#ShapingtheBlogs

If you searched for "can I use 'To Whom It May Concern' on a cover letter?" on Google, you'd quickly learn that career experts overwhelmingly recommend against it. For years, they've claimed that using a generic introduction for your cover letter like "To Whom It May Concern" or "Dear Sir / Madam" is one of the easier ways to sink your job prospects. However, thousands of job seekers use "To Whom It May Concern" on their cover letters and still manage to land work. So does starting your cover le...

Do you feel like you start your day wearing one hat, but by the time the end of the day rolls around, you've donned and discarded multiple hats? If so, you aren't alone. Startup founders notoriously have their hands in every piece of their startup, especially when it comes to human resources. In this article, we look at the many HR hats often worn by early stage startup founders. The role of mentor By virtue of being the leader, you naturally fit the role of mentor. You're a seasoned veteran, yo...

In order to run a successful business it is important to have a good understanding of how your customer thinks and feels about your product. Collecting feedback through surveys, is an excellent way to receive the data necessary to inform decisions. The problem is that unless a survey is structured correctly, it is possible that it will lead to inaccurate results. A poorly crafted survey opens itself up to response bias, which causes survey participants to answer questions inaccurately. If survey...

For most entrepreneurs, they'll tell you their biggest challenge getting their startup off the ground is financing. In fact, surveys show that nearly two-thirds of start-ups face financial challenges. There are ways to overcome this large hurdle. Let's look at three common startup financing challenges and how to beat them.  #1: Start at the right time For many people looking to begin a new business, they simply lack the personal capital to do it. They may not have any savings, and they may ...

Your human resources initiatives directly affect your employees. They may even mean the difference between happy and unhappy staff. To help you understand what's working, and whether or not it's cost-effective, you want to use human resources (HR) metrics. This way you can measure which of your human resource activities are contributing to your overall startup growth and performance. These may include such things as: Hiring and onboardingEmployee retentionPerformance managementOverall staff sati...