plan at a New Job

Raza Rauf on July 7, 2015

When starting a new job, how can you make it a long-term success? Try using the 30/60/90 plan. What is this all about, you may ask? It’s your timeline for overcoming the emotions, worries, and obstacles that can come between you and career growth. When you plan out your new job this way, your first few months on the job will be focused on goals that will help you get there.

Realize your full potential with the smart 30-60-90 day career plan. Here’s how…

The first 30 days – Learning Your New Job

Getting accustomed to a new job takes a good month or so for most people. Use the first 30 days as your time to learn everything you can about the job and what your role helps the company to accomplish. It’s important to put the time in to learn all you can about the company, from its leadership team downward to its customers.

Find out what the mission statement says and how it ties into the vision for the company. Embrace the core values of the company. Start learning about your supervisor and what they expect from you. Get to know what the corporate culture is about and why it matters to your job.

The next 60 days – Putting Yourself in the Equation

At this point, you should be well-acquainted with the company and its goals. You should also have a pretty good idea of how you fit into things, at least on the surface. Now it’s time to go deeper. To become indispensable to the team, you need to work hard to add your strengths and talents to the mix in a visible way. This is putting yourself in the company for the long term.

Some ways to accomplish this are to brainstorm ways to add more value to your job, becoming an effective communicator, taking on new responsibilities, being flexible in accepting new tasks, listen more than talking but also contribute to the team. Stay ahead of things by exceeding your boss’s expectations of you on a continual basis.

The 90 days and onward – Building on Your Success

Once you have passed the 90-day mark, the chances of losing your job get much slimmer. This is because you have invested a lot of time and effort into becoming a valuable team player. By now, you should have a good idea of what your job entails and how you can perform well. Your confidence will begin to soar and you have already grown as a person.

Now is the time to build on your success by thinking bigger. Start exploring future leadership opportunities. You have what it takes because you are able to see your growth over the last few months, and you know where you are headed. Your boss has a good idea of what kind of person you are because you’ve had time to demonstrate this. You are taking on new things and accomplishing your goals. Continue to learn as much as you can about your company and the industry, Take on new learning opportunities by joining industry groups and networking more.

Remember, the sky is the limit where it comes to your career. Be sure to start out strong with the 30-60-90 career plan.

Why Use a Staffing Agency?

Raza Rauf on June 8, 2015

Has the question ever occurred to you, or have you asked it yourself — why should I use a staffing agency?

Watch the video below to hear two Advance Staffing employees discuss why you should use a staffing agency!

Click here if you’d like to discuss partnering with a staffing agency like Advance Staffing Solutions today!

We Want You to Know the Truth About our Staffing Agency…

Raza Rauf on June 4, 2015

The staffing, recruiting, and workforce solutions industry makes a vital contribution to the U.S. economy, and provides outstanding job and career opportunities for some 14 million employees per year.

Haven’t considered a staffing service to help you with your job search or career change? Watch the video below to see what our Michigan team has to say…

We hope you can handle the truth about our staffing agency!

Are You Conducting Post-Interview Reviews?

Raza Rauf on May 29, 2015

Companies are always looking for new ways to improve their hiring decisions because the cost of a bad hire can be astronomical. Companies also do not want to waste the time of the candidates they interview. This is why some companies have begun conducting post-interview reviews. More companies should take part in this exercise in order to improve how the interviews are handled and which candidates are hired. Learn how to conduct post-interview reviews the right way.

Include the Entire Team

One of the most important parts of conducting a post-interview review is to include the entire team. This means that every single employee who took part in the interview process should be involved in this meeting. This team should meet after each interview is conducted. So, if three different employees interviewed each candidate, they should be part of the team. If the HR head first scheduled the interview based on the resume submitted, this person should also be part of the team.

Discuss Impressions

Each person who took part in the interview process should be allowed to share their impressions of each candidate they met. The impressions discussed should be based on the notes taken by each employee who had the chance to interview candidates. Talk about any questions the candidates asked about the job or the company. Also talk about how the candidates answered the questions posed to them.

Allow Honest Discussion

When conducting such a review, you need to allow for honest discussion. This means that all employees should be honest in their opinions of candidates without worrying of repercussions from management or co-workers. If the members of this team cannot be honest, then you will not be improving your hiring process or interview process.

Rank Candidates

The post-interview review is the perfect time for your team to rank the candidates that have been interviewed to this point. Encourage each member of the team to rank each candidate he or she has interviewed from most likely to hire to least likely to hire. The ranking should be done based on the information gathered from the interview. The team members should conduct their rankings based on who they feel should be hired for the open job.

Build a List of Second Interview Candidates

Another goal of this team should be to build a list of candidates who will be contacted for a second round of interviews. It is possible that all of the candidates might be asked back for a second interview, but most likely it will be a shorter list. Even if members of your team are not going to take part in the second interview, they should still be notified of which candidates are being asked back.

Conducting post-interview reviews helps a company improve their hiring process and how the interviews are conducted. Implement these reviews today to hire the most qualified people for your open jobs.