From Microsoft Jobs To Googlers’ Interview Tips: March’s Top Leadership Stories

This month, a Google recruiter shared how to rethink your organization’s interview process, we learned which telltale signs indicate employees are getting ready to leave, and Microsoft’s head of talent explained what the company is looking for right now and why.

These are the stories you loved in Leadership for the month of March 2018:

1. Former Google Recruiter: This Is How To Improve Your Interviews

A job interview is a two-way street: Candidates have to impress hiring managers, and employers have to sell themselves and their job openings to the candidates. Former Google recruitment manager Kevin Price shared his advice this month on what companies can do to improve their interview processes–from using structured questions to avoid unconscious bias to researching the candidate before the interview.

2. How To Predict Which Of Your Employees Are About To Quit

You might not be able to read your employees’ minds, but chances are you can tell more about their job satisfaction (or lack thereof) than you might think. How? Just by watching the right metrics. As people management expert Anne Loehr writes, it’s not even that complicated: “Done right, people analytics . . . doesn’t reduce people to numbers–it just helps companies understand why certain situations cause people to keep behaving in certain ways.”

3. The Best Mentors Ask These 8 Questions

One key to being a good mentor is to ask questions that help your mentee–it’s not all about telling them what to do. The goal is to help mentees think for themselves and plan their goals in ways they haven’t thought of. Mentoring consultant Lisa Z. Fain particularly likes asking mentees what options they’ve thought of already. As she puts it, “I facilitate a conversation where I allow them to discover the answer in a safe space, and they can walk away and own the solutions.”

4. I’m Microsoft’s Head Of Talent: Here’s How To Get Hired

Since Satya Nadella took the helm as Microsoft’s CEO in 2014, he’s made a point of transforming the culture of the company, which includes its hiring and recruitment practices. Every year, Microsoft attracts about 2 million applicants. Chuck Edward, head of global talent acquisition, offered some tips this month on what aspiring candidates can do to stand out during the application process.

5. The Emotionally Intelligent Way To Cold Email People (If You Must)

You know that sending a cold email isn’t the best way to get someone’s attention, but sometimes you just have to do it. The key is to make sure you’re doing it in a way that’s minimally annoying. Communication expert Judith Humphrey writes that there’s really just one underlying principle worth sticking to: Put the focus on them. Here are her top tips on how best to do that.

6. Six Morning Habits (That Aren’t Meditation) That Help You Focus All Day

You probably know the benefits of meditation–it’s a practice many successful people swear by. But that doesn’t mean that it works for everyone. Fortunately, there are other things you can do to set up your day for success, and this month we took a closer look at a few of the best ones.

7. How To Turn Your Biggest Goals Into Monthly, Weekly, And Daily To-Dos

“When you’re pursuing an elephantine goal, the only way to avoid getting full early and pushing your chair away from the table is to be able to see the progress you’re making,” Coach Daniel Dowling pointed out this month. As he sees it, this mean starting backwards from where you want to be in a year, and then figuring out how you can get there month-to-month, week-to-week, and day-to-day. Here’s a look inside his process for getting there.

8. Eight Women Executives Share The Books That Changed Their Lives

Reading a certain book at a certain point in your life can have a huge impact on your career. So Lindsay Tigar asked eight women executives about the inspiring books that have changed how they saw the world and approached their careers. Some of the titles she heard are more familiar than others.

9. I Interviewed For A Job At Amazon That Didn’t Exist Yet–And Got It

It can be hard to know what jobs will be in hot demand a year from now, or even what companies will be hiring for in just a few months. But as Amazon employee Kyle Walker discovered, you can show companies that you’re a great fit for jobs they haven’t even conceived of yet. When Walker interviewed at Amazon, he pitched an idea that eventually became a brand-new business function that he was tapped to lead. This month, Walker broke down what it took to plant that seed, watch it grow, and then reap the harvest himself.

10. Five Sleep-Habit Tweaks To Adjust To Daylight Savings Time

Moving the clocks one hour forward doesn’t seem like an insignificant change, but it can mess with your body and circadian rhythm. So this month we learned what it takes to make the adjustment a little more smoothly–some of which might work year-round for beating jet lag, too.