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Giving your two weeks notice is never easy, particularly if you have a good relationship with your boss and colleagues, or you feel they’ve invested time and energy into your professional development.

If you’re wondering how to give two weeks notice without hurting your relationship with your employer, you’re in luck. There are particular actions you can take to ensure you leave a good final impression with your current employer.

Leaving your current company respectfully and thoughtfully can ensure better long-term connections and references — and, even if you’re switching industries, you never know who could help you down the road. Plus, it’s the courteous thing to do.

Here, we’ll explore the best way to give your two weeks’ notice to maintain a positive relationship with your old employer, while ensuring a seamless transition into your next role.

What is a two weeks notice?

A two weeks notice is when you let your current employer know that you will be resigning from the company in two weeks. It’s a standard method of resignation that can help you leave the company on good terms.

It’s important to remember, however, that if your employment contract or union agreement clearly states how much notice you need to give before resigning, abide by that agreement. If not, two weeks notice is generally accepted as the norm.

In the case of the latter, if your employee asks you to stay longer than the two weeks, you can do so but you are not obligated to unless your employment contract states otherwise.

How to Give Two Weeks Notice

While it can be nerve wracking to give your two weeks notice, it doesn’t have to be complicated. Remember to keep your resignation simple. You may feel like you need to reveal all the details behind your choice to resign, but you are not obligated to share additional information with your manager. All they need to know are the main paint points of interest that pertain to the company itself.

In addition to keeping the conversation simple, follow these six steps to make your resignation easy for both you and your employer.

Step One: Organize an in-person meeting with your boss.

Once you’ve officially signed a contract with your new employer and know your start date, you’re ready to give your two weeks’ notice. The first thing you’ll want to do is write a resignation letter (templates and samples can be found here).

Once you have the letter in-hand, email or slack your manager and set up a time to meet. Say something like, “Hi, I have something I’d like to discuss with you. Do you have thirty minutes over the next couple of days to meet?”

Avoid telling colleagues about your departure until you’ve spoken with your manager. Even if you have a best friend at work, it’s critical your manager hears the news from you. If they hear the news from other employees first, it signals a lack of trust and respect and could harm a relationship you put a lot of effort into building.

Step Two: During the meeting, offer a transition strategy.

When you sit down with your manager, be succinct and clear. Rambling or offering a long speech will only make the conversation more awkward.

Say something like, “I wanted to meet with you today to let you know I’ve been offered a position at another company, and it’s an opportunity I can’t pass up. I am giving my two weeks’ notice. I want you to know this wasn’t an easy decision to make, and I’m so grateful for the guidance and growth opportunities you’ve given me.”

It’s important you don’t focus on the exciting opportunities of your new role. During this meeting, your primary goal should be to express a level of appreciation and gratitude for everything your manager has done to help you grow.

Additionally, it will help alleviate your manager’s stress over losing you if you come prepared with tangible actions you plan to implement to help with the transition. For instance, you might say something like, “During my final two weeks, I plan to help you search for a replacement,” or “I will create a guidebook to help the next person take over my current projects.”

Finally, hand over your resignation letter. The letter will make your two weeks’ notice official.

Step Three: Be prepared for a counter-offer.

You don’t want to be caught off guard if your manager suddenly tells you they will boost your salary, or move you to another role on another team, if you agree to stay. Before you meet with your manager, consider how you’ll respond if they provide a counter-offer.

Take some time to consider why you’re leaving your current role, and what your next role is providing. If there are certain circumstances in which you’d stay at your current company, make them clear to your manager, and only stay if you can get those specific promises in writing.

Of course, this might be impossible if you’ve already signed a contract with the new employer. And, even if you’ve only verbally accepted the offer, changing your mind will likely burn bridges with your new company, so you’ll want to think carefully about your reputation before doing so.

Ideally, if there are certain circumstances that could greatly improve your satisfaction in your current role, it’s better if you approach your manager with those requirements before you sign another contract. You can make it clear that if those needs aren’t met, you’ll begin considering other opportunities.

Step Four: Know the details regarding benefits.

It’s critical you know your options regarding benefits, health insurance, pension, and 401(K). It can be confusing to transfer benefits or healthcare from one company to another. Additionally, your new company might not be ready to offer new coverage immediately.

If this is true, you have alternative options — for instance, if you’re facing a gap in health coverage, COBRA allows you to continue your current health insurance for 18 months, at your own expense.

Take a look at “What Happens to Your Benefits When You Leave Your Job” by Northwestern Mutual, to learn more information regarding your options.

Step Five: Don’t check out—work just as hard in your last two weeks.

It will be impossible to maintain a positive relationship with your employer after you leave, if you check out during your last two weeks and put in minimal effort. First, your employer is still paying you, so they deserve your utmost effort. Second, the effort you put into your role now will go a long way towards sustaining better connections down the road.

Coworkers will remember what you were like at the end. Give them something good to remember. You never know how your positive reputation can help you network in the long-run.

You’ll want to work hard to tie up loose ends and make it easy for the next person to take your place. For instance, perhaps you’ll create a document so your team members know where certain files are, or where you left off on a project.

Additionally, you’ll still want to arrive on time (if not early), leave at an appropriate time, and remain a team player. If the rest of your team is staying late to finish a project before a deadline, you should, too.

Step Six: Offer warm and heartfelt goodbyes.

In today’s business world, it’s all about who you know. You never know if a colleague on your team will end up helping your younger brother get a job or become a freelancer for your new company a few years later. Nurturing those relationships is critical to ensuring success throughout your entire career.

Two Week Notice Examples

It can be difficult to find the right words when you’re resigning, so if you need a little guidance, here are some two week notice examples to keep in mind:

1. Hardcopy

May 2, 2022

John Smith

Regional Manager

XYZ Company

456 Laura Street

Jacksonville, Florida

Dear Mr. Smith,

I, Jane Doe, would like to inform you that I am resigning from the position of Assistant Regional Manager at XYZ Company, effective two weeks from this date. My last day will be May 16, 2022.

The past ten years with this company have been incredibly rewarding. I’ve enjoyed working for you, and I’m grateful to have been a part of an outstanding team that has experienced so much growth and success over the years. Thank you for the amazing opportunities you have provided me.

I will continue to complete all of my tasks with the utmost care and detail until my last day. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to make the transition go as smoothly as possible.

I wish you and the company all the best.

Sincerely,

Signature (hard copy letter)

Jane Doe

[email protected]

2. Email

Subject: Resignation Letter – Jane Doe (Assistant Regional Manager)

Dear Mr. Smith,

Please accept this as my formal resignation from the position of Assistant Regional Manager at XYZ Company. My last day will be May 16, 2022, two weeks from today.

My time with the company has been very rewarding and I’m grateful to have been a part of such an outstanding team of marketers. Thank you for the amazing opportunities you have provided me.

In the meantime, I will continue to fulfill all my responsibilities as the assistant regional manager until my last day. Please let me know what I can do to make this transition go as smoothly as possible for you and the team.

I wish you and the company all the best.

Kind regards,

Jane Doe

[email protected]

3. If You Want to Include Where You’re Headed Next

Dear Mr. Smith,

I would like to inform you that I am resigning from the position of Assistant Regional Manager at XYZ Company. My last day will be May 16, 2022, two weeks from today.

My time with the company has been very rewarding and I’m grateful to have been a part of such an outstanding team of marketers. Thank you for the amazing opportunities you have provided me.

I am leaving the company to pursue my masters degree at New York University and to be closer to my family.

In the meantime, I will continue to fulfill all my responsibilities as the assistant regional manager until my last day. Please let me know what I can do to make this transition go as smoothly as possible for you and the team.

I wish you and the company all the best.

Kind regards,

Jane Doe

[email protected]

When the day comes for you to say goodbye, you should take the time to send thoughtful goodbye messages to your colleagues. You might even send out a farewell email to the team.

Alternatively, you could consider writing a handwritten note or personalized email to members of your team to whom you feel particularly close. Warmly wish them well, and provide contact information like an email or LinkedIn account, so you can stay in touch.

On-page SEO has the power to bring countless new visitors — and customers — right to your website.

Additionally, on-page SEO is also completely up to you: You get to establish what the topic and/or goal of each page will be. You get to decide on the target audience for that page. And you get to choose the target keywords and phrases you want to focus on.

This can be intimidating and empowering at the same time. If you’re unsure how to get started, we’ve built this on-page SEO checklist to help guide you.

Jump To:

What is On-Page SEO?

Why On-Page SEO is Important

On-Page SEO Elements

On-Page SEO Checklist

Google’s algorithm ranks your website on three main factors: on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO:

• We’ll cover on-page SEO elements below.
• Off-page SEO refers to social sharing, external linking, and more.
• Technical SEO refers to all the SEO elements not included in on-page and off-page practices, such as structured data, site speed, and mobile readiness — the more technical parts of SEO.

Note: This SEO “trilogy” isn’t always divided into three clean sections; some of these SEO elements will overlap. You’ll see how and why throughout this piece.

Why is on-page SEO important?

On-page SEO is important because it tells Google all about your website and how you provide value to visitors and customers. It helps your site be optimized for both human eyes and search engine bots.

Merely creating and publishing your website isn’t enough — you must optimize it for Google and other search engines in order to rank and attract new traffic.

On-page SEO is called “on-page” because the tweaks and changes you make to optimize your website can be seen by visitors on your page (whereas off-page and technical SEO elements aren’t always visible).

Every part of on-page SEO is completely up to you; that’s why it’s critical that you do it correctly. Now, let’s discuss the elements of on-page SEO.

All on-page SEO elements fall into three main categories:

• Content elements
• HTML elements
• Site architecture elements

You’ll see these elements divided into sections below.

Content Elements

Content elements refer to the elements within your site copy and content. In this section, we’ll focus mostly on crafting high-quality page content that benefits your visitors and tells Google that your website provides value.

1. High-Quality Page Content

Page content is the heart of on-page SEO. It tells both search engines and readers what your website and business are all about.

The first step to creating high-quality content is choosing relevant keywords and topics. Conduct keyword research by searching Google for terms and seeing what surfaces for competitors and other websites. You can also use tools like Ahrefs, AnswerthePublic, and UberSuggest.

Also, read our Beginner’s Guide on How to Do Keyword Research for SEO.

Next, consider how your page content falls into the buyer’s journey and visitors’ search intent. These will impact how you will use your keywords and what types of content you will create:

Stage in the Buyer’s Journey	Suggested Content/Website Pages
Awareness	Blog posts, videos homepage
Consideration	Buyer’s guides, case studies about page
Decision	Product demos, comparison tools product or pricing pages, contact page

Now, it’s time to write your page content or clean it up if you’re currently auditing your on-page SEO.

Here are a few best practices for writing high-quality page content (we’ll touch on some of these in more detail below, in our Checklist):

• Incorporate short and long-tail keywords naturally.
• Add engaging and relevant visual content.
• Write for your specific buyer persona(s).
• Actively solve your audience’s problem.
• Develop content people will share and want to link to.
• Optimize for conversions with CTAs to offers and product pages.

Page content is your opportunity to communicate value to Google and your site visitors; it’s the heart of the on-page SEO process. All other on-page SEO elements stem from high-quality page content, so invest ample resources to develop and optimize it.

HTML Elements

HTML elements refer to the elements in your source code.

Note: To see the source code for any page in your browser, click View > Developer > View Source in the top menu.

2. Page Titles

Your website page titles (also known as title tags) are one of the most important SEO elements.

