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Check out this video on YouTube:

"Apple CEO Steve Jobs is well known for his electrifying presentations. Communications coach Carmine Gallo discusses the various techniques Jobs uses to captivate and inspire his audience -- techniques that can easily be applied to your next presentation."

In high school, when I was working at Copps Hill Shell in Ridgefield, CT, we were one of the first gas stations in the area to get credit card readers at the pumps for customers to pay at the pump. The learning process for the customers was a bit haphazard, but one of our jobs working there was to introduce the service to customers as they arrived for the first 4-6 weeks of the new readers being in place.

There were a handful of customers who still preferred paying inside of the building, and we didn't discourage customers from paying that way, as it enabled us to capture some sales inside of the convenience store.

Some of the learnings we took out of this were that there is no simple way to train the same way in every situation without having a good system in place. We set up a basic system to follow.

1. Greet the customer with a hello and telling them about our new card readers
2. If the customer said they'd rather pay inside, we'd show them how to do it so they'd become more comfortable the next time around
3. For customers paying cash, we'd also show them how it worked in case they wanted to change their payment method in the future.

Following these procedures got us to know our customers better, educate all customers regardless of whether they'd use the technology or not, and enabled us to be more than just the guys who worked at the gas station.

by Evelyn Amaro

Many people in HR question whether social media can help them. Here are 5 ways you can successfully use social media to help with HR endeavors.

1. Training and Development - Social Media can be a great tool in training new employees. Creating an internal Youtube channel for new hires is a great way to train new employees and save training time by having the new employees watch these training videos as part of the orientation process. This is also a great reference for employees trying to learn the ropes or for those who need a refresher course. Click here for an example of a company using YouTube for HR.

2. Recruiting Talent - Nearly every individual has jumped on the social media bandwagon and this can be a huge advantage when it comes to your hiring needs. Social networks are a great place to find candidates even before actually engaging them. LinkedIn is a huge tool to be used in your recruitment effort. Here you can preview the potential candidates work history (if filled out properly) and you are able to find candidates in your industry, holding the title you are interested in hiring for and many times, an outline of their resume. Another key tool is twitter. Running a search on twitter will lead you to a number of interesting people in your industry who can be considered SME in the field you are attempting to recruit for. TwitJobSearch is also used to scour twitter for what you are looking for. Facebook is creeping up the ladder as a recruitment tool competitor. This is usually done by creating a Facebook Fan Page with keywords related to your company and industry. You then find people with similar interests to "Like" you page. From there, you send out updates pertinent to your company and your followers. Here is a great article explaining FB for recruiting in more detail.

3. Brand Promotion and Marketing: By continuously engaging in social media networking, your company name and areas of expertise grows one follower and/or viewer at a time. Soon you will find that your followers and loyal customers/clients start promoting your business for you. This goes hand-in-hand with #8.

4. Communication leads to Expertise - If you consistently communicate and share relevant information via your social media networks, people will soon see you as an expert in your field. This can lead to a number of positive possibilities including: more sales, more clients, more candidates, and more rand exposure. It also helps to derive instantaneous feedback which can help better shape your marketing efforts.

5. Relationship Building - Lastly, the key to all social media efforts and what will lead to your company and HR success is relationship building. Joining HR groups and networking with your fellow HR people and connecting with your clients, customers and potential candidates.

Are there other ways you use Social Media to help HR? Let us know!

by Evelyn Amaro

You have just finished writing your resume and you are now off into the scary world of internet job hunting. You head straight for the biggest online career websites (ex: Monster, Dice, etc...), and upload your resume. You feel confident that your future employer is out there and will soon see your resume. Soon the two of you will start a wonderful career partnership that all started with the click of a button. What you do not realize is that there are hidden dangers in posting your resume on the web that can be detrimental to your jobs search. Here are some tips to help you avoid these common mistakes.

1. Remove all contact information when posting a resume on the web. This is by far the easiest to avoid and the most detrimental mistake you could make while internet job hunting. Let's run through some reasons why.

