How to identify your potential bosss managing style before your accept the job

Step by step instructions to recognize your potential manager's overseeing style before your acknowledge the activity The most effective method to distinguish your potential supervisor's overseeing style before your acknowledge the activity While you're probably going to discover what sort of pioneer your manager is after your initial not many days in the workplace, it doesn't assist with finding their overseeing style isn't good with you after you began. In the event that no one but you could know these things in advance… hold on, you can!Follow Ladders on Flipboard!Follow Ladders' magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and more!Here are five pointers to pay special mind to during your meeting and offer procedure before tolerating a position. We can't ensure you'll peg your manager consummately - not all things can be uncovered before you appear at the workplace and see for yourself -yet you'll ideally find enough to know whether saying yes to that offer is actually a decent choice.1. Get some information about the group dynamic in your interviewYou'll likely meet with your expected supervisor in at any rate one round of the meeting procedure. Provided that this is tr ue, get some information about the group dynamic and how they would portray organization culture. You can even ask how they fit into and shape this dynamic. On the off chance that for reasons unknown you won't find the opportunity to meet your supervisor face to face during the meeting stages, ask your questioner similar inquiries, maintaining the attention on your chief. For instance, asking, How does my manager fit into and shape the group dynamic?2. Focus on how the supervisor imparts through emailIf you've had any chance to speak with your manager over email, watch out for what they state, yet the tone you're getting from these messages. For instance, if your manager sends an email perusing just Send your portfolio over by the cutoff time, you may get the feeling that this supervisor will be direct, unoriginal, exacting or even a hard ass. In the event that your manager sends a similar solicitation as It would be so stunning on the off chance that you could send your spectacular portfolio. Anticipating it!!!, you can gather they are progressively easygoing, garrulous and ostensibly friendly.Also, check out the recurrence of these messages in your to and fro with this expected chief, and how rapidly the manager reacts to you. Suppose the manager said they'd hit you up inside 24 hours and it's been different days, you could suspect that your supervisor isn't in control. Or then again you may see that this individual is sending numerous messages in a similar string. In case you're the kind of individual who inclines toward everything flawlessly bundled in one message, your dynamic presumably won't be perfect. Despite the fact that these are on the whole essentially early introductions, utilizing these markers (and concentrating on how you normally react to them) could reveal to you a great deal about how you'll coexist with this person.3. Ask your possible manager straight up about their overseeing styleThough asking your potential supervisor such an immediat e inquiry may appear to be clumsy, the inquiry isn't unseemly. You're just requesting a more clear image of how this individual decides, and how you'll be associated with that procedure. Focus on your possible manager's reaction, yet additionally whether you believe it's earnest. Everybody might want to state that they lead their groups by putting forth attempts to work together and include everybody, except that is not in every case essentially what occurs. On the off chance that what you're hearing appears to be authentic, that could assist you with understanding this individual that much more.4. In the event that conceivable, look for points of view of the individuals who have worked with the potential manager beforeDepending on your industry, you could be associated enough that you know somebody who knows somebody who knows your expected chief. Exploit LinkedIn and check whether your associations cover with this individual. On the off chance that they do, connect with the mutual contact. On the off chance that you realize the contact well, get some information about this individual, and ideally, they'll be straightforward. On the off chance that you don't have the foggiest idea about the contact well, you could state something like Hello X, we met at Y and I saw you worked with Z previously. How was that experience? The key is to get any kind of read on how this individual feels about your expected chief. In spite of the fact that it's only one assessment, you gotta take what you can get.5. Google this individual and read any meetings and articles concentrated on him or herMaybe your potential manager hasn't been highlighted anyplace, yet perhaps they have. It likewise never damages to do some natural foundation research in any case. Whatever you discover, check whether some other sources can back it up.At the day's end, you won't know without a doubt what you could be getting into until you appear at the workplace. All things considered, do as much explor ation as possible before you acknowledge the activity. This additional examination could make all the difference.This article previously showed up on Swirled.

