Using a Human Resources Management company

Getting the right people into the right positions within an organisation is vitally important in creating a strong and viable business; however, many business owners don’t have the time or the experience to effectively conduct a thorough selection process

Fundamentally, the message needs to get to the right candidates which can be time-consuming and difficult. Once those candidates have been identified there is the selection process including interviews, checking references and employment history. Contractual issues, terms and remuneration are also subjects that may need to be negotiated  – certainly for more senior level positions – and all this has the potential to take the company directors away from what they should be focussing on i.e. running the business

This is where a human resources management company may come in very useful. Letting a specialist focus on the activity of finding the right people for the job can be much more cost effective and a more efficient way to hire. A good ongoing relationship with a human resources management company can also be a great way to outsource the other roles within a company relating to managing the workforce.

There are many specialist human resource management companies around Europe, for example, the Iventa locations include sites from Germany to Bulgaria

As you will see, Human Resources Management is vitally important within any organisation. It is summarised very well by Human Resources Consulting with Iventa on their website: ‘When it comes to employees, it is not just a question of qualifications and experience. What matters most is the individual. ’

Dunston Lodge/Resourceful Research Testimonial

Dunston Lodge & Resourceful ResearchI just wanted to put into writing how grateful I am to yourself and Chris for all the work you’ve done for us over the last year or so.

Since creating our Dunston Lodge website, you’ve gone on to create our business cards, bone magnets, leaflets and also the design for our cotton bags. Each of these now look consistent, fresh and are a great reflection of the image we want to portray as a business.

On each occasion the service, the finished articles, as well as the ongoing support have all been first class. The work has been very reasonably priced for the professional designs we have received. You have been very flexible and thorough; taking on board our suggestions, but also advising us well when things we’ve thought of won’t work in practice, and going out of your way to see each job through.

More recently you have also designed a website for another business I’m connected with; Resourceful Research. Once again, you’ve been patient, professional and flexible, with the end result a fantastic looking website which I am proud to show off to prospective clients.

I’m sure we’ll be making further use of your services again soon, as our business develops, and will have no hesitation in recommending you to others.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You Are Not So Smart – the book

You Are Not So Smart - the book

You Are Not So Smart - the book

I’m really looking forward to getting my hands on the book based on one of my favorite websites; ‘You Are Not So Smart‘. The site is a blog about psychology, or, in the words David McRaney, the author of the book and website, ‘it is devoted to self delusion and irrational thinking’

At the time of writing, you can pre-order the book from the US (release date 27th October), and in the meantime, why not have a look at one of my favourite articles from the blog: Procrastination

Here is the official trailer for the book:

Short-cut to easily clear formatting from text in a Word document

Clearing formatting from a Word document

Clearing formatting from a Word document

Here is a really simple and easy way to clear formatting from text in a Microsoft Word document, for example, when you’ve cut and pasted from a website or another document

Very simply highlight the text, press and hold CTRL then press the ‘space bar’

Highlighting the text can be done easily in one of three ways:

  1. Press CTRL + A to select all
  2. place the cursor just before the text you’d like to highlight, press and hold the left-mouse button and drag the hightlighted area over the text you’d like to highlight
  3. Place the cursor at the start of the text you’d like to highlight, press and hold the ‘SHIFT’ button and use the arrow keys to move the highlighted area to the right place
Please note, if you’d like to select non-adjoining areas of text at the same time, press and hold the ‘CTRL’ key while you’re selecting text

My 3 favourite Chrome extensions (plug-ins)

Here is a list of my 3 favourite Chrome Plug-ins

  1. Hover Zoom – no need to click on that thumbnail to view it large. Simply install Hover Zoom then all you have to do is hover over the picture and you get a large version. Great for Reddit. Click here: https://bit.ly/ks6NXj

    Hover Zoom
    Hover Zoom
  2. Awesome Screenshot: Capture & Annotate – allows you to capture either the visible area of your screen or the full webpage. You can then annotate it. Very useful for describing  what you can see on your screen to someone else like tech support. Download it from here: https://bit.ly/jqIWEd

    Awesome Screenshot: Capture & Annotate
    Awesome Screenshot: Capture & Annotate

    3. Delicious Tools – sure makes adding a bookmark to Delicious a whole lot easier and quicker. Simply click the button and add the tags. Download it from here: https://bit.ly/kPPFdx

    Delicious Tools

    Delicious Tools

     

Outlook 2007 – adding SMTP authentication

When using a laptop or mobile device, you’re potentially going to be sending emails over many different internet networks. In order to make sure that only the allowed users are using a particular SMTP to send email, they commonly require a user-name and password to log into the SMTP server every time an email is sent. This is not something you’d normally notice as your computer should do this automatically in the background, however, if that authentication fails, you’ll not be able to send emails

If your outgoing email server on Outlook 2007  requires authentication, use the following steps to add the user-name and password:

  1. Open Outlook
  2. Click the ‘tools’ tab from the top menu then click ‘account settings’
  3. Highlight the account you’d like to edit then select ‘change’
  4. On the internet e-mail settings page click ‘more settings’

    On the internet e-mail settings page click ‘more settings’

    On the internet e-mail settings page click ‘more settings’

  5. On the new window, click the ‘outgoing server’ tab

    On the new window, click the ‘outgoing server’ tab

    On the new window, click the ‘outgoing server’ tab

  6. Change the following settings:
    1. Tick the box ‘my outgoing server requires authentication’
    2. Tick the ‘log on using’ button
    3. Type in your normal username and password
    4. Tick the ‘remember password’ button
  7. Click ‘OK’ which will take you back to the main ‘email settings’ page
  8. Click ‘next’
  9. Click ‘finish’

553 sorry, that address is not in my list of allowed recipients email problem


553 sorry, that address is not in my list of allowed recipients email problem

if you’re regularly getting emails bounced back to you with the error ‘553 sorry, that address is not in my list of allowed recipients’ this might help.

