Category Archives: Professional Recruiters Illinois

Giving Employers What They Want

What do employers want from their employees? While the answers will vary from company to company, field to field, and manager to manager, there are some common skills and qualities that employers look for in their new employees.

Great team members all have certain characteristics, and they are the characteristics that managers want to see in every new employee. If you are hoping to make a good impression on your new employer, keep in mind that these are likely the traits they are looking for in you:

  • Dependability – Show up on time, dress in a professional manner, turn in the same quality of work each day, commit to the team, and give your manager a sense that when she passes a project on to you, she knows it’s in good hands.
  • Self Motivation – Managers dislike micromanaging their employees almost as much as employees dislike being micromanaged. They want their teams to hit the ground running each day, they want employees to seek out new projects and overcome obstacles on their own.
  • Brand Ambassadors – Employers want strong representatives of their brand – whether they are on the clock or off the clock.
  • Flexibility – Change is inevitable. Employers want team members who can roll with the punches, adapting their approach quickly in the face of change.
  • Teachability – Are you open to learning new skills? How quickly do you pick up on them? Employers want their team members to be open to learning.
  • Empathy – Not every person on a team is going to get along with every other person all of the time. Conflict is a fact of life. But employers want to see a high level of empathy from their employees. Can you put yourself in others’ shoes and overcome conflict to get the job done?
  • Proactivity – When something needs to be done, don’t wait to be instructed to do it. Roll up your sleeves and get things done without having to be asked or told.
  • The Ability to Act on Feedback – When a manager tells you that you’ve done something well, do you repeat that behavior? When you’ve been given a plan for improvement, how quickly do you act on it? The ability to receive and act on feedback shows a high level of engagement in your work.

Employers want employees who have the necessary qualifications to get a job done. But that’s not the full story. When you take the time to understand the “human” qualities that employers want to see, you will be better equipped to deliver results for your manager and your company.

If you are professional in engineering, IT, sales, marketing or operations, the professional recruiters at The Prevalent Group can help you become a candidate that hiring managers want for their team.  We work with some of the most innovative and forward-thinking companies in the country, and we can help you take the next step in your career. Contact us today to learn more.

How To Deliver Results At Work

Ever since The Great Recession, U.S. companies have adopted a lean approach to business. Everyone has been doing more with less for quite some time, and employees continue to feel the pinch. Delivering solid results when faced with a crippling workload is never easy, but it can be done.  Follow this guide to ensure that your boss views you as someone who can deliver “the goods” time and time again.

First, Eat Your Peas

We often put our least-favorite tasks at the bottom of our to-do lists. Try flipping things around and “eating your peas” first. Each day, choose the task you dread the most and get it done right away, saving the remainder of your day for tasks you find more interesting and enjoyable.

When you make your least-favorite tasks a priority, your overall productivity will improve. When you save them until the end of the day, you’re more likely to drag your feet on other projects, thereby “putting off” your most unpleasant work and falling into the procrastination trap.

Say Yes to Less

Every time you accept a new project or task, you are adding more to your plate. If you’re starting to get backed up, it’s time to speak up. Drop by your boss’s office with your task list and show her your current workload. Ask for permission to delegate some tasks. It might make sense to have a more analytical co-worker complete certain spreadsheets, or a more eloquent team member draft deliverable documents, for example. If the goal is quality results, some shifting might make sense for the entire team.

Remember, there is more honor in raising your hand when you feel you’re drowning than there is in delivering poor results because you’re overworked.

Review Results Regularly

Block out time each Friday afternoon to review your week. What did you get done? What went well? Where did you stumble? Are you taking too much time to complete tasks that aren’t a priority? Take stock of what happened, where you spent your time, and which of your goals you achieved. Use that insight to plan your Monday accordingly. It can be beneficial to share your self-reviews with your boss, as well. It doesn’t have to be formal, you can simply send him an email outlining your thoughts and asking for feedback.

When your boss sees how you are spending your time, he might have some insight into future workflow. If he’s been assigning you tasks that waste your time or talent, he can make that assessment when he sees it in black and white.

If you are someone who delivers results time and time again – but you are on the hunt for new opportunities and challenges – contact The Prevalent Group today. Our team of executive recruiters work with professionals in sales, marketing, engineering, IT and operations, and they can connect you with a position that aligns with your long-term career goals.

How a Recruiter Can Enhance Your Career

As a job seeker, you may have toyed with the idea of working with a professional recruiter. Some professionals hesitate to explore recruiting relationships because they just don’t know what to expect, nor do they understand the ways in which a recruiter can help them enhance their careers.

