New York SBDC Research Network

By Lou Adler From LinkedIn "When companies continue to use job descriptions listing skills and experiences surrounded by generic competencies and highfalutin statements about culture, diversity hiring implies making compromises." I went on to say that this type of hiring process compromises more than diversity. It eliminates the most promising people from consideration before they even get a chance to be considered. These are the people who achieve more with a different mix of skills and experiences. These are people who get promoted more frequently. These are the people who are assigned stretch projects early in their careers. These are the people who are assigned the toughest projects or volunteer for them at every stage of their career. These are people who are assigned to important multi-functional teams or volunteer to be part of them or are asked by other team members to join. The sad part is that traditional job descriptions prevent these people from considera...

From Bplans : Emotional Intelligence , also known as EI, is the ability to control personal emotions under extreme duress, as well as the ability to empathize and understand the emotions of others. Studies were first being done on EI in the workplace in 1998. Now, almost 20 years later, it is gaining traction as one of the most important traits for an employee to have... The reason? Employees, managers, and company leaders all benefit from a high EI. They are more likely to communicate their needs, understand each other’s preferences, and feel welcome and engaged at the office. Emotional intelligence is not just “wearing your heart on your sleeve,” but adjusting your behavior to make everyone feel comfortable and confident. When effectively integrated into business, EI is shown to increase profits by over 34 percent for some businesses, and increase employee positivity by nearly 58 percent. The question then arises: How can a business hire for emotional intelligence?

One may be barred from working in a job that is related to a criminal conviction. Understanding which jobs you can and cannot be hired for has been difficult for employer and potential employee. As this article from Minnesota states: The American Bar Association created the Collateral Consequences website to show how different types of criminal convictions affect employment and other resources. The rules about barred occupations and work restrictions are complicated. The collateral consequences of a criminal conviction—legal sanctions and restrictions imposed upon people because of their criminal record—are hard to find and harder to understand. Now it will be easier to do both. Congress directed the National Institute of Justice to collect and study collateral consequences in all U.S. jurisdictions, and NIJ selected the ABA Criminal Justice Section to perform the necessary research and analysis. The results are now being made available through this interactive tool. It has...

From nectjobs : Screening for the right person for the job is always a challenge. You need someone not only qualified but with a passion for the work and a desire to serve. You do not always have the luxury of multiple interviews, following up with past employers, calling all character references, or reading through multi-page resumes to help you find the right candidate for the open position. What follows are 50 quick, easy-to-use, and immediately applied interview questions. These questions will help you to decide quickly whether the candidate you are interviewing is the right fit or not. Each question has been filtered through a vast array of human resources scenarios to determine if any are “questionable” or “offensive” based on current HR laws, regulations, and interviewing rules, (e.g., discriminatory questions based on violations of ADA, Title VI, etc.), and each one has passed the test in the US at the time of this writing.

From Forbes Hiring the right talent is critical to the success of any organization, and it’s especially important for a small business. One employee’s influence can potentially be felt more strongly in a small business than at a large organization. Likewise, when one person leaves a job at a small company, it can be more difficult to cover his or her responsibilities than it would be at a larger firm, especially since most small-business employees wear many hats. One good employee can also propel the business forward, while a bad hire can set back productivity, damage morale, and cost an employer both time and money. Small businesses created 79,000 jobs in January 2016, according to the ADP Small Business Report. How can hiring managers ensure that these jobs are filled by the best candidates who can set their small business up for future success? Joanie Courtney, senior vice president of Global Market Insights at job-search company Monster Worldwide, urges small-business own...

From NECTjobs , which offers a FREE "collection of resources and introductory articles will help guide you on your journey in recruiting new employees for your business." Depending on job market conditions, a single job posting could receive hundreds of applicants. That’s both good and bad. It’s good because the higher the number of applicants, the wider the prospective talent pool becomes. It’s bad because a higher number of applicants means more clutter. A large selection of candidates increases your chances of finding the best fit for your business. With so many candidates, you can stack up their resumes against one another and find the best of the lot. This scenario has significant advantages over a job posting with only a handful of applicants to choose from. Receiving a large number of candidates requires more effort on your side. Hundreds of job applications necessitates a lot of sorting to find top talent – After all, golden candidates may be buried at the botto...

From Inc. Jennifer Walzer, CEO of Backup My Info!, offers a strategic hiring tactic you probably haven't used before.

U.S. law requires companies to hire only individuals who may legally work in the United States.  E-Verify  is an Internet-based system that allows these businesses to determine an employee's eligibility. This verification process matches records from the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration with an employee's I-9 form. This  USCIS video on E-Verify  introduces you to the process and your responsibilities and rights as an employee; including what to do in the case of a  Tentative NonConfirmation . Information on E-Verify is also now available in:  Spanish ;  Chinese (traditional) ;  French ;  Korean ;  Russian ;  Tagalog ; and  Vietnamese . 

