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22 Tools and Blogs for the Savvy HR Professional

As an HR professional, you wear many different hats—especially when you are operating within a small business.

Your daily tasks probably include things like managing schedules, resolving disputes, sorting through mountains of resumes, and running interference between management and employees, all while ensuring that your company is a great place to work.

As more Baby Boomers retire and the skills gap increases, finding the right employees and talent is becoming harder and more competitive. HR is no longer a backend operation; it is central to the overall strategy and success of the business.

With so many responsibilities and so little time, we thought we would streamline the process by compiling a list of tools that will make your life as an HR professional easier.

Email Organization Software

First things first: organizing that overflowing inbox. There are tons of great tools to help you get your inbox under control.

  • Google Inbox: If your business uses Gmail as its primary email system, this tool is a must. It is an email organization system that can be integrated on both your phone and computer so that everything is easily accessible. Watch this video to learn more about what it can do for you.

Price: Free

  • SimplyFile: If your business uses Outlook as its primary email software, then SimplyFile is the tool for you. It acts as your own personal email filing assistant. Its advanced algorithm learns your filing habits and can file emails automatically after a training period.

Price: Free

Scheduling Software

Depending on the size of your organization or the typical hours your employees work, Excel spreadsheets might not be cutting it. Luckily for you, there is some great scheduling software available.

  • Setmore: This scheduling tool is great for scheduling employees within a small business. With widgets that you can integrate onto your Facebook page and website, it can also be used for booking appointments.

Price: Free

  • Sling: Scheduling shift work is a challenge for HR professionals. Sling allows you to craft schedules faster, notifying you of double bookings and time-off requests and allowing you to communicate with employees through the app.

Price: Free

Payroll Software

Make payroll much simpler with a tool that tracks employee hours, benefits, time off, taxes, and more. Not only will a payroll software streamline your processes but it will also ensure your employees get paid on time.

  • Wagepoint: This payroll software is great for small businesses that need to automate their payroll system. Employees get paid on time, every time.

Price: ($20 + $2/employee)/payroll

Price: Custom

Communication

Depending on the structure of your organization, communicating through email might not be cutting it. Whether you are managing independent contractors or remote employees, a more advanced system may need to be put in place. Here are some great options.

  • Slack: Slack is a communication tool that can be used on your phone or computer. It allows you to organize people into groups, message other users, and send entire files. Slack integrates disparate platforms—from phone to text message to email—into one streamlined tool.

Price: Free (with paid premium plans)

  • Skype: Although it’s not new, Skype is a tried-and-true video conferencing platform that is especially useful when working with remote employees (think performance reviews, meetings, conferences, etc.). It is also a great tool for conducting long-distance interviews, as many people already have accounts (and if not, they can sign up for free).

Price: Free

Brainstorming and Note Taking

Ever have a great idea that you somehow manage to forget 10 minutes later? These tools help you to preserve your brilliant ideas as you think of them.

  • Mindly: Trying to organize an event or project? It can be hard to set priorities, goals, and plans. Luckily, the people at Mindly created an easy-to-use mind-mapping tool that enables you to visually organize your thoughts by color and task.

Price: Free

  • Google Keep: Google Keep is an app that you can also download onto your computer. Jot down notes, ideas, and to-do lists quickly and efficiently. It has several systems of organization and connects with Ask Google for Android users, letting you take notes verbally.

Price: Free

  • MindMeister: This mind-mapping software helps you create stunning visuals, assign tasks, and collaborate with other employees to create beautiful presentations.

Price: $15/month (business version)

Recruitment

Recruitment can be a long process, especially if your industry has a high turnover rate. Recruitment software can increase your chances of finding the perfect candidate.

  1. iCIMS Recruitment Software: This software has “Hire Expectations” for your company, allowing you to share job openings and find the best candidates more easily.

Price: Custom

  • Workable: Streamline the recruitment process with Workable. It utilizes job board advertising, social media, sourcing tools, and referrals to find job candidates. It also helps you to schedule interviews, rate interviewees, and share information with your team.

Price: $50/job/month

  • Zoho Recruit: This tool is great for HR professionals who have to sift through a lot of applicants. It allows you to format resumes, send emails, make calls, manage groups, and post to multiple job boards. You can also customize the layout to your liking.

