Tue Jan 07, 2014 at 09:04 PM by Aimen Throughout my career and even in school a tool that I had always thought would be valuable is the ability to get recommendations from people whether it be classmates, teachers, peers or bosses in the right moment when my interactions with them were current and vibrant in their memories or in their present. So often when we need a recommendation from someone we reach out often years later and ask them to vouch for us and for our abilities. Our favorites remember us and will always deliver to our expectations but this does not give others a set of recommendations about us that are curated and culled over time when our "impression" on the recommendation giver is fresh and vibrant. This is one of the main reasons that we created urecommendme.com. The idea of urecommendme.com came to me when my oldest son was in 11th grade and getting ready to prepare for college applications. I thought that a tool that could have captured recommendations for him both academic and activity based as he participated in activities would have been ideal. A tool like this was also needed for the professional world. While the tool has grown and and evolved and my son has now graduated college and is working on Wall Street the need for this type of a tool is still equally important in the professional world. Having a portfolio of recommendations that mark the progress and evolution of your career is an invaluable asset to have. |
Sat Apr 28, 2012 at 12:31 AM by Zameer So the latest buzz seems to be to take data from other sources about your professional and personal life and tabulate it using some sort of algorithm and then show to the world as “where you stand among your peers” or “how you appear to the world” !
I say what???? So you think that taking data from sources like linked-In or Facebook or just scouring the web and then create your online “Picture” is something you will accept as a true picture of your abilities and your brawn…..
I say NOT ……
I mean that may work for a model of car or a computer but you are a Professional who has charted many trails to get to where you are today and there are many tales about your journey to success that no one knows anything about except you and some of your confidants and peers and close friends and family……so a real “You” is known by a few and only their input can paint a picture that is as close to you as you are….
That’s why we believe that providing a tool where your friends, peers and family members can provide honest and candid feedback is the way to go.
Now at many places you can get a “Recommendation” and post it online but what does that recommendation really say? Hmm…..”Bob is a nice hard working chap”………or…..”Andy is a great sales person with a focus on closing deals and delivering sales numbers”………or …….perhaps something like this…….”Jack went above and beyond the call of duty to help us get our system back up online and spent 3 days nonstop onsite until we were fully operational”…….
Well some of the above example do tell a good bit about what these folks are all about but other statements are just plain vanilla and non-computational……
We have created a platform where you can get a recommendation that truly highlights your abilities and your key differentiators. We provide the ability for your connections to rate you based on their real life interactions with you taking into consideration the circumstances of the interaction.
We believe that makes for a better “You” or “Me” picture ….don’t you agree?
Comments??…..post them below…. and happy trails through the jungle of life.. |
Fri Dec 09, 2011 at 11:26 AM by Dennis Nicholas
A new era of strong customer engagement is here with us. Today, marketers are adjusting to innovative ways of marketing, for example social-media management; different programs to enhance advertising campaigns on television, online, and in print; including added staff with Web skills to handle the outburst of digital consumer environment. But according to experiences, that alone won’t bring real results home. To really engage customers who drive advertising is growingly becoming irrelevant, businesses should do a lot more outside the limits of conventional marketing structures. Ultimately, consumers no longer divide the link between marketing and the item for consumption—it is the product. There’s no division between marketing from their online or in-store experience—it is the experience. This shift obviously brings a huge challenge: if each person is responsible for marketing, who’s blamed? Also, what does this new certainty mean for the organization and charter of the department of marketing? It’s a predicament that matches the one that surfaced a while ago, the day’s of quality movement, actually before it was finally entrenched in the fabric of overall management. Fundamentally, businesses need to be marketing vehicles, with the marketing team itself assumes the role of consumer-engagement engine, in charge for instituting priorities and fueling dialogue in the whole company as it looks to design, build, manage, and revamp advanced consumer-engagement approaches. As that change takes center stage, the entire marketing institution won’t be the same: a greater allocation of existing marketing undertakings to other tasks will be experienced; additional councils and unofficial alliances that organize marketing tasks across the business will be realized; stronger affiliations with outside vendors, customers, and possibly even your competitors will become evident; and a huge role for data-driven consumer insights. Today’s editorial will show some real-life instances of these kinds of adjustments. Marketing’s revolutionary is being redefined on a daily basis. Though, it’s still difficult to find definitive map illustrating how business can fruitfully take the helm in the epoch of engagement, we are optimistic to help top executives—and not just salespersons— begin to draw one. Pervasive marketing To engage consumers every time they interact with the company— be it on the phone; responding to an e-mail, an online review, a blog post, or physically in a store—marketing must spread through the entire organization. Businesses like Zappos and Starbucks have made strong engagement as their vital source of competitive upper hand from the start; already demonstrating some of these attributes. Such |
Mon Dec 05, 2011 at 11:03 AM by Dennis Nicholas While creativity is often seen as an attribute of the privileged few, any kind of person or group can develop themselves to be creative—better still, be able to breed the breakthroughs that kindle the growth and performance of a company. In fact, findings by McKinsey research, indicate that most corporate groups, from experienced C-level managers to customer service representatives, imply that companies can employ simple techniques to enhance creative output of the workers at any level.
