Sharknado, Miley, Paris, & Search Solution Group Celebrate Halloween

As the week winds up towards Halloween, Search Solution Group is getting ready to compete in an epic costume contest! Last weekend was a crazy weekend in Uptown Charlotte with some insanely creative costumes abounding. One brilliant costume was Sharknado, a made for TV SyFy movie about a water tornado that lifts sharks out of the water and deposits them on the unsuspecting inhabitants of LA.  Inhabitants like Paris Hilton who was dressed up this year like Miley Cyrus.

 

Possibly Paris?

It’s hard to tell, but we’re pretty sure that Paris Hilton really dressed up like Sharknado this year in NoDa, Charlotte. Pretty sure.

Search Solution Group works so hard that we feel as equally obligated to play just as hard. We love having fun and Halloween is the perfect excuse to do just that! We love celebrating and some could say that we go all out. This year, Search Solution Group‘s theme is “TV Show Characters from the past decade. It’s a tough one, and there are sure to be some of the most creative costumes this year. You can help pick a winner this year by going to our Facebook page on Thursday and voting for whoever you think should win!

As an executive recruiting firm full of young and talented recruiters, Search Solution Group finds itself relating to a lot of what is going on around the world. With North Carolina still high up in the percentages of unemployment ( as of september 20th, it was at 8.7% of the labor force being unemployed), our recruiters are working hard to get you back to work. A lot of finding the right candidates is by searching through resumes and applicants, but most often, the most successful placements are through making a personal connection to the job poster or the employer.

Connect with Search Solution Group on LinkedIn to have an insider’s advantage to the job application process. Join networking groups in your local communities and find yourself at as many of their events as you can handle. Being proactive and politely aggressive during your job search is going to worlds of wonder for you.

Now be sure to connect with us on LinkedIn, Check out our photos on Facebook on Thursday, and give us a shout! We are the most approachable recruiters out there and we would love to hear from you!

 

 

 

 

Do You Have Career Passion?

One thing is for sure, the executive recruiters at Search Solution Group are passionate about their work! Our ideal situation is when we find the perfect candidate for a client and everyone lives happily ever after! Being in the business of humans, it is hard to accommodate everyone to make them happy, but by having a goal and a passion for our work, nothing gets us down.

Being passionate about your own success and the accomplishments of your company gives you a distinct advantage in your career. Passion shows in your work and if you decide to look for a new job, recruiters will see it both in your past work and your positive outlook for the future.

So what do you do if you are not a natural-born passionate worker?

• The first step in aligning your career passion is looking deep into your soul and figuring out exactly what it is that makes you tick, what you define as success, and what you love doing both at work and in your free time. Write everything down and look for patterns in your answers. This should tell you what you are already passionate about.
• Now that you have an idea of your passions, use this new insight to direct your goals. Brainstorm careers where you can utilize your passion. If you are already in your dream job, use your newly found passion insights to bring new elements to your daily efforts at work.
• It’s time to start taking steps towards your new career with gusto! It would be pointless to think of  your passions and where you want them to take you, and then not take steps toward your goals. So first things first, start networking within groups that you admire or want to have membership. The next step of course is to re-do your resume to fit your new passion.
• Call the recruiters at Search Solution Group! We understand career passion and absolutely love it when we find someone just as motivated for success as we are. We can help you with your goals and every step on your journey to a new career!

Be sure to Like us on Facebook, Connect on LinkedIn, and Follow us on Twitter!

Why You Aren’t Successful (And Never Will Be)

Whoa whoa, calm down!  We were just kidding.. sort of. The whole ‘You won’t be successful thing’ is actually contingent on whether or not you follow these pieces of advice that are often disregarded, but are straight from the Search Solution Group recruiters and are not to be ignored.

On your road to success, you’ll get advice from your mother, your sister, your neighbor, and anyone who has a mouth and a brain. People love to give advice (and not all of it’s good), but here are 10 pieces of career adviceyou should actually follow!