Titles tell both visitors and search engines what they can find on the corresponding pages.

To ensure your site pages rank for the proper intent, be sure to include the focus keyword for each page in the title. Incorporate your keyword as naturally as possible.

Here are some best practices for when developing a page title:

• Keep it under 60 characters (per Google’s update) to ensure that your titles display correctly. Although Google doesn’t have an exact character limit, its display titles max out at 600 pixels. Keeping your titles at 60 characters or less ensures the title won’t be cut off in search results.
• Don’t stuff the title with keywords. Not only does keyword-stuffing present a spammy and tacky reading experience, but modern search engines are smarter than ever — they’ve been designed to specifically monitor for (and penalize!) content that’s unnaturally stuffed with keywords.
• Make it relevant to the page.
• Don’t use all caps.
• Include your brand in the title, i.e. “The Ultimate Guide to On-Page SEO in 2022 — HubSpot Blog“.

Check out our free data-driven guide to writing effective page titles.

3. Headers

Headers, also known as body tags, refer to the HTML element <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, and so on.

These tags help organize your content for readers and help search engines distinguish what part of your content is most important and relevant, depending on search intent.

Incorporate important keywords in your
headers, but choose different ones than what’s in your page title. Put your most important keywords in your <h1> and <h2> headers.

4. Meta Descriptions

Meta descriptions are the short page descriptions that appear under the title in search results. Although it’s not an official ranking factor for search engines, it can influence whether or not your page is clicked on — therefore, it’s just as important when doing on-page SEO.

Meta descriptions can also be copied over to social media when your content is shared (by using structured markup, which we talk about below), so it can encourage click-throughs from there, too.

Here’s what makes for a good meta description:

• Keep it under 160 characters, although Google has been known to allow longer meta descriptions. (Note
• Include your entire keyword or keyword phrase.

• Use a complete, compelling sentence (or two).
• Avoid alphanumeric characters like —, &, or +.

5. Image Alt-text

Image alt-text is like SEO for your images. It tells Google and other search engines what your images are about … which is important because Google now delivers almost as many image-based results as they do text-based results.

That means consumers may be discovering your site through your images. In order for them to do this, though, you have to add alt-text to your images.

Here’s what to keep in mind when adding image alt-text:

• Make it descriptive and specific.
• Make it contextually relevant to the broader page content.
• Keep it shorter than 125 characters.
• Use keywords sparingly, and don’t keyword stuff.

6. Structured Markup

Structured markup, or structured data, is the process of “marking up” your website source code to make it easier for Google to find and understand different elements of your content.

Structured markup is the key behind those featured snippets, knowledge panels, and other content features you see when you search for something on Google. It’s also how your specific page information shows up so neatly when someone shares your content on social media.

Note: Structured data is considered technical SEO, but I’m including it here because optimizing it creates a better on-page experience for visitors.

Site Architecture Elements

Site architecture elements refer to the elements that make up your website and site pages. How you structure your website can help Google and other search engines easily crawl the pages and page content.

7. Page URLs

Your page URLs should be simple to digest for both readers and search engines. They are also important when keeping your site hierarchy consistent as you create subpages, blog posts, and other types of internal pages.

For example, in the above URL, “blog” is the sub-domain, “hubspot.com” is the domain, “sales” is the directory for the HubSpot Sales Blog, and “startups” indicates the specific path to that blog post.

Here are a few tips on how to write SEO-friendly URLs:

• Remove the extra, unnecessary words.
• Use only one or two keywords.
• Use HTTPS if possible, as Google now uses that as a positive ranking factor.

8. Internal Linking

Internal linking is the process of hyperlinking to other helpful pages on your website. (See how the words “internal linking” are linked to another HubSpot blog post in the sentence above? That’s an example.)

Internal linking is important for on-page SEO because internal links send readers to other pages on your website, keeping them around longer and thus telling Google your site is valuable and helpful.

Also, the longer visitors are on your website, the more time Google has to crawl and index your site pages. This ultimately helps Google absorb more information about your website and potentially rank it higher on the search engine results pages.

Download our free guide to Internal Linking for SEO.

9. Mobile Responsiveness

Google started favoring sites that are optimized for faster mobile speeds — even for desktop searches.

Mobile responsiveness matters.

It’s critical to choose a website hosting service, site design and theme, and content layout that’s readable and navigable on mobile devices. If you’re not sure about your own site’s mobile readiness, use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool.

10. Site Speed

Whether viewed on a mobile device or desktop, your site must be able to load quickly. When it comes to on-page SEO, page speed counts big-time.

Google cares about user experience first and foremost. If your site loads slowly or haphazardly, it’s likely your visitors aren’t going to stick around — and Google knows that. Moreover, site speed can impact conversions and ROI.

Check your website’s speed anytime using Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool. If your website is movin’ slow, check out 5 Easy Ways to Help Reduce Your Website’s Page Loading Speed.

Note: Mobile responsiveness and site speed are considered technical SEO, but I’m including them here because optimizing them creates a better on-page experience for visitors.

Now that you understand the different on-page SEO elements, let’s talk through the steps of auditing and improving your on-page SEO.

If you’ve been in search of a solution for organizing and tracking the various on-page SEO elements, you’re in luck. The HubSpot marketing team released an updated version of our On-Page SEO Template, an Excel document that allows you to coordinate pages and keywords — and track changes — all in one place.

Download Now: On-Page SEO Template

In this section, we’ll be using this template as a guide as we walk you through a checklist for your on-page SEO management, step by step. Download the template now and follow along.

Note: The fictional website “http://www.quantify.ly” will be used as an example throughout this post. It’s simply meant to help you imagine how your own website will fit into the template.

1. Crawl your website.

Get an overview of all of your website pages that search engines have indexed. For HubSpot customers, our Page Performance tool (under Reports) will allow you to do this. If you’re not using HubSpot, you can try using a free tool like Xenu’s link crawler.

After crawling your site and exporting the results into an Excel (or .csv) file, there will be three key columns of data that you should focus on:

1. The web address (a.k.a. URL)
2. The page title
3. The page meta description

Copy and paste these three columns into your template.

The URL should be pasted into column B, the page title into column C, and the description into column E.

2. Conduct an SEO audit and define your site architecture.

Now that you have a basic index of your site in the template, you’ll want to organize and prioritize your web pages. Start by defining where within your site architecture your existing pages currently sit.

Do this in column A. Note whether a page is your homepage (ideally you’ll only have one of those), a page in your primary (or secondary) navigation menu, an internal page, and so on.

3. Update URLs, page titles, and meta descriptions.

Review your current URLs, page titles, and meta descriptions to see if they need updating.

(This is the beauty of using a template to organize your SEO: You get a broad overview of the type of content you have on your website.)

Notice how column D and column F automatically calculate the length of each element. The recommended length for page titles is anything under 60 characters. (And, actually, a quick and easy optimization project is to update all page titles that are longer than 60 characters.)

The recommended length for page meta descriptions is 155-160 characters. This is the perfect length to ensure none of the description is cut off by the ellipses. Make sure you’re not too repetitive with keywords in this space. Writing a good meta description isn’t tough, but it deserves just as much consideration as the page content itself.

(Note: For some sites, you may also have to update the URLs, but that’s not always the case and thus was not included as part of this optimization template.)

4. Make sure your keyword is in your URL.

As we mentioned above, add your keyword to your URL. For example, imagine you own a hot yoga studio called ADYoga. You have a web page that includes videos of your classes. The keyword for this page is “hot yoga online classes” — so, you’d want to include that keyword in your URL. The URL for this web page may look like this: www.ADyoga.com/hot-yoga-online-classes.

5. Include your keyword throughout your web page.

In addition to your URL, you’ll want to add your keyword throughout your web page(s). This includes your title and headers. Sprinkle your keyword throughout your content as well where it fits naturally.

6. Track keywords and topics for each page.

Think of your target keyword as the designated topic for a particular page. If you’re using the HubSpot template, In column O, define just one topic per page.

By doing this, you’ll be able to go more in-depth and provide more detailed information about that topic. This also means that you are only optimizing for one keyword per page, meaning you have a greater chance to rank for that keyword.

There are, of course, a few exceptions to this rule. Your homepage is a classic example. The goal of your homepage is to explain what your entire website is about, and thus you’ll need a few keywords to do that. Another exception is overview pages like services and product pages, which outline what all of your products and services may be.

7. Don’t keyword stuff.

We just covered many examples in which keywords are both helpful and necessary for SEO purposes. However, one mistake many first-timers make when improving their on-page SEO is “keyword stuff”.

Keyword stuffing can be detrimental to your website and web page’s SEO and it can feel spammy to readers/ visitors.

8. Establish value propositions for each page.

A very important next step, which is often overlooked, is establishing a value proposition for each page of your website. Each page should have a goal aside from just ranking for a particular term.

If you’re using the template, you’ll do this in column G.

9. Define your target audience.

Define your target audience — do you have a single buyer persona or multiple personas? Keep this persona in mind as you optimize your site’s pages. (Remember, you are optimizing for humans, too — not just search engine robots.)

In column H of our template, you’ll have the opportunity to define your page’s target audience.

10. Plan new page titles.

Now that you’ve documented your existing page titles and have established value propositions and target audiences for each of your pages, write new page titles (if necessary) to reflect your findings.

You can do this in column K of the template — and double-check each title length in column L.

People usually follow the formula of “Keyword Phrase | Context.” The goal of the page title is to lay out the purpose of the page without being redundant. You should also keep the additional recommendations we made above related to titles.

11. Add new meta descriptions.

As we covered above, meta descriptions should be a short, declarative sentence that incorporates the same keyword as your page’s title.

It should not reflect the content verbatim as it appears on the page. Get as close as you can to the 150-character limit to maximize space and tell visitors as much as possible about your page.

If you need to create new meta descriptions, do so in column M of the template.

12. Review and edit page content as needed.

Good copy needs to be thorough, clear, and provide solutions … so, be compelling! Write for your target audience and about how you can help them. Compelling content is also error-free, so double-check your spelling and grammar.

Aim to have at least 500 words per page, and format content to make it easier to read and digest with the use of headers and subheaders.

Columns P through R can be used to keep track of changes that you’ve made to your content or to note where changes need to be implemented.

13. Incorporate visual content.

Content can be more than just text, so consider what kind of visual content you can incorporate into each page (if it adds value and serves a purpose, of course). Columns S and T allow you to note which visual elements need to be added. When adding an image to a page, be sure to include a descriptive file name and image alt-text.

14. Optimize your visual content.

We talked earlier about image alt text. You’ll want to optimize your visual content this way — and be sure to include your keyword in your image alt text. It’ll help with the page’s SEO as well as offer the potential to rank in image search (e.g. on a search engine image results page or image carousel).

15. Add internal links.

As mentioned earlier, incorporating links throughout your pages is a must, but it’s often something that’s easily overlooked.

Make sure that your anchor text includes more than just your keywords. The goal isn’t to stuff in as many keywords as possible, but to make it easy for people to navigate your site.

Use columns U through W to plan for these elements if you don’t already have them, or to document how you’ll improve them.

16. Include external links.

It may seem counterintuitive to include external links throughout your page considering we just covered multiple reasons why internal linking is so important for on-page SEO. However, external links are also important.

By externally linking, to credible and trustworthy sites, Google will know your page is also credible and trustworthy. Not only does Google want to know your site is well-referenced, but your visitors do, too.

