This cast concludes our guidance on how to give an update in a staff meeting.

  [Play in Popup]

This cast gives our guidance on how to give an update in a staff meeting.

Over on Manager Tools, we recommend every manager have a weekly staff meeting. They are a key part of socializing a team. In these meetings, each direct gets ten minutes to brief the rest of the team on what they have going on.

What if you're the direct though? What are you supposed to say and how? Speaking in meetings is a key part of demonstrating your strengths, which in turn leads to promotions. It's important to get it right. So, what's right?

  [Play in Popup]

This cast concludes our guidance on what to do when you're about to be or have been fired.

  [Play in Popup]

This cast gives our guidance on what to do when you're about to be or have been fired.

Mark often compares being fired to the scene in a film which references the Winston Churchill quote: There is nothing so exhilarating as being shot at without result. When you've never been fired, you imagine it as being the absolute worst thing that could possibly happen.

Once it's happened to you though, you know it's not so bad. No-one is gone, your family still love you and you still have skills. It also not impossible to get another job after you've been fired. All the best people have been fired at least once.

Of course, there are better and worse ways to behave when you're in this situation. Help yourself by following the guidance in this cast.

  [Play in Popup]

This cast concludes our guidance on how to prepare for the coming hiring market upturn.

  [Play in Popup]

This cast gives our guidance on how to prepare for the coming hiring market upturn.

As we record this cast in early 2011, the signs of hiring recovering from the recession are still interspersed with more negative indicators. However, whether it's in the next few months or before the end of the year, the recovery will come. The world economies have always and will always cycle through growth and recession, and we need to be as prepared for an upturn as we are for a downturn.

It's not only growth which fuels empty vacancies. As the labor force begins to feel more secure, the quit rate goes up and the liquidity of the labor market increases. That's what we're seeing right now, ahead of the upturn. Whatever the current situation when you hear this cast, you need to be prepared.

Let's not all make the same old, "rushing around getting my resume ready when I get a call mistake" TODAY … because now things happen faster, and you've got social media to worry about.

  [Play in Popup]

This cast gives our guidance on what to do when you have to attend a team building event.

On the Manager Tools casts, we've told managers that we don't believe that 'team-building' events are effective. One day of playing games or drinking together doesn't help the team bond. Working towards a common goal, being honest and appreciative with each other and delivering together does.

However, we know that not every manager is a Manager Tools manager. Many of the individual contributors listening will have to attend team-building events. Some of us will be forced to go paintballing or share 'trust falls'. Whatever the event chosen, some of us will love it and some hate it. How can we best deal with it?

  [Play in Popup]

This cast concludes our guidance on how to write a job advertisement.

  [Play in Popup]

This cast gives our guidance on how to write a job advertisement.

Writing job advertisements is a job which managers love to delegate. They think it involves creativity and therefore must be difficult and takes lots of time they don't have. Like everything, those of us who have written lots of advertisements know there is a formula.

Once you know how, it's easy.

  [Play in Popup]

This cast gives our guidance on when to arrive for an interview.

It turns out that there is a perfect time to arrive before an interview. Too early, and the interviewer is not ready and feels flustered and hurried by your arrival. Too close to your interview time, they’re not sure whether you’re coming or not, and start to worry. After your interview time, and there are two problems – one, you’ve started your interview with a negative, and two, you have a shorter time to get yourself out of that hole.

Does it really matter? Yes. The idea is that you want the interviewer to like you. The way you do that is to make their life easier. The way you do that is to be on time. Being on time means not too early and not too late.

What is the perfect time? 8 minutes before your interview.

  [Play in Popup]