Online training courses boost your career prospects

Online training courses boost your career prospects How Online Training Boosts Your Career Prospects Creating resumes and cover letters takes a lot of time and effort. Are you doing everything you can to make sure they dont end up in a trash can in some human resources office (along with your hopes and dreams of a better career)? In an economy like this, you need an edge to find a good job. The smallest advantage can make the difference between languishing in front of the online job listings and finally landing that dream job you deserve. Lets face it: Jobs are scarce. Many companies are in a hiring freeze. There are only a handful of good jobs to be had, and were left to fight over them like a pack of hungry dogs. But what matters most is not the size of the dog in the fightâ€"its the size of the fight in the dog. Even if you dont have an Ivy League education or years of experience as a fast-rising superstar of the corporate world, you have some options that can work in your favor. A big one would be to beef up your resume with online career education. Any HR gatekeeper would be glad to pluck your application from the stack if it includes recent training, certifications and continued education. And why wouldnt they? These things show that you havent just been punching the time clock somewhereâ€"youve gone the extra mile to learn the latest skills and the best ways to do business in the real world. Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Columbia, Brown, Cornell … These names all look great if youre just getting started in your professional life. But this doesnt mean theres no hope for those of us who went to the state school or the local community college or who didnt finish college at all. If you have real-world work experienceâ€"even if its in an industry thats different from the one youre seeking to break intoâ€"it will work in your favor when a hiring decision is made. Throw in recent continuing education and job training from 360training.com and you could very well be on the short list of candidates called in for an interview. Online education is a great option for job-seekers who cant afford to spend years of their time and tens of thousands of dollars getting advanced college degrees. 360training.com offers industry-specific training for your target career in your home state. The business skills range from sales, operations, brand management, how to motivate employees, how to get the most out of your work day, how to properly communicate your ideas, and so much more. Pick one you think the company you want to work for would want to see on your resume. For example, if you want to get into sales, get sales training. If you want to get into marketing, take brand management courses. Completing some of the accredited courses is a matter of hours or daysâ€"not years. You get the benefit of a real advisor and instructor guiding you along the way, grading your work and answering your questions. You also get this individual attention on your own time, on a schedule that works with you and your life. If you already have a part-time or full-time job, or if you are busy taking care of your family, these courses can fit into the hours you have available and can (in many cases) be extended to give you the time you need to complete them. And when youre done? You could just be the top dog who lands a sweet new gig. And even if it isnt your dream job, it might just be a stepping stone to your ideal career.

3 Reasons You Need Inbound Recruiting - Work It Daily

3 Reasons You Need Inbound Recruiting - Work It Daily 3 Reasons You Need Inbound Recruiting At the point when you're hoping to recruit ability, the exact opposite thing you need to do is sit around idly or cash. In a perfect circumstance, you locate the certified up-and-comer, they go after your open job, your chance to-fill is basically nonexistent, and your recently recruited employee lives cheerfully ever after with your organization. Related: #1 Secret To Being A Savvy Recruiter Regardless of how incredible of an enrollment specialist you are, these circumstances are rare. Your objective up-and-comers are turning out to be refined employment searchers and to alter for changes in their activity looking for conduct, you have to get advanced, as well. With the expanding improvement of the advanced age, work searchers - especially detached ones, who you know don't effectively search for work postings - are doing their examination about organizations and their societies. Try not to trust me? Think about this: Prior to making a buy, we as a whole exploration brands and items to discover what provokes our curiosity. When something is convincing, we do somewhat more uncovering to discover if it merits our time or cash. Depending on the declarations of different purchasers, perusing articles about what the organizations do and how their items work, and following brands via web-based networking media, we settle on choices dependent on the data we find. At times we connect by offering remarks or sharing connections on long range interpersonal communication locales, while different occasions, we simply talk about brands in going to our companions. Truth be told, 71% of shoppers are bound to make a buy when alluded by a kindred buyer via web-based networking media. In addition, explicit brands are coolly talked about by shoppers a normal of 90 times each week. Examination shows that buyers are convinced by what they find while looking through on the web and by what they're told by different buyers. As an organization, it's critical to utilize advertising strategies that make it simpler for your items or administrations to be found by these perceiving shoppers and to create associations with them. When buyers go on the web, they're making decisions about what they see - or don't see - about your