17. Optimize for conversions.

If you’re also not optimizing your site to increase the number of leads, subscribers, and/or customers you’re attracting … you’re doing it wrong.

Remember that each page of your website presents a conversion opportunity. That means every page of your website should include at least one call-to-action (CTA), though many pages may have multiple CTAs.

Columns X through AF allow you to plan for conversions.

Be sure that your site has a mix of CTAs for different stages of the flywheel.

(Note: The On-Page SEO Template refers to the stages of the buying funnel — top of the funnel, middle of the funnel, and bottom of the funnel. If you are a HubSpot customer, you can even use Smart Content to display these specific CTAs only to people in a specific part of the funnel.)

Also, as you add, edit, or update CTAs, be sure to note conversion rate changes in columns Z, AC, and AF.

Put Your On-Page SEO to Work

Once you finalize your SEO plans, implement these changes on your website or pass them along to someone to implement for you. This will take time to complete, so aim to work on 5 to 10 pages per week.

Remember: SEO is not a one-and-done deal. It’s something you should continually improve upon. You should treat this On-Page SEO Template as a living, breathing document that will help guide your SEO strategy for months (or years) to come.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in October 2012 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.

Last week, HubSpot wrapped up the third annual World Certification Week – a global virtual event where learners and peers from all around the world connected and grew by dedicating time to their professional development.

This community of people learned about a variety of industry topics, connected with fellow learners and thought leaders, and earned thousands of HubSpot certifications. HubSpot certifications are awarded year-round, but for one week, we donated $5 to education-focused organizations for every certification completed.

The first World Certification Day kicked off in 2020 when a team member bought a “certification day” web domain and we awarded over 2,300 certifications. This event has continued to grow each year, with over 7,800 certifications awarded in 2021 and 11,159 certifications in 2022.

We are lucky to bring people together to share in the sense of community, give back, and grow better. Thanks to you, we were able to donate $10,000 in 2020, $35,000 in 2021, and $50,000 in 2022.

In addition to learning and supporting a good cause, participants from around the world were dedicated to making World Certification Week fun. From learning together in groups and taking certifications live to friendly competitions and certification-inspired videos, participants got creative and made the World Certification Week their own.

World Certification Week Impact

We want to thank the 7,815 of you who took part in World Certification Week and completed 11,159 certifications.

By participating, you advanced your career and gained valuable knowledge while helping others. Your contributions will have a big impact on others as well.

This year’s World Certification Week donations are supporting the following organizations:

• Teach For All is a network of partner organizations that came together to develop collective leadership and to ensure children from all around the globe get the opportunity to fulfill their potential.
• Laboratoria’s mission is to create opportunities for women in Latin America by developing an inclusive and diverse digital economy.
• The Clontarf Foundation aspires to help young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men to improve their education, discipline, life skills, and self-esteem and equip them with the tools to participate more meaningfully in society.
• The Halogen Foundation is a not-for-profit Institution of a Public Character (IPC) charity that aims to help young people reach their potential to influence and lead by becoming positive change agents.

What’s next?

We are already excited about what’s in store for WCW 2023 when more learners, companies, and agencies will take part in this initiative and extend the impact.

Until then, you can take HubSpot Academy courses any day of the year. From Inbound to Contextual Marketing, choose the courses that will help you excel in what you do and grow better. See you next year!

Think of every group project you’ve been in – whether in high school, college, internship, or other.

Often, someone would naturally take the reigns without being officially appointed as the leader – that’s called emergent leadership and it’s something you may want to leverage in your professional life.

Learn the key characteristics of emergent leadership, examples of it in daily life, and the benefits of this approach.

Emergent leadership allows the right leader to be elected once they have demonstrated their potential in group settings. This will be someone who has earned the respect and trust of their colleagues and are able to inspire them.

Too often, companies bring in new leaders and there’s a big adjustment period. They may struggle with communication, understanding their teams’ values, establishing trust, or a number of key elements needed to propel a team forward.

This approach democratizes leadership by letting employees make key decisions regarding not only their leaders but also their projects. As a result, you can get employees who are more invested in the company and serve as its champion.

Promoting emergent leadership within your team is all about fostering an environment of collaboration and ownership. As a manager, you will serve as a resource while allowing your team to take the lead.

By creating this environment, your direct reports will feel comfortable bringing their full selves to work and take the lead whenever their skills align.

To recap, emergent leadership:

• Promotes ownership and independence over one’s work.
• Fosters a collaborative environment.
• Can create a more cohesive team.
• Prevents bottlenecks by empowering employees to be decision-makers.

Emergent Leadership Characteristics

Wondering how to identify a leader within your organization? Here are some key traits to look for.

Influential

A key characteristic of any leader is someone who is capable of impacting someone’s character and/or behavior.

Look for comments from team members like “X suggested this approach,” and “After speaking with X, I…” – Statements like these demonstrate the impact that someone has on other members of the team.

Reliable

If anything, a leader should be reliable as it’s key to building trust. It means you rely on that person to be consistent and dependable. Whether that’s in their work, communication, or another format.

How do your direct reports show up for others? Do they provide resources? Are they available to mentor? Do they follow through? If the answer’s “yes,” you’ve got a reliable person on your hands.

Inspiring

A great leader helps others feel they are capable of more. When you’re evaluating your staff, an emergent leader is someone who brings fresh ideas and perspectives, cheers others on, and is always striving to improve.

Collaborative

Emergent leadership can only happen in a collaborative environment. Look for people who celebrate new perspectives, create space for others, and invite knowledge exchanges.

Emergent Leadership Examples

The most popular example of emergent leadership comes from the famous medical TV drama, “Grey’s Anatomy.” In one episode, residents were tasked with solving a difficult case together. The goal was to help them work better together but also see who would naturally emerge as the leader of the group.

The most extroverted person in the group often seems like the obvious choice but that’s not always the answer. Just like in real life, the emergent leader in the show was the one who displayed an ability to listen, delegate, make decisions, and inspire confidence from others.

Now back to real life.

Photo app VSCO is one company that leverages emergent leadership to encourage brand champions in its own employees.

According to its former VP of People and Places, Katy Shields, the brand believes that giving up control early on in the company’s growth can help it self-correct in the face of adversity.

Back in 2015, Laszlo Bock, former SVP of People Operations at Google explained how Google tackled this.

He said, “What we realized…is that giving up power is just as important to leadership as seizing power.”

Assigned leadership is the straightforward approach most organizations take. However, emergent leadership could prove to be more effective.

Pinterest is often undervalued by social media marketers and considered an unnecessary component of a marketing strategy — unfortunately, if this isn’t the case for your team, you could be missing out on a major source of traffic and income.

Pinterest offers plenty of unique opportunities for marketers to reach leads and influence consumer purchasing behavior. In fact, Pinners are 7x more influential than any other platform along their purchasing journey.

6. Collections

Collection ads appear as a combination of one larger, hero image (or video) followed by three smaller, secondary photos. When a user taps on a collection ad, they’re taken to a full-screen experience where they can view the hero image and up to 24 secondary images.

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They’re a great way to showcase a variety of products in one ad. Plus, they are easy to create using the catalog feature. Just select the product groups you’d like to feature from your catalog and Pinterest create an ad that displays the most relevant products for the user from your product feed.

Currently, collections ads can only be created on desktop and are targeted to users on the mobile app.

7. Shopping

Pinterest shopping ads let you target customers early while they’re just browsing. Like Collections, these ads are created by pulling from your product catalog. When a user clicks on your image or video, it takes them directly to a link where they can purchase the product.

Simply set up your product groups in catalog and Pinterest will use your product data to show relevant products to users. With this feature, there’s no need to set up any additional targeting.

Curious about how to advertise on Pinterest? We’ll walk through all the steps next.

1. Create a business account.

First you’ll need to create a Pinterest business account. This will give you access to all of their ad tools and features. You also have the option to convert your personal account to a business one once you’ve logged in.

2. Choose your campaign objective.

Each of your Pinterest campaigns starts with an objective. Choosing your campaign goal is what determines what ad formats are available to you. There are several categories to choose from — Build Awareness, Consideration, Conversions, and more.

If you’re not sure what you need, you can select one of the goals listed in the short questionnaire pictured below to get started.

Conversion optimization is a campaign objective that optimizes your advertisements for specific actions outside of clicks. Now, advertisers have a way to directly inspire people to take action — like leading a user to an online checkout or newsletter sign-up with no extra steps.

If you want people to discover your business, choose Brand awareness for standard Pins or Video views for Promoted Video Pins as your campaign objective. For these two objectives, you can set a maximum cost for every 1,000 impressions your ad receives.

If your Pinterest goals are to drive qualified leads to your website or improve traffic, choose Traffic or App install for your campaign objective.

For these campaigns, you set a maximum cost-per-click — which means you are only charged when people click through your Promoted Pin to visit your website.

3. Set your campaign budget.

If you want to spend your campaign money evenly over a specific time period, select lifetime. Select daily to choose the amount spent each day. You’ll have to automatically adjust the budgets based on how long you want your ad to deliver.

Next, you’ll set a maximum bid. A bid determines the highest amount of money you’d like to pay for an action, like an engagement or click, on Pinterest. Pinterest will recommend an amount for you depending on your target audience, and what competitors are spending.

Make sure your budget for Pinterest ads reflect your overall marketing goals and the importance of the platform for your business.

4. Create an Ad group.

With Ad groups you can lump together related ads within the same campaign and track them.

For example you could create a beauty campaign with one ad group for “women 35 to 45” and another for “women under 30” and see which performs better.

5. Choose your target audience.

Targeting allows you to reach people who are searching for your content and who are ready to actively engage. Targeting is an important part of promoted ads because, without it, you’ll have less interest.

Pinterest has several targeting options that you can use singularly or combine together for a unique targeting approach.

• Audiences combine your customer knowledge with behavioral insights from Pinterest. If someone has recently bought something from your site or engaged with your Pinterest content, this allows you to target that person for an ad.
• Keywords show your ad to someone who is searching for that kind of content. If you set specific keywords like “tropical vacation” or “apple pie recipes”, your ads will target people searching for those things.
• Interests target people based on the types of content they regularly engage with. Your apple pie recipe ads would most likely be served to people who have an interest in baking or preparing for Thanksgiving.
• Expanded will provide you with additional interest and keywords based on your ad’s content and who you’re trying to reach.
• Demographics allows you to select a specific location, language, device, or gender.
• Placements gives you the option to choose where your ad is delivered. If you don’t want your promoted Pins to show up when someone is browsing, and only appear in search results, you can specify that here.

6. Design your ad.

Now it’s time to create an ad. For this you can use an image that you have already pinned or start with the template below.

7. Maximize your SEO efforts.

By adding an interest and keywords to your descriptions, they become more relevant to people who are actively searching for that content. Keep in mind that hashtags don’t add any ranking value.

On Pinterest, categories of interest are already sorted and categorized. You should explore the available topics that are relevant to your business and target those queries — if you need inspiration, check out the seven categories that do exceptionally well on Pinterest.

Your boards also provide an opportunity for SEO. Boards inform Pinterest’s search engine on how to categorize your Pins, which improves visibility. Focusing on both will support your SEO efforts.

8. Add value.

Endless product promotions on a Pinterest feed aren’t the best way to get an audience’s attention — and keep it. More than likely, you’ll just become a disruption and get unfollowed. You have to add value to every touchpoint with your customer for them to engage with your content.

