Kinsa Group Blog

There are countless opinions on the “best” way to write an executive food & beverage résumé – from the best format to choose to the best “power” words to include.

No matter how you design or word your résumé, however, it must accurately outline your capabilities and raise interest in you as a candidate.  Over the past several months, we’ve written two posts with tips to help your résumé accomplish these goals.  In case you missed them, here are links to these posts:

• Looking for Your Next National Account Manager Position? Don’t let these résumé grammar mistakes hold you back!
• Create a Power Résumé to Land the Executive Food & Beverage Job You Want

As our third and final installment on the topic of résumé preparation, here are five critical mistakes you should guard against when creating your power résumé:

Listing personal or irrelevant information.  Many people include their interests, such as sports or other hobbies, on their résumés, perhaps because they believe it makes them appear to be well rounded.  In reality, however, you should only include this type of information if it directly relates to your career objective.  Personal information, such as date of birth, marital status, height and weight, should normally not be included on your résumé, either.

Using a functional résumé format when you have a good career history.  Unless you have a résumé “emergency” situation, such as virtually no work history or excessive job-hopping, avoid the functional résumé format. Why?  It is irksome for a hiring manager to review a résumé in which a candidate describes his skills and achievements without connecting them to a particular job.

To avoid this problem, use a modified chronological format.  Here is the basic layout:

• Header (name, address, email address, phone number)
• Lead with a strong profile section (detailing the scope of your experience and areas of proficiency)
• Reverse chronological employment history (emphasizing achievements in the past 10-15 years)
• Education (this might be moved to the top for recent graduates)
• Other related topics, including professional affiliations, community activities, technical expertise, publications/patents and languages spoken.

Not including a summary or profile section that makes an initial hard sell.  Your résumé is first and foremost a marketing device – so use your summary section as the sales tool it’s intended to be!  This section should clearly outline your skills, experience and education as they relate to the position you are seeking.

Need help creating a high impact summary statement?  Peruse job openings on Monster.com to determine what features are most important to employers.  Next, write a list of your matching skills, experience and education.  Finally, incorporate these “selling points” directly into your summary statement.

Failing to incorporate keywords.  With the majority of large- and medium-size companies using technology to store and retrieve résumés, your best hope of being found in an applicant search starts with including relevant keywords.  Rather than stuffing keywords into a separate section, however, you need to sprinkle them where they make sense throughout your résumé.

Start by carefully examining the jobs for which you want to apply.  Make a short list of the keywords (including technical skills, industry buzzwords, required experience, etc.) that you think a recruiter might use to search for qualified candidates.  Go back through your résumé and incorporate those keywords where they fit best.

Including a references statement.  Today’s employers assume that, if you are searching for a professional position, you will have a carefully prepared list of references.  As such, including a “references available upon request” statement does little more than waste valuable space on your résumé.  Use it only as a graphical element – to signal the end of a long résumé or to round out the page design.

Need more help with your food & beverage résumé?  Get great food & beverage résumé writing tips and other résumé critique resources in Kinsa’s Career Edge Library.

These days, effectively interviewing food & beverage professionals can seem more like a game of chess than a question-and-answer session.

On the one hand, you need to ask questions that help you break through a candidate’s interview facade – and see how well he thinks on his feet.

On the other hand, it’s a job seeker’s market.  Throughout the interview process, you must show a food & beverage professional the WIIFM (what’s in it for me?).  Ideally, your candidate should leave the interview convinced that the opportunity with your organization is his best career move, and that you’re truly interested in his long-term professional development.

How do you complete these dual strategic objectives?

As experts in executive food & beverage recruiting, we at Kinsa are here to help.  Today, we’re sharing some our favorite interview questions that engage and promote discussion.  Customize these questions and use them in your next interview to evaluate a candidate’s potential fit within your organization:

1. Tell me about your career path to this point.  How did you wind up in your most recent position?  This question may seem informational on the surface; however, it will also reveal important details about a candidate’s strengths/weaknesses, career aspirations and voluntary/involuntary career moves.
2. What needs to change at your current company for you to consider staying put? -or-  Why have you chosen to pursue this opportunity with us?  These questions create an “opportunity gap” in the candidate’s mind, by juxtaposing the shortcomings of his current position with the advantages your current opening offers.
3. How would this opportunity help your future career progression or help you build your resume?  This question forces a candidate to think about your opportunity in terms of the long-term career benefits it offers.  It also garners lots of goodwill from a candidate, because it shows that you’re putting his needs ahead of your own.  At the same time, the question helps you gain deeper insight into how a candidate thinks about and manages his career.
4. If you accepted this position, how would you explain that to a potential employer five years from now?  Another selfless inquiry, this question requires the candidate to think on his feet and fit together the pieces of his career’s “big picture” – right in front of you.