organization. Henceforth, why organizations are creating inbound advertising procedures that attention on interfacing with their intended interest groups, rather than impacting out messages to the whole market. In light of this comprehension of how customers are settling on purchasing decisions, it ought to be nothing unexpected that activity searchers are reflecting similar practices. You don't should be a showcasing expert to perceive that shoppers and occupation searchers are similar individuals. They're simply people taking care of various issues. I don't get this' meaning for scouts? Presently like never before, selecting is tied in with making associations with up-and-comers and winning the consideration of the ability you really need. Rather than impacting out a message to a whole workforce, which will probably be disregarded by the applicants you need most, inbound enrolling is tied in with giving assets and associating the ability who will occupy your situations after some time. In all honesty, experts won't have a business on their radar who doesn't have at any rate a professions page, and 98% don't consider you without a LinkedIn organization page. As practices of employment searchers change, the strategies of spotters must adjust. In case you're not turning into an advanced spotter, you will be abandoned as your possibilities look somewhere else. 3 Reasons You Need Inbound Recruiting As ability picks up power in its capacity to be increasingly particular, inbound enrolling will be the methodology that reestablishes your serious edge in employing. On the off chance that you perceive these means, you won't fall behind: 1. Makes Awareness Through inbound enrolling, organizations make themselves and their positions simpler to discover by attracting imminent contender to their sites and other media. This is finished by making content that the objective up-and-comers discover important and actually pertinent. Because of compelling inbound enlisting techniques, organizations distribute content that their objective applicants are looking for, with the goal that they will find the organization, substance, and data, and see the business as an important asset. Since the computerized age offers such a large number of changed approaches to connect with work searchers, shooting a message out utilizing conventional enrolling strategies is not, at this point successful. Inbound enrolling lets organizations connect with target competitors as managers by deliberately polarizing and focusing on the ability the organization needs. The short form: Inbound enlisting makes it more straightforward for the competitors you need to recruit to discover you! 2. Drives Consideration Because you have the consideration of your objective applicants doesn't imply that they will consider applying. Inbound enlisting methodologies guarantee you don't take for allowed the competitors' time and core interest. While you have their consideration, it's essential to transform their mindfulness vigorously. Inbound enrolling necessitates that you make content that assists drive with jobbing searchers' thought. To do this, an organization ought to compose stories, draw in applicants via web-based networking media, and create content that exhibits why the organization is a commendable boss. To be considered as a business, organizations must uncover that ability brand that genuinely exists there. Instances of inbound enlisting procedures that achieve this incorporate representative bright lights, organization online journals, internet based life posts and bulletins. These assist you with creating associations with applicants so they will consider you when they choose to search for and apply to a position. By giving an inside gander at the experience of a representative at your organization, you permit possibility to consider how well their profession could line up with your way of life. The short form: Inbound enrolling assists up-and-comers with imagining themselves in a situation with your organization! 3. Disentangles Decision When an applicant thinks about you as a business, it's dependent upon you to cultivate that relationship. A positive up-and-comer experience alludes to the straightforwardness with which work searchers can become candidates and aides the observation they have of the organization culture and employing process. Regardless of whether a potential applicant doesn't make a difference immediately, by managing them through the activity looking for procedure and making it a positive encounter, you're expanding the odds that they will apply later on. Since inbound selecting has permitted your intended interest group to become acquainted with you as a business, it improves the dynamic procedure by helping them decide whether their qualities are lined up with your organization's and if your positions would be a solid match for them. Refined occupation searchers no longer need to work for your organization they need to work with your organization. Inbound selecting guarantees that you make a domain that invites the best-fitting applicants from the beginning. The short form: Inbound selecting settles on the choice basic since it tells competitors when they are an ideal choice for your activity and your way of life! Join The Conversation! Need to become familiar with Inbound Recruiting? Need tips and deceives to kick your system off? Go along with us for the #InboundRecruiting Twitter visit by following @CAREEREALISM and the hashtag each Wednesday at 12pm EST! We love to hear your knowledge and cheerfully answer your inquiries. P.S. Free assets here for the sagacious selection representative! Related Posts 5 Must-Haves Of A 'Viral' Company Video 5 Reasons Why Job Seekers Line Up For Your Culture 3 Signs Your Office Is Cooler Than Your Culture Photograph credit: Shutterstock Have you joined our vocation development club?Join Us Today!