1. Read Everything You Can Find: Not only does reading give your grey matter a good work out, reading is the easiest and most fruitful way to gather new ideas and relevant career advice ( like this blog)!  Reading autobiographies of successful people is a good place to start and can seriously elevate your success by giving you inspiration and new ideas.
2. Get Organized: No one is going to want to work with you if you are disorganized. Getting yourself into the habit of writing lists and organizing those lists based on priority is the first place to start. You list style can be  based on color coding, actual coding, a smart phone App, or a million sticky notes. Finding a system to keep you organized will show in your work and home life.
3. Find A GOOD Mentor: In order to be successful, you never ever EVER want to work for someone who is not going to encourage you to be the best. Finding good mentors that won’t let you fail are important to find. If you aren’t getting that type of mentor at work, look towards professional and social groups. It’s a matter of finding someone who you respect that would be proud of your successes and pick you up when you fail. A good place to start in your mentor search is within LinkedIn groups specific to your industry.
4. Prove Your Worth:  In order to be successful you need to be able to show that you aren’t afraid of doing anything to get results. You need to make yourself DO something instead of just talking about your dreams all day. Look at all the movers and shakers of the world.  Gary Veynerchuck took his father’s liquor store and turned it into a successful online wine store by thinking out of the box and actually DOING it!   You can’t be too afraid to fail and not take risks because taking risks often pay off the most.
5. Don’t Burn Bridges: Keep every solid contact that you have ever made. Burning bridges when leaving a job or not working with a company can be detrimental to your future success. You never know when you may need advice or help from a person, so the best advice is to always be professionally cordial  to everyone you ever work with ( or don’t work with).
6. Follow Up: Making initial contact with a company you’re interested in, or a group you would love to talk with might seem hard, but it’s actually the easiest part of contacting a person. You’ve introduced yourself and given your pitch, but now is not the time to sit idly by. Follow up! Email them and call them and make them see why it is beneficial to them to work with you. You may get shot down, but it’s better to try then to wonder what could have been.
7.  Ask For Help: If you have a problem and need help, just ask for it! The most successful people have failed in their lifetimes and had to ask for help. Don’t let your pride get in your way.
8. Get Some Sleep: The Human brain needs sleep. No one really knows why the body snoozes for a portion of each day, but science shows that without sleep, illness follows. Achieving a good sleep schedule will do wonders for you during the day.
9. Work/Life Balance: There comes a time when a little bit of relaxation is necessary to your success. Just make sure that you aren’t going out drinking every night. That won’t leave you with a fresh mind in the morning.
10. Look to Other People’s Needs: Be a problem solver for others and you will become wildly successful. Henry Ford needed to solve a supply and demand problem for his cars so he invented the assembly line making him wildly successful and a household name for the past 100 years.

Just remember this quote attributed to Karen Lamb, “A year ago you may wish you had started today”, and get out there and do something today to  make yourself successful!

Be sure to Like Search Solution Group on Facebook, Connect on LinkedIn, and Follow on Twitter!

Breaking Washington

In case you’ve been living in the mountains without signal, the US government is breaking down. Perhaps they should try just turning it off and back on again, or try blowing on it to get the  dust out. After failing to agree on a spending bill, the shutdown that has been coming for three years is finally here. Your mail will still be delivered and the military will still be in operation, but if you were planning on going to a federal park or museum, you are out of luck.

Luckily for you, Search Solution Group’s door never closes. With all the confusion and people not knowing the state of their government jobs or the state of their states, it is an important time to know the best recruiters in the biz. Getting connected with Search Solution Group has never been easier. Search Solution Group is implementing Operation Social Media Overhaul. This means that you will have more access to us through social means, more jobs will be posted, and our recruiters will be more engaging with our followers.

Come connect with us to get a good grasp on the state of YOUR career and let those government officials worry about the state of the Union.  This is ‘MERICA and no shutdown is going to ruin the operation of  Search Solution Group and other amazing small businesses who work hard every single day of the week!

Connect with us on LinkedIn, Like us on Facebook, and Follow us on Twitter!

 

Miss America and Miss SSG 2014

In honor of the crowning of Nina Davuluri as Miss America 2014, Search Solution Group has named a very lucky winner of the much coveted Miss Search Solution Group. You must be on the edge of your seat in anticipation as to who it could possibly be!

Keep reading.

Just like the Miss America pageant, there were many diverse candidates in our competition. The new Miss America has a degree in brain behavior and cognitive science and will spend her year as Miss America as the spokesperson for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). Similarly, the new Miss SSG betters humankind daily by staring deeply into souls and willing change.

Not yet, keep reading.

Living the American dream is a big theme this week at Search Solution Group. Our last post was about being a small business and what that means in regards to being a passionate worker while fulfilling the entrepreneurial itch that resides in our souls as Americans. The idea of the American dream stems from the idea that “All Men Are Created Equal” and that life should be better, richer and fuller for everyone regardless of social class or circumstance of birth.  America truly is still the Melting Pot of the world.

