Tag Archives: careers

Fiscal Year 2012: A ‘Social’ Year in Review

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As the Fiscal year closes organizations often take time to look back and celebrate the success of the year that has past. One area that is often over-looked (and for good business reasons) is the social calendar.

After a Poll of Random Intelexians, here are what we think are the Top 6 Intelex Social Events of 2012:


  1. Holiday Party Retreat: After last year’s unbelievable weekend in Deerhurst, this could be the most anticipated event of Fiscal Year 2013!
  2. Vision Meeting Taking place each November Intelex’s Vision Meeting is an opportunity for our organization to gear up and focus on our Goals and strategic plans for the coming year. Below is a link for Vision Meeting 2011!
  3. User Conference: Every September we cherish the opportunity to connect and strengthen our bond with our customers. This is an event focused on best practices of our software, and showing some appreciation
… Read more...

7 Career-Defining Tips

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Everyone has their own ideas when it comes to what it takes to have a successful career. That being said, you wouldn’t think it would take an Executive Coach to figure these out and that they would be considered common sense, but they are not!

In a recent Forbes article, an Executive Coach reveals “the best career advice ever” – advice that applies to any industry, any role and fits in nicely with Intelex’s Corporate Values: Leadership, Sustainability, Integrity, Respect for All Individuals, Teamwork & Trust, Stewardship, Hard Work, and Happiness.

1.      Recognize a diamond in the rough – you would be hard-pressed to find an organization that is perfect and of course everyone has their own definition of a “perfect organization”. It is also important to recognize that a career-defining moment can come from helping an organization get out of a tough situation.

2.      Be accountable – … Read more...

Are you over-preparing for your job interview?

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When most people think of “HR interview questions”, a traditional set of questions come to mind. These questions are predictable, repeatable, and easy to prepare for. Candidates also come prepared to defend their experience and their resumes. They think any gaps in timeline will meticulously be scrutinized. Candidates can over-prepare to answer questions like, “what are your strenghts and weaknesses?” or “do you prefer to work on a team or on your own?” and my personal favourite “tell me about yourself”.

Typically, when these questions get asked, the overly prepared answers are delivered. Answers that can easily be found on the Internet. Candidates are representing not who they truly are, but who they feel the interviewer wants them to be. These questions might be able to secure individuals who can handle the everyday aspects of the roles they are in contention for. However, for companies concerned over their corporate culture, … Read more...

Training Gap Analysis 101

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Training new hires in the tech industry has become a challenging pursuit among training and development professionals. As technology endlessly evolves, training objectives have to follow suit. This can cause large gaps in your training program if they are not addressed early and often. Conducting a Training Gap Analysis is a great way to stay on top of the dynamic beast that is your tech organization.

What is a Training Gap Analysis?

Essentially, a Training Gap Analysis describes the difference between the job skills that your people are currently gaining or improving through training and the skills that they will need in the immediate future to keep your company competitive.

The idea behind any Gap Analysis is to create a bridge between where your organization is and where it needs to be. In training, it is about making what we train as close to what actually happens on the job.… Read more...

Training needs assessments help your organization’s training efforts

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In many ways, Training Needs Assessments are the backbone of an organization’s development and transformational efforts. It may surprise you to learn that less than 50% of small to medium-sized organizations actually conduct official, robust Training Needs Analyses to gain insight into training requirements, and even fewer actually use the acquired data in any meaningful way.

Training isn’t about people sitting in a classroom; it’s about how effective those people can be once they are released into their respective roles. Training builds contributors; focused training builds focused contributors, and focused contributors provide an increased benefit to any organization. 

Get Started!

Training Needs Assessments begin with understanding your current state, and being able to identify the various requirements of your desired future state. The future state is highly dependent on a clearly defined set of corporate goals that serve to inform all supporting activities, such as training.

At Intelex, we are … Read more...

Decoding corporate culture: key questions to consider when evaluating that new job

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As I’m sure everyone has been told, the interview process is not only a way for a company to assess your fit, but also your opportunity to interview the company. You need to ask yourself the question, ‘Is this somewhere I would like to come to everyday?’ We are told over and over again that we spend more time with the people we work with than we do with our families, a fact that makes it all the more important to ensure that there is a cultural fit.

Many companies (especially in the tech industry) are moving towards developing corporate cultures that  set them apart in order to foster employee engagement and thrive in a tight labour market. The problem is, a company’s corporate culture is not something that you can understand from looking at their mission statement or taking someone’s word for it – you need to experience it … Read more...

The Top 3 Resources to check out before your Intelex interview

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Interview preparation is everything and truly knowing who you are being interviewed by and what they actually do is critical to making a great impression. At Intelex, doing your research in preparation for your interview is a huge part in showing that you are interested and dedicated to the opportunity of working with us! After all, you are interviewing us, just as much as we are interviewing you.  As a potential employee at Intelex – or any company for that matter – you will be responsible for representing the company and the product or service they offer. That being said, it should be something you believe in!

Here at Intelex we have so much content on our website and as a result it can be hard to focus on the key elements in a short time line. To make things a little simpler, as Intelex’s Corporate Recruiter I’ve put together a list … Read more...

Top 5 tips for setting a great foundation for new employee expectations

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As a child I had set of family values that were established in our house that acted as guidelines for my behavior. My mother would always remind me anytime I would steer away from these guidelines why they were important. Family values can be whatever works best for you and your family. Some of our values included “Dream Big”, “Always Be Honest” and my favourite, “Laugh Out Loud”. Looking back on them now, I believe these family values acted more like expectations of the people living in the house. 

These expectations helped me become a contributing, respectful member of the family and shaped who I am today. I believe the same theory can be applied to the workplace.  If you set expectation for your employees they can easily identify what is required of them and perform to that standard. Setting high yet attainable expectations for your employees to reach can … Read more...

Getting your resume to the top of the pile

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A few weeks back in Bryan’s blog (The Top 5 Tips for Nailing the All-Important Phone Interview), he mentioned that the Professional Development Office (PDO) would be providing this series of blogs to provide candidates with more insight into the Intelex hiring process as well as best practices for making your next career move.  This week we wanted to focus on winning that phone interview – starting with your resume!

These key areas make a successful resume at Intelex:

Readability

Is your resume easy to read and navigate? We read through hundreds of resumes each week, trying to get to the core of what you can bring to Intelex. Rather than having your resume read like a copy of your previous job description, list specific projects and contributions you had in your last role.

Personality

Everyone has an opinion about what a resume should look like but in … Read more...

How to hire a great product manager

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After writing my last two posts about great product managers and career paths to become great product managers, I thought I should write a post for all the employers (like myself) that are looking to hire great product managers. Probably more so than any other role, identifying and hiring a great product manager is very challenging. Since the job requires a breadth of knowledge to be successful, the interview process requires a breadth of questions to be asked to get feel for whether or not the candidate will be successful.

So what specifically do I focus on trying to understand when I interview a product management candidate? There are a few key items, and I’ve outlined them below.

Are They Wicked Smart?

To me this is the most important thing. If they’re not wicked smart, I won’t even consider them.  Since product managers are faced with an endless amount of … Read more...