Ingrid Stabb, author of The Career Within You, is Visiting Seattle on June 28th

Ingrid Stabb, author of The Career Within You, is Visiting Seattle on June 28th Ingrid Stabb, author of The Career Within You, is Visiting Seattle on June 28th One of my favorite authors, Ingrid Stabb, is coming to Seattle! She will give a presentation called The Career Within You, based on her new book with the same title. I reviewed The Career Within You a few months ago, and I loved it. Ive included more information below about this free event, in Ingrids own words. Dear Seattle Interview Coach Fans, You’re invited on Monday, June 28th! I’ll be giving a talk on “The Career Within You” at the University Book Store in Seattle. We’ll also hold a career networking happy hour prior to the talk at Kai’s Bistro and Lounge. For more details and to RSVP, please see: http://careerwithinyouseattle.eventbrite.com/ A few alumni and career interest groups will be in attendance to mix and mingle. Feel free to invite your friends who are interested in networking or the topic of careers. I hope to see you there! Warm regards, Ingrid Stabb Co-author of The Career Within You: http://www.harpercollins.com/author/microsite/about.aspx?authorid=34935 About The Book Talk: The Career Within You: Mapping Out The Perfect Career Path For Your Personality By co-author, Ingrid Stabb Description: To be successful and fulfilled, your work life must reflect your true self, including calling upon the strengths you already possess. The Career Within You helps you achieve just that. The book’s individualized approach determines your career type, then helps you forge leadership and job decisions that best suit you, making it the ideal career management guide for job hunters and career changers of all stripes. Downloadable Resources: http://www.careerwithinyou.com/downloads.html Bio: An innovator in business applications of personalization, Ingrid Stabb holds a BA from Columbia University and an MBA from the Yale School of Management. She has worked with hundreds of individuals on their career development, writes a column for TALK Journal, organizes workshops, and co-chairs the Yale SOM Career Management Committee. Stabb has been featured in the New York Times and on local Channel 7 ABCs The View From The Bay ( http://bit.ly/ViewBay). Her multi-sector management career spans Fortune 500 companies, international startups, non-profit work and the U.S. government. As an expert in personalization, she has helped major companies better target specific demographics and increase customer loyalty. Stabb was a key developer in SCORE! Educational Center’s business model, which employed personalized educational softwareâ€"the first of its kind. Stabb is currently a social media technology marketer for Lithium Technologies, Inc. Praise for The Career Within You “Take your time in reading this book. Be brutally honest with yourself. Why? Because it will free you! It will free you to become the person you know you really want to be. The book is of immense help in understanding yourself and your colleagues. It will empower you to take those steps that will result in new and even joyful professional satisfaction.” Gil Garcetti, former Los Angeles County District Attorney, Consulting Producer of The Closer, author and photographer “What a tragedy it is to posses such natural gifts and to hide them from ourselves and the world. Wagele and Stabb are great detectives who will help you understand your perfect habitat for all you can bring to the workplace.” Chip Conley, Founder CEO, Joie de Vivre Hospitality, author of PEAK: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow “This book is full of valuable information on developing one’s career. A great strength of the book is its entertaining style â€" I loved the charts, cartoons, exercises, etc. which add a light touch to the serious material covered in the book.” Subrata K. Sen, Joseph F. Cullman Professor of Marketing, Yale School of Management “An eminently practical application of the Enneagram’s insights, punctuated with many real-life examples. This book is an excellent guide through times of change. It will help you fine-tune your career goals, improve a job search strategy and show you how to always play to your strengths.” Thomas Condon, Enneagram teacher, author, The Enneagram Movie Video Guide “A groundbreaking work. For each Enneagram style you will find thoughtful and clear descriptions, how each style relates to the spectrum of career choices, and a powerful method to determine the path that best fits you. You will discover what career best fits for your style and in the process a more fulfilling life.” David Daniels, M.D., Clinical Professor Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science Stanford Medical School, and author of The Essential Enneagram “The Career Within You will help you recognize who you are in the working world, the kind of job you’ll thrive at and how to find it.” Jonathan Feinstein, John G. Searle Professor of Economics and Management Yale School of Management “Wagele and Stabb have a delightful way of describing the nine Enneagram styles and their drawings add whimsy and clarity to understanding the types. With their career finder tool, Wagele and Stabb introduce the nine career types with a potpourri of careers. They offer concrete suggestions for soliciting, auditioning for, and closing on their favored career positions.” Jerome Wagner, PH.D, author of The Enneagram Spectrum of Personality Styles

