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When you’re on the hunt for a new job, I’d argue that having an optimized LinkedIn profile should be one of your top priorities. Most of the other social networks – Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, etc. – pale in comparison when it comes to your job search opportunities. Here are some simple ways to optimize your LinkedIn profile for optimal job search effectiveness:

1. Update Your Personal URL

Already have a LinkedIn Profile? Well done! Now it’s time to go a step further and personalize your LinkedIn URL to include your name. Don’t forget, custom public profile URLs are available on a first come, first serve basis. Your custom URL can have between 5 – 30 letters and numbers and you can’t use spaces, symbols or special characters. I suggest using your first and last name and including your initial if needed.

2. Include a Recent, Professional Photo of Yourself

There’s nothing worse than visiting a LinkedIn profile without a picture. Actually, visiting a LinkedIn profile that includes a bar-star or shirtless picture is worse, but you get the idea. Make sure you include a recent, professional picture on your LinkedIn profile. READ MORE

People are always looking for ways to get better at selling. After all, developing your sales skills is as good as money in the bank! But for every good piece of sales advice out there, there are two crazy or downright wrong ones.

Here are six classic sales tips that won’t let you down.

1. Get criticism
Either record yourself and review the video, or have someone watch your pitch and critique it. This way, you’ll get a clear look at how your pitch is received, and some mannerisms you might not be aware of. The best sales pitches are natural and delivered without artifice, and criticism will help you root out the behaviors and words that you might think are solid gold, but that are actually hurting your sales pitches.
Be honest with yourself, and be open to change, and your pitch will continually improve. And so will your conversion rate!

2. Study your product
Many salespeople know what they want to say about their product, and leave it at that. But the best salespeople keep up with studying their product and industry. This can mean reading reviews, catching up on innovations, testing competing offerings, and more. READ MORE

As females continue to gain momentum in the classroom and the boardroom, understanding how to network across a spectrum of diversity becomes critical. While women continue to lean in, particularly during this continued period of economic distress, it's essential they also network out. Eight pieces of advice for women (though, many apply to men as well) to start 2014:

1. Showcase your work

Athena Vongalis-Macrow wrote in a post at the Harvard Business Review Blog that research indicates "[women's] networking actions were ineffective in helping them achieve their aims." Women are naturally drawn to helping, but simply supporting others and giving career advice doesn't effectively showcase one's work. READ MORE

Networking is a key business tool to use when you are looking for a job. Of course, if you wait until you’re actively looking for a job to start building your network, it may not be of much value to you.

Networking is a process of relationship building. People who may be part of your network include:

■ A co-worker who has been a mentor. He may still be at your place of work or may have moved on.

■ A boss whom you have come to admire for her work ethic, ability to solve problems, or people skills.

■ A client whom you have appreciated for the way she conducts business.

■ A friend who is respected within the broader business community. READ MORE

A diverse and inclusive workplace is good for business. And according to Eddie Pate, vice president of diversity and inclusion at Avanade Inc., because people want to join diverse organizations, it’s a quality that not only makes institutions like Harvard destination employers, but is also synonymous with excellence.

At a recent Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) Diversity Dialogue session, Pate delivered a presentation called “Mentoring and Relationship-Building in Culturally Competent Organizations.” In it, he said diversity and cultural competency must be an integral part of the education process at Harvard, which teaches people to serve a multicultural society. If it’s not, he told the audience, the University isn’t doing its job. READ MORE

The number of Hispanic-owned businesses in Illinois is small compared to the Hispanic population, but the growth of those businesses is nearly three times that of all other companies in the state, according to a study by a new entrepreneurial support center.

Hispanics own 5 percent of the state's companies, but are 16.3 percent of its residents, according to The State of Hispanic-Owned Businesses in Illinois, a report by the Center for Hispanic entrepreneurship and DePaul's College of Business. Preparers surveyed 102 hispanic-owned businesses in July and August, and used U.S. Census bureau data. READ MORE

1. It's got some of the world’s finest dining — at affordable prices. Lima regularly has several restaurants ranked in the global top 100, and you won’t be breaking the bank if you visit them.
2. There are some of the best waves known to surfers anywhere.There are breaks for all levels, but the most spectacular are at La Herradura beach.
3. For ceviche, Lima is the capital of the universe. Many restaurants here offer a dozen or more types of this classic, marinated seafood salad. Don’t forget the cold beer! READ MORE

While there is solid proof that board diversity is good for business, in 2014, it is still uncommon to find Hispanics sitting on corporate boards, according to a new study.

In fact, Latinos hold a mere 37 out of 5,511 board seats in the Fortune 500, according to findings from the 2013 Corporate Governance Study (CGS). The study, conducted by the Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility (HACR), reveals... READ MORE

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Six years ago I visited an indigenous village in southern Mexico called Santa Cruz Mixtepec. It was, or used to be, one of those impoverished rural hamlets that sent most of its population over the U.S. border to find living-wage work.

Until somebody got the bright idea to start promoting small businesses there. Through micro-lending and other assistance, Santa Cruz Mixtepec began sprouting small but viable enterprises. A carpentry shop. An irrigated tomato greenhouse. A window-frame maker.

More important, migrant workers started returning. Even if they didn’t make as much as they did in the U.S., many found that they could at least make enough to live, and start families, at home instead of al otro lado -- on the other side. READ MORE

We’re getting to the final hours of 2013, and — no surprise to me — I am looking backward, not forward as I hope to do on New Year’s Day. But this year, the backward glance is not filling me with melancholy. Instead, I am feeling amazed. For anyone following Latino tech — I have several beats, but in 2013 the Latino tech beat kept me quite busy – this was a pretty remarkable year. Not to mention the new pope (Latino), several great memoirs by Latino leaders (Sonia Sotomayor, Luis Guttierez, Rick Najera), and the occasional rave/rant about Latino food; that stuff kept me busy, too. But the big action was in tech. Here’s summary of what happened in that part of the world, from my POV, in 2013... READ MORE

There were problems at home: domestic violence, emotional abuse between the mother and father. By the time the mother reached out to Mujeres Latinas en Accion, the issues had intensified, not only for her but for her 12-year-old daughter.