Once you understand the answers to these questions, it will be time for you to do a little thinking on your feet.  Find ways to address aloud how you see the candidate’s selection criteria and career values applying to your company.  For example, if your opportunity seems more like a lateral move for the individual than a promotion, voice the concern and ask for the candidate’s assessment.  This type of discussion is straightforward, engaging and selfless – and it will leave your candidate thinking: “Wow, this company is really interested in helping me meet my professional goals.”

Kinsa Group – A Better Way to Hire Food & Beverage Professionals

As a national food & beverage recruiter, The Kinsa Group has the resources and interviewing expertise to deliver executive and c-level food & beverage professionals with the skills, experience and personality to thrive in your organization.  We use professionally trained interviewers, a wide array of assessments, thorough background checks and satisfaction guarantees to ensure the long-term success of your next hire.

• Ineffective Networking
• Low Self-Confidence
• Lack of Interview Preparation
• Not Fully understanding Your Value
• Not putting Velocity In Your Search

To register for any of these webinars, login to your Kinsa CareerEdge account and click on the WEBINARS tab. If you don’t have a Kinsa CareerEdge account, creating one is easy!

You’ve been offered a position with a new food & beverage employer.  The job has everything you’re looking for: more money, greater responsibility and a better potential for advancement.

It also requires you to relocate.

The employer has offered you a relocation package – but is it enough?

Before you decide, you must first consider your total moving expenses and understand relocation package standards:

Know Your True Moving Costs

Beyond the invoice you’ll receive from your moving company, you may incur a whole host of additional expenses and inconveniences.  Here are a few factors to consider:

• What’s the difference in the cost of living?
• How have mortgage interest rates changed from when you purchased your last house until now?
• What realtor fees and closing costs are you likely to incur?
• Will you be able to sell your current home before you move?
• Will you be able to move into a new home immediately, or will you require interim living arrangements?
• How much travel time and research will be involved in choosing a new area in which to live?
• What travel expenses will you incur while in transition between your old and new locations?
• Will your family move at the same time as you?
• Will you have to store personal belongings temporarily?
• What service disconnecting/connecting fees will you have to pay?
• Will you require assistance finding a new home, or schools/daycare arrangements for your children?
• Will your spouse be able to find a new job easily?

Once you truly understand your needs, you’ll be in a better position to determine whether or not the new employer’s relocation package is sufficient.

Know What Assistance is Typical

Food & beverage employers vary widely in what they offer, with larger companies usually having more comprehensive and standardized policies. Most employers that provide relocation benefits to new hires generally offer the following:

• Moving and storage costs. Packing, moving and unpacking costs of reasonable household goods are generally included.
• The physical move. New employers typically pay for the expenses of a family en route to their new location. Covered expenses include travel, meals and lodging.
• Temporary lodging costs. Employers often pay for a new employee’s lodging in an extended stay hotel or apartment for the first 15 to 60 days of employment.  This allows for the employee to set a reasonable start date of employment and then complete the physical move to a more permanent location at a later date.

In addition to these standard offerings, some employers provide additional relocation assistance to make a move possible:

• House-hunting trips. Employers may cover a house-hunting trip of up to four days, for you and your spouse. Covered expenses include travel costs, meals and transportation while searching.
• Travel costs back home. For new hires who relocate before their families move, some employers will pay employee expenses associated with traveling back and forth between old and new locations for the initial period of employment.
• A lump sum to cover incidentals and aforementioned disconnection/connection of utilities, etc.
• Realtor’s fees and/or closing costs.
• Home sale assistance, buy-out or loss coverage up to a set dollar amount.

