In this time of economic uncertainty, your organization and your employees are suffering in ways you can see – and in some ways you can’t. In these times, employees’ anxiety can undermine performance and limit productivity. Executives, managers and teams may experience a lack of trust and react tot this environment with quiet resistance, passive-aggressive behaviors and low-energy levels.

However, there are things you can control. You can provide employees and teams with the tools they need to overcome their limitations and move forward productively while making a positive impact on your company’s performance.

The Birkman Method® is a multi-dimensional assessment integration behavioral, motivational, and occupational data. This business-focused assessment is developed from scientific methodology to enhance and predict interpersonal and occupational success. You don’t have to be an expert on all the intricacies of human behavior, but you can use the most comprehensive assessment available giving you the edge to improve your people skills and the skills of those with whom you work.

The Birkman Method® is not industry-specific. Rather, it is specific to people. It is used by every type of industry where employment decisions, career decisions, advancement decisions, and the development of human resources is important. Information gained from using The Birkman Method® is applicable across industries – from manufacturing to services.

Unlike other assessments that provide only descriptive information, The Birkman Method provides both descriptive and prescriptive feedback. It is the prescriptive data that makes Birkman so unique. The definition of an individual’s underlying needs, available through Birkman’s unique construction and comparative database, provide powerful insight into what specifically drives a person’s behavior, and thus gives people greater choice while allowing these participants to assume a much higher level of responsibility for their own behavior through increased in-depth self-understanding and a relative comparison with others. Without this information, people assume their needs and feelings are “normal”, though seldom quantified, and few people are able to “figure out” how to get their needs met or satisfied. This prescriptive capability is one of Birkman’s most powerful contributions.

Birkman provides a common language to define individual differences which is non-judgmental and non-categorical. This language “neutralizes” the assumptions and judgments that most people conclude about others, and opens realistic and lasting opportunities for reliable communication, trust and collaboration.

Birkman is more than an individual tool or event. Beyond Birkman’s powerful language and measurement, Birkman provides a sophisticated information management system and over 40 report formats for individuals, groups, teams, and large organizational systems as well. The information can be configured to address a broad spectrum of individual, team and organizational development applications. Further, the extensive information management system of the Birkman data offers important analytical capabilities for organizational and cultural assessment, organizational needs analysis, database sorting, searching and strategically using the data to manage an organization’s human capital.

Dedicated to enhancing opportunities for women’s business enterprises, WBENC works in partnership with women’s business organizations located throughout the country to provide a national standard of certification for women-owned businesses. The organization also provides its corporate members and certified women’s business enterprises (WBEs) with access to a range of B2B sourcing tools including, an Internet database – WBENCLink – that contains information on certified women’s businesses for purchasing managers nationwide. WBENC is a resource for the more than 700 US companies and government agencies that rely on the WBENC certification as an integral part of their supplier diversity programs.

Through its benchmarking surveys and ongoing interaction with certified women’s business enterprises, WBENC has become the nation’s leading source of information on trends in supplier diversity programs for WBEs at US companies and government agencies. WBENC also promotes best practices in supplier diversity through the annual selection of “America’s Top Corporations for Women’s Business Enterprises.”

WBENC is a diverse coalition whose governance structure is grounded on these three legs: the corporations that hold two-thirds of the seats on the Board of Directors and provide insight into the needs of corporate America; the Leadership Council that represents the women’s business organizations that have pledged to use the WBENC standards and submit annual reviews of their procedures and results; and the Women’s Enterprise Leadership Forum, representing the certified WBEs from around the country.

WBENC prepares and provides its partner organizations with on-site training and educational materials detailing certification procedures and program management. WBENC’s research projects and surveys, primarily of CEOs and corporate procurement decision-makers, help to identify impediments to doing business and suggest “best practices” to maximize WBE opportunities and expand and enhance supplier diversity programs. The “Balanced Scorcard for WBE Program Process Improvement” assists WBENC corporate members in self evaluating their WBE programs. Click here to learn more.

Built on the research first published in “Impending Crisis,” and expanded upon in “Employer of Choice,” “The War for Talent,” “Topgrading” and “The Truth about Managing People,” a CERS credentialed search professional will be able to provide a unique and extended service, one that separates them from their competitors. The CERS credential will give you a new level of consulting and training expertise that can become a new and substantial revenue stream. It’s up to you. You can address a single issue with your client, or create and manage an entire company wide retention program with this new expertise. Click here to learn more.