Recruiters can give you a leg up in the job market by providing benefits that you simply can’t attain if you approach a job search on your own. Those benefits include:

  1. Access to Unpublished Opportunities – Job boards are fine, but remember, thousands of other people are viewing and applying to the same postings. Professional recruiters have long-standing relationships with their client companies, and they are often actively recruiting for jobs that have not been published on job boards or even on the company website.
  2. Keeping Your Resume Out of the Black Hole – If you’ve been on the hunt for a job for any amount of time, you know the frustration that can come from the resume “black hole.” It may take weeks to hear back from an employer, or you may never hear anything at all. When a recruiter presents you as a candidate, you know that the hiring manager will receive your resume, and you know that your recruiter will stay on top of the process, letting you know where you stand every step of the way.
  3. Providing Feedback – When you’re all alone in your job hunt, you never quite know what an interviewer thought of you, which means you can make the same mistakes over and over again without ever realizing it. Working with a recruiter, however, you will receive feedback on each interview so that you can grow and improve your skills.
  4. Letting You Know Your Market Value – You may think you know your value in the marketplace, but a professional recruiter can tell you precisely what types of jobs you are qualified for, and what type of salary structure you can command in the marketplace.
  5. Conducting a Confidential Search – Keeping a job search confidential is essential while you are employed, but unfortunately it is also extremely stressful. It can be difficult to conduct a search when you have to worry about your boss noticing your LinkedIn activity or stumbling across your resume on a job board. A recruiter can help you keep your search confidential, acting as your liaison to hiring managers. They will know when to call you, so that they are not interrupting your workday, and they will know which email address to use to ensure the utmost discretion.

Best of all, the services of recruiters are free. This means that there is no risk involved in testing the waters, and you only stand to benefit from their efforts and advice.

If you are a professional in sales, marketing, engineering, IT or operations looking for new opportunities, contact The Prevalent Group today. Our team of executive recruiters can help match you with a position that aligns with your long-term career goals, and we will work as your advocate, helping you to achieve your long-term career goals. Let us connect you with the next phase of your career.

Goals To Set For 2015: Where To Take Your Engineering Career

With the new year fast approaching, now is a great time to sit down and think about where you want to take your engineering career in 2015, especially if you’ve been feeling stalled in your current position. Goals give you something to strive for throughout the year, and help ensure you’re constantly pushing yourself to achieve more.

Every engineer will have his or her own unique recipe for success. Whether you are a new engineer or a seasoned professional, it’s important to set goals that will keep you moving forward, and goals that are realistic and attainable. While your overarching goal may be to land a new job, it can help to set smaller goals to create the forward motion that will set you up for success. Goals to consider to help you advance your engineering career this year include:

  • Getting out and meeting people in your industry is critical for professional success. Whether or not networking results in a job offer, expanding your professional network is always a good idea. Attending professional networking events, industry association events, conventions, and other functions will afford you the opportunity to meet new people and learn new things in 2015.
  • Document your accomplishments. The most effective resumes quantify achievements. It can be difficult to pull all of your accomplishments out of your memory when you decide it’s time to revamp your resume. If you keep a running list of those achievements as they happen, and update your resume accordingly, you can be sure none will get left out. This year, make it a point to track and document your accomplishments on the job.
  • Know your value. Engineers should always be aware of their value in the marketplace. Research local engineering salaries online so that you know where you fall in terms of your experience and education. You don’t want to find out the day after you accept a job offer that you’re actually getting paid $20,000 less than what you’re worth.
  • Learn something new. The one constant in the world is change. What can you do this year to keep your skills sharp and learn something new? Whether you take a class or attend an industry conference, do something to enhance your skills this year.
  • Focus on work-life balance. Engineers work hard, and getting ahead in the field can mean clocking long hours, often to the detriment of personal time and family time. What can you do this year to give yourself more time for the people and hobbies you love?
  • Partner with a recruiter. Searching for new opportunities can be difficult for busy engineers. Partnering with a recruiter can help you connect with exciting jobs that aren’t necessarily posted on public job boards. A recruiter can also help you set goals, polish your resume, and perfect your interviewing technique so that when the right opportunity comes along, you are prepared to rise to the challenge.

If you are an engineer in northern Illinois looking to grow your career in 2015, the engineering recruiting consultants at The Prevalent Group would love to meet you. We work with market leaders in a variety of industries that are always on the lookout for strong engineering talent.  Our recruiters can connect you with  engineering jobs in northern Illinois that align with your skills and qualifications, and we can work with you to help you achieve your career goals in 2015.

4 Skills To Highlight For Medical Directors

Medical Directors have to balance a unique set of priorities that range from the implementation of policies and procedures, to managing expectations of medical staff, to overseeing patient care, and more. This role requires advanced clinical knowledge as well as management and administrative skills, and knowing which skills to highlight on a resume can be difficult.

