Buffalo Sabres: Rebuilding Leadership

As of 10:45 this morning, the Buffalo Sabres announced the removal of Darcy Regier and Ron Rolston as general manager, and head coach respectively. This marked the longest tenure for a general manager and the shortest ever coaching tenure with the Sabres ( except for that one guy that lasted one day). This announcement couldn’t have come any sooner for Sabres fans who were dealing with the worst season starting in the history of the team. A terribly miserable and sucky season was formulating.

So, Sabres owner, Terry Pegula decided to shake things up and start fresh. Sometimes things can get stale, and that’s great if you’re making croutons, but for a business or a hockey team, being comfortable with mediocrity is a death sentence. As the winter months are building and the temperatures are dropping, people tend to hibernate and embrace mediocrity.

Search Solution Group says shake it up and DON’T settle. If you aren’t happy with your job or the way you are performing, find a new avenue to explore. Humans are brilliant machines with brains that are almost infinitely expansive. We can do whatever we want as long as we put in the effort.

The Sabres are a team that has the potential to be great, everyone has the potential to be great. It just takes the right mentoring, leadership, experiences, and willingness to accept that greatness.

If you are out there thinking, GOSH DARN IT I WANT TO BE GREAT, pick up the phone and call us. We want to make you great, and we will.

 

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!

Columbus Day Myth Busting

It is Columbus Day, or as it’s called in Hawaii, ‘Discovery Day’!  Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1942 to find new land and prove that the world was round, right? Wrong! Most people think that Christopher Columbus was a revolutionary explorer discovering new lands when in all reality, those lands were already discovered by their inhabitants. Plus everyone had known the world was round for a few hundred years already. Just to add a kicker, Columbus never actually set foot on North American Soil. The only place that Columbus ever landed is now known as The Bahamas, Haiti, and The Dominican Republic. While he was there, he decided to make the indigenous people his slaves, take their land, and torture them to death. Christopher Columbus was not a heroic man nor should he be taught as one.

Today should be called Search Solution Group Day due to all the actual helping of people that happens around these parts. Each day at Search Solution Group is a discovery waiting to happen. Our expert recruiters take the task of finding the perfect candidate to fit a client’s needs and will not stop until top talent is discovered. The only commonality between Search Solution Group recruiters and Christopher Columbus is a tenacious and aggressive pursuit of success.

Come work with Search Solution Group and align your success with a group of executive recruiters who live for fulfilling your placement needs!

 

Cover Letter Conundrum

Hate to break this to you, but your cover letter stinks. It’s not your eloquence, or your experience, it’s the whole idea of a cover letter to begin with. Recruiters and hiring managers see thousands of resumes and do not have the time to read your page long description of your hopes and dreams. This is a tough lesson to learn, but it’s an important one: KEEP IT SIMPLE!

Today recruiters and hiring managers use resume and cover letter screening tools in addition to reading them. What these tools do is look for keywords in your resume to match up with what they are searching for. Only some screening tools read cover letters and 80% of recruiters and hiring managers skip to resumes without bothering with cover letters.

However, do not skip the cover letter. Some recruiters and hiring managers won’t look at a resumé if it doesn’t have a cover letter. It’s a tricky beast to tame, but you can do it if you follow these expert cover letter writing tips!