These embellishments are typically negotiated on a case-by-case basis. In our next food & beverage relocation post, we’ll provide tips for successfully negotiating a package that meets your needs.

Contact Kinsa Group today for assistance with your executive food & beverage job search.  From food science and engineering, to executive management and quality assurance, we provide immediate access to a wide range of the industry’s best food & beverage career opportunities.

Receiving a counter offer from your food & beverage employer is flattering.  And tempting.  Watching your boss scramble to keep you in the fold by offering more money and/or responsibility certainly sounds like a good deal – but is it really the right choice?

Probably not.  Here’s why:

• Your reputation with your boss may be undermined.  Even though your boss initially assures you that you’re too valuable for the company to lose, he may eventually begin resenting you for “extorting” money or power from the firm.  The sense of affiliation between you and your boss will be severed, and he may never fully trust you again.
• It becomes all about the money.  Once you accept the counter offer, your relationship is now almost entirely predicated on cash, and that is not a healthy foundation.
• You’ll be expected to perform like a new hire.  If you stay, you’ll be forced to prove yourself all over again to justify the increased salary or promotion.  If you’re promoted beyond your abilities and fail to perform up to standards, you could easily find yourself on the unemployment line.
• Finally, if word gets out about the deal, your relationships with coworkers could also be damaged. Peers may be envious that you got more money by turning in notice and wonder why you deserved that.

Take time to reflect upon the real reasons you sought out other career opportunities in the first place.  Then, ask yourself this question: If you accept the counter offer, will those same reasons continue to exist at your current employer?  If the answer is “Yes,” it’s clearly time to move on.  Use these tips to handle the turn-down the right way:

• Take charge of the situation.  Resign in writing but hand the resignation to your boss.  This helps you stay in control of what is typically a stressful experience.
• Tell whoever is making you the counter offer that you genuinely appreciate it, but that you’ve given the matter considerable thought and have decided that a career move is in your best interest.
• Explain that you are grateful for the chance to contribute to the overall success of the company.
• Finally, assure your boss that you will do everything in your power to make the transition for your replacement as smooth and painless as possible.

Looking for a better food & beverage career opportunity? 

Kinsa Group’s discipline-specific recruiting professionals can help you succeed.  We will learn about your career goals, innate aptitudes, work style, management philosophies and personality traits to match you with an opportunity that provides the challenge and compensation you deserve.

Best of all, our recruiters will confidentially search for positions on your behalf while you continue working.  Get started with Kinsa today or search food & beverage executive and professional jobs here.

Have you ever stopped to consider how central a job description is to effective food & beverage recruiting?

A strong position description can:

• help you determine where to source the best candidates;
• provide accurate guidelines for determining the salary range;
• help you craft a more accurate job title;
• dramatically improve the quality of candidates who apply for the position;
• serve as a road map for selecting the best interview questions;
• provide the basis for subsequent performance reviews.

Obviously, properly defining an available position can greatly improve your recruiting success.  So make sure you put the appropriate amount of time and effort into creating the best descriptions possible!  Whether you’re new to the process or a seasoned veteran, here are a few of Kinsa’s tips for creating better food & beverage job descriptions – that consistently yield the best candidates:

Move beyond minimums.  Traditional job descriptions typically describe the least-qualified (yet acceptable) candidate for the job – not the real job itself.  When you list the minimum required experience, minimum responsibilities, etc., you’re going to get mediocre applicants, at best.

Instead of using a traditional job description, define what success in the role looks like.   Create a list of results, or success factors, the new hire would need to achieve to be considered an outstanding hire – and add them to the job description:

• Develop a list of 5 or 6 specific, measurable objectives based on the fundamental elements of the job.  For example, a VP of Plant Operations may have a success factor something like: “Within nine months, consolidate the operations of two plants and produce a cost savings of 10% or more.”
• If possible, benchmark top performers in similar positions to create your success factors for the job.

Build the job description around the skills required by the job.  Too often, a job description focuses heavily on responsibilities – instead of the fundamental skills required to accomplish them.  To improve your job description, clearly state the skills required to do the job.  This way, both you and potential candidates can assess abilities against the position’s needs.  During the interview phase, ask skills-specific questions (based on the job description) to accurately gauge each applicant’s strength/weaknesses.