The point here is perception, actually according to one of the leading neuroscientists, Gregory Berns of Emory University, confirms it’s basically linked to creativity of human brain. To see things differently, Gregory maintains, we must shower our brains with some things it has never come across. Such novelty is fundamental since the human brain has evolved for proficiency and regularly assumes perceptional shortcuts to save energy. Forcing our brains to re-group information and move outside our usual thinking patterns we would begin to envision truly novel choices and concepts.
In today’s editorial, we’ll dig out a few practical procedures for CEOs or managers to apply in order to stir up deep-seated perceptions and boost creativity— both individually and with their juniors and extensive work groups. Of course, we’ve not invented these individual techniques, but we’ve discovered their joint power to help business breed different ways of taking on perennial issues—a valuable capability for any organization on the prowl for prospective game-changing progress opportunities.
Absorb yourself in
Professing innovators should open up their pre-existing thoughts. Unluckily, human mind is to our surprise skilled at supporting its entrenched ways of seeing the world while separating facts to the contrary. Sure, academic research implies that even when handed with overwhelming evidence, vast majority (including highly-educated ones) just won’t dump their deeply held views.
The remedy is personal experience: having firsthand experiencing and seeing something can stir people up in ways that discussions around meeting room tables can’t. As a result, it’s enormously valuable to begin creativity-building practices or idea building efforts outside the workplace, by constructing personal experiences that openly confront the members’ implicit or explicit views.
We’ve witnessed that by coordinating personal encounters like these, organizations predispose their staff to greater creativity. CEOs who want to begin strengthening group creative-thinking capabilities —or those of their own—we recommend practices such as:
ü The first practice is to have a firsthand experience of a real consumer – going through the process of buying your own services or products— just the same way a real consumer would—and document the experience.
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Tue Nov 29, 2011 at 07:41 AM by Dennis Nicholas
As soon as you assume a role as a senior executive, you’ve undoubtedly acquired a set of skills and proficiencies that makes it possible for you to be efficient in your new job. To help you get to this position, you somehow had mentors and coaches who very much monitored your progress, pushed you to develop your talents, and, when necessary, they confronted you with constructive feedback that you may not have wanted to hear but needed to in order to persist on your upward course.
At this level in one's profession, most of your former colleagues are probably subordinates. Even as you may well be “overseen” by your senior boss or the board of directors, your top level executives most likely no longer directly observe your daily activities. But instead, they’re now forming their opinions based on your presentations in comparatively official settings or on hand-me-down reports coming from your subordinates.
As a result, many heads realize that as they grow to be more senior, they get significantly less coaching and happen to be more vague in relation to their developmental needs and performance. They also become more and more isolated from positive criticism—junior staff don’t want to affront their boss and often believe that positive suggestions are unwanted and imprudent. At this level of their careers, they don’t really focus adequately on building mutually honest subordinate relationships – very critical in getting feedback and making recommendation a lot easier.
Too often though, when these senior managers eventually do get feedback in their end-year evaluations (normally the 360-degree-feedback plan) they’re shocked to be faced up with specific criticisms in relation to their leadership style, interpersonal skills and communication approach. Worse still, wide concerns are often raised about their key tactical decisions, strategy, and working priorities for the company.
The main objective of this editorial is to extract these approaches into a detailed and actionable recommendation. In doing so, we anticipate more awareness of the inclination to become isolated and advice approaches to our executives in getting better feedback, mostly from junior staff, which will help bosses materially develop their performance levels. We will also argue more steps top obtain considerably better strategic guidance regarding your business or organization. By considering these actions, you ought to be able to acquire better ownership of the recommendation process and advance your ability to put together your organization, capabilities, and occupation.
Promote a network of subordinate coaches
According to recommendations, getting recommendations, job feedback, when to give the job recommendations, Executive job searches |
Sat Nov 26, 2011 at 06:31 AM by Dennis Nicholas Human Resource chiefs have inspired to be tactical advisers to industry leaders for no less than a generation. However, this hasn’t been easy for many since it’s so hard to quantify the business value of Human Resource acomplishments. For example, you’d ask your HR executive “Are we getting any ROI from training?” and “What is the best screening practice to capture the top performing recruits?” or “Which target-setting technique will most motivate performance?” Such questions have often been replied with loose answers.