Price: $25/month

The All-in-One

If your HR department is a one-person operation, as is the case in many small businesses, then it may be worth investing in an all-in-one automated HR solution.

  • BambooHR: This Human Resources Information System (HRIS) streamlines HR tasks so you can focus on other aspects of your business. It ditches traditional spreadsheets, makes hiring easier, reduces the amount of paperwork you need to do, and has built-in scheduling software.

Price: Custom

  • SutiHR: This all-inclusive HRIS program manages recruitment, benefits, training, scheduling, payroll, and performance reviews.

Price: $2–$8.50/user/month

  • EffortlessHR: This HR management system includes an employee portal, a time clock, an applicant tracking system, file storage, and more.

Price: $39/month

HR Blogs

Stay up to date with news, laws, and industry information with the help of these blogs.

  • The HR Bartender: Need to find information quickly? The HR bartender’s resource list answers many hard questions HR professionals face every day.
  • Workology: This blog offers HR advice based on your position in a company, from interns to executives.
  • The HR Daily Advisor: Here, you can find HR news, technology, advice columns, and resources to answer pressing questions you might not have realized you had.

We hope these tools will help you navigate the day-to-day HR activities that are so vital to your organization. Which HR tools do you already use that you can’t live without? Let us know on Facebook or Twitter!

Image source: Nosnibor137/BigStockPhoto.com Incoming keywords: HR professionals, HR tools. HR resources

How to Write Content That Actually Generates Leads

It’s tough to be a businessperson in the digital age. While you might think that the Internet makes it a breeze to find loyal customers, the ease of communication between business and potential customer has made competition with other businesses tougher than ever.

Online lead generation is akin to fishing in the midst of thousands of other people hoping to catch the same fish as you are. To be effective, you must not only use the best bait, but you must also have the best tackle to reel in the catch.

In marketing terms, it’s  important to develop content for your website that draws people in and converts them into customers.

This, of course, is much easier said than done.

We developed this resource to give you some simple tips to instantly improve your site’s search engine optimization (SEO) and conversions.

Since many start-ups and small businesses are new to the wonderful world of SEO, here is a brief introduction to the term. For more veteran content creators, feel free to skip down to the tips list below.

SEO refers to increasing your website’s visibility in search engine results (primarily Google) and thereby increasing traffic and (hopefully) sales.

Optimizing your website can get quite nuanced, but much of it has to do with useful and clear web copy and the appropriate use of headings and tags, which allow search engines to index the site more easily.

SEO (bait) and conversion rate (tackle) exist in unison. Content on your site should draw traffic to your site, but it should also motivate visitors to action.

The following are the top five must-haves for web content that converts:

1. High-Quality Content

When asked whether writing matters in blog posts, author and digital marketing expert Guy Kawasaki replied, “This is like asking if the quality of food in a restaurant matters. Writing is the primary determinant of the success of the post. Everything else—timing, graphics, frequency—is secondary.”

High quality doesn’t just mean that your posts are grammatically correct and free of spelling errors. A good blog post will be grammatically correct, but it will first and foremost be of use to your audience.

The Internet is already so full of content that if you are posting for the sake of posting, you are just adding to the noise. Listen to your audience and learn what they want to read about.

In addition to great writing, don’t forget to include great-quality graphics that supplement the main points of your post. This is especially important to get viewers of your post to click the preview on social media or the front page of your website.

2. Keywords

High-quality content will help you move up in the ranking of Google’s search results because the most valuable currency in SEO is trust.

However, great content, while necessary, won’t get you very far in terms of driving traffic to your site. To make your content visible in searches, you need to understand the importance of keywords.

Google’s Keyword Planner (available for free online once you create a Google AdWords account) is a great tool to help you understand what words and phrases your clients are searching for and incorporate those terms into your content.

3. Post Length

Another very important factor in SEO is the length of your posts, titles, and meta descriptions.

A good rule of thumb is that title tags should be 55 characters or less, while meta descriptions should be 155 characters or less.

The length of a blog post itself is a bit more variable, as optimal post length has long been debated by content marketers and SEOs. Keep in mind that the length of a blog post is really more about usefulness and trust than actual word count, and longer posts tend to have more detailed and reliable information.

However, as Ann Handley, author of Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide for Creating Ridiculously Good Content, explains, “Ideally, you want to worry less about blog post length and more about being useful to your audience. If you can be useful in 300 words, go for it!”