To add value on Pinterest, try adding Pins that your audience will want to engage with that don’t include your product or business. You might offer added value by showcasing services or interests that compliment your own.

For example, if you sell cars, share content about upkeep or car accessories. Alternatively, if you’re running a Pinterest page for a coffee shop, try Pinning playlist ideas for people to listen to while they work. There is plenty of content available to curate for your audience’s benefit.

9. Mix up your content.

If you’re busy targeting your content to a persona, you’ll miss out on the organic connections and interests of your audience. While helpful for first steps, personas don’t give you everything you need to know about the people who are interacting with your ads.

Keep your content seasonal and relevant. Yes, it is good to make evergreen content — but don’t miss out on pop culture or holiday opportunities to spark interest.

10. Monitor campaign performance.

Finally, you need to keep an eye on your campaign performance to determine the success of your ads, or why they didn’t perform as you expected.

When you’re in Pinterest Ads Manager, click on Analytics and you’ll be shown an overview of all your campaigns and key metrics. These metrics include impressions, total clicks, earned cost-per-impression, effective cost-per-click, and more.

Every campaign has the opportunity to increase brand awareness or inspire purchases. After looking at your analytics, you can determine whether or not you need to widen your audience, increase your budget, or try a different ad format. Pinterest advertisements are not an exact science, so experiments are key to being successful on the platform.

Now that the logistics are out of the way, check out the Pinterest ad examples below for inspiration.

Pinterest Ad Examples

Each of these ads is an example of Pinterest advertising done right with actionable tips that you can take away as you create your own:

1. Ulta

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Pinterest is an excellent platform for beauty brands to showcase their products. This video ad from Ulta takes advantage of seasonality in the weeks leading up to Mother’s Day, creating an ad that is captivating and timely.

2. Ruggable

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In this ad, the image speaks for itself, which lends well to the visual nature of the Pinterest platform. The rug is front and center in an attractive home space that draws the eye (and probably triggers the shopping tendencies of those who like decorating). It does come with a catchy tagline: “Back to Homeschool.” Because who needs a back-to-school sale to buy cool stuff?

3. Love Sweat Fitness

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A big audience on Pinterest is the foodies who love to find and share recipes. Love Sweat Fitness, a fitness brand, is appealing to that crowd with easy and healthy holiday sides. The best part of the ad is how it combines high-quality imagery with attractive typography.

4. Acuity Scheduling

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One thing to take away from this ad is that Pinterest advertising isn’t just for home goods, recipes, and ecommerce. Those in the B2B space can definitely take advantage of the advertising opportunities… and who knows, your audience might be browsing for home goods, too.

This ad sets up the value proposition in a text format and gets right at the heart of the audience’s pains: “Stop scheduling time to schedule clients.” They then pair it with a call-to-action: “Start Booking Now.”

5. Torrid

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In this Pinterest ad, Torrid is using retargeting options to put their products in front of people who already visited the Torrid website. After visiting this product’s page on torrid.com, the ad “followed” me to Pinterest to stay top of mind and earn the sale.

Create Your Pinterest Campaign

Now that you have seen what Pinterest ads can look like, take the inspiration from the examples above and put it to action on your own advertising efforts.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in April 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Finding a new job is a job in itself. It takes time and effort to apply, interview, and eventually land a position — even when you’re completely qualified.

It took me close to nine months from the moment I decided it was time to start searching for a new role to my first day at HubSpot.

Long story short, searching for a new job or finding your dream career isn’t always an easy process. It can be stressful, time-consuming, and difficult. But, no fear — that’s why we’ve created this guide. Follow along, and the process will feel significantly less intimidating no matter your industry, job experience, or career goals.

Depending on your specific situation, you may not need to walk through each of the following steps. This list is here to simply guide you through the beginning stages of your job hunt, so feel free to modify it as needed.

1. Consider your personality.

Your personality reveals a lot about yourself, such as what you enjoy doing, what makes you happy, and how you like to communicate — even the types of jobs you’d likely succeed in. There are a number of ways to incorporate your personality traits and characteristics in your job search.

Take one of the many online personality tests to learn more about your specific traits and discover the types of roles those traits would make you an ideal fit for. This is also helpful when thinking about the type of work environment you’d be most productive in.

Your personality helps you narrow your search in other ways, too — for example, if your results come back with details about you being shy, introspective, and reserved, research ideal jobs for introverts.

2. Think about your skills.

Your skill set is a list of your abilities — such as problem-solving, decision-making, and the ability to work under pressure. In addition to using your skillset to help you determine the type of job you’d be good at, it’s often something listed on a resume — so, listing your skills is a useful exercise for that reason as well.

Also, consider your transferable skills. These are skills that can be transferred from one role to the next, even if they aren’t in the same field. If you are switching industries or roles figuring out how your transferable skills would apply to a new position is key. Some transferable skills include:

• Project management
• Public speaking
• Relationship building
• Analytics and reporting

If you need more guidance, you can learn more about your specific skill set and how it plays a part in the type of career you’d be an ideal fit for by taking a career aptitude test.

3. Reflect on your background.

Your previous work experience and education — or your background — can also help you determine a career path you’d be suited for.

For example, I studied journalism in college and worked at a local news station after graduation. However, after a year, I decided I wanted to leave the industry. My background — which was writing and content-focused — made me an ideal candidate for a position on the HubSpot Blog.

If your background doesn’t align with your newfound career interests, that’s OK, too! However, this may require a little more research on your end about how you can transition to a new career. You may need to go back to school for a master’s degree, get a certification of some kind, or work in an entry-level position in your new field of interest.

4. Brainstorm your career goals.

Brainstorm your personal and career goals to help you determine the ideal next step for you. Think about things like work-life balance, salary, and your goals for the next 5-10 years. This will help you narrow down your search — different industries and positions have a range of standards when it comes to factors like flexibility, culture, and career growth.

5. Create a list of your dream companies.

Whether or not you’re sure about a specific opportunity, create a list of your dream companies you think you’d enjoy working for. This is a great way to keep track of opportunities at the companies you’re most interested in and remain goal-oriented.

You can then tailor your cover letter as well as career highlights and skillset on your resume to fit the requirements and expectations of specific opportunities at your top-choice companies.

6. Consider companies similar to your dream companies.

Consider companies comparable to those on your list of top picks, too. For example, if your goal is to work in marketing at Nike, consider applying for a similar position at a newer, growing company in the same industry like NOBULL.

By being open-minded and realistic about how you’re going to reach your end goal (such as working at Nike), you’ll avoid locking yourself into one, narrow career path option all while gaining valuable experience along the way.

7. Network professionally.

Whether you’re looking to stay in your current industry or pave a completely new path in another, professional networking is critical. These days, many of the offers job seekers receive are a result of networking.

Networking can help you get your foot in the door at a company of interest, gain a new and valuable reference in the industry, and determine whether or not you really want to move into a specific role.

8. Clean up your social media accounts.

Today, recruiters, hiring teams, and department leaders at virtually every company will take the time to research candidates online, including on social media platforms, prior to determining whether or not they want to request an interview.

This means you’ll want to ensure your social media accounts are private or remove pictures, videos, and/or comments that may lead a hiring manager to believe you aren’t a good fit for outreach. After all, the last thing you’d want is for the hiring manager at your dream company to disregard your experience due to something they find on your Instagram or Facebook profile.

9. Update your LinkedIn profile.

Did you know there are over 800 million LinkedIn users? Included in that impressive number are job seekers, businesses, and recruiters looking to fill positions, as well as people who are content with their current roles.

With all of this exposure, it’s important to make sure your LinkedIn profile is up-to-date and accurately represents your current and past experiences. Be sure to describe — in detail — information about your current and past roles, promotions, notable mentions, education, awards, and anything else you feel is worth sharing. Initiate and accept connections to expand your network to receive endorsements for your skills, experiences, and traits.

No matter if you’re in need of a new role, members of your professional network as well as recruiters, hiring managers, and employers will be able to view your LinkedIn profile and reach out to you if they choose. Who knows — maybe you didn’t even realize you were missing out on applying to your dream job.

Learn how to use LinkedIn for professional networking, business, and marketing.

10. Prepare your resume.

Once you’ve narrowed down the type of role you want, be sure that the skills on your resume mirror what companies are asking for and tailor each resume you submit to their specific needs. Focus not only on listing your job duties but the results achieved thanks to your actions. Let’s say you were a call center representative in a previous role. You could say:

“Answered 50+ calls per shift.”

A more effective statement would be:

“Answered 50+ calls per shift, decreasing customer hold times by 30% and improving overall customer satisfaction.”

The second statement has more impact because it details exactly how your actions improved company operations and provided benefits to customers.

Prepare your resume at the beginning of your job search to ensure your latest and most relevant work experience is available to recruiters and hiring managers for review.

Without a strong and recently updated resume, the companies you apply to won’t have reason to take you seriously. Additionally, pay attention to the details when it comes to your resume including font and which skills of yours you choose to share with specific companies — this is how you’re going to make an impactful first impression that sticks with hiring managers as they review the resumes of other applicants.

Note: When in doubt, try updating your resume with a template to achieve a professional look and feel sure to blow hiring managers away.

How to Find a Job You Love

Now that we’ve reviewed which steps to take in the first stages of your job search, you might be wondering how to find a job you’re truly passionate about — one you love. That’s why we’ve compiled this collection of tips and tricks to help you find your dream career.

1. Get specific about what you want.

In order to find your dream career, you’ll need to get very specific about what that looks like. Ask yourself:

• What is my ideal role? Name it if you already have that nailed down.
• Do I prefer a company that is environmentally or socially responsible?
• Is there a particular company, or company size I prefer?
• What are my work/life balance requirements?
• What is my ideal salary?
• What is my ideal career progression?
• Do I already possess the skills I need for this role or do I need to skill up?

Aim high. You are trying to find your dream career, after all. Once you’ve made a list of all the attributes you’re looking for in your next role, you’ll be able to filter out anything that doesn’t fall within those requirements.

2. Use job search sites.

Today, job search sites, or job search engines, are one of the most common ways to find a new position. These sites provide you with valuable information about companies and positions including location, industry, salary, necessary qualifications, culture, and more.

Other benefits to using a job search site include the ability to upload your resume and cover letter for quick and easy application submission. They also provide you with the option to receive an alert when a new opportunity, that fits the criteria you share, becomes available.

There are a number of popular job search sites, used by millions of people around the world, with these capabilities (and more). Here are six of the most common to get you started:

• LinkedIn isn’t just a professional networking site — it’s also a job search site. The platform will take you through a series of steps to help you begin and narrow your job hunt. You can view position openings while employers can read your resume, view your LinkedIn profile, and Connect.
• Tech Ladies is a free job board and supportive online community dedicated to helping women learn, grow, and extend opportunities in the tech industry. Simply upload your resume to their job board and apply directly through the site.
• Glassdoor gives you access to job listings, employee reviews, interview tips, salary information, and more. You can post your resume so hiring managers can contact you directly and the site includes a feature in which you can view interview questions specific companies tend to ask — which is a great interview prep technique.
• Indeed provides you with access to new job listings, company reviews, and accurate salary information. The site also allows you to post your resume so recruiters and employers can easily reach out.
• CareerBuilder gives you the opportunity to search for a new job based on specific criteria including your experience, location, or skill set. Upload your resume so employers can recruit you. The site will also review your profile and recommend jobs to help you find the right match.
• Monster allows you to upload your resume for a free assessment to ensure everything looks perfect. The site has a variety of other resources such as opportunities to receive professional interview advice as well as access to the latest — and most popular — job listings, salary information, and company reviews.
• Craigslist is a straightforward and simplistic job search site. Employers post their latest job listings and you can sift through them by location and/or one of the site’s 20+ industry types.

