It’s no secret that most job descriptions are awful. They make the hiring company sound boring and the work tedious.

This could be a real problem for employers when they try to hire Generation Y Millennials. While some managers and recruiters are fed up with the stereotypically whiny and self-entitled “Trophy Kids,” Generation Y is predicted to comprise nearly 75 percent of the world’s workforce by 2025, according to a study by the Business and Professional Women’s Foundation. Companies will eventually be fighting for the best of them, so start using the job description to court talented millennials.

Here are six ways employers can tweak job descriptions to attract Gen Y:

1. Tell them why they should want to work for you. This is your company’s opportunity to make job seekers fall head over heels in love with you and the open position. Millennials don’t just want to crank out work and check off items on a to-do list. They want to love the company they work for, and hiring managers can use the job description to get them excited.

2. Tell them why the position matters. Understanding how my job contributes to the organization is one of the biggest motivators for me and my Gen Y colleagues. Make sure the job descriptions describes where the position falls within the company, how the candidate could make an impact, and where it fits in the grand scheme of things.

3.  Talk about what the job could do for them. Aside from a salary and benefits, how would they benefit from the position? What skills might they gain, what professional connections can they make, and why would this position make them more desirable candidates when they start looking for their next jobs?

4. Tell them about your creative benefits. Does your company offer any extra, exciting benefits, like flexible work hours or gym membership reimbursement? Be sure to mention those creative perks (no matter how small) in your job description.

5. Tell them about your vision for the position. While millennials may not envision working the same job for decades, it’s important that we work for a company where we could envision ourselves growing and contributing for several years. We want the job description to reflect that same sort of vision for the candidate who ultimately fills the position.

6. Tell your company story, quickly. Your company has a story. Tell a brief version of that story within your job description to quickly convey your company’s mission and how it came to be as it pertains to the kind of applicant you’re looking for.

What do you think Gen Y talent want in a job description?

Jennifer King is an HR Analyst for Software Advice, a company that compares and reviews human resources software. Read the original post on her HR blog!

Six Ways to Sell a Millennial With Your Job Description is a post from: Overdrive – The official blog of the Entrepreneurs' Organization

The “mystery” of innovation often seems like a cloud-covered grail always just out of reach of people looking to make their business stand out. We look at great innovations like the iPhone, Twitter or microwave oven, and wonder how we can do that. 

We search for that breakthrough idea as if it were a lottery ticket; all we have to do is pick the numbers and we are set for life. The thing is that the odds of finding that idea though just sitting down and generating ideas with your team are about the same as winning the lottery. Generating ideas does not equal innovation … it’s only one step to getting there. The key to deliberate creativity is to understand and apply the whole process and not be bogged down or enamored by just one part of it.

The universal creative process can happen quickly, slowly, in groups or on one’s own. We all do it naturally, whether we know it or not. What researchers have been able to do is put names to that process – an act that helps us be more aware of what we do as well as how we do it. Here it is in a nutshell:

• Clarify: We explore the problem, opportunity or issue at hand, find all relevant data that will help us make sense of it and figure out the most effective path to take to resolve the situation. Here we are deciding the best avenue(s) to explore.
• Ideate: We come up with and select ideas for making a change that best addresses the situation. Here we are stretching our minds for all possible (or even seemingly impossible) solutions and then applying critical thinking to identifying those ideas with the most potential – often finding the diamond in the rough.
• Develop: We tinker with those ideas until they are as perfect as they can be. We break them and rebuild them. We polish them until they shine. Here we are taking that rough idea and making it strong through trial and error, testing and adjusting until we have something that will hit the mark.
• Implement: We put the idea into action by organizing a solid plan that sets the change up for success. Here we are making change happen by gaining acceptance of the solution, mindfully communicating about the change and adapting the solution as necessary to make it work. 

What the research also tells us is that we all may use this process differently. Some of us may prefer one stage to another, and thus, we may skip stages we don’t like to do or stay in the stages we like for too long. How we engage in the process will either keep that grail in the clouds or place it right in our hands. 

The temptation to focus on the “A-ha” or “light bulb” moment is strong, as that seems to be where the money is. But keep in mind that Edison’s “A-ha!” was preceded by 1,000 failed light-bulb filaments. His success was the result of focused time he and his team spent in the “Developing” stage.

In addition to that inspirational apple falling on Newton’s head, he also had the collective knowledge of previous scientists’ work – the fruit of time given to the “Clarifying” stage. Since the process is something we all do anyway, why not deliberately apply it? It can only turn the odds of winning to our favor.

