Business owners often seek to control the perception of their companies so that they accurately reflect reality. This is easier said than done. Perceptions are like habits – they tend to die hard. The staffing business has long battled a sometimes lackluster perception. At BARRYSTAFF, here are the most common misconceptions we run into … and how we set the record straight.
“Temporary” employees are nothing more than short-term fixes. In truth, the term “temp” is outdated. We no longer refer to ourselves as a “temp agency,” but rather as a “staffing company.” There’s a significant difference. Gone are the days when folks would show up to the local agency each morning and collect a paycheck for a single job later that afternoon. In reality, what we’re doing is probably much different than what people are prone to imagining.
We give companies employees to try out on a limited basis. If an employee is working out then companies may extend a permanent job offer after 90 days. We handle everything until that job offer is extended. This process allows the company – and the employee – to feel each other out. One of the key analytics we study is our retention rate. In other words, we want our companies and employees to stick together. That’s our goal.
We only staff for one industry. While it’s true that staffing companies have specializations (BARRYSTAFF’s is manufacturing), many agencies are capable of recruiting for many, many fields. At BARRYSTAFF, we have placed architects, engineers and chemists. We have an entire team solely dedicated to filling clerical positions. So while manufacturing is our wheelhouse, we’ll never turn away someone looking for a communications position. Or graphic design. Or IT. We can help them too.
Job seekers have to pay to use our service. Job seekers pay nothing. Zero. Zilch. That’s not how we make money. Instead, the companies we partner with pay us to help them find quality employees. No job seeker will ever need to pay a dime to a company like BARRYSTAFF.
We only offer dead end jobs. The fact of the matter is that there is plenty of room for advancement in the jobs we hire for. Many of our placements have gone on to management positions.
We only work with struggling companies (Why else would they need a staffing company?) This is one we have to push back against fairly often. We work with big companies and small companies. Some are international. Others are hyper local. They use us because it is time-consuming to search, interview and drug screen candidates. It’s expensive. It cuts down on production. Advertising alone can run up a hefty tab. And these days, the job search is changing drastically from year to year. We live in a fast-paced digital world now, and our clients need to stay focused on what they’re doing. More of them are trusting experts like BARRYSTAFF to handle this work. It’s a specialized service during a time of rapid change.
And our services don’t stop at staffing. We often find ourselves working as a fully- functional HR branch for companies. It’s just another amenity we’re proud to offer.
DAYTON, OH — The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has issued employment data for the month of May.
“The unemployment rate in May was 4.3 percent,” said BARRYSTAFF president Doug Barry said. “That’s the lowest in 16 years.”
Since January, the unemployment rate has declined by 0.5 percentage point, and the number of unemployed has decreased by 774,000. The new data shows that employment numbers in major industries such as manufacturing changed little from the month before. It did reflect an uptick in overtime — edging up by 0.1 hour to 3.3 hours.
Job gains occurred in healthcare and mining.
“There was hope that job gains would actually be more significant in May,” Barry said. “That’s not what happened. But unemployment is still low. Keep in mind that it was around 10 percent in 2009.”
BarryStaff Inc. is an award-winning employment agency that hires workers for more than 100 employers throughout the Miami Valley. The majority of them are in manufacturing.
BarryStaff will hold a hiring blitz in order to fill over 100 open positions with various employers throughout the Miami Valley, particularly with a prominent automotive engine manufacturer.
Positions include assemblers, machinists and forklift drivers. Many positions are direct-hire (no “temp” period) and have a starting pay of $13.50 an hour. Entry-level and administrative positions are also available.
The event will begin at 10 a.m. on Tuesday April 4. It will last until 1 p.m.
Job applicants should report to the BarryStaff Community Room at 230 Webster Street in Dayton. They are guaranteed interviews with BarryStaff recruiters. Applicants must bring two forms of ID and an original high school diploma or GED.
If members of the media would like to speak to President Doug Barry, please contact communications director Andy Sedlak to arrange an interview.
