Recruitment Executives Newsletter Archive

The 99 Club

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 04:35:00 GMT

More, more, more, I want more! Prepare yourself people, this article will be filed in the “Deep and meaningful” section. The story below makes this point beautifully – we as humans have weaknesses and we often fall into the habit of taking things for granted and focusing too much on what we don’t have rather than being thankful for what we do have.

We found this story on another website and felt the moral of the story was so valuable that we wanted to share it with you. So we present to you, an opportunity to cease your membership of the “99 Club”:

"Once upon a time, there lived a King who, despite his luxurious lifestyle, was neither happy nor content.

One day, the King came upon a servant who was singing happily while he worked. This fascinated the King; why was he, the Supreme Ruler of the Land, unhappy and gloomy, while a lowly servant had so much joy. The King asked the servant, 'Why are you so happy?'

The man replied, 'Your Majesty, I am nothing but a servant, but my family and I don't need too much - just a roof over our heads and warm food to fill our tummies.'

The king was not satisfied with that reply. Later in the day, he sought the advice of his most trusted advisor.

After hearing the King's woes and the servant's' story, the advisor said, 'Your Majesty, I believe that the servant Has not been made part of The 99 Club.'

'The 99 Club? And what exactly is that?' the King inquired.

The advisor replied, 'Your Majesty, to truly know what The 99 Club is, place 99 Gold coins in a bag and leave it at this servant's doorstep.'

When the servant saw the bag, he took it into his house. When he opened the bag, he let out a great shout of joy... So many gold coins!

He began to count them. After several counts, he was at last convinced that there were 99 coins. He wondered, 'What could've happened to that last gold coin? Surely, no one would leave 99 coins!' He looked everywhere he could, but that final coin was elusive. Finally, exhausted he decided that he was going to have to work harder than ever to earn that gold coin and complete his collection.

From that day, the servant's life was changed. He was overworked, horribly grumpy, and castigated his family for not helping him make that 100th gold coin. He stopped singing while he worked.

Witnessing this drastic transformation, the King was puzzled. When he sought his advisor's help, the advisor said, 'Your Majesty, the servant has now officially joined The 99 Club.'

He continued, 'The 99 Club is a name given to those people who have enough To be happy but are never contented, because they're always yearning and striving for that extra 1 saying to themselves: 'Let me get that one final thing and then I will be happy for life.'

We can be happy, even with very little in our lives, but the minute we're given something bigger and better, we want even more! We lose our sleep, our happiness, we hurt the people around us; all these as a price for our growing needs and desires.

That's the 99 club.

$5 Note Challenge

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 04:35:00 GMT

Here’s a great way to save money that’s both fun and simple. It was suggested by Scott Pape on The 7PM Project a few weeks ago - the $5 note challenge.

There is talk that the $5 note may be taken out of production in the coming years and replaced with a coin like the $1 and $2 coin. So to stop this from happening (who wants more coins?) and as a fun way to save money, here’s what Scott suggested:

Each time you get a $5 note as change when paying for anything, keep it separate and put it away in an envelope when you get home, before it's even made its way back into your wallet (and no doubt getting spent at the next shop!)

Matt and Neil have started this challenge at Roskow and already we’ve collected 25 notes in just 3 weeks.

If you can keep up with us then at the end of the year, you’ll around $1,000 put away, just in time for the silly season spending once again.

2009 - A year of missed opportunities for some…

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 04:36:00 GMT

Paying too much interest to the bank, not knowing where money is spent and a “Beat Tiger Woods at golf” mentality; these were the three biggest financial mistakes that Recruiters made in 2009 according to our recent research.

Over the next few months we’ll be visiting the offices of a number of recruitment firms to explain to Recruiters how these mistakes were made and what can be done to avoid them in 2010. During the session we will go into more detail about:

How to use an offset account properly – our research showed that many people have them but aren’t using it because the strategy behind hasn’t been explained properly. By using it properly, you’ll end up paying less interest to the bank and one day if you convert it into an investment property, be able to claim more back in tax.

A lot of money is being wasted because Recruiters haven’t taken a step back and defined what they want to achieve with their money. Money is being spent on things we enjoy like cars, shoes, cufflinks, eating out – which is fine, but it comes at the cost of being able to spend money on things we enjoy more such as travel, personal development or planning for the next stage in life.

It may come as a shock to some but our research suggested that some Recruiters may from time to time suffer from over-confidence. Over confidence can be very damaging to your financial affairs when one thinks they can pick up the Financial Review and pick the next Google or visit www.realestate.com.au and know what to pay for an investment property. There is money to be made on both the share-market and property market but thinking you can do it yourself is like picking up a golf club tomorrow and thinking you can beat Tiger Woods in a game of golf.

We’re not saying we can identify the next Google, but we do know how to implement a successful and careful investment strategy that doesn’t require any crystal ball gazing – and on the subject of investment properties, it may mean seeking further advice from a trustworthy property advocate who can help you make a smart decision when investing such a large sum of money into one asset.

Our presentation also includes a few tips and traps to avoid in other areas such as insurance, super and estate planning. If you think this might be of value to you and your work colleagues, let us know and we’ll make time to visit your office soon.

New Year - New Habits

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 04:44:00 GMT

By Ross Clennett

As I resume each working year, I always take time to reflect on my results from the previous year and look at what habits have been working for me and what new habits might improve my performance and satisfaction.