While providing recruiting solutions for Oil & Gas companies is our specialty, we proudly work to fill positions in a wide range of office-related positions. The opportunities that we have available are far reaching, please contact us to learn more about opportunities that may be available for you.

Preferred Personnel, Inc. has been certified by the state of Texas as a (HUB) Historically Underutilized Business.

If you have questions about our services or fees, please do not hesitate to call us.

1. Take Your Time – Typographical errors and sloppy formatting can easily overshadow an otherwise strong resume. Plan your resume from its content to its layout to its delivery, and double check the document before sending it to prospective employers.

2. Clearly Illustrate Your Real Strengths – Padding one’s resume with false or misleading job titles, responsibilities, etc. is a quick way to lose the respect of an interested employer. Instead honestly demonstrate the value you can add to an organization by using actual examples if at all possible

3. Stay Professional – As a general rule, information that does not relate to how well you will perform in a new job should be left out of a resume. Your personal life is important, but save that resume real-estate for something that will help you get hired.

4. Be Concise – You don’t need to cram your resume onto only one page. However, an employer is likely to spend only a matter of seconds at first glance. Make those seconds count.

5. Make it Easy to Read – Format your resume so that an employer can quickly grasp the value you will add to their team. Make sure you allow adequate whitespace, and choose typesetting that will draw the eye to key features of your resume.

6. Follow Instructions – Here at Preferred Personnel, we are pretty flexible, but many organizations have a very specific process for applying to a job or submitting a resume. Have a well-formatted text-only resume prepared in case you need to submit it in the body of an email or in a web form, and make sure you follow the right protocol.

If you need more advice on how to make the most of your resume or otherwise move your job search forward, please don’t hesitate to contact our staffing professionals and see how they can help you.

If you already have your resume perfected and want it to get into the hands of the right employers, please submit it to us now, or check out some of the positions we are currently trying to fill.

1. Research: Investigate the company, the position and anything else that may help you establish your value to the employer in the interview.
2. Role-Play: Sketch out some practice questions and practice a little . There are a number of readily available lists of example interview questions. There is no need for any question to be a “curveball.”
3. Rest: Get plenty of sleep and eat well. Nothing’s worse than nerves undermining an excellent opportunity.

The Day of the Interview

At Home

1. Clean: Proper grooming should be a part of you’re daily routine whether at work or looking for work, don’t overlook the importance of appearance.
2. Comfortable: Make sure you are comfortable with what you are wearing, and make sure that your interviewer is comfortable as well. Avoid fragrance over-kill and distracting jewelry.
3. Conservative: It’s always better to err on the side of caution when it comes to dress code.

* Don’t Forget: A copy of your resume, references and identification (you may get hired on the spot, and that will help move the process along more quickly).

At The Interview

1. Promptness: Respect your prospective employer by arriving between 10 and 5 minutes of the interview. If you are uncertain of the location, leave a little early, but don’t assume that the interviewer has nothing planned in the 15 minutes before your appointment.
2. Politeness: Treat the receptionist or other front-desk personnel with the same care you would treat a hiring authority. Turn off anything that might make noise (cell phones, pagers, watches, etc).
3. Positiveness: Make a smile and firm handshake a part of your greeting. Do not bemoan your previous or current employer. And by all means, don’t focus on your limitations while speaking with a prospective employer. Convey confidence, but don’t go overboard.
4. Professionalism: Avoid slang and pay careful attention to the tone of the interview. Act naturally, but use humor with care according to the attitude of the interviewer and the course of the interview. Also, using jargon and technical language is a good way to convey your knowledge in a field, but it may also convey a weakness in communicating with individuals outside of your field, so use discretion.

After The Interview

1. Connect: Shake hands, make eye contact and thank each interviewer by name. Be sure you have a way to get in touch; feel free to ask for a business card if the interviewer(s) fail to offer one.
2. Connect: Send a thank you note promptly after the interview and be readily available for a job offer or a follow-up interview.
3. Connect: Even if you do not get the job maintain a polite, positive and professional attitude as you continue to explore other opportunities and build a network. You’d be surprised who talks to whom when it comes to finding talented individuals.