Chris Grivas is principal of Chris Grivas Consulting, an organizational and leadership development consultancy, and co-author of THE INNOVATIVE TEAM:  Unleashing Creative Potential For Breakthrough Results.

De-Cloaking Innovation is a post from: Overdrive – The official blog of the Entrepreneurs' Organization

I don’t know about you, but reading and hearing about leaders who have either lost, or never had integrity, has become all too common these days. It makes us believe that perhaps there are no leaders with integrity.

As someone who tries to view the glass as half-full, I think it is the media who has created this misperception that today’s business leaders are void of integrity, morals and ethics, because every day I work with executives and business owners who have very strong values and integrity. Yet, the stories that our media chooses to disseminate never seem to promote the leaders who live and breathe integrity.

Integrity, as defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is a “firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values (incorruptibility,) an unimpaired condition (soundness,) and the quality or state of being complete or undivided (completeness).”  Types of integrity include: integrity of character and professional integrity. Synonyms for integrity are: honesty & unity. Or, as Aristotle said: “Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting in a particular way.”

It is the word “constantly” in the Aristotelian quote above and the phrase “an unimpaired condition” from the Merriam-Webster definition that makes the concept of integrity challenging for many people. While we all have values that we believe are important in our life, outside pressures and circumstances may lead us to stray from these values because of our own self-interest. It is so much easier during difficult times to think of a decision in the terms of “what’s in it for me?” versus “what’s best for the team or the company?”

One of the keys to maintaining integrity is the ability to act not in one’s own interest but in the interest of others. A great example during these difficult times are the many leaders I work with who have taken significant pay cuts over and above the cuts made to their employees. They continue to follow their values in spite of the negative impact it has on them financially. There are other executives who have deliberately not poached their competitors’ star performers, but instead have decided to wait for those performers to reach out to them, if and when the time is right for them.

There are countless examples of leadership integrity that I could share with you and very few instances of leaders who either never had integrity or chose not to develop integrity. Integrity is not something you are born with. It is something you learn and strengthen over time. It is a conscious choice you make and you have total control over. No one can make you have or not have integrity.

Leaders without strong values and constant adherence to these values fail to recognize the message they are sending to their employees: “When things get tough, our values are up for sale.” Those leaders who have the ability to stay the “values” course will reap the benefits of having employees who are motivated and loyal to their company. 

These employees will mimic the behaviors of integrity that they see modeled by their leader. They will clearly understand what is acceptable and what is unacceptable behavior within their team and their company.  Integrity, like the Internet, can have a viral positive effect, and the lack of integrity can quickly create negative behavior in an organization, leading to decreased performance and ultimately decreased profits.

The following are some questions you may want to ponder to determine both your level of integrity and your commitment to integrity:

• On scale of 1-10, how would your employees rate your level of integrity?
• How do you react to lapses in integrity by another person?
• What positive behavior did you model recently that was later mimicked by an employee?
• What one behavior do you display on a consistent basis that is aligned with your company values?
• What key behaviors, other than your answer to the previous question, are necessary for you to be aligned with your company values?
• Describe a recent behavior you displayed that was not aligned with your company’s values.
• What words or actions from your employees will let you know that your employees trust you and your leadership?
• How are you practicing the behaviors you want your employees to mimic?
• On scale of 1-10, how would your employees rate their trust in you? How confident are you in this rating?
• On scale of 1-10, what one behavior can you display more of to increase your employees trust in you by 1 point on this scale?

In summary: A leader who values and successfully models integrity benefits by having motivated and loyal employees, resulting in increased performance, especially during difficult times.

Leadership: How Important Is Integrity? is a post from: Overdrive – The official blog of the Entrepreneurs' Organization

Stan Phelps has a message for business owners: stop spending so much time on acquiring new customers and spend more of it wowing the ones you have.

In a terrific new book, What’s Your Purple Goldfish, the author posits that in a sea of sameness the best way to achieve brand differentiation is to focus the bulk of your marketing efforts (and budget) on your customers— and not your prospects. His approach is a concept called lagniappe:

“Lagniappe is a Creole word meaning ‘the gift’ or ‘to give more.” A marketing lagniappe, i.e., a purple goldfish, is any time a business purposely goes above and beyond to provide a little something extra. It’s a marketing investment back into your customer base. It’s that unexpected surprise that’s thrown in for good measure to achieve product differentiation, drive retention and promote word of mouth.”

It is not a baker’s dozen, because we expect 13 bagels in our bag. But the 14^th bagel just might be a purple goldfish.

