Internal promotion is the safest way for companies to have good managers, as decisions of recruiting internally are based on having already observed, at length, how the person behaves and acts. And the individual already knows the company as well as the job (to a certain extend at least), saving important on-boarding costs.

There are obviously less risks than recruiting a total stranger, whatever the guarantees taken during the recruitment process.

It’s not risk-free, though.

You, like all newly promoted managers / directors, will have to change, without losing your identity.

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over_workedThis year has not started easy for me. Lots of work, tough work/life balance, health issues all around…
I have spent most of the time focusing on giving the best answer I could to what was happening and I must confess I somewhat lost sight of the big picture. I was not even really conscious that I had been working on auto-pilot.
If you read my blog, you have probably been able to guess something was going on as I did not issue a single post since my New Year’s wishes…

When you do your best, dealing with daily issues, your best soon turns out to be not enough, though! And this can’t be accepted.
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2015Dear all,
I would like to wish you a very good year 2015!

It is my hope that this new year will see many of us DO things and become in some way entrepreneurs.
I don’t particularly mean it in the business sense. I just wish we would all take things in our hands, to various degrees, and become actors of our lives, not passive by-standers.

I wish we would now try to make our time matter. Time passes fast and I, like too many of us, often find I have nothing to show, having wasted precious hours and days looking for opportunities, getting prepared, waiting to begin but not quite daring to ACT.

We can’t expect things to come to us, whether at work, in our social environment or in personal life. We have to go and get them.

As I have done over the last few years, I will try to support you in making your projects come true, whether changing jobs, finding back one, or becoming a better manager.
Later on in January my first book: La Quête, will be released in French on this blog as a pay-as-you-want e-book. The English & updated version will then be issued in May. Both aim to help you find new career opportunities, whether you already have a job or are unemployed.
In the last quarter of 2015 I will also publish a handbook of management, based on my last years of mentoring experience.

In 2015, I will do things.
What about you?

how_can_I_helpI am currently making a secret experiment.
I am live-testing people’s Linkedin motivation for connection.
For the whole month of October, I have accepted all the requests sent to me. And then after having waited one day, I sent, to the ones who had not followed up on their invitation, a little message saying “I’m happy to be part of your network! Did you have a reason to connect with me? Is there something I can do for you?”

Some stats & facts:

– 8% made the effort to write their own sentences in the request, all others just sent the default message.
– 6% of the people who sent a request (not the same ones) followed up with their own message. All wanted my service as a recruitment consultant.
– 92% were people I had never heard of before.
– 66% were not in my direct network (were not a contact of my contacts)
– 72% were women… (Do I look that good on my picture? Mmh…)

– 100% of the Anglo-saxons have answered my message, only 70% of the French and 55% of the Poles.
My explanation for the differences is that the recruitment market is tougher in France and people with recruitment in mind make naturally more effort, if this can be called an effort. Regarding the Anglo-saxons, well, networking is more in their culture … so they do it more efficiently?

– 100% of the ones who answered my friendly message did not appear much at ease with the exercise. More than half explained they did it in case they would need me in the future, nothing specific.

(- 1 Englishman wanted me to help him retrieve some funds from some dead body with the same family name as me, by writing an official statement I was next of kin??? SPAM! and shame on you mister…)

So far, my analysis is:
1. Most people play at Linkedin like my son used to collect Pokemon (I wonder… how many points am I worth in your collection?) they collect contacts, probably with no specific reason.
2. I am linked to a recruitment consultancy, which makes me somewhat popular. You could be a candidate on one of my assignments ‘in the future’ and you think I would not be able to find you, so you are taking the lead by contacting me. But most of you are trusting my creative power and judgement, since none of you explain for which type of jobs I should contact you.

And so my conclusions are:
1. Do not be passive. Do not be shy. Do not be rude: talk to me! You request connection to me. I accept. Then I send you a nice little message and you don’t answer!… What kind of a caveman are you? Do you want me to tell your mother how you behave? Come on, she raised you better!
2. We all exist IN REAL LIFE: having a VIRTUAL link to me is worth almost nothing. Even if I accept we connect without a reason, we have to be willing to talk to each other.
3. Let’s all make the (professional) world a better place. Let us all network a little more smartly.

arrowThe changes in the recruitment market will do us good, right?
I usually make a point of writing positive papers; I also have to be a realist…

All data in this article are an average of what I have been able to find on both the Polish and French markets, because for once both behave in a similar manner.
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bad-first-impressions copyThe good days are back: my colleagues in Europe tell me since a few months recruitments have been again rising. You see it by the number of ads, or when companies explain their 2014 strategies.
With this trend back, I witness, once more, bad recruitment practices and wrong candidates attitudes. Those who read me are candidates or employers. Here is my message to you: please do not do this…
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