At Mujeres, a nonprofit that serves Latina women in the Pilsen neighborhood, it's not unusual for abused mothers seeking support to try to find solace for their children.

"A lot of times, they don't come in just thinking about themselves," said Estela Melgoza, the domestic violence program director for the organization. "They're thinking, 'How can I keep myself and my whole family safe?'"

The 12-year-old had become isolated. She kept to herself and spent a lot of time in her room, the mother recalled in an interview. She didn't want to talk with anyone. She was sad. READ MORE

Herman Aguinis, the John F. Mee Chair of Management and the founding director of the Institute for Global Organizational Effectiveness at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business, has been elected president of the Iberoamerican Academy of Management.

The Iberoamerican Academy of Management fosters the advancement of knowledge in management theory and practice with a particular regional emphasis on Iberoamerica, which is defined broadly to include all of Latin America, Latino populations in North America, and Spain and Portugal.
Last year, Aguinis -- who also is a professor of organizational behavior and human resource management -- was honored by the Academy of Management with its Research Methods Division Distinguished Career Award.

"It is a great honor and a privilege to be able to serve the Iberoamerican Academy of Management as its president," Aguinis said. "This is an exciting opportunity that I will use to further strategic goals of the Iberoamerican Academy as well as the Kelley School of Business and IU regarding diversity and globalization, among other issues." READ MORE

January can be a game-changer for workers looking for a career break and moving on to (hopefully) greener pastures.

A U.K. study estimates that 25% of the British workforce calls January the best month for a "fresh start" to leave one job and start a new one.

That process usually starts late in the previous year, when workers feeling unsatisfied over their jobs start networking by sending feelers out on LinkedIn, reshaping their resumes and cover letters and scheduling job interviews. The executive search firm ExecuNet says November and December are highly active months for job changes too, with 62% of recruiters saying hiring decisions and hiring budgets are made in the last two months of the year.

To the in-house recruiters at Progressive Insurance, that means employers who want to change teams have to be ready to roll before the New Year. Progressive's job-search team offers the following New Year's tips for job hunters at year-end: READ MORE

With new found representation in politics, trailblazing reforms in Latin America and new inroads in the entertainment industry, 2013 was a great year to be a Latino. Relive 11 moments that made us proud to be Latino this year. READ MORE

You’ve heard the phrase: happy wife, happy life. It was a big lesson learned by a close friend of mine when he and his wife were ready to become homeowners. After all, it’s “mamá” who runs the household, especially in Hispanic families.
That’s why many smart business owners are learning how to connect with Hispanic women, also called Latinas, and growing their business significantly because of it.
Latinas play an important role when it comes to buying big-ticket items, such as homes. And the number of Hispanic homeowners in America grew more than 58 percent during the past 12 years, while the rest of U.S. homeowners only grew 5 percent, according to the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals report, “State of Hispanic Ownership.” READ MORE

New Nielsen research shows that Latinas are the primary decision-makers in much of the spending by Latino households. The study said that, taken together, Latinos comprise 52 million people in the U.S. population and are the most influential economic sub-set since the baby boomers.

Women are the primary decision-makers in Latino households when it comes to spending, according to a recent Nielsen study, and often have significant incomes and buying power.
Nielsen reports that middle-class Latino families, earning between $50,000 and $100,000 a year, make up the powerful consumer demographic. At 52 million people in the U.S. population, Hispanics collectively have a buying power of $1.2 trillion, the study said. READ MORE

Here are nine tips to get the most out of your networking experience, while contributing to its rehabilitation:

1. Ask questions. Help guide the process by coming prepared with targeted questions that keep you both on track and on time.

2. Be a good listener. People love sharing their story, and it's a great way to learn from others' experience and expertise.

3. Shoot for face-to-face. An in-person meeting is more personal and expressive and demonstrates respect for another's position.

4. Be your best. Show your strengths, but not in a domineering way. People enjoy connecting with others who are "going places" with purpose and pride. READ MORE

A majority of Latinos have no retirement savings, according to a study by the National Institute on Retirement Security, a nonprofit research group based in Washington.

Nearly 70 percent of Latino working-age households have no assets in a retirement account, and 62 percent of Latinos between the ages of 25 and 64 do not have employer-sponsored retirement plans.

That is higher than the percentage of people in other major ethnic/racial groups – black, Asian and white – appearing to be woefully unprepared financially for retirement.

The percentage for whites was 37 percent. READ MORE

CHICAGO–It’s no secret that Hispanics contribute significantly to the US economy, but a new report on Hispanic-owned businesses in Illinois shows Hispanic businesses face unique challenges, but have the potential to generate an additional $67 billion in revenues and create 200,000 jobs for Illinois residents.

The Report, The State of Hispanic-Owned Businesses in Illinois: Untapped Economic & Job Creation Potential, was conducted by DePaul University’s Driehaus College of Business in partnership with the Illinois Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

SMALL BUT GROWING

While there’s significant potential, the reality is that Hispanic-owned businesses are small. The report shows that Hispanic-owned businesses currently employ 50 percent less people than other businesses in Illinois. They earn less too, on average about $182,747 in business revenue compared with $1,370,694 for all other Illinois businesses. And Hispanic businesses comprise a small percentage, only five percent, of all companies in Illinois. READ MORE