3. Check company websites for openings of interest.

Maybe you heard about an opening at your dream company or an opportunity at a specific business of interest that you want to learn more about. If this is the case, go directly to the website of the given company you’re interested in to review their career opportunities and job descriptions. If they provide a career newsletter that sends new job openings, subscribe to that, too.

Rather than looking for positions that meet more general criteria, this is a great option for those who know they want a specific company’s name on their resume or culture to be a part of.

4. Craft unique cover letters.

Your cover letter accompanies your resume to persuade employers into believing you’re worth their time and consideration so they bring you in for an interview. Your cover letters should describe why you’re a great fit for the position you apply for. And when paired with your resume, a recruiter should understand why you’re qualified for the opportunity.

Save time and use templates to craft your perfect cover letter.

Now, you may be thinking: Not all companies require cover letters.

And that’s true — some companies openly say cover letters are your choice. If this is the case, it’s up to your discretion as to whether or not you want to send one in. (Personally, I always choose to take the time to tell potential employers about the reasons why I am taking their hiring process and a specific opportunity seriously, but that’s just my prerogative.) If you send in a cover letter, ensure it’s concise, well-written, and helps you stand out among other applicants.

5. Prepare for every interview.

Needless to say, nailing your interview is a critical component to receiving a job offer. Although interviews are often high-pressure experiences for job-seekers, thoroughly preparing for them is a great way to relieve some of the stress.

Practice answering interview questions using the STAR method. STAR stands for Situation, Task, Action, and Results. The method works by having candidates craft their answers to describe a situation, the required task, their chosen action, and the result of that action, putting their past work experience into context.

To help you prepare, review the following commonly-asked interview questions and consider your responses.

• Tell me about yourself.
• What are the reasons for leaving your last job?
• Where do you see yourself in five years?
• What motivates you?
• What makes you unique?
• What is your greatest weakness?

You can also use other resources for interview prep like the Search Interview Questions feature on Glassdoor or blogs about the job search process in a specific industry.

6. Determine the most important parts of a position to you and look for them in your search.

What’s important to you in a company and position?

Is it flexibility in terms of work hours?

Do you require the ability to work remotely full or part-time, or do you want to go into an office every day? Refer back to your dream career must-haves list.

Do you care about the size of the team you’ll be on?

Think about these types of questions when determining which opportunities to apply for so you can ensure the company and position are right for you — and vice versa — before spending time on the application.

For example, if a top-rated workplace culture is important to your application process, review the websites of the companies you’re considering to learn about their culture-related initiatives. Take a look at HubSpot to understand what I mean — HubSpot’s unique Culture Code is explained on their career page as well as in many other locations throughout the company website and Blog. This allows applicants to learn about the importance of workplace culture to the company and its employees as well as how it plays a part in the interview and hiring processes.

7. Think about how you’ll manage an offer.

The final part of your hunt for the perfect position is also the most exciting — accepting an offer!

Once you receive a job offer, be sure to get all of the details about the position, including salary, benefits, and expected start date (along with any other important details).

Remember, it’s normal — and often expected — to ask for some time to consider an offer upon receipt so you have the opportunity to think about and review it in detail before officially accepting it. If you ask, a hiring manager may give you a day, two days, or even a full work week to make a decision.

Don’t be afraid to decline an offer if the specific opportunity isn’t the right fit for you. Other offers will come around — be patient and wait for the one that makes you excited.

Also, you may choose to negotiate your starting salary upon receiving your offer. There are professional and realistic ways to negotiate your salary that you can follow to ensure the process goes smoothly.

Lastly, give your current employer two weeks’ notice — this will allow them to begin searching for your replacement if necessary or at least provide them with a cushion in terms of time to make any necessary adjustments.

How to Find a Remote Job

Today, remote work has become increasingly popular. With technology that allows you to collaborate with team members in real-time from anywhere in the world, instant message, and meet via video chat, remote work has become a more common perk offered by businesses across all industries.

Whether you’d like to become a digital nomad, or you’re looking for a position that’s part-time or full-time remote, there’s an option for you. So, let’s take a look at how you can find your dream remote position.

Note: When searching for a remote job, you can follow most of the same steps that you would if you were looking for a non-remote job — as we reviewed above. However, instead of using the job sites we mentioned earlier, you’ll want to use job sites specifically created for posting and identifying remote opportunities.

But before you review those sites, take some time to think about the pros and cons of a remote position.

Pros and Cons of Remote Work

Now, it’s important to remember that depending on your point of view, work style, career goals, and preferences, you may find some of the following points to be under the incorrect column in your eyes — that’s totally fine … it’s all a matter of perspective.

Pros of Remote Work	Cons of Remote Work
Flexible hours	Lack of office space or work-related events to attend with colleagues
Ability to work from anywhere	More distractions
No commute	Possibility of feeling lonely or unmotivated
Increases employee retention and loyalty (by providing this option for employees upon being hired or later in one’s career)	Little work-day structure
Increases size of talent pool which is a positive for businesses looking for the best possible candidates	Can make team communication difficult

Remote Job Search Sites

Now, back to those job search sites specific for remote opportunities we mentioned — here are a few of the most popular options for you to pull from.

Note: If you’re looking for a part-time remote position, you might want to focus on applying for freelance opportunities.

• AngelList is a startup community. The site includes a job finder in which users can search specifically for remote work in the world of startups. There are also a number of articles published on AngelList’s Blog which provide insight into remote work, remote culture, and related opportunities for users to learn from and use for inspiration.
• FlexJobs lists a wide range of flexible (hence their name) opportunities on their site including part and full-time positions that are either partially or completely remote. As a job seeker, you have the support of the company’s trained researchers who work to identify and screen these positions to ensure they’re legitimate and worthwhile (no matter if you are entry-level or an executive).
• WeWorkRemotely offers a wide range of categories and industries for job seekers to browse and learn about remote opportunities. They have a number of resources on their site for users to educate themselves with as well as determine which specific type of remote positions would be ideal for their career goals.

Begin Your Job Search

Starting the job search process can be overwhelming at times. So, remember to use job search sites to narrow your search and take advantage of the wide array of resources available to job seekers today to help identify the right opportunities for you. Then, prepare for your interviews and remember to be patient — that dream job of yours might just be around the corner.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in February 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

One common question you’ll get asked in an interview is, “Where do you see yourself in five years?“

When it’s coming from a hiring manager, we usually have an answer ready. When it comes to your personal life, do you have a five-year plan?

In the most stressful times in my life, planning brings me great joy and peace. But who says you have to wait for the stress to come? In this article, we’ll outline why you should create a five-year plan and how to build one you’ll follow through with.

Benefits of a 5-Year Plan

Whether professional or personal, a five-year plan can serve as a reset for your life. Who doesn’t like a fresh start?

After all, that’s why New Year’s resolutions are so popular. They give us something to look forward to. There’s also something to be said about writing out a detailed plan. It can be a great motivator to put something in motion.

Personally, I’ve said countless times that I want to be fluent in Spanish. However, it’s not until I write a detailed plan for how that it will become real. 

This brings us to our next point: clarity. Sometimes, a path seems scarier than it actually is because we don’t actually know what it looks like.

Creating a plan is like pointing a flashlight in a dark road. A more accurate description is that it turns that dark, twisty road into a clear path forward. Doesn’t mean there won’t be any bumps in the road but at least you’ll know exactly where you’ll land and how to get there.

Lastly, a five-year plan can serve as a reminder of what’s at stake. In your daily life, it can be easy to forget that every day, we’re shaping our future.

The decisions we make today affect what our life will look like years from now. Having a visual reminder of this can keep you focused on your goals.

5-Year Plan Example

Using our downloadable five-year plan template, we were able to create a detailed five-year plan, broken down by year, process, success metric, benefit, and resources. 

How to Make a 5-Year Plan

1. Know your “why.”

This is singlehandedly the most important step in creating a plan.

A clear “why” is your North star. It’s what will guide you throughout your journey and motivate you to keep moving forward.

It can take a while to narrow this down. You’ll know you have the answer when it’s linked to a core value or belief. Otherwise, you have to keep digging.

One way to get to this is by just asking the question over and over again. For instance:

• I want to learn American Sign Language. Why?
• To become more connected to another culture. Why?
• To broaden my perspective. Why?
• To be a more understanding, tolerant, and inclusive person.

Now, we’ve taken something at surface level and brought it down to a personal, human level.

2. Consider every aspect of your life.

When creating a five-year plan, you want to review your life as a whole and plan accordingly.

It’s not enough to plan for your professional career and not your personal one. After all, one impacts the other.

There are the core four that you should always have:

• Career
• Health (physical and mental)
• Finances
• Relationships

Depending on your goals, you can also add categories for religious or spiritual development, recreation, and service.

Don’t forget bucket-list items – have you been wanting to learn a new language? Or perhaps you want to visit every country in the world. Bucket list items are perfect for five-year plans because you can spread them out over a long period of time and have fun tracking your progress.

3. Make it S.M.A.R.T.

To give you the best chances of success, every goal should pass the SMART test. That means being:

• Specific – The vaguer your goal, the harder it will be to reach.
• Measurable – You must be able to quantify your goals because otherwise, how will you know you’ve reached it? This doesn’t always mean assigning a figure to it, it can also be a feeling.
• Achievable – While it’s good to push yourself beyond your limits, your goal should be attainable and realistic based on where you stand currently.
• Relevant – How does this goal fit within the bigger picture? Does it align with your personal values? What’s the impact on your life?
• Time-bound – It’s not enough to say it’s a five-year plan, you have to create a timeline and set milestones at specific points within your journey.

4. Start with the big ideas then narrow your focus.

When you’re first writing your five-year plan, start with the big idea from each category.

If you don’t know where to start, use this: “In five years, I want to be [fill in the blank].” This will help you figure out goals that you may not have vocalized before.

From there, break it down into bite-size pieces.

This means turning your ideas into action items that can be executed over a certain period of time, specifically from five years to monthly milestones.

Research will play a big role in this, as you will need to learn how to achieve some of your goals. For instance, say your five-year financial plan is to be debt-free.

That’s the big idea but you need to dive deeper. How exactly will you achieve that? Your research will likely suggest setting a budget, paying off your most expensive loan first, consolidating your debts, and more.

Once you know the key action items, you can break them down by year, month, and even week.

This is a S.M.A.R.T. goal in action. The more specific you are, the better you will be at fulfilling your five-year plan.

If you want to add more structure to your life and play a more active role in shaping your future, consider creating a five-year plan. While things may not pan out exactly as you’ve expected, you’ll be surprised at how close you’ll get to what you wished for.

 

Pinterest marketing is incredibly effective. 

Marketers target Pinterest users by sharing content that’s too irresistible for us to pass up. And with over 433 million people on Pinterest, why wouldn’t marketers want to be on the platform? Not to mention 83% of users have made a purchase from content they’ve seen on Pinterest. So, how can your business use Pinterest as a marketing tactic to help improve your brand awareness and conversions?

In this guide, we’ll cover the answer to that question as well as how Pinterest works, which Pinterest marketing strategies you should implement, how small businesses can benefit from the platform, and which tools you can use to ensure your Pinterest marketing strategy works for your business. But first, we’ll review what the platform is and how it works — let’s get started.