Just like good chefs, our recruiters at Search Solution Group, love finding new ingredients to add to the Melting Pot. Talent comes in many forms and it is up to our recruiters to find the best candidates in a timely fashion.  Once again, congrats to the new Miss America and congratulations  to the new Miss Search Solution Group, LACIE!

“If you are going to be a Bear, be a GRIZZLY”

REPUBLICAN OR DEMOCRAT? BIG BIRD OR ELMO?

 

Republican or Democrat, shit you could even be an alien and there is a good chance you know what Sesame Street is; Ernie, Bert, Oscar the Grouch, Cookie Monster (my favorite), Elmo and the forever infamous Big Bird.

We all practically grew up with Sesame Street and these characters. But why would you want to pick on Big Bird and get rid of him? He is by far the biggest of all the puppets and I imagine could be a really mean drunk if he is drinking. Plus hanging out with Elmo all day would piss me off and make me want to drink! I might even recommend anger management classes just to deal with Elmo all week. Don’t pretend you never wondered why someone hasn’t beaten up Elmo.

Think about Elmo for a moment. He is the new guy on the street (Baltimore crew); he just walked in and is all of a sudden is the center of attention. What has Elmo really accomplished? A few holidays ago he was the hot toy stuffed with plastic and feathers. If you pushed a button he would dance, make some noise, be amusing for a moment then quickly become annoying and never leave your house. HELLLLLL if I wanted that in my life I would date another stripper, stuffed with plastic, annoying, amusing for a few moments and really never leaves your house, PLUS is any stripper really a good “dancer”. I don’t think so. There is not much of a difference between that loser Elmo and a bad pole-dancing stripper.

Now Big Bird is the guy who is going to be the center on the puppet basketball team, the fighter on the puppet hockey team and be the first to stand up for his other fellow puppets. There are no other big puppets on Sesame Street, but what about the Muppets? Kermit, the great Gonzo and Miss Piggy they could use a seven foot yellow bird in their crew. Big Bird would make the Muppets a power house, a potential dynasty and give them street cred (as we say in the hood).

Regardless of whether you liked Mitt’s debate the other night he could be the catalyst that finally brings Kermit a puppet championship. It’s tough being green, as Kermit would say. But finally that conniving weasel Elmo would be on the unemployment line or forced to be on stage dancing to “Pour Some Sugar on Me” by Def Leppard. From what I hear is the most popular stripper song of all time, again from what I hear.

I wouldn’t know…I’m practically a saint!

 

It’s Not Where it Started…It’s Where It’s Going That Matters!

I had this funny feeling this morning as I was driving into work about all the random decisions that we make as individuals and how they impact those closest to us. I was turning off my street onto Central Ave (means nothing to some of you) and I noticed that it is getting cooler outside. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this one out….but my thought was “I can’t believe I am driving to my office”. For years I would wake up, feed Tanner eat some breakfast and work out of my home office in my PJ’s. I was void of ever having a morning car accident, fighting the morning commute or wondering what kind of mood my co-workers were going to be in. It was all I knew for years, it was great!

Then one amazing evening I sat down and met Stella for what I thought was an interview, she swears to this day she had no idea what we were doing or going to talk about. Yes, this is a concern still for me..ha ha. Even worse was the autobiography she told me was reading, feel free to ask her what book it was. It should make you wonder why I hired her.  But as it turns out it was one of my top 5 best decisions I ever made. In the grander scheme of it all Stella said yes to the job offer (thank GOD). These decisions that we made that day and continue to make have allowed us to hire a bunch of great people such as Eric, Ashley, Elena, Aaron, Michelle, LC and Vinny. They have helped us add value to others people lives because we now make our clients hiring process 10X better and have given a bunch of good people some solid jobs. Our team and their decisions everyday have made my life better. They don’t cause any problems, they get here on time and stay late. They are all usually smiling after they have some coffee. We have dogs running around, food in the fridge and we are being successful and having fun.

 My point is that I am no longer throwing out Aluminum Cans (see previous blogs) I realize how important these decisions that we make everyday are and how they impact everyone’s lives around us. I am still making a significant effort to make sure that everything I do is done with a smile realizing how much we affect everyone around us.