“No one likes to work with a whiner, but the occasional gripe emanating from someone who ordinarily doesn’t complain holds weight,” says Vicky Oliver, author of “301 Smart Answers to Tough Interview Questions.” “The key is to kvetch in moderation.”
Rosemary Haefner, chief human resources officer at CareerBuilder, tells Business Insider that you need to embrace the idea of having difficult conversations to get what you need. “Instead of backing off in fear, you’ll learn to handle tough problems while treating people with dignity and respect,” she says.
A bad performance review
Oliver says that a lackluster performance review isn’t always a career-ender, as long you take the opportunity to fix what’s wrong. “You must show you can take the feedback and respond proactively to it,” Oliver says.
Taking time off
Most Americans are leaving vacation time on the table — in fact, Americans didn’t take 658 million vacation days in 2015 and lost 222 million of them entirely because they couldn’t be rolled over, paid out, or banked for any other benefit. That adds up to about $61.4 billion in lost benefits.
“Workers are often celebrated for wearing multiple hats and logging numerous hours,” Haefner says. “But working without letup is a bad habit that can jeopardize business, health, and the life you’re supposedly working toward.”
Studies suggest that not taking enough vacation time is bad for your health, happiness, relationships, productivity, and prospects for a promotion.
Making a lateral move
Just because you’re not moving up doesn’t mean you’re making the wrong move. Vicki Salemi, a career expert for Monster, suggests making a lateral move when you’re immersed in a dead-end job, working for a toxic boss, or need a change of scenery.
“When you work for a new employer, even if your title and responsibilities, as well as salary, are pretty similar to your former one, think of it as temporary,” she says. “Once you’re in a better environment, one in which you can flourish and grow, that’s not so terrible after all.”
Faking it ’til you make it
This advice can certainly backfire, especially when you’re taking on major debt to appear more successful or you’re ignoring the signs that it’s time to move on.
But it’s not always so terrible for your career. Indeed, Salemi says ‘faking it ’til you make it’ can help you overcome a common problem among working people — imposter syndrome.
As Harvard Business School professor and “Presence” author Amy Cuddy tells Harvard Business Review, faking it ’til you make it is more “about pretending to yourself that you’re confident” and framing challenges as opportunities than pretending to have skills you don’t. “Don’t think, ‘Oh no, I feel anxious.’ Think, ‘This is exciting.’ That makes it easier to get in there and engage,” she says.
Being bypassed for a promotion
“It hurts terribly when it happens, but sometimes you simply aren’t ready to handle the responsibility,” Oliver says. If you don’t get the promotion you wanted, Oliver suggests showing a brave face and dogged determination to shine so that you won’t be bypassed the next time around.
Crying at work
There’s no crying in business, at least not according to Shark Tank investor Barbara Corcoran. “The minute a woman cries, you’re giving away your power. You have to cry privately,” she once told an entrepreneur on the show.
But not everyone agrees. “You’re always taught to suppress emotion, but sometimes showing your upset can actually move you forward,” Oliver says. “You don’t want to wail at the top of your lungs in your cubicle, but some well-placed anger has its place.”
Political activist Gloria Steinem said that she often cries when angry, and the best way to handle it when it happens at work is to allow yourself to get angry, cry, and then keep talking through the tears, as a female executive once taught her. “She had mostly men working for her,” Steinem said. “And she would just say to them, ‘I am crying because I’m angry. You may think I’m sad. I am not sad. This is the way I get angry.'”
Sheryl Sandberg says that sharing emotions helps build deeper relationships at work, and experts say that, as long as the emotion is sincere, crying can increase people’s support and admiration for leaders. One study even found that found that expressing sadness can even help you in negotiations because it can “make recipients experience greater other-concern.”
Leaving your job without having another one lined up
In some ways, waiting to quit your job until you have another one lined up makes sense. Cutting off your income supply can be hard on your finances. You might also think getting a job would be infinitely more challenging when you’re unemployed because of stigma.
But Salemi says that if you’re miserable in your job, deflated and exhausted in a toxic work environment, and have extremely limited time and energy to find a new job, you’re probably not going to make a good impression when interviewing anyway.