 

Users add, or Pin, their chosen content to boards with a common theme to keep it organized so other users can discover new content related to their interests.

If you haven’t yet opened a Pinterest account, learn more about that process here. Once you sign up, you can begin sharing content and, therefore, social media marketing on the platform.

To make the most of the platform, upload your business’s content from your computer or mobile device, Pin content you find on the platform, and add content you find on the web using the Pinterest browser button.

Engagement is key. Follow the boards of your friends and competitors, “Like,” and comment on others’ Pins, re-Pin (or repost) content, and share links to your website and blog in your Pins.

It’s important to note there are personal and business accounts on Pinterest. Choosing a business account will allow you to gain access to Pinterest Analytics and other features including a visual search tool, a native video player, and the ability to run Pinterest ads if you choose — making the platform ideal for marketers.

Now, let’s review some Pinterest marketing strategies to help you improve your influence and impact on your audience.

 

These strategies represent ways to add Pinterest to your greater marketing efforts. Here are a few benefits of using Pinterest for marketing.

1. Distribute your content.

85% of Pinners search for and prefer visual content. This makes Pinterest a uniquely strong place to distribute all types of content, including written blog content. Unlike Instagram, users can click-through live links.

On Pinterest, you share content on Pinterest boards. Boards save all of your Pins and distribute your content for your followers to explore. You can have as many boards as you want, and they can be organized into themes, ideas, plans, or types of inspiration to make it easy for your audience to find the content they’re looking for.

You can also invite people to join your boards — which would make your board a “group board” — if you want other contributors to add content they believe works with your board’s theme. This is a great way to increase engagement and interaction on your profile.

2. Build a community.

Online communities bring together like-minded people and serve as helpful hubs for businesses.

With a Pinterest community, you can count on your followers and fans to interact with your boards, consume your content, and make their way to your website — driving traffic in the process.

There are millions of people who use Pinterest every month. By treating your Pinterest board as a two-way street through which you can interact with and engage users (not like a one-way billboard), you can build a loyal community of Pinterest users who may become customers, too.

How to Build Your Pinterest Following

Although you can search for and add specific friends via their name, Facebook account, and other identifiers, this is time-consuming and would make it nearly impossible to substantially grow your following.

Instead, consider the following methods to build out your base of fans and followers on Pinterest.

• Promote your Pinterest account via your other social networks.
• Follow accounts you believe would want to follow you back.
• Watch what your competitors are doing to increase their base of followers and learn from their techniques.
• Use keywords in your posts (we’ll discuss these tactics in more detail later).
• Ask influencers to re-post some of your content to gain the attention of their followers.
• Pay for a Pinterest ads account to run ads on the platform.

3. Educate customers.

Pinterest is rife with tutorials, infographics, how-tos, and links to additional educational content. Given its propensity for visual content, it’s a powerful channel to educate and engage customers.

While creating and sharing content for your Pinterest profile and marketing to users, be sure to keep your target audience in mind.

Similar to the way you would when creating new products, developing your branding, or posting to other social networks, you want to ensure you’re pushing out content that appeals to your target audience, current customers, and buyer personas on Pinterest.

You can do this in a few different ways:

• Research your buyer personas to determine what type of content would be most helpful and appealing to them.
• Survey and ask your current followers and customers for feedback on what they want from your company on Pinterest.
• Look at what your competitors are doing well (or not) to help you think about new ways to push out your content and make it unique.
• View the boards of your current followers and customers to aid in your understanding of who your audience is and what they’re most interested in.

4. Drive website traffic and boost online sales.

Pinterest, unlike Instagram, allows you to link your visual content to another website — namely, your website. This feature allows you to share both written and visual content and direct users back to your website in the process. 

This is a powerful addition to your marketing as it can boost online sales, too. Many brands use Pinterest to showcase product images while sharing content.

For example, this board, created by the clothing company Madewell, serves as a source of travel inspiration and is paired with real products they sell to get their audience excited about their brand, the lifestyle they promote, and the idea of purchasing some clothing.

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By integrating Pinterest on your website, you’ll be able to easily drive traffic from one of your web pages directly to your Pinterest profile so your leads and customers can begin viewing your content in seconds (and hopefully follow you!).

These Pinterest widgets and buttons allow your website visitors to interact with your Pinterest page via your website and give them the ability to view and follow your profile or go directly to a specific Pin or board. The network’s widget builder helps you quickly customize, create, and add this feature to your site.

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These 9 Pinterest marketing strategies hold value for businesses of any size, in any industry. This universal approach to marketing is one reason Pinterest is such a valuable social media tool.

1. Sign up for a business account.

To market to your target audience, you should create a Pinterest business account. As mentioned, this free account provides you with access to Pinterest Analytics (which we’ll review in more detail shortly) and other handy marketing features such as a profile that clearly states you’re a business, Pinterest widgets, and Pinterest tag. If you already have a Pinterest account and want to convert it into a Pinterest business account, you can also do that without losing any of your content or work.

Note: If you’re looking to enhance your business account and run ads on Pinterest, you can do so by upgrading your account — and setting up your method of payment because this part of Pinterest is not free — to target your audience more aggressively with the help of the platform’s Ads Manager.

2. Choose the right categories for your content.

By choosing the right category for your content to be shared in, your Pins and boards will become more searchable for users looking to discover content similar to that of your business. Users can search for specific categories on Pinterest or simply go to the “Categories” section of any profile on the platform to view all content related to the topic they’re searching for.

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Some of the most popular Pinterest categories include travel, health and wellness, and beauty.

3. Use unique images and videos.

Similar to other social networks, Pinterest contains a plethora of images and videos. Not only do you want to ensure you’re posting images and videos that will help you promote your brand and market your products/ services, but you’ll also want to ensure they stand out against all of the others on the platform. Otherwise, why would a user choose to follow you over your competition?

Here are some ways to ensure you’re sharing great and unique visual content on Pinterest:

• Create and share branded videos to promote your products and company. Pinterest users watch nearly 1 billion videos per day on the platform.
• Share images and videos that show your products in action so viewers can more easily envision themselves using them.
• Avoid excessive blank (or white) space in your images — images with 30% less blank space in the background are pinned most.
• Create videos between 30-90 seconds long because they’re proven to have the highest performance.
• Create specific boards to share images of your company’s most helpful data visualizations and infographics if you have them for your audience to use as resources for their businesses.

4. Leverage keywords.

By using keywords throughout your profile, posts, Pins, and boards, you’ll be more likely to organically appear in users’ feeds and searches. Keywords and phrases on Pinterest are related to specific niches being searched by users.

For example, if you sell suitcases, you might use keywords and phrases like “vacation” or “going on a trip” throughout your profile and Pins. This way, when a user searches one of those terms, your profile and images of your suitcases will appear on their feeds.

When performing keyword research on Pinterest, start by searching terms related to your niche within the platform itself.

In the image below, I searched for the term “travel” and not only found content related to that niche, but Pinterest also provided a number of related keywords at the top of the screen. This tells you what other related terms users are searching for to support your research.

You can also use the plugin Keywords Everywhere to see the search volume for terms on Pinterest. This helps you understand the level of demand for the keywords you’re using.

Here are some locations in which you can insert keywords on Pinterest to improve your chances of organically ranking through search:

• Bio and profile
• Pin descriptions
• Board titles
• Board descriptions
• Image-Alt-Text

For those of you who choose to pay for Pinterest ads, there’s also an option to use the platform’s keyword targeting tool to help you reach your audience through your ads.

5. Share your content on other social networks.

To promote your Pinterest account and content, you should share your Pins, images, and videos in other areas to improve your chances of being seen and followed. For example, you can claim your business’ Pinterest account on Etsy and YouTube so your followers can easily learn about the other platforms you’re on and how they can view more of your content. Additionally, claiming your account will provide access to analytics and data on all of these Pins so you can see the other networks your audience is most interested in.

You can also link your Pinterest profile to your Facebook and Google accounts so you can easily add and find friends, share content across networks, speed up your login on all accounts, and backup your profile in case you lose or forget your password details.

6. Follow, engage, and interact with other accounts.

When you follow and interact with other Pinterest users and their accounts, you’re able to initiate and maintain personal relationships between them and your business. This type of engagement has the potential to make your followers feel a level of loyalty towards your brand that keeps them coming back to your profile for inspiration, ideas, and to buy products.

Here are four ways you can build strong and lasting relationships with your target audience through your marketing tactics on Pinterest:

• Follow new accounts of users who state or show they have interests related to the work your business does and the content you post (you can do this by searching keywords and hashtags or reviewing the people who follow your current audience members).
• Re-Pin, Like, and comment on the content your followers and fans share.
• Respond to the messages your followers write on your content to personalize their experience on your profile and make them feel heard.
• Create engaging posts that showcase your expertise in your industry, teach your followers how to do something, or get them involved (in a giveaway or contest for example).

7. Use social media best practices.

When using Pinterest, be sure to follow the same social media practices you would on other social networks. Examples of this include remembering to interact and engage with your followers, regularly post to (and update) your account, and avoid blatant self-promotion that feels pushy and forced to your audience.

Additionally, you can focus on the following five best practices to boost engagement on Pinterest.

• Encourage your followers to feature your brand in their content (and maybe offer to repost them or re-Pin their content if they do).
• Provide your audience with an incentive — such as a prize — for choosing to follow and interact with you as well as create posts featuring your products and branding.
• Offer your audience discount codes, coupons, as well as details about your latest products, and updates to existing products to keep them coming back to your profile.
• Ensure your content is helpful and useful for your audience members — all content should have a purpose and/ or meaning.

8. Analyze your results.

If you’re putting all of this effort into marketing on Pinterest, it’s probably safe to assume you’re going to want to ensure the work you’re doing improves your business’ conversions and brand awareness.

So, you’ll need to analyze the results of your Pinterest marketing efforts to keep track of your referral traffic, number of engagements, leads generated, and anything else you’re interested in learning more about. The easiest way to do this is through Pinterest Analytics.

Pinterest Analytics provides you with four major types of information including:

• Metrics about your profile as a whole.
• Insights about the number of people who save and re-Pin your content.
• Platform metrics to understand how people interact with your content via both desktop or mobile.
• Data about your most popular Pins.

Pinterest for Small Businesses

If you have a small business, you may be wondering whether or not putting all of this effort and time into implementing Pinterest marketing strategies is actually worth it.

Short answer? Yes, it is.

Pinterest is one of the more versatile, affordable, and impactful marketing tools for businesses that are looking to convert more leads, drive traffic to their websites, and increase brand awareness to use.

Plus, Pinterest users have the highest purchase intent of any other social media users. Let’s discuss some more ways small businesses, like yours, can benefit from creating a presence on Pinterest.

Tell a visual story.

Pinterest helps you tell a visual story about your brand. Through pictures and videos, you’re able to show — rather than tell — your audience what you’re about as a company, the things you value, what and who you support, and the types of products and services you sell.

Pinterest provides you with a unique and engaging way to introduce your small business to platform users.

Humanize your brand.

Social media of any kind can help you humanize your brand and give it some personality — Pinterest is no exception. On the platform, you’re able to reach out directly to your audience members, chat with them one-on-one or as a group, and assist them through any difficulties or roadblocks they encounter while doing business with you.

You’re also able to show your audience and followers how much their support and business mean to you through giveaways, videos of your behind the scenes work, latest company news, product information, promotions, and discount codes.