If you are reworking your resume, there are some critical areas to focus on that will help paint a picture of yourself as a versatile, knowledgeable, and skilled medical director. They include:

  1. Demonstrated Focus on Patient Care. Patient care is the most important aspect of a Medical Director’s job. Be sure to showcase your problem-solving abilities as well as your skill in yielding positive patient outcomes. Show how you have been able to cultivate a patient-focused atmosphere regardless of regulatory, budgetary, and administrative challenges.
  2. Communications Skills. Medical Directors must be precise and descriptive when communicating expectations and objectives, and they must be able to create and cultivate open lines of communication with clinical and administrative staff. They must be diplomatic in all circumstances, especially in sensitive situations. Be sure to showcase your communications skills in your resume.
  3. Successful Medical Directors are accessible to their administrators and clinical staff. This is no easy feat, as Medical Directors are often pulled in a variety of directions at once. Those who are able to cultivate meaningful relationships with administrators, staff, and patients often achieve faster results than those who do not make themselves readily accessible. Medical Directors must also be responsive. Responding quickly to communications will ensure that clinical team can focus on their most important tasks.  What systems or processes have you put into place to ensure that you are accessible and responsive to colleagues?
  4. Organization and Attention to Detail. Medical Directors must be exceptional organizers. Because their workload is heavy and their tasks are so varied, disorganization can spell imminent disaster. Scheduling, paperwork, email, and project schedules must be handled and managed efficiently and in a way that is easy for the entire medical team to understand. Have you developed any strong organizational processes that help keep you and your clinical staff focused on the task at hand?

Focusing on these four areas when crafting a resume shows that as a Medical Director, you are trustworthy, caring, dependable, and a top-notch manager. If you are a Medical Director looking for new career opportunities, contact the executive recruiters at The Prevalent Group today. We can help you polish your resume so that it shines a spotlight on your best qualities, and we can help connect you with exciting career opportunities that will help you meet your long-term goals.

How to Answer Behavioral Interview Questions

Now more than ever before, hiring managers are integrating behavioral questions into their interviews. These questions are designed to help the interviewer determine whether or not an applicant possesses the qualities, skills, and traits to be successful on the job.  It is essential to prepare for these questions so that you aren’t caught off guard during an interview.

What Are Behavioral Interview Questions?

Behavioral interview questions are designed to give the interviewer a look at how you’ve handled yourself in the past. Traditional interviews rely on hypothetical questions like, “How would you handle it if your boss asks you X?” “What would you do if a customer presented you with Y problem?” It’s relatively easy to craft answers to these questions, whether or not you’d actually handle yourself in the manner you describe. Therefore, hypothetical questions actually provide very little insight for employers.

Behavioral questions, on the other hand, ask you for examples of how you handled specific situations in the past. They often begin with phrases like, “Tell me about a time when X.” They may include questions such as:

  • Tell me about a time when you had to take initiative to solve a difficult problem.
  • Give me an example of a time when you had to complete a project when you did not have all of the information you needed in order to get started.
  • Tell me about a time when you had to deal with a particularly difficult customer.
  • Give me an example of a challenge you faced in your current job and how you solved it.
  • Tell me about a time when you had to solve a problem by tackling tasks outside of your job description.

Assessing how you’ve handled specific situations in the past can help the interviewer determine how you will handle those types of situations in the future.

How to Answer Behavioral Interview Questions

Preparation is the key to successfully answering behavioral interview questions. While there is no way to determine just which questions you will be asked, there are some steps you can take to determine the types of questions that might be likely:

  1. Read through the job description. What are the responsibilities of the role? What challenges might that person face?
  2. For each of those responsibilities and challenges, generate examples from your career that illustrate how you would excel on the job.
  3. For each example, write an outline of an answer that addresses the problem, your response, and the outcome.
  4. Practice your answers with a friend, family member, or with a professional recruiter. Don’t memorize your answers. Simply practice telling your stories out loud in a concise manner.

As a job seeker, it’s important not to fear behavioral interview questions. Instead, look at them as an opportunity to showcase examples of how you rise to challenges and overcome them. If you are a professional in sales, marketing, engineering, IT or operations looking for new opportunities, contact The Prevalent Group today. Our team of executive recruiters can help match you with a position that aligns with your long-term career goals, and we can work with you to help perfect your interviewing skills to ensure that you enter each interview with poise and confidence.

Tell Me About Yourself: How to Develop an Elevator Pitch

Many interviews open with the same question, “Tell me about yourself.”  Many interviewees see this as an invitation to tell their personal life story, but this is not what hiring managers want to hear. “Tell me about yourself,” is an invitation to provide an overview of your career background, your achievements, and where you see yourself in the future. The answer to this question is often a great place to utilize your elevator pitch.