A) Run‐of‐the‐mill recruiters. What low‐end recruiters do is scan the job boards for potential candidates and send their resumes to their clients without your permission. It may seem harmless, but it could ruin your credibility and desirability in the job market. Imagine this scenario: You are a hiring manager looking to hire a candidate. You see the resume of John Doe and you think, "This guy could be a potential candidate for the job." You put him in your yes pile and continue through the resumes. To your surprise, there is John Doe again from a different source - what a coincidence. After a few more emails, guess who turns up for another visit? Yes, it is John Doe. You decide this person is desperate or only interested in finding a job, not in your job. You go back to the yes pile, take out Mr. John Doe's resume and toss it. Do you see why this is a problem now? It removes all credibility. Always remove your contact information and recruiters will be forced to contact you if they want to present you to their clients.

B) Ease of Information - Information is so easy to get and this is true more than ever in the job market. Let's take the hiring manager scenario again. You are a hiring manager and have finished going through all of the resumes for your role. You take the yes pile and start to sort through your potential candidates. You take Ms. X's resume and notice an email address. You punch it into Google and lo and behold, there are tons of links to her various social media site. Intrigued, you click on her Facebook link and right before your eyes are various pictures of Ms. X's drunken party night and a status saying that she is at work exhausted from her night of partying. You, as the hiring manager, think "Seems like a great girl to party with, but do I really want an employee who is a party girl and may come to work drunk regularly?" The answer is no. I admit this example is a little extreme, but the general concept is quite true. Employers look at social media sites and the easiest way to tell if the employee whose resume is on your desk is the same one with the party pictures on your screen is through their contact information. This leads me to step 2.

2. Job Hunting Email Address ‐ Reserving an email address dedicated solely to job hunting will avoid the pitfalls that social media has on your job hunting endeavors. If an employer searches that email address, your name will come up clean. Now you can sigh in relief.

3. Track Everything - Keep track of who and where you send your resume. As in point A, you want to keep your credibility intact and you want to keep in contact with those you've met through the interview process (the joys of LinkedIn). You never know when you may come across these people (HR, Managers, and Recruiter) and where your connections could lead you.

What is your job page like on your website? Do you create an atmosphere where people feel like they are valued, even if positions aren't readily available?

It may be time to rethink your employment or jobs page. I've visited many sites in my time that are so complicated or convoluted that it can turn off potential applicants.

Some of the things to think to ask yourself when creating a job page for your company are as follows:

1. Can I create a simple, easy to use application system or partner with a company that already uses one?

2. How can I use a tool like Albany.com/jobs to cross-post the latest openings for positions?

3. How I can I create a backfill pool of talent when no jobs are currently available with my company?

4. How can we create a central contact and system for resume submission?

5. Do we use LinkedIn or another social media platform to support our recruitment efforts?

"I'd rather entertain and hope that people learn, than teach and hope that people are entertained."
Walt Disney, one of the inspirations for Braathe Online Education

Exceptional Human Resources is an 8 week online class with real-time elements that will teach you how to schedule your staff, recruit effectively, delegate and motivate, as well as develop effective internship programs.  Best practices learned during Mr. Braathe's time as a manager with Disney, Apple and Gap will be shared. The real-time elements are in the form of webinars (or face to face sessions if you are within proximity of Saratoga Springs, NY)

If you are interested in this course, or others like it, contact us at info@saratogacollege.org or visit http://www.braatheenterprises.com

I am headed to Tampa today for two days of baseball, and am enjoying the ability to travel without a computer with me. Nonetheless, I have learned to take advantage of the downtime while on the plane by prepping ahead of time for the flight ahead.

Since airline Wi-Fi isn't yet standard on all flights, I rented The Kings Speech and downloaded four episodes of The League to my iPad. I also downloaded some work for review offline and downloaded all the email available before I got onboard.

It's nice to be able to keep occupied on the flight; even though there isn't WiFi on board, the iPad proves to be a handy tool for business.