Today, conversely, new tools and techniques for analyzing statistics enable HR to delineate the link between performance and “individual practices” more efficiently. It couldn’t have come at appropriate time, given that CEOs are hunting for value added service. The end result: if you haven’t of late discussed with your HR executive ideas for using data to develop a talent strategy that’s a bit closely connected to business results, it’s not too late.
Does it even make any sense at the moment? Of course it does, well, for starters – the corporate trend to embrace HR information systems and enterprise resource forecasts has made information on business performance, operations, and personnel more standardized and accessible. Besides, the growth of HR information systems has built a society of software and technology third parties that can assist business executives and HR use data to unearth connections between labor productivity and talent management. Lastly, the strengthening and outsourcing of operational HR work has driven most leaders to take a first step in quantifying and detailing HR expenditures and performance.
The Bon-Ton chain of close to 285 department stores in the US, for instance, leveraged its statistics to spot elements that made sales representatives dealing with cosmetics successful. Currently, it’s screening potential representatives by employing test of situational judgment, cognitive ability, initiative taking, including other relevant characteristics. Those who manage to score on the top half have a tendency to sell 10% more products compared to those who tend to love their work more. From 2008, the company has witnessed growth of about $1,400 in sales per rep.
More establishments are emerging, predominantly in businesses where workers are vital to value creation (especially financial sectors, retailing, and health care) and more so where inadequate technical skill governs growth (for example technology and upstream oil exploration). Although specific individual-related practices that put in value will vary by organization—industry dynamics, growth rates, talent scarcity, and corporate customs all shape the answers— most businesses witnessed that obtain additional value from investing in HR data used some variation of these undertakings.
HR focused as a business priority: Most HR staff examines, organize, and quantify their activities through the conventional worker life cycle: beginning with recruiting, hiring, along with “on-boarding” and going on to assessment, training, and |
Thu Nov 24, 2011 at 11:16 PM by Contributor Well, you’ve tirelessly been looking for that job opportunity and submitted several applications to different hiring firms, then, one day you wake up and you receive two different calls inviting you for an interview. You think a bit, and you really can’t reach a decision as on which one to pursue. In our careers at some point or another, this kind of dilemma will encounter, so what are the most effective steps to take before making that critical career decision.
When two or more job opportunities come knocking, here are simple most effective steps take prior any decision:
- Brainstorm: The first thing it to sit down and gather all the things that are most significant to you when it comes to your career. For instance, you may gather a list of items that include: The capacity of the company to promote you upward, income, commission arrangement, bonus eligibility, the organization’s culture, the kind of work, and control over particular projects which you’ll be assigned to, company stability, medical coverage, scheduled hours to work per week, projected cost of business travel, etc.
- Prioritize: After you’ve brainstormed, run through the list again and select top 5 items that you find most important to you. Make priority your list of 5 items from the top being the most significant to the last item in the list as least important of your priority.
- Analyze: Arrange two columns alongside your prioritized list, to match each job opportunity. Figure out each item and the degree to which each employment opportunity will endow with /satisfy each main item.
After carrying out this exercise, it normally becomes a lot easier as to which job opportunity better fits most of your listed items, considering you career moves, needs, and wants. Of course this exercise can’t completely lessen your risk of going into a new position; but it will definitely afford more adequate time analyzing every job opportunity so as to make the most clued-up decision possible. Note: most of the things we learn in life usually involve some level of risk.
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Thu Nov 24, 2011 at 03:03 AM by Contributor In a recent study carried out by researchers Joanna Lahey and Emily Johnson, “post-high school training and education, like from a professional training program or a college, are main factors in determining if a woman would secure an interview.”
Unemployment today has risen up to 9% and most of all, women are having difficulty securing a gainful employment, particularly if they are making a re- entry to the workforce subsequent to a long absence. This encouraged researchers Lahey and Johnson to carry out a résumé audit. “The point of this research was to find out which resume attributes are considered significant by potential employers of working-class women coming back to the workforce,” according to the researchers.
According to the study, Lahey and Johnson came up with roughly 8,000 different résumés which they later submitted pairs of résumés that were randomly categorized to 3,996 hiring firms across US. The firms chosen represented a range of industries such as manufacturing, sales, law firms, services and health care. Of course all included entry-level jobs that needed up to at least a year of post-high school education in addition to experience. The researchers observed at the effects of one’s age, vocational training, job-related experience, other non-work related activities and span of gaps in employment history. What they discovered was rather unexpected:
Employment-related experience included on a résumé doesn’t increase the likelihood of an applicant to secure an interview: Although these results were “varied and statistically irrelevant.” Employers showed more interested in education compared to previous employment experience.
