I’m leading my company, The Karis Group / Kare360, on a quest in 2010 to become a national leader among small business at how we find, interview and train new hires (“FIT” process).  The goal is to become the best in our peer group and to establish The Karis Group as an known, appealing and magnetic employment brand. Why do this?  Well, if we don’t have the best people, we won’t have the best company.  If we don’t have the best company, we won’t be able to deliver the best products and services.  If we don’t make our team better with each hire, at best we idle, at worst we decline compared to our competitors.  People are our business and among the things we have to excel at, to be better at than anyone else, is how we find, interview and train new hires. Consider today how strategic you are throughout…

There are a lot of well qualified and strong character people out there still looking for work.  Depending on the locale and industry, there’s some hiring going on but the opportunities are still slim.  It’s now more important than ever to stand out and convince prospective employers that they need to take a strong look at you.  But how?  Maybe it’s time to try something crazy. What if you identified a handful of companies that you really want to work for and figured out how to do some unsolicited work for them?  Depending on your skills and experience, you could do anything from mystery shopping, developing a competitive analysis, exploring expansion opportunities, assessing social media engagement, reviewing customer policies or anything else that you believe would substantially benefit them and reflect what you’re really good at. Do the work, write it up and deliver it on a compressed deadline.  Give…