9 key features to be hired in a start-up

An article recently published in Mashable has asked different founders of start-ups on the characteristics seeking in candidates who are interviewed. First of all, they make it clear that lifestyle that entails working in these companies is not for everyone. And, in the same way, not everyone is able to work in this field.

 

The nine qualities that are sought are:

1. passion and motivation: must believe in the start-up and its mission and be prepared to be advised, learn and make your own way.

2. Curiosity: looking for people who want to innovate, but also acting.

3. Speed, attitude and skill: you can always hire people, shape it and become experts and act efficiently. Difficult, as it admits the CEO of Rosie Nick Nickitas, is finding people with these three features and help to build great products and provide satisfaction to customers every day.

4. Audacity: looking for leaders, capable of making decisions.

5. Desire to learn and ability to sacrifice: the really interesting candidates ask for more responsibilities and are flushed in learning something new.

6. Sense of humor and cultural background: recruiters believe that skills are acquired, so it is contracted mainly by knowledge. As explains Ken Deckinger, co-founder and CEO of Jesus, Meet Ken, "people that home, they have not only to think that my jokes are bad, they have to be able to have one even worse than mine. Do it and you'll be part of my team."

7. Impact: more top people should be fun, passionate and ambitious, they must have a desire to change the lives of others.

8. Flexibility: the environment of start-ups is characterized by its great dynamism, so it is looking for candidates with very different skills.

9. Without fear: is that the best employees are independent and do not need to be monitored on an ongoing basis. But, at the same time, have no fear of asking questions, be humble and admit that they comment errors, something usual in this type of companies.

Are young people trained to enter the labour market?

A survey by British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) - and which is made echo the BBC--shows that young people lack job skills such as communication or ability to work in team. In the study, which was attended by 3,000 companies, stressing that nine of every ten students who abandon studies are not prepared to enter the labour market, and the same goes for half of those who graduate.

With these results, managers of the institution have requested that all British secondary education students made practices in enterprises, while the Ministry of education has made public that it will boost measures that promote cooperation between schools and businesses.

Three of every four companies that responded to the survey blamed this data to the lack of work experience of young people, and more than half (57%) stressed that new generations lack even basic skills like communication. However, 50% of the interviews companies lack jobs practices by monetary issues and time (25%), by excessively bureaucratic (23%) or lack of information (22%).

Other interesting facts are that, because of this lack of preparation, more than one quarter of enterprises (27%) indicate that not recruited young workers (between 16 and 24 years old) in the last year and only 39% offered practices. An additional 32% arises to offer them in the future, while 54% said that if additional training is subsidized they would encourage to engage more young people.

Leaders of the Chambers of Commerce have also recommended that all students have the opportunity to study modules in business and entrepreneurship as part of his studies required to encourage and train potential entrepreneurs and business people from a more diverse academic range.

More efficient workers sleep between seven and eight hours

A study published last September in the journal Sleep, and of which echoed The New York Times, confirms the need for sleep between seven and eight hours to perform effectively in the workplace.

The research, carried out in Finland analyzed, for a period of seven years, sleep habits and days off in 3,760 people, 1,875 women and 1,885 men. Their ages were around, when he began the study, 30 to 64 years.

The main conclusion is that the days are associated with worker sleep habits: obviously, those who cannot sleep well (for insomnia and other disorders) were those who stayed at home most days and could not go to work, especially those who sleep five hours or less.

But, paradoxically, those who slept for many hours more (at least 10), also missed many days. Both groups could not go to work between 5 and 9 days more than the so-called optimal sleeping, those that rest between seven and eight hours per night.

Workers that less missed, according to the research, were the women who slept an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes per night and the men who made it a little more: 7 hours and 46 minutes.

The most cited frequent causes were related to insomnia, early morning awakening, symptoms be more tiring day than people of the same age, use of sleeping pills, excessive day dream, probably sleep apnea and report on changes in the sleep duration in the different seasons of the year.

The authors of the study, from the Finnish Institute of occupational health, Department of public health at the University of Helsinki and the National Institute of health and welfare, conclude that it is essential to prevent alterations of sleep and promote an optimal duration of night rest to prevent the sick leave.

How to avoid the five most common mistakes in the curriculum, according to Google

Laszlo Bock, head of human resources of Google, has written an interesting post that summarizes the errors more frequent in a curriculum. As he admits, sent hundreds to any work and has personally reviewed 20,000. And the company where he works receives about 50,000 a week. 