Empirical and anecdotal data tell us many people with intellectual disabilities do work and contribute enormously, but that, unfortunately, most are denied the opportunity. A recent Special Olympics survey conducted by Gallup and the University of Massachusetts at Boston identified a few startling statistics on this front: Only 44 percent of adults with intellectual disabilities are in the labor force, which is defined as either employed or actively seeking work. In contrast, 83 percent of adults without disabilities are in the labor force. Furthermore, the unemployment rate for adults with intellectual disabilities (21 percent) is more than twice as high as those without disabilities (9 percent). Someone is considered unemployed if he or she is without a job and actively looking for and available for work. Special Olympics’ mission may not be to place people in jobs or force employers to employ people with intellectual disabilities. Its ultimate goal, however, is to enable people...

Jennifer Walzer, CEO of Backup My Info!, offers a strategic hiring tactic you probably haven't used before. And then various other videos pop up on the screen that may be of interest.

Throw those standard interview questions out the window. Use these questions to find the best employees for your business. While folks seeking employment may spend hours prepping for their interviews, the failure to adequately prepare typically comes on the end of the person asking the questions. The people you hire can be your greatest strength or your biggest liability, and we owe it to ourselves and our businesses to take the time to find the most talented employees who are also a good fit for our business model. Prospective employees prepare canned responses to the questions they think you’ll ask. Their goal is to make themselves look good—to amplify their strengths and minimize their weaknesses. Your goal should be to set up a discussion that reveals patterns in their behavior and predicts how they’ll fare in your company. Past behavior predicts future behavior, so make it your goal to collect some honest, thoughtful responses that will give you a better idea of how each candid...

Dear Evil HR Lady, I work for a government organization, so we get a lot of newcomers for whom this is their first job. They range from people straight out of high school to fresh college graduates. Either way, the majority tend to be horrible workers. In addition to teaching these newcomers their job, which I have no problem with, we end up having to teach them life lessons: chip in for the candy jar; if the bathroom stall is closed, that means someone is in there; the private bathroom isn't your phone booth; asking you to do your job shouldn't be the world's hugest inconvenience (aka "I'm sorry to tear you away from Facebook/candy crush/Internet."); wipe your feet when walking into the building.... I could go on forever!! I bring some of these issues up to my boss, but I think he thinks I'm a tattletale. He's not the best manager, and there is a ton of stuff that goes on at our level that he has no idea about. So the blatantly obscene stuff I...

From Small Business Newz : Ninety-seven dollars for that? Heck, I can find the information for free on the interwebs. Yep. The number changes, but the “I can do it myself” virus just keeps sticking. (Yes, I’m guilty too.) Admit it. You’ve probably said that yourself in the last week or so. We’re all guilty of it. Doing things ourselves was one of the reasons we became our own boss — so we could do it our way. Right? But continuing to do things yourself instead of hiring staff or outsourcing the work won’t help you grow your business. And on top of that, if you are doing all the work, you have hired the most expensive person in your company. That doesn’t help the bottom line, does it?

From US Citizenship and Immigration Services : Form I-9 is used for verifying the identity and employment authorization of individuals hired for employment in the United States. All U.S. employers must ensure proper completion of Form I-9 for each individual they hire for employment in the United States. This includes citizens and noncitizens. Both employees and employers (or authorized representatives of the employer) must complete the form. On the form, an employee must attest to his or her employment authorization. The employee must also present his or her employer with acceptable documents evidencing identity and employment authorization. The employer must examine the employment eligibility and identity document(s) an employee presents to determine whether the document(s) reasonably appear to be genuine and to relate to the employee and record the document information on the Form I-9. The list of acceptable documents can be found on the last page of the form. Employers must retai...

So says the Chamber of Commerce first quarter 2013 Small Business Outlook Study [PDF] : - 70% say their business is headed in the right direction - 79% say the US economy is in the wrong direction - 20% say they will add employees in the next two years - 44% cite economic uncertainty as the top threat to their business - 24% say the small business climate has improved the last two years - 77% say higher energy prices are an "immediate" threat to their business

From HERE : Small business owners struggle with many issues, but one of the biggest challenges is finding help (even in a down economy) that is reliable and trustworthy. In my experience working with successful entrepreneurs, problems in hiring nearly always come down to one common source which is both easy to identify and difficult to fix… it’s you! Not to worry, it’s me as well. Most owners are unprepared to be the manager and fall into the role suddenly when the business becomes too much to manage alone. This pressure, combined with a lack of experience, can lead to disastrous hiring decisions.

Segregated accounts Establish a segregated bank account for sales taxes. NYS Tax Department encourages all sales tax vendors to voluntarily establish a separate bank account for sales taxes that they collect on behalf of New York State to make it easier to comply with the tax law. To improve sales tax compliance, they can require certain sales tax vendors to deposit sales tax into a separate bank account. This tax law change was effective March 31, 2011. Sales Tax Filing Responsibilities A sales tax return is still required to be filed, if a registered vendor, did not collect any tax for the tax period in question. Vendor Collection Credit (currently at 5% of tax payable except monthly filers with a maximum of $200 ) Sales Taxes are trust taxes – A responsible person can be held personally liable for payment of taxes. If a business ceases doing business, they must file a final sales tax return and return the Certificate of Authority to the Department. Sales Tax Exemp...