She also says that whenever she’s interviewed job candidates who have quit without anything else lined up, the conversation never lingered on the topic. The conversation would go a little something like: “Why’d you leave your last job?” “I was completely burned out, getting sick, working 80-hour weeks, and my health was at risk, so I needed to make a clean break to re-energize my career!” And then on to the next question.
Taking a pay cut for a new job
“Taking a pay cut sounds counterintuitive to everything you’ve probably ever heard, right? Work hard, get recognized, get promoted, get paid more. Repeat,” Salemi says. “Well, there are many times when taking a pay cut can actually position you better for the long-term.”
“Your career, as cliché as it sounds, is a marathon, not a sprint, and sometimes it’s not a straight ladder up to the executive suite,” she says.
Just like making a lateral move can open you up to new opportunities, Salemi says that, if you’re in a toxic environment and haven’t gotten a pay increase in three years, taking a pay cut to leap to a competitor is a fair price to pay in the short term when you work for a company that will promote you and ultimately pay you more in the long run.
Employers of Reddit were asked: “What is one thing someone has said or done in an interview that made you want to hire them on the spot?” These are some of the best answers.
But one guy said “Well…..I like enchiladas a lot…..and I have IBS….so I may rack up your toilet paper expenses”
Hired him on the spot, honesty and hilarity in one package. I figured in the very least he would be entertaining to work with.
2. On the way to the conference room for the interview, interviewee instinctively picked up a gum wrapper off the floor and threw it in the nearest trash can. I just caught this peripherally, and he made no effort to show off his “insignificant good act.”
Honestly, I have never hired a single person on an impulse or based on something clever they said/did in an interview. It’s about qualifications and overall leaving a good impression. Trash-boy did get hired, and his simple act was really representative of him being pleasant and thoughtful. He also had several years experience in field.
I’ve been hiring for years, I do pick up on little things… sometimes a gum wrapper can distinguish one candidate from the others.
3. I never “hire on the spot”, as I always give some thought to the decision even when I’m very positive about someone.
However, I usually give screening tests to candidates. I had one young, inexperienced candidate that did not even pass the first screening question. Afterwards asked me to show him the correct answer and said something along the lines of “Thanks for showing me that I have a lot to learn.” I asked if he wanted some pointers & ended up lending him a book on the subject. A few days later I decided that that’s the attitude I’d like to hire and gave him the green light. Did not regret.
4. One of my hiring questions is, “Tell me about a time you made a mistake doing a job. Tell me what happened and what you learned from it.” One girl said, “Well, this story is kind of gross and might not be what you want, but it’s what comes to mind right away.”
Then she told me about a time during her medical internship at a local hospital where she tried to prove herself to a skeptical doctor by taking a large dead body down to the morgue by herself, even though she had never gone down before and was supposed to take someone else with her. She was a tiny girl, but in good shape and apparently when she got down there she was supposed to move the body from the gurney to a slab (which is why she was supposed to go down with another person). She tried to move it on her own, but failed to lock the wheels on the gurney first and ended up on the floor, pinned under a large dead body for over fifteen minutes before anyone found her.
She said that from that she learned to follow procedures and to not be too cocky to ask for help when she needed it. I didn’t see how I could not hire her after that story. Because it was so genuine and atypical from the usual answers I heard for that question.
5. On a technical interview for computer stuff…
Me: if you come across a problem you’ve never seen before, how to approach it? Soon to be new employee: I’d Google it.
This is the best answer. Most people go crying to vendors or support contracts before doing a simple Google search, and I find that offensive.
6. We were hiring for a specific position and had arranged a number of interviews for it from pre-screened applicants. As we had to play with real people’s real schedules, we ended up with the strongest candidate (UC Berkeley PhD) going first. He did very well in the interview and it was kind of a given that we’d hire him.
This left us in an awkward spot with one very interesting interview of someone completely without a degree. However, there were budget restrictions so this was a long shot.
