• The official blog of Abacus Group — a place to share our knowledge and thoughts on trends in recruiting •

Going through numerous hiring cycles while struggling to find the right candidates can be a frustrating process. If you feel your business can’t find the right talent, you are in the right place.

Assessing a candidate’s soft skills in an interview is just as important as understanding their hard skills. To properly gauge their abilities, you as the hiring manager must ask open-ended questions.

No employee is perfect, but occasionally, someone you manage might start slipping up. These small mistakes don’t negate the good work you know this person can do, but they also cannot go without being discussed. This is a situation no manager wants to deal with but handling it smoothly will keep your team on track, ensure you get the best from the employee, and show that you a truly a leader.

As the warm weather approaches, you will start to see your employees staring out the window, dreaming of sitting at the beach instead of their cubicles. Of course, summer breaks are a thing of the past, but that doesn’t mean the warmer months can’t bring along the opportunity to shake the workplace up a little bit.

Being in a management position means your company trusts you to lead a team and impart your knowledge onto the staff you oversee. With all the responsibilities that come with being a manager, spending time improving your managerial style can become your last priority. However, as rates of employees feeling disengages and unchallenged rise, working to improve how you manage is key to keeping your staff happy, productive, and successful.

Implementing professional development in your business is critical for company success. There are a wide variety of options, from planning workshops or attending conferences, to pursuing accreditations or learning the latest technologies.

Jeff Bezos is known for a few things, his unique approach to business is certainly one of them. It goes without saying that the richest man in the world has an overwhelmingly busy schedule, yet he maintains very few meetings on his calendar, does not wake up to an alarm and always makes time to do his own dishes.

It should come as no surprise that leadership development in the workplace is a highly regarded benefit when candidates are considering specific employment. Candidates are thinking more and more about career trajectory and advancement when they are seeking jobs.

Assessing a candidate’s soft skills in an interview, just like the conducting of the interview itself, requires that you as the hiring manager are asking open-ended questions. To get a more accurate understanding of the candidate, be sure to give them the reins and let them showcase their marketable skills.

As much as a manager wants their employees to be giving 100% of their effort 100% of the time, the reality is that motivation can waver and that will lead to a lag in productivity and thus, results. A good leader is one who knows when to dictate and when to listen. Motivating indeed requires this balance.