I delivered a workshop on hiring for your startup of small business a few weeks ago and I really enjoyed the feedback from the participants on this topic. We focused on the three things you look for in candidates for the roles in your organization.

• Knowledge – this is information, data, facts, and content that the person needs to execute the role you are recruiting. Everyone should have foundational knowledge in order to do the job so make sure you find out if a candidate truly knows what they are doing.
• Skills – these are demonstrated actions that a candidate can present. You want to review the evidence that the candidate can do the work through previous projects or initiatives they have participated that will ensure success in the target role
• Abilities – these are the unborn innate things that you can’t teach a person that will help them be successful. You can’t teach having a natural curiosity but it may be helpful to have it for the target role. You can’t teach initiative or persistence but you may need the ideal candidate to have that quality. Look for opportunities to evaluate the abilities you need to take the role to the next level – and your business

Let us know if you need help with your hiring process or want to discuss this topic further. We are glad to connect and help you succeed.

Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled. That definition comes from Harvard and we agree with it based on what it represents in context.

We all need to have an entrepreneurial mindset in the days ahead. We need to head into this year embracing the opportunities to create something from nothing – to become producers instead of consumers.

As we all cross over into the new year, we should take some time to reflect over the past year, reset our expectations, and refocus our efforts on the right goals and objectives.

For us at The DEJ Group, we had a tremendous year in 2019 with some great wins and some learning moments. We helped a lot of people get clarity on where they wanted to go. At the same time, we had some challenges we had to face and some disappointments we had to experience.

We’ve taken what we’ve learned and reset our expectations for the future while changing our focus to align with where we are going. We are grateful to have that opportunity and we are confident that 2020 will be a great year for our team.

The future of work will be determined by the ability of companies to acquire and develop diverse talent. In today’s competitive market the future of corporate performance will be measured by an organization’s ability to retrain and reskill its workforce to meet future demands. One way for companies to ensure their relevance is to have an inclusive value chain.

Our series on the Inclusive Value Chain will cover our ideas on how to build a connection from supplier to you to your customer that takes into consideration the changing demographics and pressures from globalization that many companies will face in the coming years.