Creating and maintaining these business-to-customer routines early on humanizes your brand, sets the tone for what your company will be known for, and shows customers how you intend to grow with them in mind.

Feature your blog posts.

You can use Pinterest to feature your inbound marketing efforts such as your blog posts or content offers. For example, you can Pin a photo or video to a board and include a link to blog post about that visual content. This not only promotes your blog posts but it also drives traffic directly to your website.

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Display your work and showcase your expertise.

Pinterest is a great way for your small business to display your work and showcase your expertise in your industry. Examples include Pins with images and videos of your work, infographics, data visualizations, and blog posts.

Due to the fact you might not be a recognized brand yet, doing this is important. That’s because as your business grows and you become more well-known, you’ll be more likely to be recognized as an industry leader and a business with helpful and applicable content for audience members.

Drive traffic to your website.

Pinterest is a great way to drive traffic to your business’ website — this will help your small business generate leads and conversions. You can share URLs in your profile as well as on your Pins and boards. For example, you may choose to post content with a link to your email sign up page, “About Us” page, or blog.

Conduct market research.

Pinterest is a great resource for conducting market research. It’s especially helpful for small businesses that may not have a large following quite yet or the experience to know exactly what their audience members expect and want in terms of content.

With Pinterest, you can easily review what your competitors — and the companies in your industry that are more established than yours — are doing. This will allow you to discover which tactics they’re using on the platform and see what’s working for their audience members. You can also look at the content your audience Pins as well as who they’re following and interacting with.

Pinterest Marketing Tools

There are a number of tools you can use to help you reach your target audience and engage users on Pinterest. There are three major types of resources to help you accomplish this — account management tools, image design and creation tools, and follower count and community growth tools.

1. Social Media Management Tools

Social media management tools help you schedule posts and organize your content on any social network, including Pinterest, prior to actually posting it.

This way, you can ensure everything is shared and pushed out as planned. Social media management tools often have analytics capabilities as well, which you can use in tandem with Pinterest Analytics.

Some popular social media and Pinterest management tools include:

• Hootsuite gives you the ability to schedule your Pins in advance, gain insights into your data and analytics, and measure your results on Pinterest.
• Tailwind provides you with analytics about your Pinterest profile, a data reporting system to help you determine what’s doing well with your audience members, and advice about the best days and times to share your Pins.
• Sprout Social allows you to take advantage of a range of features to help you reach your target audience and buyer personas through Pinterest. These include platform analytics, engagement tools, post-scheduling capabilities, and details about the type of content your audience wants.

Pinterest has also launched its own scheduling tool, allowing Business users to pre-schedule their content within the platform.

2. Pinterest Image Design and Creation Tools

Pinterest image design and creation tools allow you to design, edit, create and publish professional-looking photos and images for the platform (along with any other social media site and your website).

Considering Pinterest is a visual social network where users discover eye-catching, beautiful, and creative images and videos, it’s important your content looks perfect so you can attract more followers and engagement on your profile.

The following three tools are great for anyone who doesn’t necessarily have a background in fields like graphic design or art but still wants to share unique and polished content on their profile.

• Canva allows you to create professional images for Pinterest with over 1 million images, graphics, templates, and icons available to choose from.
• Pablo provides you with a way to create beautiful images for Pinterest in under 30 seconds with easy-to-use effects and templates.
• PicMonkey gives you the ability to create and edit images and has advanced image editing tools such as masking, mirroring, and double exposure.
• AdobeExpress offers intuitive tools and templates, and Photoshop-quality effects to create expertly-designed images for users of all skill levels.

3. Follower Count and Community Growth Tools

Follower count and community growth tools on Pinterest are available to help you promote your profile and content as well as increase your number of followers and engagements. The following three tools were created to help you accomplish this specifically on Pinterest.

• PINGROUPIE provides you with the number of Pins, users, and followers on different group boards on the platform so you can determine whether or not you want to join and Pin your content on it.
• Loop88 helps you to create shareable content they’ve determined is ideal for Pinterest to help you attract your target audience and grow your following.

Start Marketing On Pinterest

Pinterest is a powerful marketing tool with the ability to help you organically increase brand awareness, boost conversions, increase sales, and create long-lasting relationships with your target audience and buyer personas.

You can achieve all of these things for your business by following the Pinterest marketing strategies we reviewed and incorporating the available tools and resources to help you succeed as a business on the platform.

So, sign up for a business account and begin creating unique and engaging content to market to your customers and followers on Pinterest.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in January 2012 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

To understand the importance of resilience in the workplace, let’s start with an example.

Let’s say your company has just been acquired by a major corporation. This means your organization is about to undergo some major changes — including your workplace culture, leadership structure, and even your team’s goals and objectives.

When it comes time to deliver the message to your marketing team, however, you’re surprised by their reactions. While there is some trepidation, most of your employees are upbeat, positive, and excited about the new opportunities and challenges ahead of them.

Their reaction doesn’t mean they aren’t also hesitant, nervous, or unsure of the future. It simply means that your team feels secure, confident, and capable of taking on those new challenges, whatever they may be.

This is the power of workforce resiliency.

Here, we’ll dive into why workforce resiliency is one of the strongest predictors of long-term employee satisfaction and retention. Plus, how to build a more resilient workforce, according to leaders who’ve done it.

What is workforce resilience?

To understand workforce resiliency, we first need to define what resiliency is.

As Merriam-Webster defines it, resiliency is “an ability to recover from or adjust easily to adversity or change”.

Essentially, a resilient person is someone who can adapt well to life’s unexpected challenges, stresses, and uncertainties.

Birdeye’s Head of People & Culture Camille Boothe told me, “When I think about resilience, certain thoughts come to mind — like adaptability, the ability to recover quickly, inner strength, and the ability to navigate challenges with a positive state of mind.”

So … what does resiliency matter for the workplace?

Workforce resiliency is, simply put, a group of employees who feel stable, secure, and capable of handling a workplace’s challenges, daily stresses, and organizational changes without losing engagement or motivation.

As Boothe puts it, “Why is resiliency important in the workplace? Because many employees cite workplace stress as the #1 stressor in their lives. That is why building a strong culture of resilience is essential for the success and well-being of employees.”

To put workforce resiliency into context, consider the past two years: Most businesses have made large-scale changes as a result of the pandemic.

Many companies shifted to an entirely remote lifestyle, and then shifted again towards hybrid or in-person once restrictions had been lifted.

Some leaders quit; while others made drastic changes to their strategies, goals, and future vision.

And yet … some businesses saw much higher turnover rates than others. Why is that?

Ultimately, the more resilient your workforce is, the more adept they are at handling business changes and industry shifts without feeling too much frustration, distrust, or uncertainty over how those changes will impact their livelihood.

Essentially, resiliency builds the opportunity for flexibility.

On the flip side, a non-resilient workforce is one that feels vulnerable, mistrustful of leadership, or tired and de-motivated. These are the workers who are most likely to quit, or who feel incapable of handling workplace changes with any sense of confidence or security.

Workforce resiliency is a strong component of long-term employee retention, and can help you build and maintain an effective and engaging workplace culture even when difficult situations arise. It’s important to consider workforce resiliency as the necessary backbone of any effective, strong company culture. Without resiliency, all the beer-on-tap and ping pong tables in the world can’t deter your employees from leaving.

Benefits of Workforce Resilience

If you’re still unsure of the benefits of workforce resiliency, let’s consider the data:

• BetterUp found highly-resilient people were 31% more productive during the pandemic than low-resilience workers.
• BetterUp also found resilience led to higher innovation (+22%), higher cognitive flexibility (+20%), and more novelty of ideas (+20%).
• ADP Research Institute found engagement and workplace resilience to be positively correlated — in fact, engagement explains 64% of resilience.
• ADP also found workers who experienced at least five changes at work were 13.2X more likely to be highly resilient.

All of which is to say: Work can be hard, and it can be particularly difficult to remain productive at work when an employee’s life is shifting dramatically as a result of unforeseen circumstances (like, say, a pandemic).

Resiliency, then, can help mitigate these stresses by providing a ‘safety net’ around the employee and helping them remain focused, positive, and engaged even during stressful times.

So — that’s all well and good. But, as a leader, how do you build resiliency? And, perhaps even more importantly, how do you maintain it?

How do you build workforce resilience? 

1. Bake it into your employee initiatives. 

To start, I spoke with leaders across organizations at Birdeye, Plecto, Alyce, Casted, and HubSpot to uncover tactical methods for developing resiliency in your workforce.

Boothe told me, “At Birdeye, we value resiliency and seek to develop that skill within our teams every day. We coach patience, empathy, control, and seeing change as an opportunity rather than a setback.”

She adds, “We recognize the factors that lead to resilience include optimism, balancing difficult emotions, and a sense of safety in a strong support system,” Boothe told me, adding that they’ve focused on three key initiatives at Birdeye to strengthen resiliency.

These include: 

• Focusing on physical and mental health. Birdeye provides unlimited PTO and mental health days companywide for employees to rest and rejuvenate as needed. This gives employees a mindset to stay relaxed, even in the face of stressful situations.
• Flexible work schedules. Birdeye is in a primary work-from-home mode which allows employees to gain better work-life balance and stress management.
• Employee Resource Groups (ERG)/Social Connections. Birdeye builds relationships and connections for employees to leverage for support, as well as participate in forums and discussions on Mindfulness and Meditation.

Boothe adds, “We see resiliency as a competitive advantage and feel that building resilience is just good business sense.”

Along with employee resource groups, you might consider looking into trainings specifically focused on building resilience.

Additionally, you might consider offering your employees the chance to choose which employee benefits matter most to them, and enabling them to invest in whichever perks would best suit their lifestyles. 

As Alyce’s VP of People, Tori Oellers, told me, “The ‘power of choice’ is a core tenant of our platform. and we see first-hand how successful campaigns can be when you put the choice in the hands of recipients. We take that same philosophy with many of our benefits.”

She adds, “Rather than carving out various specialized programs and partnerships, we have made it simple by allocating budget to various stipends that provide our team the power of choice to utilize the benefits in a way that is supportive for them as an individual.”

Oellers told me, “Recognizing and operationalizing ways to recognize your people as individuals ensures that each person is getting what they need to be successful and foster resiliency.”

Finally, providing educational resources for your leaders to train themselves on building agility in the face of adversity can help you effectively strengthen resiliency from the top-down. The Agility Factor, by Christopher G. Worley, Thomas Williams, Edward E. Lawler III is a good option for helping your leaders’ uncover how to build agility — and thus resilience — within an organization.

2. Emulate resiliency as a leader.

To build resilience in your workforce, you’ll want to emulate it as a leader. For instance, let’s say you’re delivering the difficult news that leadership has decided to cut budgeting for a marketing project that’s already in-the-works.

As Jordan DiPietro, VP of HubSpot Media, told me, “Your team is always looking to you as their leader for guidance, strategic direction, and advice — and they’re also looking to you as an emotional compass. If you get way too high, or way too low, they will ride those waves with you.”

He adds, “As someone leading a massive team, I’ve needed to figure out a way to stay more even-keeled. For some people that’s easy because they are naturally steady and composed. However, I tend to be less equable — so I have to work hard to not let that reflect in my leadership.”

To remain steady during stressful or tumultuous times, DiPietro recommends leaders aim to minimize meetings and outward communication on days when they’re feeling overly stressed. On the flip side, he suggests leaders also attempt to curtail too much excitement — while it’s important to celebrate your team’s successes, you don’t want to go overboard with your emotions in either direction. 