• Salutation: Skip the whole ‘Dear Sir or Madam’ BS. What that salutation shows is that you were too lazy to find out the hiring manager’s name. If you need to, call the company and ask for a name. If you can’t be bothered, or you can’t find it out, skip it all together and get to the point.
• Short & Sweet: Plan on having saying everything you have to say in one paragraph. Like we said, recruiters have zero time so make it easier for them.
•  Name it: Make sure you mention the name of the company in the first sentences of your letter and why you want to work there. Keep it truthful and sincere because recruiters and hiring managers are like sincerity bloodhounds and will sniff out a lie in a flash.
• Mobile Friendly: The fantastic recruiters at Search Solution Group do work even after hours and outside of the office. Making your cover letter mobile friendly ( meaning short and neatly organized) gives your cover letter a higher chance of actually being read. No one wants to have to zoom in and scroll to read anything, much less a cover letter.
• Typos:  Read your cover letter and resumé a million times before hitting send. If you have terrible grammar and a sordid past with typos, have someone trustworthy read it for you.
• Be Eye-Catching: After a cover letter has been deemed worthy by a screening tool, the recruiter still wants to be convinced why yours is the one to pick. Being straightforward and sincere are good like we said, but taking it a step further and asking a good intelligent question is another way to get a recruiter to call you. However, as much as you want to ask,  it can’t be a question like, ‘how much travel is there?’ or ‘what’s the pay?’.
• Refer To Your Resume: By making a quick reference to your resume in on of your few sentences of your cover letter, it makes the recruiter subconsciously look at your resumé which brings you a step closer to being called!
• Sign Your Name: If this is a paper cover letter, you better sign it at the bottom. If it is an online cover letter, type your name. It’s simple, but a surprising amount of people forget to put their name on the letter.

Typos.. grrrrr.

Once you get far enough to become a candidate for a job with our recruiters at Search Solution Group, you will get even more advice for your resumé and how to present yourself best on paper. We know that you have Top Talent and our recruiters will make you even better!

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

7 Ways to Ace a Web Cam Interview!

Congrats! You have an interview! Wait, did he say Web Cam Interview?  He sure did!  Before you panic about bad lighting, freezing pictures, and looking like a goof, follow these steps and look like a million bucks!

Eye Contact

Where are you supposed to look? The picture of the person? Yourself? Your eyes are getting anxious just at the thought of getting distracted and not looking in the right place!

The expert recruiters at Search Solution Group suggest Covering The Screen with a piece of paper so only the tiny little camera is showing. This will force you to look at the camera consistently.  It’s good to practice this strategy with a friend, or with your recruiter, before the interview.

Eye Contact Is Important

Quiet On The Set!

If you are planning on having this Web Cam Interview at home, be sure to do it in a quiet room and turn the ringer to silent on both cell and home phones. Keep your children, boyfriend/girlfriend, and pets out of the room.

Try your best to do this interview on your own time unless your employers are OK with you interviewing while at work. If you must interview while you’re at work, try to plan it for your lunch break when you are less likely to get distracted from co-workers and phone calls.

Clean It Up

A messy background can be distracting for your interviewer as well as project an unprofessional light on you. Don’t set up in the kitchen or living room. Find a space with a closed door, blank or tidy wall, and set up a table for your computer. If you are set up in an office, clean up your desk of all disorganized papers and only have relevant materials available for the interview. This will give you more organization and prevent distractions.

Be sure to have the camera on a direct level with your face. Having to angle the camera up at your face will give you a few extra chins as well as a possible up the nose shot. Gross.

Body Language

Nonverbal Communication accounts for two-thirds of what we humans try to communicate. This is why someone who seems like a terrible human being over the phone, is actually very happy and normal in person. The trick with Web Cams are that your brain is telling you to focus on verbal rather than nonverbal since there isn’t a physical person in front of you. Because of this conundrum, you must now consciously focus on your posture, hand gestures, and facial movements in order to make a good impression.

Prep Your Lighting

Lighting is super important when dealing with Web Cam interviews. The right lighting can make you look like a movie star, and the wrong lighting can make you look like the troll from under a bridge.  It might seem like overkill, but even if the room you’re in has natural lighting, and the room is well-lit,  take a lamp of some sort and aim the light directly at your face. Make sure this is a part of your practice to get the best angles and prevent awkward shadows.

Dress The Part

While it might be funny to wear a dress shirt on top and sweats on bottom, our recruiters suggest wearing what you would wear if you went to an in person interview. You will feel more professional and have better posture. Wear brighter SOLID colors  as to not get washed out or be distracting on camera. Ladies might want to wear a bit more makeup than normal.

Smile!

A friendly and confident smile is the best accessory to any in-person, phone, and web cam interview!