3 Unexpected Ways to Set Up Recent Grad Employees for Success

3 Unexpected Ways to Set Up Recent Grad Employees for Success3 Unexpected Ways to Set Up Recent Grad Employees for SuccessIn todays modern workplace, employers are looking to cut costs in a variety of creative ways. And while putting a lock on the office supplies cabinet will certainly lower immediate expenditures, focusing on creative workforce staffing is often a more effective choice.Hiring interns, recent grads, and other newly minted employees is a great way to reduce overhead and can also reap other benefits such as the ability to train individuals in company culture. The drawback, however, is that recent grads dont come with a great deal of work or life experience and often need coaxing and extra training to help them become solid contributors. School is a great place to pick up a degree and specialized knowledge but isnt that great at teaching real-world lessons about what it takes to be an employee or even the basics of what it takes to make it in the office. To get the fruc htwein out of recent employees, employers should provide on the job coaching. Interested in learning more? Here are three unexpected ways to set up recent grad employees for success. Share the Big PictureNo, were not talking diagrams and spreadsheets here. Recent grads can often benefit greatly from a high-level overview of goals, plans and the like. Having most recently spent time in the world of academia, newly minted workers are used to learning for the sake of it and often have been immersed in the process for some time. Getting them out of that box and into thinking about the future will benefit both their careers and your bottom line.Start by sharing your long-term plans for a specific project, department or even the company. You may also want to swap ideas about how you see their specific position evolving or where there may be room for moving up in the company. Another big-picture approach would be to share how the individual task or their role specifically integrate into th e larger company. Both of these items will start the intern or new employee well on their way towards being dynamic team players.Encourage QuestionsYou know how young children seem to have a million questions about everything from who made the grass green to why dogs bark instead of meow? While further along in their mental development, recent graduates should be encouraged to expand their knowledge in much the same way. As the old saying goes, you dont know what you dont know. New employees will often find themselves delving headfirst into a problem of a project and headed towards hidden landmines or inefficiencies through no fault of their own.Encourage recent graduates to ask questions both directly and by your actions. Let them know that your door is always open and that no question is silly or stupid. In addition, when the employee inevitably comes to you with a query, thank and praise them and offer plenty of explanations, being sure to take advantage of the educational opport unity. You may need to do some outreach in the area as newer teammates often are nervous or self-conscious and have a desire to impress on the job. If you run into an intern that isnt reaching out, go out of your way to make the first contact and actively engage on a regular grund. Provide Frequent FeedbackIn school students often receive real-time, relatable feedback in the form of markups on individual assignments or grades at the end of the quarter and semester. Once out in the workforce, the standard for feedback becomes the yearly review. While this is a great opportunity to let someone know how they measure up around bonus time, young interns and employees often benefit from feedback given along the way to help them make quick adjustments as they integrate into a career.Managers should schedule monthly or even weekly check-ins with new graduate interns and employees. A half-hour session on a scheduled basis can help keep everyone on track and will provide an opportunity for ed ucation and constructive criticism. Waiting a whole year to find out just how youre doing well or not can be frustrating when just starting out. Providing feedback to your young employees will produce a better work product and increase confidence in your staff.Many employers are hesitant to hire recent graduates or interns thinking they will be more work or will produce lower output. With a little bit of management, however, younger employees can provide a wealth of fresh ideas and energy to a business. Engage with your interns and recent graduates to show them the big picture, encourage questions and provide feedback, and youll see a noticeable uptick in performance plus have the opportunity to mold the individual into the model employee to boot