AGENT Interview Rand Fishkin, Co-Founder, Moz

AGENT Interview Rand Fishkin, Co-Founder, Moz AGENT Interview: Rand Fishkin, Co-Founder, Moz ALTHOUGH he has become synonymous with terms as SEO and content marketing, Rand Fishkin, co-founder, Moz, is as likely in conversation to talk about personal integrity, core values and other more fundamentally human concerns, as he is about the fine detail of the online business world.However, he is also pragmatic, with a focused understanding of the line that he walks between his ongoing mission, stated on  Moz.com, of ‘Making the Web a Better Place, and loving every second of it’ and making a successful business.Rand and his mother Gillian founded the company in 2004 out of the successful SEOmoz blog hed created at Gillian’s small business marketing firm where, in 2000, he went to work full-time after dropping out of the University of Washington. He was CEO by 2007, and over the next six years grew Moz from seven employees to 134; revenues from $800,000 to $29.3m; and traffic vaulted to 30m annual visitors. Rand also raised two rounds of funding ($1.1m in 2007 and $18.1m in 2 012), led three acquisitions, and in 2013, rebranded the company to Moz, moving away from SEO tools to broader web marketing software.Despite the company’s origins, he has no illusions about Moz being a family business, especially when its workforce grew beyond 70 employees. “For a long time, Moz felt like a fairly functional version of a family. But as you scale, that becomes different. I might know most people’s names, but I dont know a lot about them. There are so many folks that I dont get to work with closely, or almost never get to work with at all, so internally, it’s a different type of organisation. Externally, its still the case that I want to bring the values that I have, and the love that I have for this industry, and the passion that I have for learning and sharing, wherever I go. I dont know if that’s necessarily a family kind of relationship, but you might view it that way.”However, there is a palpable sense of  integrity and thoughtfulness underpinning Ra nd’s every utterance. For those unfamiliar with Moz, you can get a taster of how important this in the acronym TAGFEE, which not only defines and reflects the core values of the company, but also serves as its differentiator in the marketing field, and establishes a benchmark for the quality of all of the work done at Moz.TAGFEE stands for Transparent, Authentic, Generous, Fun, Empathetic, and Exceptional. This is no mere funky acronym. It’s a set of forensically considered tenets, which are laid down in a company document ‘What We Believe and Why’, available on Rand’s blog. As the comments under the document indicate, it’s as much a way of life as a business ethos.“Like a lot of folks, I think I am not inspired to work purely for money,” Rand says. “If that were the case, I would pursue the most financially rewarding job I could possibly do. If I wanted to stay in technology, that would mean, probably going to Microsoft and seeing if I can get up to VP level and m ake three quarters of a million dollars a year and have stock options and all that kind of stuff. Or it might be go into the financial industry in the States, which is, umm, awful, but you do make an awful lot of money.“I would not be interested or inspired or passionate about pursuing a purely financial plane. So in the beginning, I said, ‘Hey, we’re building our own thing here’, and it was about a set of values that represented who we were as people and who we wanted to work with, and how we wanted to work, and then making the determination that if those values came into conflict with making more money, we would stick to our values, and sacrifice whatever revenue we thought there was.It certainly helped to find out that Jim Collins had done a bunch of research in his books Good To Great and Built to Last, about companies that are very successful over the long term, and found that a huge part of that success stemmed from a set of strongly correlated factors. One of these wa s that the businesses had core values and embodied those through their actions and would sacrifice money making in the short term to live up to those values. Knowing this helped to put our minds at ease, that this was probably the right thing to do for the company as well, even if it didnt feel right short-term.”Image Source: Rand Fishkin“I wanted to solve a problem…”ALL these  years on from the initial foundation of SEOmoz and its rebrand and spectacular levels of popularity, there is nothing to indicate that these values have shifted even slightly. Early on, Rand was so driven in his mission to make transparent the workings of search engines that he admits he “didnt really consider the risks or benefits” the business wisdom of his strategy.