Attention Businesses! Your customers have added a new step in their buying cycle.

The business cycle between buyer and seller was simple and remained unchanged for centuries. Historically, when a buyer was interested in a product or service, sellers presented features, benefits and price.

The internet has added a new step in the consumer buying cycle. Businesses must now anticipate that their customers are utilizing the Internet and adjust their sales and marketing strategies to ensure so they remain competitive.

I often receive inquires from professionals from around the globe hoping to immigrate to Canada and continue their professional career. The majority of these inquires request advice and assistance on how best to secure a job offer from a Canadian company and possibly expedite their entry into Canada.

I thought I'd share a email from a recent inquiry. Hopefully in our response there is some valuable advice that might assist professional immigrants both in Canada and those around the world hoping to built a new professional life in Canada.

Work your career search from the “Top Down and Two Levels Up”.

These two key career strategies that will your help you get in-front of hiring managers and eliminate most of your competition.

The traditional job search method requires jobseekers to submit their resumes to general emails dedicated to receiving hundreds of resumes. The majority of online job postings or newspapers ads provide a dedicated general email or fax number to ensure that busy managers are not bombarded with resumes and do waste their precious time screening unqualified applicants.

Timing is everything in BC politics. And wouldn’t you know – it’s also the essence of thousands of Bollywood films.

A chance meeting that develops into forbidden love? Bollywood. The moment the evil uncle clunks granny on the head and makes off with the family fortune, leaving the heroine a pauper? Bollywood.

But who thought Bollywood, India’s prolific Hindi-film industry, would be at the centre of a dramatic saga of its own, playing out on location over the next five months across British Columbia’s political soundstage?

Here's how to get a second chance for that ideal job that you finished second for. As a recruiter and career coach for the past 15 years, I cannot count how many times. I have heard a candidate inform me they "finished second" for job they really wanted.

I often ask candidates what did after not getting the job. Most respond with nothing while others sent a standard thank you email to the company in appreciation for their consideration.  From a strategic point of view, both follow up-actions do very little to give these candidates a second chance for that job.  

Over the next decade, it's expected that a labour shortage will challenge BC's small business owners looking to hire.

So, it's important to practice polishing writing that great job posting now.

Business owners in our community understand the importance of sales. We can tell customers about the best sari, the best car, the best tile and flooring, the best educational and health choices for our customers.

But what we also have to understand is the importance of selling the business as the BEST place for a skilled, smart loyal employee to work.

Are you a successful entrepreneur hiring your first employee? Congratulations!

Now Here are some things you should consider:

Letter of Offer

Provide your new employee with a letter outlining the terms of their employment. Your new employee should sign the letter, confirming they understand and accept what your company is offering. The employee should keep the original and you should retain a copy on file.

June 12^th 2012 will mark the anniversary of the Independence of Philippines. It is certainly a joyous occasion for all of us to celebrate and remember. In recognition of this special day, the Surrey Philippines Independence Day Society (SPIDS) organized a great event at the Chandos Pattison Auditorium.

BC's 10,000 business onwers are reminding the BC Government that it still has work to do to mitigate Family Day-related costs for independent business owners.

This week's annoucnement about which date Family Day will fall on gives small and medium sized business owners in BC some certainty and allows them to plan ahead.

But they are no further ahead in terms of the cost pressure they will face as a result of an added statutory holiday in this province.

98 Years ago on May 23, 1914 the Komagata Maru carrying 376 passengers had arrived in the Vancouver harbour.  The Sikh, Hindu and Muslim passengers were prohibited from docking because of the racist "continuous journey" clause, a deplorable exclusionist Canadian statute designed specifically to deter immigration from India. 

For 60 days, the South Asian community struggled by every legal means possible to stop this injustice while those held captive on the Komagata Maru suffered through intolerable conditions of heat and overcrowding.