Beth Braccio Hering, Special to CareerBuilder

We’ve all heard that whom you know is just as important as what you know. But what can you do when you’ve exhausted your inner circle and still don’t have a job?

Branch out even farther. “If your immediate friends could help you, they absolutely would have already,” says Caroline Ceniza-Levine, co-author of “How the Fierce Handle Fear: Secrets to Succeeding in Challenging Times” and partner at the career-coaching firm SixFigureStart in New York City.

Although seeking out and introducing yourself to friends of friends, acquaintances of colleagues or even complete strangers who might be potential job leads can seem daunting, the payoff can be worth the effort. Here, experts give tips on making the process more natural — and hopefully more profitable.

Meeting new people
To meet friends of friends or acquaintances of colleagues, Janet Civitelli, workplace psychologist at VocationVillage.com, recommends asking people you know to invite you to events where all of you can connect. If that isn’t possible, she suggests asking your friend or colleague if he can introduce you with an email or telephone call. “Help smooth the way by mentioning to the people you know what they can say about you and why you want to connect. For example, your friend or colleague could say, ‘Tracy, I’d like you to meet Frank. Frank is a product marketing manager who just moved to Los Angeles from Boston. He has a great background in working with software startups.’” continue reading…

Alina Dizik, Special to CareerBuilder

If you didn’t have the best working relationship with your previous manager, deciding whether to list him as a job reference can be tough. It’s especially difficult because “former bosses are generally the first reference employers look for from job applicants,” says Chris Posti, president of outplacement firm Posti & Associates. “If you don’t provide your former boss as a reference, it will cause concern, unless you can give a solid explanation.” Since reference checks are often one of the last steps to getting hired, it’s even more important to not raise any red flags.

Not sure whether to list your former boss? Here, human resources experts weigh in on what to do if you think you’ll get a less continue reading…

Some time ago I have been approached by a large consulting & staffing firm to talk how to determine a good staffing/recruitment company to avoid pitfalls. What we came up with is, that there are mainly 3 parties involved in a project and each party has its own priorities and goals. It is very important for the success of the project that there is a “meeting of the minds” for all parties that are involved as HR related issues are the most time consuming activities in any project that involves people with different backgrounds working experience.

The more the priorities and goals can overlap each other, the more the endeavor is successful as every party is getting the expected results. continue reading…

Given 5 minutes on the net, you can find out which plumber to contact, who wont rip you off or which insurance broker, which car salesman, doctor, dentist even which priest to bury your cat but take as long as you like and you wont find a single way of truly assessing an SAP consultant.

Odd really, when you consider that SAP consultants almost only work in high profile companies such as the fortune 100 – maybe the fact that there is no way of checking if a consultant is any good or not, is the reason the unprofessional consultants continue to find work at the cost of the many hard working SAP consultants out there.

Imagine if every SAP consultant was made accountable for their own actions, even their own reputation….. how would that work out for the unprofessional – would they work hard to become professional experts or would they hide behind the fact, that it is considered “unfair to stop people working” regardless if they are actually worth hiring in the first place? continue reading…

by CareerBuilder

Workers in the 21st Century office rely on computers for nearly every task they do.  When a company’s computer systems or other electronic devices malfunction, one professional could hold the keys to the entire group’s productivity – the computer systems analyst.

Computer systems analysts use information technology (IT) tools to help businesses achieve their goals. They design networks of computers, troubleshoot the office WiFi system, back up the data, and always make sure they’re ready with fresh batteries for mobile devices.
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If you hire an SAP consultant, certified by SAP AG, for one day to show you what SAP user screens look like, how to start up transactions, let you get hands on experience by stepping through the sequences yourself, how to do things smarter, and more, how much do you think that would cost?

What if you could get your own ‘starter training for SAP software’ for 7%* of that cost, without needing access to an online SAP software system?

continue reading…