In our experience, the problem is usually down to a BT issue not allowing emails to be delivered.

If you’re using a BT internet connection and Outlook to send your mail, try this (click on the image for larger version):

Fix the 'address not on my list of allowed recipients' problem using Outlook

Fix the 'address not on my list of allowed recipients' problem using Outlook

Most common causes for emails not going through

Are the occasionals emails not going through to the recipient? Here is a list the most common causes:

  • Are your emails simply ending up int he the recipients spam folder? Sounds obvious but this is the final main cause of emails not going through that make up the ‘big 3’. Check there first – it’s the fastest and one of the most common reasons your email isn’t being received
  • The ’email address miss-pelt’ accounts for a good proportion of email delivery problems, in my experience. Check you have spelt the bit after the ‘@’ correctly first by copying the domain and pasting it into your browser address bar. If it doesn’t resolve to a website, it’s probably because of that.
    • Carefully check the first part of the address is right (usually the recipient name). Some email accounts aren’t set up to catch misspelled email addresses so a simple extra ‘.’ In the name might mean the difference between being received or rejected
    • Following on from the previous points; is the domain extension right? Have you sent the email to ‘.co.uk’ when it should have gone to ‘.com’ instead?
  • One of the other main reasons emails don’t go through is due to either the domain or the sender’s IP being blocked by the recipients spam filter. If you got an ‘undelivererable’ report back when you tried to send your email, read it carefully as there’s normally a link there to ‘unblock’ your IP address
  • Did you send an attachment? Big attachments will cause many emails to be rejected. Many email addresses won’t accept attachments over 10MB. Try sending without the attachment
  • Check with your internet connection supplier. Some draconian setups from certain providers, who will remain nameless, put very heavy restrictions on sending email through their lines. On occasion, sending too many email triggers restrictions and in other instances, recipient’s domain names have had to be defined with them in advance
  • Firewalls and spam filters aren’t always particularly fond of emails that contain links, images and attachments (particularly executable attachments). Even emails that are too short sometimes trigger spam filters. Try writing a plain text email with no attachments to see if this is the cause
  • If you’re using a mail server, such as Exchange, there is a chance that it is incorrectly configured. This has been the cause of several of our customer’s problems in the past.

If all of the steps above don’t work, try the following

  • Call the recipient and ask them to email you. Replying to their email means you take human error out of the equation
  • Email them from a different email account on a different server, e.g. Hotmail, Gmail or Yahoo Mail. This takes any potential SMPT error out of the equation

Still not working? Then it’s probably due to your emails being blocked or bounced by the recipients Spam filter. Contact their IT support and ask them to add your domain to their ‘safe senders’ or ‘white’ list

How to create an outlook email template

How to create an outlook email template

If you use Outlook and often have to write similar emails, Instead of re-writing them every time it might be a better idea to create a template.

This is very simple to do and might save you a lot of time! Here’s how to do it:

  1. Write your email as normal including subject and content
  2. Click the Outlook button and choose ‘save as’
  3. Click the Outlook button

    Click the Outlook button

  4. When the save dialogue box appears, save the message on your computer.
  5. Choose 'save as' from the drop down menu

    Choose 'save as' from the drop down menu

Now, when you want to use your template, just double click the saved email and you can use as many times as you like

How to create an RSS feed from your Facebook Page or Facebook Profile




How to create an RSS feed from your Facebook Page or Facebook Profile

Here is a quick guide to creating an RSS feed (or ATOM feed) from your Facebook Group or Profile

Facebook change this sort of thing regularly, however, at the tome of writing, it is working RSS feed from a Facebook Group


  1. Go to the Facebook Group page and get the group ID. It should be in the URL as a number or query – looking something like this: id=13503181319671 – however, if you can’t see it, try clicking on the profile image to get the ID in the URL.
  2. For an RSS, put the ID it at the end of this URL after the ‘=’: https://www.facebook.com/feeds/page.php?format=rss20&id=
  3. For an ATOM feed, put the ID at the end of this URL after the ‘=’: https://www.facebook.com/feeds/page.php?format=atom10&id=

You should now be able to receive the status update via an RSS or ATOM feed

To get an RSS feed of the notifications from your Facebook Profile:

Log into Facebook

  1. Go to https://www.facebook.com/notifications.php
  2. Click the RSS feed button at the top which will give you a URL looking something like this: https://www.facebook.com/feeds/notifications.php?id=<your profile ID here>&viewer=623861399&key=69891f07ce&format=rss20