Including activities outside of work also doesn’t necessarily increase the possibility of securing an interview: Surprisingly, this seemed to contrast across geographic regions. For instance, “in Massachusetts, volunteerism poises an important positive effect on one’s résumé, while sports is statistically irrelevant. On the contrary, in Florida, sports initiated a positive effect on the possibility of securing an interview, whereas volunteerism has no important effect,” according to the researchers.
Showing a gap in employment history between jobs doesn’t affect any odds an applicant will secure an interview: This finding in reality runs counter to what most résumé coaches advise their clients in relation to employment gaps. Contradictory to what researchers expected would happen, “showing a gap in employment history has nearly no effect on the likelihood an applicant will receive an interview ca |
Thu Sep 22, 2011 at 09:37 AM by Zameer
So the latest buzz seems to be to take data from other sources about your professional and personal life and tabulate it using some sort of algorithm and then show to the world as “where you stand among your peers” or “how you appear to the world” !
I say what???? So you think that taking data from sources like linked-In or Facebook or just scouring the web and then create your online “Picture” is something you will accept as a true picture of your abilities and your brawn…..
I say NOT ……
I mean that may work for a model of car or a computer but you are a Professional who has charted many trails to get to where you are today and there are many tales about your journey to success that no one knows anything about except you and some of your confidants and peers and close friends and family……so a real “You” is known by a few and only their input can paint a picture that is as close to you as you are….
That’s why we believe that providing a tool where your friends, peers and family members can provide honest and candid feedback is the way to go.
Now at many places you can get a “Recommendation” and post it online but what does that recommendation really say? Hmm…..”Bob is a nice hard working chap”………or…..”Andy is a great sales person with a focus on closing deals and delivering sales numbers”………or …….perhaps something like this…….”Jack went above and beyond the call of duty to help us get our system back up online and spent 3 days nonstop onsite until we were fully operational”…….
Well some of the above example do tell a good bit about what these folks are all about but other statements are just plain vanilla and non-computational……
We have created a platform where you can get a recommendation that truly highlights your abilities and your key differentiators. We provide the ability for your connections to rate you based on their real life interactions with you taking into consideration the circumstances of the interaction.
We believe that makes for a better “You” or “Me” picture ….don’t you agree?
Comments??…..post them below…. and happy trails through the jungle of life..
you recommendation your online picture me ranking online |
Mon Apr 18, 2011 at 05:37 PM by Admin Checkout our latest feature for building multimedia resumes -- embed Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Pdf, Audio, Video, Image files and enhance your presence on web. Set yourself apart from others by projecting a successful image by highlighting your professional creations by sharing selected pieces of work products.
Give it a try and you'll agree that this the way to put best foot forward to a successful you !
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Mon Mar 14, 2011 at 11:32 PM by Admin Welcome,
I am sure everyone is wondering about what U Recommend ME is?
U Recommend Me is a very powerful site where you can give and receive in depth, meaningful and honest recommendations. We all know that recommendations are a very key part of anyone's professional and personal portfolio. However, unless a recommendation provides real meaning and candid feedback most people don't consider it valuable!
A recommendation should provide information about a person's traits both personality and professional. In our discussions with the hiring managers, university admissions offices and many professional organizations, one thing that gets repeated over and over is that the recommendation does not provide enough data into a person's core characteristics to be considered valuable. Thus more and more places are asking for detailed recommendations from previous managers and professional contacts. This creates a major challenge for recommendation providers as it takes valuable time to write the recommendations and often to do it multiple times What is more challenging is that recommendations are requested when quite a bit of time has elapsed between the two people and the recommendation provider feels a bit hesitant in providing an honest and real feedback. Instead, most often the recommendation contains generic and general content which lacks the depth and candor that a meaningful recommendation should have.
We believe that it is time that this problem gets solved. We have spearheaded the development of a solution where anyone can provide and receive recommendations that provide in-depth view into someone's characteristics. We also believe that the recommendations providers should be allowed to give recommendation that are honest even if they are not 100% glowing as in reality most admissions officers and employers are really looking for honest and detailed feedback on a potential candidate. We also believe that a recommendation receiver should be able to request a blind recommendation so that they know they are receiving candid feedback from those that know their candidate. Similarly recommendation givers should be able to keep a recommendation blind if they so choose and keep the person receiving the recommendation from viewing it so that they feel at ease in giving candid feedback our system allows for recommendations that are marked hidden by the recommendation provider to not be seen by the receiver.
We are very excited and proud to be launching a true recommendation management system that is first of its kind to bring the power of recommendation gathering, management and sharing with controls built-in to empower the users to interact in highly professional and meaningful way.
We would like to hear your feedback and comments as you use our system.
recommendation blind now get give request empower |
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