As an added benefit, a skills-based job description makes it much easier to gauge an employee’s job performance and identify areas for improvement when review time comes around.

Improve your formatting.  Top candidates won’t take the time to pore over dense paragraphs of prose about an available position.  Realize that they are busy, too, and tailor your descriptions to make information easier to access and digest:

• Use bullet points, when appropriate.  Make your job description easier to skim (so candidates can easily find the information they need) by using bullet points within the responsibilities, skills and experience sections.
• Be specific.  Use clear, direct language to be as transparent as possible in your description.  Steer away from vague terms like “sometimes,” “often,” and “seeks to,” as terms like these minimize the impact of what follows.
• Inject your company’s brand personality.  The language and writing style you use should reflect your company’s culture and personality.  This way, the job description itself will attract candidates who are a good cultural fit for your organization.

Revisit and update job descriptions.  The food & beverage industry and your organization are constantly changing.  Your job descriptions should continually evolve along with them.  Even when you’re not actively hiring, think of your job descriptions as dynamic documents.  As changes occur in your company and within its departments, refine position descriptions along with them.  When the time comes to post an opening, you’ll be much further ahead in the recruiting process!

Kinsa Group – A Better Way to Hire Food & Beverage Professionals

As a national food & beverage recruiter, The Kinsa Group has the resources and expertise to deliver executive and c-level food & beverage professionals with the skills, experience and ethical standards to thrive in your organization.  Our recruiting experts collaborate with you to develop highly effective job descriptions that yield exceptional candidates who match your needs.  Want to learn more?  Contact Kinsa today.

As the recession moves further into food & beverage companies’ rear view mirrors, many employers are unfreezing salaries.  If you’re one of those hard-working professionals who has been fortunate enough to earn a raise, use Kinsa’s tips to increase your financial literacy and use that extra income wisely:

• Determine how much more money the raise actually means.  Taxes will take a chunk of your additional earnings, so wait until you get your first adjusted paycheck to see how much your net income (take-home pay) has actually increased.
• Use a 50/50 rule of thumb.  Conventional financial wisdom dictates that you should save or invest half of any raise you earn, and use the other half to pay down debt.  If that’s not immediately possible for you, set a date for when you will start saving – and stick to that commitment.
• Pay down high-interest credit cards.  Direct additional income towards knocking out your debt – which may be costing you hundreds or even thousands of dollars in interest payments every year.  When you get rid of debt, you’re able to invest even more of your earnings.
• Boost your emergency fund.  Use the extra income you save to build-up the emergency cash reserves you’ve set aside to handle unplanned expenses.
• Contribute more to pre-tax salary deferral programs.  Once you have sufficient cash reserves, start thinking long-term.  If your employer offers a 401(k) or other retirement plan, it makes a great long-term home for your new windfall.  Since the money is deducted pre-tax, it won’t lower your paycheck as much as you’d expect.  As an added bonus, the pre-tax savings these investment vehicles offer allow your money to grow more quickly.
• Enlist the help of a professional financial expert.  A trained financial advisor can take a comprehensive look at your current financial status and help you develop a strategy for achieving your short- and long-term goals.  For example, an expert can help you effectively weigh the advantages of paying-down debt early, against the benefits of using that money to invest in retirement.
• Adjust your investment strategy as your needs change.  Periodically re-examine your plan, to track your progress and and accommodate changes in your financial picture.  When your circumstances or goals shift, the planning and management habits you’ve developed will equip you to embrace new opportunities and proactively address concerns.
• Save for something fun.  You’ve worked hard for your raise – you deserve a reward!  Set aside a little money each month to painlessly finance a big vacation, or to treat yourself to something special you wouldn’t otherwise buy.  Just make sure that the money you spend doesn’t derail your overall investment strategy.

Think you’re worth more as a food & beverage professional than you’re currently making?  Explore new career opportunities through Kinsa Group.  As leading national food & beverage executive recruiters, we can represent you confidentially and search for a better opportunity that pays you what you’re really worth.  Contact a Kinsa recruiter today or search executive food & beverage jobs here.

Whether you’re a C-suite executive, a product manager, or a quality supervisor, when you’re on a job hunt you have to do everything possible to make yourself attractive to prospective food & beverage employers. One of the best ways to do this is by creating a “power résumé.”