What is an Elevator Pitch?

Elevator pitches are named for a challenge: How would you express your value as an employee if you found yourself on an elevator with your dream employer and you had to describe yourself to that person in the time it took you to reach your floor?

Your elevator pitch should be concise, illustrating who you are and how you can help the listener. It is a sales pitch about yourself that you deliver verbally, which means it takes focus and practice in order to deliver it with confidence. To be effective, an elevator pitch should be compelling and memorable, and it should clearly illustrate your value to the employer.

How to Create Your Elevator Pitch

Developing an effective elevator pitch takes some time. Though it is short, it carries a lot of weight, and determines the tone of the rest of the interview. Here are some tips to help you craft a compelling elevator pitch:

  1. Set aside time to sit down and create a career inventory.

    Write down the things you would want potential employers to know about your skills, achievements, and relevant experience.

  2. Edit, edit, edit.

    Once you’ve got a nice, long list written down, it’s time to edit. Delete anything that is not absolutely critical to your elevator pitch. You want to be left with just a few bullet points. Remember, the elevator pitch is not your life or career story, it is more of a highlight reel of your “top hits” that should leave the interviewer wanting to learn more about you.

  3. Format the pitch.

    Now that you’ve got a list to work with, you can begin to craft your pitch. A solid elevator pitch will answer the questions: Who are you? What do you do well? What are you looking for from your career?

  4. Tailor your pitch to your audience.

    Remember that you are giving a sales pitch, and the listener only wants to know what’s in it for them. Therefore, the message should focus on your benefits as an employee. Instead of saying, “I am an HR professional with 12 years of experience in the finance industry,” it would be much more powerful to say, “I am an HR professional with a track record in successfully recruiting top-level management.”

  5. Practice, practice, practice.

    After you’ve got a solid draft in place, practice your pitch out loud with friends, family, or your professional recruiter. They can help you make any edits that might be necessary, and the more you practice delivering your pitch, the more confident you will be in your delivery.

Professional recruiters can be an invaluable resource when it comes to perfecting your elevator pitch and your entire interviewing technique. If you are a professional in engineering, information technology, operations, sales, or marketing, and you are looking for new and exciting career opportunities, contact The Prevalent Group today. We are a nationally recognized management and executive placement and recruitment agency that works with innovative organizations in northern Illinois and beyond. We can help you locate job opportunities that align with your long-term personal and professional goals.

How To Develop A Strong And Beneficial Relationship With A Recruiter

Recruiters can be a powerful tool in your job search. They can act as a cheerleader, a guide, a salesperson, and a coach. In order to get all of these benefits from a recruiter, however, you have to establish a strong and beneficial relationship.

One: Be Sure of Your Search

Don’t contact a recruiter as a knee-jerk reaction to a bad experience at work. Be sure that you’re truly ready to move on. Recruiters are busy and they invest a lot of time in their candidates, so be respectful and only work with a recruiter if you’re absolutely sure it’s the right time to make a change.

Two: Be Specific About Your Needs and Goals

If you know in your heart that you will not uproot your family to move for a job no matter how much it pays, do not tell your recruiter you’d consider relocating. If you absolutely must be home at 5:00 pm in order to care for your aging parent, be honest about this. While your personal needs and requirements may make your opportunities a little thinner, your recruiter won’t waste time sending you on interviews for jobs that don’t match those requirements.

Three: Give and Receive Feedback Like a Pro

When you go on interviews, your recruiter will speak with the hiring manager to get feedback on how you did. They will then relay that feedback to you. This process helps you to become a better interviewee. Accept the feedback and act on it. At the same time, if a recruiter offers you an interview for a job that isn’t right for you, say no – but explain why you are turning it down. This feedback will help the recruiter know what types of jobs you are truly interested in. Always give and receive feedback with respect.

Four: Be an Active Participant

Your recruiter can only do so much – as a job seeker, you have to pull some of the weight, as well. Share the names of companies you have previously interviewed with so that the recruiter knows not to contact them.  Provide references and all necessary paperwork in a timely fashion. Return calls and emails promptly. Check in occasionally – don’t make the recruiter call you all the time. When you’re actively involved in the process, you’ll feel more invested in it, and you’ll build a great relationship with your recruiter.

If you are looking to work with an effective recruiter, contact The Prevalent Group today. We are a nationally recognized management and executive placement and recruitment agency that works with experienced managers and executives in sales, marketing, engineering, technology and more. We can help you locate job opportunities that align with your long-term personal and professional goals.