Error number one: misspellings and misprints

Even though it may seem obvious, it happens over and over again: a study of 2013 calculated that approximately 58% of CV has typos or spelling mistakes, so Bock recommends to check it from bottom to top: by his experience, interestingly, the people who more changes and more care put into updating it are more fouls committed. The most common failures are lack of agreement between subject and predicate, and errors in the dates. 


Mistake number two: length

The recommendation is that 10 years of work experience should be summarized in a page, because the curricula of more than four pages not just reading. It is essential to demonstrate ability to synthesis and can prioritize our most important information. 


Mistake number three: attention to the format

Unless we are looking for a job as a designer or artist, the aim must be to have a curriculum without frills, clear and readable, with a size of at least 10 source, with margins and enough space between lines, written in black ink and on white paper, with name and contact information on each page. It is best to auto send it to us in an email and see it in preview, to see if it keeps the format (can be changed). To avoid this, you can save as a PDF. 


Error number four: disclose confidential information

Not ever include information of this kind, even in a veiled way. The head of Google recommended the so-called test of the New York Times: If you do not want that it came out on the cover of the newspaper (or do not want your boss to see it), don't put it in the curriculum. 


Error number five: don't lie

Finally, Bock recommends not trying to trick ever, because in its opinion no it is never worth, since it is easy to be discovered and these lies will always pursue us.

Recognized in the US the right to criticize the company on social networks.

The National Labor Relations Board of the United States (NLRB in its acronym in English), has recognized the right of workers to express through social networks, their grievances or differences with work or superiors, according to information that has echoed El Periódico de Cataluña. From now on forward will not be grounds for dismissal press 'like' on pages that are not related to the company or share publications manifest personal discontent about the labor situation. They are already considered a right of the worker.

The origin of the story lies in 2011, in Watertown, a town in the State of Connecticut, when a former employee of a bar, called Triple Play Sports Bar and Grille, published on his Facebook account a complaint about the working conditions of the establishment, insulting the Manager. Two employees who worked in the bar at that time put him to 'like' in the publication. When the company learned that they had intervened in the commentary dismissed both with the reason of "lack of loyalty".

The National Labor Relations Board, last September, gave few days so the company returned to hire two employees dismissed, since it considers that what they did was to "discuss a labour problem". This is not the first statement in which it fails in favor of an employee who has been dismissed for criticizing the company on Facebook: In 2011 it was forced to reinstate to a worker who had criticized her directly responsible in this social network. In this case, Triple Play Sports Bar and Grille has appealed the judgment of the Agency because no legitimate justification of the same.

CNN has exposed the case of a lawyer, named Brian Spitz, specializing in employment issues related to social networks and that calls attention to the complication that resides in wanting to apply laws of 20, 30 or 50 years ago to a new generation of technology.

Humble bosses improve the management of the companies

A new study of the WP Carey School of Business, of the Arizona State University shows that the humble CEOs benefit significantly both to the companies for which they work and to its management, probably more proud chiefs acting with sexist stereotypes and that are arrogant leaders that no matter the opinion of anyone more. The study, published in Administrative Science Quarterly has also explained with the participation of researchers from the National University of Singapore, of George Washington University and Renmin University of China.

The CEOs who are humble are more open to joint decision-making and to empower others, explained Angelo Kinicki, Professor at the WP Carey School of Business and one of the authors of the study. "Their behavior positively affects both the senior and as to the Middle, presenting a greater commitment to the company and work, more work and better satisfaction performance of its functions. We see an effect of bit by bit which seems to influence the company in general", it has been described.

Researchers interviewed the CEOs of 63 private companies in China, and also created and distributed surveys that was measured humility and its effects on nearly 1,000 managers of top grade and level means that work with these general managers interviewed. The authors of the study specifically chose China because they needed a context in which CEOs will show a wide variety of levels of humility. However, believe that the findings generalize to many companies in the United States and other parts of the world.

"Our study suggests the 'secret formula' to create managers who are great and humble", explained Kinicki: "they have to be willing to search for information about themselves, have to be more empathetic and look for strengths and weaknesses of others and should be more focused on the common good and the welfare of others above their own".

For Kinicki, leader behavior normally falls cascading down the structure of the Organization, so if the leadership of the organization is characterized by humility, the effects will be noticed in almost all workers of the company.