So what is a “power résumé” and how do you write one?  Simply put, a power résumé is one that represents you accurately, distinguishes you from other candidates, sells your unique value and ultimately yields the results you want.  To create yours, use these recommendations from Kinsa:

Go beyond job duties.  Make your résumé a cut above the rest by demonstrating how you made a difference at each company.  Provide specific examples of how each employer benefited from your performance.  When developing your achievements, consider:

• how you performed the job better than others would have;
• the problems or challenges you helped your company overcome;
• the measurable results you achieved;
• awards, special recognition or promotions you received as a result of your performance.

Replace your career objective with a tagline.  Is your career objective so general that it could apply to almost anyone who does your job?  If so, it’s wasting valuable space on your résumé.  To grab the reader’s interest, consider switching to a tagline, which is a statement of what you do or what your area of specialty is.  Here is an example:

• Too general:  Seeking a sales and marketing position allowing me to further my professional goals.
• More specific:  Highly skilled sales and marketing professional with 15 years of Food Industry experience in two Fortune-100 companies.

Choose an appropriate length.  What’s the right length for your résumé?  The answer is:  it depends on a number of factors.  To determine the appropriate length for yours, consider your occupation, industry, years of experience, scope of accomplishments and education.  Most importantly, make sure that every word in your résumé is essential – and sells your value as a candidate.

Use parallel formatting to organize information.  Your résumé is filled with complex information.  Make important points easier to read and understand by using consistent formatting.  For example, bold type, capitalization, underlining and horizontal rules, when used consistently throughout the document, can highlight key information you want your reader to notice.

Don’t rely on spell-check.  Spell-checkers can identify potentially misspelled words, but they shouldn’t replace proofreading.  So once your résumé is complete (and spell-checked), put it away for a day.  Then read it carefully.  Does it make sense?  Have you omitted any words?  Have you used the proper spelling of the word you intended?  Once you’re satisfied, give your résumé to a trusted friend or colleague who is well versed in grammar and punctuation.  Two sets of eyes are better than one.

Need more help with your food & beverage résumé?

• Check out these earlier posts from Kinsa:  Don’t Let These Résumé Grammar Mistakes Hold You Back, and  How and Why to Update Your Résumé, Even if You’re Employed
• Get great food & beverage résumé writing tips and other résumé critique resources in Kinsa’s Career Edge Library

Unlike the EPO that Lance Armstrong now admits he took for years, annual reviews are a widely sanctioned performance-enhancing tool.

Still, employees and managers dread them – because they’re often uncomfortable and fail to do what they’re supposed to do:  improve performance.  In fact, according to a large survey conducted by WorldatWork, 58% of organizations rated their performance management systems as “C Grade or below.”

If you dread annual reviews and would like to improve your results, here are a few practical ideas from Kinsa for making them the true “performance enhancers” they should be:

Give your employee review pre-work.  You put a lot of time and effort into preparing for a review – your employee should do the same.  Prepare for a productive conversation by providing him with a copy of your appraisal form a week before the review.  Give him time to read it, reflect on what he’s achieved (or failed to achieve) and create growth goals for the coming year.

Give specific, tactical feedback.  Open your performance review by focusing on the employee’s core area.  Start by commending him for the work he does well, giving specific examples of positive behaviors.  Recognizing accomplishments up-front will let your employee know that his work is noticed and valued – and set the right tone for your conversation.  Simply telling your employee that he did a “good job,” however, is not enough to support his continued growth.  To get the most from him in the year ahead, provide feedback that is measurable, specific and action-oriented.

Balance the negative with the positive.  When you present negative feedback, focus on the behavior – not the employee.  Use the experience as a teaching opportunity, from which the employee can learn and grow.   Most of all, for every criticism you make, find something else you can praise.  You need to be honest in a performance review, but you must also motivate your employee to perform for you in the year ahead.

Set expectations for the future.  Work together to set “SMART” performance goals for the coming year.  This goal-setting acronym is still widely used for one simple reason:  Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound goals are more likely to be achieved.  So as you work with your employee to set higher standards for the next quarter or year, help him create SMART performance goals that will get him there.