Meanwhile inside the company we had a fairly complex technical problem going on. Instead of just having a “hi… bye” interview with this other guy, we threw our complex problem at him about 24h before the interview. The [guy] solved it before the interview, and did it really quite brilliantly.
At that point I was willing to go to the ropes to get him.
7. I was hiring for a graphic design position, and had a number of resumes on my desk. One guy had actually reached out to me personally through our website, and I just told him to email his resume to our job inbox.
We had just moved to a new office, and I posted a photo one morning to our Facebook page showing the new view off to our fans. That afternoon, he showed up at our office in a suit and tie, asked for the job, killed the interview and got it. He figured out the general area we were in from the photo, called the various office buildings to ask ahead, found us, and just showed up. 2 years later, he’s still there and doing an absolutely fantastic job.
8. I hired someone for giving me a dirty look in an interview.
Allow me to preface this by saying I really despise the interview process; I find that a person’s resume generally tells me everything I need to know and for me the interview is merely a formality to insure the applicant doesn’t have any personality or hygiene issues.
That said, I was hiring a desktop tech. I had a really stupid question that went something like “If I give you this, this and this piece of information would you be able to connect a PC to our domain?” The correct answer was yes.
Three applicants stammered and stuttered and said they figured they could but might need a little practice. The fourth applicant looked at me like I was insane but answered in the affirmative with no hesitation.
9. Post most of the interview, when we’ve turned to “Do you have any questions for us?”, the guy said, really matter-of-fact and not at all obsequiously, “Well, I’d like to know if there’s anything that we’ve talked about that has left you with doubts about me, so I can be sure you’ve got the information you need when you’re considering my fit.”
It was so simple, but so honest and effective because it was phrased as, ‘i want to help you be thorough’, but also quite self-serving because it got out in front of those doubts — we were immediately amazed that no one asks this. I’m never going to not ask it again (not that I’m looking, in case my boss has a line to the NSA).
10. Hiring for a programmer position and I decide to just Google his name. Turns out he also owns a Darth Vader outfit and puts it on to go visit sick kids in the hospital.
11. He stalked me and found out my birthday was that week. Came to the interview with a cupcake from Georgetown Cupcakes and awkwardly sang me Happy Birthday in front of all the other interviewees.
I ended up firing him a month later for being terrible at everything.
12. I was interviewing people for a seasonal outside job, and I was doing the interviewing inside the marketing dept in an available office. This young kid with long hair, a spiked dog collar, upside-down crosses for earrings and a trench coat was my next interview and as we were walking to the office I was using, I noticed several marketing staff whispering and staring with shocked expressions at this kid. He walked with confidence and waited for me to sit down before he did, he was very polite and made excellent eye contact and gave me the best interview of the day.
When I explained that since this was a position dealing with the public and children and told him the earrings and dog collar would have to go, should he be hired, without hesitation he removed them and gave me this charming grin and I hired him on the spot and told him he was the most genuine person I had interviewed so far. He turned out to be one of my best employees and was hired full-time and stayed with me for 5 years.
It’s like Christmas in January—that most wonderful time of the year in which CareerBuilder.com releases its annual list of job interview quirks and missteps committed by candidates in the preceding year.
The employment website polled 2,600 HR pros and hiring managers late last year and whittled the interview weirdness down to the following 10 “winners” in which a candidate:
Called his wife to ask her if the starting salary was enough before continuing the interview
Brought childhood toys to the interview
Said her hair was perfect when asked why she should become part of the team
Bragged about being in the local newspaper for alleged theft
Ate a pizza he brought with him
Ate crumbs off the table
Asked where the nearest bar was located
Invited interviewer to dinner afterwards
Stated that if the interviewer wanted to get to heaven, she would hire him
Asked interviewer why her aura didn’t like her.
CareerBuilder also asked about candidate behavior that would prompt an instant “Don’t call us, we’ll call you” rejection.
Job interview deal-breakers
Being caught lying: 66% Answering a phone call: 64% Appearing arrogant: 59% Dressing inappropriately: 49% Lacking accountability: 48%
While many large companies use automated résumé-screener software to cut down the initial pool of job applicants, loading your résumé with meaningless buzzwords is not the smartest way to get noticed.