 The coolest part is not so much where it started but where Search Solution Group is going! Thank you to everyone who makes this possible every day

Escape from the office – enjoy TV

Over the years everyone is looking for some balance (thank you Mr. Miyagi). For some people  it’s the gym, sports, cooking classes or just plain walking around the neighborhood. I think I have done all the above except cooking classes just to try to have an escape from the office and the day-to-day of the work week. One of my favorite things has always been watching a good movie or a TV Show. I think this comes from my dad, For the longest time I was addicted to “Lost” and since that TV Show has gone away, my new favorite TV show is “How I Met Your Mother”. In my opinion it’s just a really well done TV show that is well told with a great cast of characters and awesome acting. The best part it’s really really funny.

 This week’s blog is dedicated to one of my favorite people to watch on this TV show – Barney Stinson. Barney you have come a long way since Doogie Howser. Here are some of Barney’s best quotes:

 10. Barney: “Plus, here’s the mini-cherry on top of the regular cherry on top of the sundae of awesomeness that is my life”

 9. First explaining to Marshall about his unique qualities: “Think of me like Yoda, but instead of being little and green I wear suits and I’m awesome. I’m your bro—I’m Broda!”

 8. Describing the simplicity of running a marathon: “Step one, you start running. There is no step two.”

 7. Barney, reacting to Ted’s new car: “Shotgun for eternity!” 
Robin: “You can’t call shotgun for eternity.” 
Barney: “I call that I can call things.”

 6. Giving his new friend advice on meeting women: “Now remember my three beginner’s tips for picking up chicks: address her by name, isolate her from her friends, subtly put her down.

 5. Justifying his smoking habit: “I am not a smoker. I only smoke in certain situations: post-coital, when I’m with Germans (sometimes those two overlap), coital, birthdays, to annoy my mom, pre-coital, on a sailboat, the day the Mets are mathematically eliminated every year, and, of course—wait for it—’cause Lord knows I have—pregnancy scares.”

 4. When I’m sad, I stop being sad and start being awesome instead.

 3. In my body where the shame gland should be, there is a second AWESOME GLAND!

 2. It’s gonna be legen………wait for it [falls asleep]….[awakes]…..DARY!!

and #1. Barney: My life rocks! Money, suits, and sex? These are tears of joy! I could be cooped up in an apartment, changing some brat’s poopy diaper but instead I’m out in the world being awesome 24/7/365! You let me dodge a bullet, big guy. (kisses fingers & raises them in the air)

Lessons I’ve Learned From My Dad

I spent most of my days as a kid at the ball park or the hockey rink. When I wasn’t there with my parents, I remember playing catch in the middle of our street with my dad or him taking me to the park and hitting me ground balls. I remember my dad laying on the couch watching sports and shooting little plastic balls at me as I pretended to be a goalie in our family room. My dad spent countless hours with me in the backyard teaching me how to hit a golf ball. He was constantly telling me that I do not have to swing hard for it to go far but just let the club do the work for you. Sure enough 20 years later he is right (as always)!!

I also remember all the little life lessons along the way. I am not sure my dad ever really thought I would grow up to be a business owner/recruiter but I think he just wanted me to be a good person and be happy. I am not always sure what it means to be happy especially at work, but I promise you I’m trying. We have done little things in the office recently like having summer hours and the occasional group trip.  One of the things I enjoy doing with my staff is having lunch together. As a kid I always remember sitting down and having dinner as a family.  I can’t remember all the dinner conversations we had as a family, but I do remember being together. So while we still remain a small company I love eating lunch together. Somedays the conversations are funnier or more engaging, but secretly I don’t care, as long as we are all together. I guess it reminds me of growing up with my dad.

 My dad didn’t grow up in a situation to be able to give me investment advice or to talk me thru the financial crisis. That was never his strength and we both know that. But I know my dads strength is people. Talking to them, listening to them and trusting people. He would be the first person to give you his last dollar or the shirt off his back without thinking twice. He loves people, ever since I was a kid I can remember him talking to complete strangers and never judging them. I remember going to hockey practice one cold Buffalo, NY morning around 6am when we stopped at the corner store for something. It took my dad forever to get out of the store all because he was having a conversation with the Hostess food delivery guy….ha. But that’s my dad!!

 

The way my dad treats people is the best business lesson I have learned from him. It is only fitting that on Father’s Day this year that I acknowledge that and continue everyday to try to treat everybody the way my father would.  It’s easier said than done, but as I get older and things seem to get more complicated in the back of my mind and in my heart I am trying to be more like my dad!

 

Thank you dad and Happy Fathers Day!!!