Giving a Robot a Hand

Giving a Robot a Hand Giving a Robot a Hand Giving a Robot a HandDecades ago, kids were thrilled to get a robot of any kind. Watching it move and maybe talk made it feel like a new friend. Now, a new robot promises to let the user have more input into entwurf and even choose its parts parts that dont necessarily come from the kit. A child is empowered to take ownership of their toy in more ways than one.One of the things that can be great about a toy is when it lets children have greater control in what it will be, says Karthik Ramani, a professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University. That was part of what was behind the Ziro kit, which, in addition to allowing users to choose parts, also allows a persons hand movements to decide the movement of the robot.Around 1995 I was departureing to teach a toy design class, says Ramani. My research hit areas like manufacturing, fabrication, then design, and then I even worked on human computer interaction. Here, when it came to resea rch with the students, there was the thought of developing a new kind of toy platform that can be good for STEM learning. We were testing with children and they were enjoying robots. Some just had such a need to make that toy work in a way that mixed with their creativity.A new modular design enables free-form robotics construction. Image ZeroUIRamanis team saw this kit as a strong opportunity partly because its free form. Kids can even repurpose material from their homes for the robot. We just give them the muscles and the brains, he adds. They bring so much of themselves to it.Using sensors, a person using the kit can actually, with a wave of their hand, move the robot as they would like. Phones have brought the hand and fingers into play so much, he says. Were using natural user interface here, where its very intuitive. We do it for the kit with wearables a gesture-controlled platform that uses a glove. On the glove there are chips and we have sensors on the fingers. The glove is the brain of the robot. It understands what the hand is doing as its doing it and then sends messages to modules, which have microcontrollers and wireless communications, and it coordinates the modules based on what youre choosing to do with your hands.There are multiple materials that can be used to connect objects to the robots, including velcro. And what Ramani has enjoyed is how some of the youth involved in testing stuck to their tasks with such focus. I remember one who wanted to make his like a drummer, he says. He was adding some materials for hitting and he just wasnt going to stop until he got closer to his vision. You love to see that passion. They the testers wouldnt quit.A Robot Grows UpThe idea is also that the robot they have can grow with the child. They dont have to buy a new robot for every new task or theme, but it can start as, for instance, a robot with wheels when theyre young and then get more sophisticated as they choose different parts to add over time, suc h as in the drumming example, he says.This works well somewhat because you dont have to look at your hand as its moving. Your mind knows, Ramani offers. You dont need to learn sophisticated mapping. When youre talking about building with mechatronics, it can take so long to program the electronics and build the robot. Its better when they can build parts but not necessarily need that knowledge. Its important to have fun and grow.Eric Butterman is an independent writer. For Further DiscussionThe glove is the brain of the robot. It understands what the hand is doing as its doing it and then sends messages to modules.Prof. Karthik Ramani, Purdue University

How to Dig Beneath the Surface in Your Candidate Interviews

How to Dig Beneath the Surface in Your Candidate InterviewsHow to Dig Beneath the Surface in Your Candidate InterviewsHow to Dig Beneath the Surface in Your Candidate Interviews HerrenkohlWhat are the most important interviewquestions to ask candidates? Good follow-upinterview questions ensure that the candidate, not the interviewer, is talking.They take the pressure off of you to create 100 insightful interview questions a handful or even oneinterview question will do. They help the interviewer uncover the real story of a candidates experience and accomplishments.After every question that you ask in an interview, follow up with questions such asWhy so?Interesting. Please tell me more.What made that important to you?How did you go about accomplishing that?What were the most important steps you took to make that happen?Here are three examples of how your interviewing will improve with better follow-up programs.1.A job candidates response is his or zu sich programmed response.The secon d response is the real answer. As Dr. Kurt Einstein, the noted psychologist and expert on interviewing pointed out, the first response that a job candidate gives to your interview question is rehearsed. Rehearsed answers do not give you much insight into the candidate. The follow-up question digs beneath the surface. As a result, candidates tell you their real story.2.Typically, details indicate truth telling. Most people can tell you the details about things that they really did or accomplished. They talk in vague generalities about accomplishments that they are embellishing or making up. By asking follow-up questions that require more detailed explanations, you get better information about how much a candidate has really accomplished.3.Find out if the candidate can reproduce her accomplishments for your company. Assume a sales person tells you that she took the worst territory of her former employer and turned it into the best territory in the company in 18 months. What is the mos t important question to ask her?Can you please tell me, step by step and in as much detail as possible, exactly how you did that?In order to accomplish the same kind of turn-around for your company, thissalesperson must know the steps she took to turn this sales territory around. Shewill be able to tell you the specific steps she took and why those steps were important. Asking the right follow-up questions unearths this information.Hiring Takeaway Get better at asking follow-up questions. It will improve your recruitment process and increase your effectiveness as an interviewer. Many interviewers talk too much too early in the interview process. Particularly in a first interview, you should talk as little as possible. The only way for you to assess a candidates strengths or weaknesses is by hearing their responses to your questions. When you are doing most the talking during the interview process, it is the candidate who is assessing youThe best way to ensure that the candidate, not you, does most of the talking is to ask at least one and likely two or three follow up questions for every initial question that you ask. This means askingWhat did you like most about your brde job? followed byInteresting, tell me more about that? and thenYou say you didnt like project management. Why so?If you follow this approach, you make sure that the candidate speaks, not you. You get great information to help inform your hiring decision.Interviewing is hard work. Make sure to ask good follow up questions during an interview. You will immediately increase the amount of valuable information that you get out of the process. As a result, there will be less stress for you, a more effective interview process, and a better hiring and candidate selection.Author BioEric Herrenkohl is the founder and president of Herrenkohl Consulting, a firm that helps clients build great sales teams. He is the author of the book, How to Hire A-Players (John Wiley Sons, April 2010.) To receive his fr ee e-letter, subscribe at herrenkohlconsulting.