“Nearly everyone is guilty of using buzzwords from time to time, but professionals are evaluated increasingly on their ability to communicate,” says Paul McDonald, senior executive director for professional-placement firm Robert Half.
Some of the major problems with using buzzwords, according to Mary Lorenz, a corporate-communications manager at CareerBuilder, are that they have become so overused that they’ve lost all meaning, and they don’t differentiate the job seeker from other candidates because they’re so generic.
Other, less jargony words and terms should be avoided when they serve little purpose to the hiring manager. All these words do is waste their time and, as a result, you lose out on the few precious seconds a recruiter spends scanning your résumé.
Instead, Lorenz says job seekers should speak in terms of accomplishments and show rather than tell.
“Avoiding overused terms can help job seekers convey their message and stand out from the crowd,” McDonald says.
Here’s what you should avoid:
1. ‘Leadership’
According to LinkedIn, “leadership” was the top buzzword on its user’s profiles. And if the word doesn’t help you stand out on your LinkedIn profile, you can bet it won’t make your résumé more eye-catching, either.
Rather than saying you have excellent leadership skills, you’d do better to highlight specific examples of when you demonstrated these skills and what kind of results you saw.
2. ‘Exceptional communicator’
Tina Nicolai, who has read more than 40,000 résumés since founding her company Résumé Writers’ Ink, previously told Business Insider that skills like being an “exceptional communicator” are “baseline expectations in today’s market.” Stating that you are really great at communication isn’t, in fact, saying very much.
3. ‘Best of breed’
When CareerBuilder surveyed more than 2,200 hiring managers, it found “best of breed” to be the most irritating term to be seen on a résumé.
The phrase offers little meaning and doesn’t help differentiate candidates. “Employers want to know what makes the job seekers unique, and how they will add value to the specific organization for which they’re applying,” Lorenz says.
4. ‘Phone’
Career coach Eli Amdur tells Business Insider that there is no reason to put the word “phone” in front of the actual number: “It’s pretty silly. They know it’s your phone number.”
The same rule applies to email.
5. ‘Results-driven’
“Instead of simply saying that you’re results-driven, write about what you did to actually drive results — and what those results were,” Lorenz suggests.
6. ‘Seasoned’
“Not only does this word conjure up images of curly fries,” says Rita Friedman, a Philadelphia-based career coach, but “it is well-recognized as a code word for ‘much, much older.'”
7. ‘Highly qualified’
McDonald says using terms like “highly qualified” or “extensive experience” won’t make you seem better suited for the job — in fact, it could have the opposite effect. Instead, he suggests you focus on the skills, accomplishments, and credentials you bring to the role.
8. ‘Responsible for’
Superfluous words like “responsible for,” “oversight of,” and “duties included” unnecessarily complicate and hide your experience, says Alyssa Gelbard, founder and president of Résumé Strategists.
“Be direct, concise, and use active verbs to describe your accomplishments,” she suggests.
Instead of writing, “Responsible for training interns …,” simply write, “Train interns …”
9. ‘NYSE’
Vicky Oliver, author of “Power Sales Words” and “301 Smart Answers to Tough Interview Questions,” says you should spell out any acronyms first and put the initials in parentheses. For example, “NYSE” would read “New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).”
“For starters, acronyms are capitalized, and all caps are harder to read than upper and lower case,” she says. “It’s also really difficult to wade through a piece of paper that resembles alphabet soup.”
10. ‘References available by request’
This outdated phrase will unnecessarily show your age, Gelbard says: “If you progress through the interviewing process, you will be asked for personal and professional references.”
11. ‘Ambitious’
“Of course you would never say you’re ‘lazy’ either, but calling yourself ambitious doesn’t make any sense on a résumé,” Friedman says.
“It can imply that you’re targeting this job now, but will quickly be looking to move up in the company because you won’t be satisfied in the role, leaving the employer stuck with doing a new job search in the very near future.”