“I wanted to solve a problem, and wanted to make the information available, because to me it felt that the silence of the search engines was unfair, and rewarded all the wrong kinds of people and behaviours, particularly scammers w ho had no qualms about harming their clients. It really bothered me that Google claimed to be such a transparent company, and to value transparency so much, but on the biggest and most important issueâ€"how their search engine  works, and how small and medium business and organisations of all kinds, and bloggers, and press, could earn rankings and traffic from themâ€"they were silent. That frustrated me immensely, so in the beginning, I just didn’t consider the risks or benefits of sharing this information.”TAGFEE and the Moz approach remains as relevant as ever, and  even after stepping down as CEO in 2014 and functioning today as a contributor and chairman of the company’s board of directors.He sees today’s business environment as a place of considerable challenge, especially for medium-sized to large firms. Although very small businesses can perhaps survive the whims of audiences and markets who are more actively searching online, Rand insists that complacency is not an o ption for larger businesses (between several hundred and two thousand employees).“Ive spoken to many mid-size and large businesses who have founders and executives who believe that the way they built their business is the same way they’re going to keep growing it, and the same way they’re going to maintain their success, and that is often not the case.”“I see many folks ignoring marketing and sales channels and brand-building and awareness channels, just because they’re not comfortable with them. But I think for a mid-size business that’s trying to scale, or a larger business that’s trying to grow, you need to be very cautious that the things you believe about your audience remain true today. So, if you are saying ‘Hey, I know my audience. They watch television, and they read magazines, and what they read on the Internet is just Facebook, and I have that demographic’, well… I would say that you’ve gotta be careful about that. Your audience is probably also se arching. Theyre probably also consuming content. They probably have influencers, like individuals, channels or organisations that they pay attention to, and that have an outsized influence on their beliefs and on their actions. They may be going over to other social networks, like Twitter, and LinkedIn, and SnapChat as that is getting a little bigger now, and Pinterest. Youve got to be careful about staying on top of your audience as they shift and change their behaviours, and not just assume that it’s always going to be the way it was.”Image Source: Rand Fishkin“Change is more and more frequent, and it will be harder to catch up…”THE  pace of change in technology and how these new developments are being utilised by an ever more curious audience/marketplace poses the most significant challenges for  business, he says.“Social media was moving fairly quickly anyway, but today it’s moving at an incredibly fast clip. New networks are overtaking old ones faster than the old ones overtook their predecessors. We also have to consider the changes in ad platforms and formats and acceptable criteria in how these platforms work, as well as the algorithmic feeds that now nearly every platform has.“So in this time of massive change, and change that is more and more frequent, it will be harder and harder to catch up. I think that for the foreseeable future, we will probably be chasing an ever increasing accelerating pace of change in our industries. There will always be businesses and individuals and organisations that do a great job of keeping pace with these changes, and they will benefit tremendously. Then there will be those that fall behind, and dont benefit.While  Rand is reasonably enthusiastic about the extent to which more businesses and organisations are embracing a more open-sourced and altruistic approach, he remains apprehensive about the persistence of ‘old ways’ in the business world.