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit."
- Aristotle

Stephen Covey's highly influential book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, defines a habit as the intersection of knowledge, skill and desire.

Defined simply as follows:

Knowledge: the theoretical paradigm, the what to do and why

Skill: the how to

Desire: the motivation, the want to

Here are some questions for you to consider in each of these three areas as you ‘get back into the saddle' in 2010.

Knowledge

• Do you understand how top candidates are using the Internet to look for work?
• Do you know more about your Top 10 clients than any of your competitors?
• Do you know the exact source of every candidate you placed last year and therefore where to best spend your time and money this year in seeking great candidates?
• Do you know exactly what it will take to win the business of your Top 5 prospect clients?

Skill

• Can you gain exclusivity on every job you want exclusively?
• Do 100% of your candidates accept offers made by you?
• Does each client see all your short-listed candidates?
• Do you gain quality referrals from a large proportion of your top candidates, regardless of whether you place them or not?

Desire

• Who in your company could provide valuable feedback and coaching in an important area for your development? Have you asked them?
• Are you using your work time most productively to ensure you don't work more than 9 hours a day and can leave the office in time to ‘have a life'?
• Do you maintain a constant interest in what action you could take to improve your performance or are you stuck in a powerless paradigm of waiting for something to change or someone else to do something so that your performance improves?

Higher performance is never about having more luck. It is about understanding how to improve your knowledge, skills and desire in areas that will make the biggest difference to your performance, and then ensuring your resulting new habits become second nature so that better results come in less time and with more ease.

What are the new habits you could adopt now that will take your performance to a whole new level in 2010?

Ross Clennett runs Australia’s first professional development website for recruitment company owners and managers. He is also a popular speaker, trainer, writer and coach on recruitment trends, recruitment skills and the recruitment industry. For more information on Ross’s services please visit www.rossclennett.com or email ross@rossclennett.com

Warning! Tis the season for crystal ball gazing...

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 04:44:00 GMT

In the coming weeks you’re going to be blessed with the gift of time which for some of you will be an opportunity to think about your investments for 2010. So we beg you – don’t waste $8.95 on a glossy investment magazine when you’re buying the paper one day because frankly, they’re full of crap.

In the next few weeks, the January 2010 issue of trashy investment magazines and newspapers will hit the shelves with predicable headlines such as "Top Stocks for 2010" or "The Hot Asset Sector for 2010 Revealed”.

For example, The Weekend Australian Financial Review, Jan 5-6, 2008 ran an article titled '20 Stocks to Watch in 2008’. Most of the names cited were obscure junior miners, healthcare hopefuls and information technology start-ups. For those preferring large blue-chip names, it was an unfamiliar list.

By the end of the year the market was down 40% but this portfolio was down 64%. The second worst performer was a company that makes bamboo flooring. The article said brokers back in January had price targets on the stock of anywhere from $1.15 to $1.39. As it turned out, the bamboo floors didn't hold and the stock was down to 3 cents by mid-November.

While we are talking about red faces, The Australian Financial Review's panel of "top fund managers" in late 2005 were asked their forecasts for local shares in 2006. "The market is fully valued," said one. "We don't see much capital growth from current levels," said another. "We see at best a 5 per cent return," chimed a third. As it turned out, total returns for the year were just above 20 per cent.

Not only is this information poisonous, the contradictory opinions and view will leave you feeling very frustrated at a time when you’re supposed to be relaxing. No one has a crystal ball, no one can predict the future but most importantly you don’t need to be able to predict the future to be a successful investor.

The journalists that write for these magazines and newspapers know that no-one can predict the future, but if they told you this, why would you keep buying future editions. To be successful, they need to keep the dream alive, that there is a way to beat the market because this keeps punters coming back for more. These magazines are not designed to educate you, they’re designed to sell advertising space – so don’t get sucked in.

If you’re investing into property, the key is to identify a property with a high growth rate. If you’re investing into shares, the key is to spread your risk and keep costs low. We can show you how to do both so instead of investing an hour into reading one of these magazines during January, invest an hour of your time talking to us.

Eat, Drink and be Merry

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 04:45:00 GMT

By Zoe Nicholson

As a Dietitian, the best advice I can give you at Christmas is:

1. Eat everything you feel like and do not worry about eating too much fat, sugar or kilojoules (calories). This is regardless of whether you are trying to lose weight or not.

2. Enjoy a few extra drinks (unless you are pregnant or driving!) and aim to have a glass of water between each alcoholic drink.

Then... For the other 364 days of the year:

• Eat regular meals and snacks
•Eat more vegetables and fruit
• Limit you intake of high sugar and/or high fat processed or take-away foods
• Watch your portion sizes
• Drink more water
• If you drink, keep to 1-2 alcoholic drinks per day (with 2 alcohol free days per week)
• Exercise or be more physically active on all, if not most , days of the week

With a few exceptions...

• Your birthday
• Your partner/spouses birthday
• NYE and other anniversaries
• Weddings and other special occasions

Follow all these guides to help achieve and maintain a healthy body weight and lifestyle which means it is perfectly healthy to eat and drink more than usual on special occasions!

If you need help motivating yourself to make these changes, or would just like some more great advice, visit Zoe’s website www.figureate.com.au to see how an accredited practising dietitian can help you to motivate yourself to change the way you eat once and for all.

I wish you all a safe and happy Christmas and New Year!

Zoe Nicholson - Accredited Practising Dietitian