12. ‘Team player’
“Who doesn’t want to be a team player? If you’re not a team player, you’re probably not going to get the job,” McDonald says.
But using this term isn’t going to make you stand out from other candidates. “Instead, use an example of how you saved a company time, money, and resources on a team project or in collaboration with others.”
13. ‘Microsoft Word’
Yes, you and everyone else.
It’s assumed that you have a basic proficiency in Microsoft Office, Gelbard says. Unless you have expert proficiency, there’s no need to include it on your résumé.
14. ‘Interfaced’
“Words like this make you sound like an automaton,” Oliver says. “Most recruiters would rather meet with a human being. Keep your verbs simple and streamlined.”
15. ‘Hard worker’
It’s true that a company is less likely to consider you if you haven’t worked hard or don’t come across as someone who will put in what it takes to get the job done, but that doesn’t mean writing “hard worker” will convince hiring managers of your efforts.
“Give concrete examples of how you’ve gone the extra mile, rather than using a non-memorable cliché,” McDonald suggests.
16. ‘Hard’
Speaking of the word “hard,” using it to describe your work tasks can also have a negative effect.
ZipRecruiter hosts a database of more than 3,000,000 résumés, which small businesses, individual employers, and recruiters looking for candidates can rate on a scale of one to five stars (one being the lowest, five the highest). After ZipRecruiter analyzed these résumés and their ratings, it found a correlation between certain keywords and low ratings.
The word “hard” was found to a strong correlation with one-star reviews, with up to a 79% greater likelihood of receiving the lowest rating. It’s likely the word gives employers the impression that you’re put off by hard work.
17. ‘Punctual’
Being punctual is great, but it’s also pretty basic to holding down a job. Don’t waste the space on your résumé.
BarryStaff opened its Springfield branch in 2015 and expectations for a job fair in mid-June were somewhat tempered. Did people know about the new office? If not, were they willing to find it?
There was nothing to worry about.
The job fair, held June 8, was more successful than BarryStaff ever imagined. More than 50 percent of the applicants interviewed were qualified to fill oft-needed positions at Clark County area companies.
One man, who said he saw advertisements for the job fair in the newspaper and on TV, said people are willing to do anything to work.
“I think (job fairs) are a good thing,” he said. “There are a lot of people who need jobs and there are a lot of good workers who aren’t working.”
Roughly 25 people interviewed over the span of a few hours.
BarryStaff is currently in the midst of planning another job fair, this time at the company’s headquarters in Dayton. Details will be released as plans are finalized.
Downtown staffing firm BarryStaff Inc. has finished demolishing the blighted building on the east side of downtown where it is building a new headquarters.
Last week I watched a common example of one individual serving as the intellect and conscience for another. It happened at Publix, our local grocery store, where my 17-year-old son Benjamin decided to apply for a job. Standing at the application kiosk was a couple, painfully going through the questions, discussing and debating each response. The woman, who was the one applying for a job, was insecure answering the questions on her own, instead, running each one by “her man” as she referred to him several times. Makes me wonder, if she gets the job, if he’ll be tagging along then, as well.
Leaders create an unhealthy, codependent relationship when they do something similar with employees. This practice is often caused by the open-door policy of many managers, who too often position themselves as being the go-to authority. As a result, the practiced dynamic is one in which the employees don’t have to come up with their answers, always relying on the boss for ideas and input. What often makes this worse is employees’ fear of being wrong or making a mistake.
Leadership Dependence, an all too common reality in companies, has caused leaders to be even more overwhelmed than ever and employees to be less self-sufficient. The alternative, Corporate Interdependence, promotes personal responsibility for doing the next right thing and engaging in collaboration where it’s actually needed.
To shift into Corporate Interdependence, managers simply need to ask more questions versus giving out answers. Saying “What would you do,” or “What’s the first step you could take,” begins to empower people to be more engaged, more responsible, and even more satisfied as they gain confidence in their own abilities. And often, leaders learn a few things themselves when employees come up with even better ideas.