“It’s true that there are more businesses and organi sations, of all kinds, who are embracing a more altruistic way. This is part of a generational shift, but I see that cultural shift happening among older professionals as well: its not purely among younger professionals. And this can drive a lot of organisational change. But there are also plenty of businesses caught up in the old ways of doing things, and not being particularly quiet about it, and I think there are a lot of businesses who, once they get sizeable, have a very, very hard time maintaining their altruism. So, I see altruism, but I also see bad behaviourâ€"sort of like a bifurcated system.”Rand is currently working on a new project on event safety in the web marketing and technology communities, as well as working on his first book (his previous two works The Art of SEO, and Inbound Marketing and SEO, having been co-authored). When we spoke, it was within days of Rand having delivered a first draft of four chapters to his publisher, who had decided that the book shoul d be taken in a different direction. But he was unswayed. “No, its really fun and enjoyable for me,” he says of the project, a rough draft of which will b e completed by the end of the year.One wonders where Rand  finds the time for a private life. He does insist on the need for demarcation  between the personal and the professional. He has had to make sacrifices, such as choosing  not to have children so he could invest wholeheartedly in all of his work in the internet marketing sphere. This has been rewarding but not without frustrations, he admits. However, he and his wife, Geraldine DeRuiterâ€"whom he married in 2008â€"have led a public relationship (for instance, he proposed publicly and they later appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show) that somehow has enabled them to retain a happy degree of privacy too.“Everyone has a private life, and Geraldine and I do too, and it’s great that we have not had a big challenge in terms of keeping the professional divided from the person al: being transparent about all the things we want to be, while not having too much trouble about people digging into our personal lives… at least hopefully! Knock on wood, you know?”Image Source: Rand Fishkin“Don’t start a business with no prior experience!”ASKED  about what he would advise young startups setting out in the business world for the first time in today’s business environment, Rand surprises by not advocating plunging into the deep end. In fact, he advises quite the opposite.“Dont do what I did. Dont start a business with no prior experience. If you want to start a company in a particular sector, go spend a year or two at one or two or three companies in that space. And I dont care if that means you getting hired as an intern, or working at the front desk as a receptionist. It’s just essential that you have some of that exposure, because you learn what you like and dont like, and what works and what doesnt work, and the relationships and experience that you build are just priceless. I really regretted and felt the pain of having to learn everything for absolutely the first time, never having seen it done anywhere before. Folks say that has its advantages, but that path has been real painful for me!The second thing I would say is, learn how to code. It doesnt matter what business you are entering, because the power of doing that means you can get work done faster and more efficiently, no matter what your job is. And there is an amazing set of jobs open to you for that, and founding your own company will be far easier if you can do it.“The third thing I would say is, you should work on self awareness; know what makes you happy and what makes you unhappy. Know what youre good at, what gives you energy, and when you wake up in the morning all you want to do is do more of that work, versus the things that youre good at but hate doing. I think lots of people can easily identify, ‘oh I love doing this and I hate doing this’, but wh at about the things that you are good at? What brings you energy and gets you out of bed and makes you want to keep doing it and the more you do it the more you want to do it? And what things are you good at that detract energy from you, but you might not even know that you hate them, or even hate them at all. Getting that self-awareness is critical. You have to also be self-aware about long-term goals. Why do you want to start a business? What do you hope that it will achieve? What will make you happy about it? What do you want to learn from that process? 90 percent of businesses are going to fail, so knowing that youre probably going to fail how will that make you feel and will you be okay with it, and will it have been a worthwhile experience even if you do, because chances are, thats whats going to happen. And I think if you go in with your eyes open, then it can work out pretty well.”