12 Ways to Wow

Phelps identifies two categories of lagniappe (value and maintenance) and 12 different ways to wow your customers:

1. Throw-ins (e.g., Southwest Airlines’ “bags fly free”)
2. In the Bag / Out of the Box (e.g., Zipcars leaving gift bags in random cars)
3. Sampling (e.g., a bakery giving everyone who walks in the door a slice of bread)
4. First and Last Impressions (e.g., a tire store bringing a cold drink out to a stranded motorist)
5. Guarantees (e.g., LL Bean’s lifetime product guarantee)
6. Pay it Forward (e.g., a dry cleaner cleaning a suit for free for a job interview)
7. Follow-up Call (e.g., a pharmacist calling to check on a patient)
8. Added Service (e.g., Zappos recommending a competitor because the item isn’t in stock)
9. Convenience (e.g., Trader Joe’s having miniature shopping carts for kids)
10. Waiting (e.g., Five Guys offering free, unshelled peanuts for customers as they wait in line)
11. Special Needs (e.g., Hyatt creating hypo-allergenic rooms to cater to allergy sufferers)
12. Handling Mistakes (e.g., a WineLibrary.com employee driving three hours to hand deliver a shipment that got screwed up by FedEx)

What’s Your Purple Goldfish is one of those books that every entrepreneur should read. It’s not filled with lofty ideas for changing the world; nor is it intended to be. Instead, it’s filled with examples of companies of all shapes and sizes who are driving word-of-mouth marketing by wowing their customers one person at a time. If you can’t find something in this book to apply to your business, then rethink your business.

12 Ways to Wow Your Customers is a post from: Overdrive – The official blog of the Entrepreneurs' Organization

Creativity, and creative problem solving, is often what separates success and failure, and making sure students in the United States are building this trait is of paramount importance for many parents and administrators. Many are getting a masters in education administration in order to change school curricula and improve the creativity of students in school, starting in the early grades but continuing well through high school and even college.

While schools budgets are being gutted, it is paramount that the educators themselves become very creative in the ways in which they teach their students and foster growth.According to the 2004 book Flight of the Creative Class, the 39 million employees working in the country’s creative sector — approximately 30 percent of the country’s working population — generated $2 trillion in wealth during 2003 alone. This is something that has caught the eye of school administrators who are looking to develop programs in order to help their students be more marketable. This number is only rising.  

Creative sector jobs include business operations, computer-related work and positions related to arts and the humanities.By contrast, the service sector employed more people in 2003, 56 million, but only generated US$1.3 trillion in wealth. This sector includes food service, maintenance and personal care occupations. The manufacturing sector employed 33 million employees, and tallied up a net US$1 trillion.

Preparing students for creative jobs almost always starts in the classroom. School-sponsored competitions in creative events is one way that networks of schools can encourage large-scale support of creative thinking. One such competitive event is known as Destination ImagiNation.

In Destination ImagiNation, teams of children from a certain age range or grade are pitted against each other in a number of problem-solving events that test both creativity and teamwork. Opponents are sometimes from the same school, but more often than not are from very diverse locations. Destination ImagiNation events span 30 countries, and connects students in real time via the internet. The programming touches more than 125,000 school children around the world each academic year.

Financial support for creative subjects in the humanities has traditionally been difficult to come by at schools. In today’s climate of budget cuts, justifying creative studies can be all the more difficult. As the benefits of creative learning become better understood, however, many schools are committing to more “outside the box” programs–even when funding is somewhat uncertain. University adoption of creative leadership modules is one major source of encouragement for secondary schools, and can help justify the need for this sort of programming.

Increasingly, many renowned institutions of higher education are making the commitment to restore arts education throughout their course offerings. Harvard University is at the forefront of this motion. In 2008, Harvard published a task force report entitled “Breaking Boundaries: Arts, Creativity and the Harvard Curriculum” that argued for the implementation of arts, performance and creativity throughout the university’s academic disciplines. The university has made good on this argument in a number of ways. Many were on display at an April 2012 Harvard arts festival, titled “Arts First.”

Arts First showcased many courses that had begun implementing more creative projects. Students of organismic and evolutionary biology had a festival of short films they had created based on class topics, for instance. A calligraphy display by students of arts and religion in Muslim cultures was also a highlight.

We live in an increasingly creative and global economy. The automation of many service sector and working class jobs means that the human element is most valuable in positions that still require original thought. Schools that teach students how to develop their senses of creativity will be the best at preparing their graduates to succeed in our ever-changing international society.

Scaling Creative Solutions in Educational Leadership for Today’s Global Economy is a post from: Overdrive – The official blog of the Entrepreneurs' Organization