Change the timing or frequency.  Reviews are typically planned for the fourth quarter – a time when work has piled up, the holidays are in full swing and employee stress levels are high.  To improve your results, plan reviews for a slower time of the year.  You and your employees will have more time to devote to the process, without the distractions end-of-year craziness causes.

Increasing review frequency can also make the process easier.  You can break annual reviews into smaller, more frequent meetings (e.g., quarterly, or at the end of major projects).  Reviewing performance more often allows you to give timely feedback that has a greater impact.

Plan now for next year.  With a typical work year consisting of 2,080 hours, it’s nearly impossible to remember what each employee accomplishes during a 12-month period.  So as you progress through 2013, keep a record of specific examples of good and bad performance for each employee.  When review time comes around, having this information will put you ahead of the game – and convey to your employees that you’ve been watching, noticing and appreciating their hard work all year long.

Better Hires Mean Better Performance Reviews

When you hire better, your employees hit their goals.  And when your employees hit their goals, your annual performance reviews are easier.  It’s that simple.

Kinsa Group can help you hire smarter.  With over 25 years of recruiting senior-to-executive level food & beverages professionals, we deliver consistently exceptional candidates who will perform for your organization.  Contact Kinsa today to learn more about our contingent and retained search services for food & beverage professionals.

What’s the best way to ace your next food & beverage performance review?

Certainly, you need to do your job well throughout the year; but adequate job performance isn’t enough.  To guarantee a stellar review that lands you the promotion, raise or extra perks you want, use these proactive tips from Kinsa Group:

Remember the purposes of your performance review.  Annual evaluations provide an opportunity to highlight what you have done well, identify areas for improvement and outline your plans and goals for the future.  Bear these points in mind as you progress through the year, collecting documentation to support each area.

Plan well in advance.  In fact, you should start planning for your next review the moment you leave your previous one.  Create an accomplishments folder, document or portfolio to keep track of your most ambitious projects and biggest accomplishments.  Keep a detailed calendar of what you’ve achieved, quantifying your results whenever possible (keep track of ways you’ve helped save time, generate revenue, improve processes, save money, etc.).

Include 360-degree feedback.  When most food & beverage professionals think about performance reviews, they typically think about the opinions of those higher-up on the corporate ladder.  If you truly want to give yourself (and your manager) an accurate picture of who you are and how you contribute to the team, gather feedback from those who work with and for you.  Take the initiative to create a safe environment in which co-workers and subordinates can share honest feedback about your performance.  Use their input to spur ideas for future professional development, or to show how you’ve grown over the past 12 months.

Assess your performance against your goals.  Periodically throughout the year, check your progress toward mid- and long-term goals.  If you see that you’re off track, try to determine the reason(s) why – and take corrective action as soon as possible.  On the other hand, if you consistently exceed job requirements and targets throughout the year, prepare to make a case for additional responsibility in your next review.

Consider your last performance review.  If you’ve already been through the review process once with your current employer, note the steps you have taken since then to improve your performance or build on your strengths.  Document how you’ve enhanced your skills and knowledge (e.g., through training courses, on-the-job learning or setting personal challenges), and describe how these initiatives have benefited your performance.

Anticipate potential negative issues.  If you missed a goal, or had an issue with a co-worker or client, keep notes as to why the problem occurred.  Reduce your anxiety by preparing to explain what you learned from the mistake and how you’ll prevent it from happening again.  Should your manager surprise you with unexpected negative feedback, thank him – and ask what he would recommend to help you improve in that area.

Prioritize your information.  As your review date approaches, organize all of the performance documentation you’ve assembled.  Instead of going into the review with a simple bullet list, take the time to prioritize information according to its strategic importance for your career – and the company.

Outline ideas for a new annual plan.  Though this is one of the toughest parts of preparing for a review, it provides a great opportunity to demonstrate the value of your role in a company-wide context and to set yourself apart as an upward-bound professional.  Use the information you’ve gathered throughout the year to lay out a list of three or four annual goals that are measurable, challenging and in-line with your long-term career goals.

Still dreading that performance evaluation?  Maybe you’re in the wrong job!  As a leading food & beverage headhunter, Kinsa can help you confidentially search for the right professional or executive food & beverage job that matches your skills, interests and career aspirations.  For more information on who’s hiring in food & beverage, contact Kinsa Group today.