4. Design

While many web content how-to articles focus on writing (which makes sense), they often overlook the very important aspect of visual appeal.

You’ve done all this work to bring visitors to your site by producing trustworthy writing that contains well-researched keywords and is of optimal length, but you still aren’t meeting your lead generation goals.

The problem might be your website’s design. Our first impressions of websites are often subconscious, but there is no doubt that design and aesthetics play a major role in gaining a visitor’s trust.

Evan Bailyn, author of SEO Made Easy, puts it this way: “Websites are like commercial buildings: If you walk into one and feel surrounded by symmetry, calm, and beauty, you feel comfortable transacting with the business.”

5. Call to Action

This is perhaps one of the most important, and often forgotten, aspects of content writing. You are writing a post not only to provide your audience with useful information but also to educate them about your organization, product, or service.

The majority of business owners started their company because they believe their product can make a difference in the lives of others, whether by saving time, providing entertainment, or solving a common problem. Don’t forget that many of the people who clicked the link to your site could benefit from the products or services your company provides.

Within each blog post, and on each page of your website, make sure to reserve a specific section where you can place a button, link, or clear direction for the customer to follow to learn more about your company or to make a purchase. With blog posts, this typically occurs at the very end. Be sure that, wherever you place the call to action, it is related to the content of the page it is on.

By approaching SEO from the perspective of generating leads and customers—not just increasing traffic—you’ll be even more effective at harnessing the power of your website and blog, resulting in a measurable impact on your bottom line.

 

How to Write a Job Inquiry Email

What Is a Job Inquiry Email?

After scrolling through seemingly endless lists of jobs on hundreds of job websites, you finally come across a job opening that you know you would  fit perfectly.

So you prepare your resume, tailoring it to the specific position, and craft your cover letter to present your skills and illustrate your experience. At this point, all that’s left to do is to send the email and wait for your interview, right?

These days, most job applications are sent by email or through a job-posting website such as Indeed.com or Monster.com. This means that, in addition to sending your resume and cover letter, you’ve got to write a short job inquiry email introducing yourself and stating that the required documents are attached.

But what do you write in the job inquiry email? Haven’t you already said all you wanted to say in your cover letter?

It may seem like a hassle, but it’s important to put in the effort to make your very first impression the very best it can be. Here’s how.

Writing a Job Inquiry Email

As with most business emails, strive to be clear, polite, and concise in your job inquiry email. Your future employer should be able to understand the purpose of the email in the subject line and in the first sentence. Make it clear who you are and which position you’re applying for.

This is especially useful for employers that are hiring for more than one position, as it helps them to keep all their emails organized. Make it as easy as possible for your potential employer to start you on the right track toward being hired.

When writing the job inquiry email, use formal language and style. Try to match the email, however brief, to the tone of your cover letter, showing consistency in your writing.

It may seem obvious, but it’s also vital to ensure that you attach your resume and cover letter to the email and that you inform the reader the documents are attached. Forgetting to add the attachments or communicate what they are is a costly mistake, as potential employers will likely ignore your job inquiry email altogether.

Also note that you should never just copy and paste your resume or cover letter into the main text of the email. It ruins the formatting and can make your beautifully crafted application documents look sloppy. Save them as PDF files first and then attach them to the email.

After introducing yourself, stating the position you’re applying for, and directing readers to the attached documents, end the email with a polite goodbye and restate your name and contact information.

Here’s an example of a well-crafted job inquiry email. You can use it as a guide when writing your own email to a potential employer.

Hello Mr. Fuller,

My name is Jane Doe, and I am applying for the Marketing Assistant position offered by CompanyXYZ.

I have experience in the field of marketing, having graduated with a degree in digital marketing and worked as social media marketer for the past three years. I know you will see that my qualifications make me an excellent candidate for this position.

I have attached my resume and cover letter, as requested. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely,

Jane Doe
111 Queen Street
Portville, ON X3X X3X
Canada
(555) 555-5555

Final Steps

Before you get excited and hit “Send,” be sure to reread the email to catch any mistakes you might have missed. Double-check that the correct documents are attached and that you are sending the job inquiry email to the right email address.

Now all that’s left to do is wait for your phone to ring!

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