DiPietro adds, “The one thing you can count on is that business will ebb and flow, and there will always be peaks and valleys. The more you can smooth those out for your team, the more resilient they will act throughout those times.”

Additionally, as a leader you can emulate resiliency by modeling flexibility. As Lindsay Tjepkema, CEO and co-founder of Casted, told me, “At Casted, we prioritize flexibility and allowing team members to choose what a flexible workday looks like to them — whether that’s working the conventional 9 a.m to 5 p.m., taking long lunches to attend a favorite workout class, logging off earlier some days to spend time with kids before they go to bed, or whatever suits each individual.”

Tjepkema adds, “If we want our teams to believe that we value flexibility, we have to model it. I share my own needs for flexibility openly with the team. They know if I have a hair appointment or a family event. When they see me or another leader communicating our availability and using that flexibility, it empowers them to do the same.”

Ultimately, your resilience as a leader is contagious. In fact, highly-resilient team leaders have direct reports who experience 52% less burnout, and have roughly 80% lower intention of leaving the organization.

3. Focus on the physical and mental health aspects of resiliency.

Did you know people are 3.5X more likely to be resilient if they have good physical health?

Providing your employees with the resources necessary to remain strong phsyically — including fitness reimbursements, flexible work schedules to go on walks or runs during lunch, and even fun workplace fitness competitions — is vital for ensuring long-term resiliency.

For instance, as CEO and Co-founder of Plecto, Kristian Øllegaard, told me, “We’re an ambitious company and thrive on striving to be the best, so contests are a natural fit for the team. Most recently, we challenged the whole company to a push-up competition! The motivation to get involved and outperform colleagues was felt company-wide. This kind of fun-loving team spirit is what makes Plecto the place to be, where we build resilience and genuine relationships.”

If your workers are burnt out, exhausted, and depleted, they won’t have the energy to take care of their physical health, and it will ultimately take its toll on your employees, and your bottom-line.

Additionally, mental health is just as important as physical. Resiliency requires a healthy mindset where people are open to change and don’t dwell on the potential negative outcomes. This can only happen through practice.

Mindfulness and yoga are two effective opportunities to practice building resiliency, so consider how you might provide these options through a discounted mindfulness app subscription, or by bringing yoga to the office.

Additionally, therapy can be incredibly helpful for those who struggle to adjust to change, so perhaps you can try offering services such as Modern Health to your team for further mental health consultations.

Finally — encourage your team to take time off. As DiPietro puts it, “People are more resilient when they have had time to relax and reset! Nobody is meant to grind and not take breaks. The mind needs to untether from work and people need to feel like it’s okay to completely unplug without their team or performance suffering.”

He adds, “Leading by example isn’t enough here. Instead, every few months I ask each of my direct reports, ‘Hey, when is your next vacation?‘ If they don’t have one planned, I follow up in each one-on-one until they make plans. I have found that the directness of my approach gives my reports the feeling of freedom to actually take time off — because if they don’t, I’m going to keep bothering them about it. Force your employees to take time off. You will be rewarded for it!”

4. Practice transparency within your organization as a whole.

No matter how resilient your workforce is, they won’t feel comfortable or optimistic about company-wide or team-wide changes if they don’t understand the why behind the change.

This is where transparency comes into play. While you don’t have to over-explain, divulge confidential information, or apologize for your decisions, your team does deserve to understand the background context of the change and how leadership hopes it will impact the future of the company.

Øllegaard adds, “Since the beginning, business transparency and celebrating success have been at the heart of the Plecto culture. It’s no secret when it’s a record-breaking (or slower) month at Plecto. It’s hard to ignore the TVs around the office with dashboards of each team’s key performance metrics, which are broadcasted for everyone to see. What’s important is being completely transparent about how the company is performing.”

For instance, let’s say your CMO has issued a re-org — and, as part of the change, your social media team will move from under the Content Team VP to under the Brand Strategy VP.

When you deliver this news to your team, you’ll want to explain the context behind the decision.

For instance, you might say, “We’ve decided it makes more sense to have the social team live under Brand Strategy, since the Brand Strategy teams share a common goal of brand awareness. By contrast, most other Content teams share the goal of lead generation, which doesn’t make as much sense for our team’s purpose.”

Ultimately, transparency can build trust, which goes a long way towards making your employees comfortable, and even excited, about upcoming workplace events.

Workforce Resilience Examples

Finally, let’s dive into a few examples of workplace resilience to see how this looks in practice.

1. Staying calm with last-minute requests.

Your SEO team is getting ready for the holiday season when your VP tasks you with a major request: Please put together a memo of your 2023 vision, including areas of opportunity and pre-existing at-risk content, within one week.

When you tell your team, they immediately jump into action. They decide to stay after work, order takeout, and prep the doc together. Your employees are energized and confident that they can meet the deadline, and they’re excited about the challenge. By the end of the week they’ve created a flashy, engaging, compelling 2023 vision, and they can’t wait to hear the VP’s thoughts.

Why This Exemplifies Resilience

Even though the request is last-minute, your team feels comfortable handling the shift in priorities. A low-resilience team would’ve felt discouraged, frustrated, or uninterested in working on the task so close to the holidays, but this high-resilience team was able to shift their mindset quickly and look at the task from a more positive perspective: as a chance to impress leadership and get excited about the year ahead.

2. Taking risks and seeking out new challenges.

On Tuesday, your direct report comes to you with a pitch deck she’s put together in which she’s outlined why it’s a good idea to embed YouTube videos into existing blog posts.

It’s risky — your blog team hasn’t tried incorporating videos before, so there’s no prior evidence that it will be successful. However, your direct report has data from other brands to showcase how videos can increase blog traffic and time-on-page.

Why This Exemplifies Resilience

Risk-taking is all about willingly venturing into unknown territory … something a low-resilience person is unlikely to do. In this case, your employee is demonstrating resilience by showcasing her open-mindedness to test out new ideas and innovate, as well as her engagement and commitment to your team’s success. A low-resilient employee would likely feel less engaged and less willing to take risks.

3. Remaining positive and upbeat.

When you tell your employees your director is leaving your company for another role, they are saddened by the news. She has been an effective leader for the team for a number of years.

However, they are not fearful, mistrustful, or anxious. Instead, they understand this is the best next step for the director, and suggest ideas for a goodbye party. The vibe is ultimately positive and optimistic.

Why This Exemplifies Resilience

When a beloved leader leaves the company, it’s always a sad experience, but high-resilience employees can see the bright side of the situation and don’t dwell on the potential negative outcomes they could experience in their own roles as a result of the director’s departure. Instead, they trust your leadership and the organization at-large will continue to meet their expectations.

4. Handling constructive feedback well.

In a recent performance review, you tell your employee that he’s been underperforming. He’s missed a few deadlines, and recently arrived unprepared to a meeting with a client.

Your employee is unsurprised by this information, and responds calmly: “I really appreciate you taking the time to talk about this with me. I will give what you’ve said serious consideration, and reach out next week to plan a follow-up where we can discuss how I can improve my performance.”

Why This Exemplifies Resilience

A highly-resilient employee is likely effective at positive self-talk and harnessing optimism in the face of adversity. Additionally, resiliency enables people to handle rejection more smoothly by seeing it as an opportunity to grow.

Ultimately, you can’t always control the situations that arise in your workplace. But what you can control, if you’ve laid a foundation of resilience, is how your team reacts to those changes. The more resilient your employees are, the more likely they are to be happy, engaged, and motivated at work.

Taking the time to teach and foster resilience in your workforce isn’t easy, but in the long run, it will enable your team to more efficiently and willingly handle all the challenges thrown their way.

Every resume has a skills section. It’s an opportunity to highlight your top professional attributes to attract employers. Core competencies serve the same purpose for brands and their customers.

Let’s dive into what exactly a core competency is, why you need it, and how to find it in your brand.

You might be wondering, “Isn’t this a value proposition? ” Not exactly. While both are used to differentiate you from your competitors, competencies are what you leverage to support your value proposition.

For instance, at Uber, their value proposition is “Always on, always available.” What’s their core competency? An easy-to-use app and reliable access to its services at any time of the day.

Establishing your core competencies early on is incredibly valuable, as it can inform your marketing strategy moving forward. You can use them in your messaging to attract your target audience and stand out among your competitors.

If you’re a trailblazing company with a fresh product in an underserved market, then finding your core competency will be easy to spell out.

However, if you’re in a saturated market and struggling to distinguish your brand, working on your core competencies will be key to your success.

The sooner you discover what they are, the quicker you can implement them in your marketing and sales strategies.

From an individual standpoint, everyone has core competencies that they leverage in their professional lives. When you want to land a new job, you list those competencies as skills in your resume, embed them in your LinkedIn bio, and mention them during interviews.

If you don’t know what makes you a valuable asset, you’ll be hard-pressed to convince an organization of that. With this in mind, competencies are valuable both from a personal and broader perspective.

Core Competencies Examples

Clever Marketing from Oatly

There are hundreds of vegan milk options out there. What makes Oatly stand out is its marketing.

Image Source

The brand specializes in self-referential marketing campaigns that make its target audience laugh. Their ads rarely focus on the products and instead poke fun at the ads themselves.

In contrast, one of Oatly’s competitors, Planet Oat, launched a #WeSolvedMilk campaign back in 2021 and released this ad.

Unlike Oatly, they focused on product features – specifically their oat milk’s superior creaminess, then centered the commercial around that.

In a world where most ads take a product-focused approach, companies like Oatly stand out.

Incredible Value from Canva

For many years, those of us who wanted to build brand assets had to rely on products like Adobe InDesign and Sketch.

Not only did they come at a cost but they were also notoriously complex, as they were made with advanced professionals in mind. Then came Canva, a graphic design platform with thousands of free templates made for the everyday user.

Offering high-quality designs at little to no cost became one of their core competencies, stemming from their mission to make graphic design accessible to everyone.

An Innovative User-First Approach from Google

Google might have started as a search engine but it’s evolved into a one-stop-shop to meet all your digital needs – for individuals and businesses alike. From cloud storage and password management to email service and advertising, this is only a sliver of what Google has to offer.

Google’s value proposition is innovation, as evidenced by its wealth of services. Some of their core competencies include inventive products and a dedication to a user-first approach.

How can you determine a core competency?

1. Start with what you already know.

The first place to look when establishing your core competencies is your value proposition. As we mentioned before, that’s the overarching idea from which your competencies will emerge.

It’s also worth reviewing your mission statement. What does your company care about? What are its core values? From there, you can ask yourself, “How does that translate into what we offer our customers?“

2. Look at your competition.

When you’re struggling to figure something out within your brand, it’s always helpful to look across the aisle and see what your competitors are doing.

They’re a great source of information and inspiration. In this case, the question you want to ask is “What do they lack that we offer?“

It can be anything from a personalized customer experience to one-of-a-kind product features. Once you make a list of the differentiators, you’ll get a clearer picture of what

3. Reach out to your customers.

Who better to learn from than your customers?

If you’re unsure what sets you apart from your competitors, ask your customers. You can create a survey and ask questions that get to the bottom of why they chose you.

Questions like “What comes to mind when you think of our brand?” and “What do you love about our brand?” will help you get the answers you’re looking for.

Core competencies are brand differentiators that will help you create a marketing strategy that caters to your target audience and separates you from the rest.