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Careers, Jobs & Employment Information
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How to Pick the Best Career For You , Part 2: From Exposure-to-Opportunity Gain an audience by recognizing opportunity There's a sexier method to salsa into a great career with less tripping and more flair. Look for problems to solve and create a personalized solution. Find those challenges by spotting company movement of any kind, whether the change is good, bad or ugly. If you do this, you'll capitalize on an opportunity to be heard and get that coveted invitation to dance in the king's court. Job Interviews: What to Wear It takes between seven and seventeen seconds for a person to make an impression of us and much of that impression is based on how we look. It stand to reason, then, that what we wear to job interviews will make a far greater impact on our success than anything we're likely to say once those first crucial seconds have passed. How to Make Your Career Change Easier Despite what your grandmother told you, life is not supposed to be a struggle. The same is true for making a career change. This doesn't mean you won't work hard to get the job of your dreams. We often forget that we can make things easier on ourselves so that the transition is not painful! Do these six things and you'll notice a huge difference right away. What is Experience Anyway? I learned in first grade that one plus one equals two. But, that's not the right equation when counting work experience. We often think we're building experience to help us get ahead. In reality, we're passing time. Ten years working like a cloned Bill Murray in Groundhog Day is not ten years worth of experience. Doing the same thing again and again yields an experience formula more like: ten times one equals one. I used to equate years of work with years of experience. No more. I learned by making plenty of hiring and promotion mistakes in twenty years of management the two are not equal. Neither are years of work and performance. Doing something for five, ten or twenty years doesn't make you automatically five, ten or twenty years better than when you started. I've been cooking for thirty years but I remain a mediocre cook. Two or three years involved with a business start-up or a new project might provide more growth and knowledge than ten years in a stable venue. And it might not. Gaining experience is more about you and your approach than anything else. Recurring work events can be predictable, boring, and unchallenging ways of passing years at work if what you're doing is updating last year's memo, tweaking last year's budget, or fine-tuning last years goals without applying innovation, analysis or critical thinking. Retiring on the job is as prolific as spam and will get you as blocked as those unwanted emails. I've found the difference between people who are winning at working and people who aren't, is the difference between passing another year at work and gaining another year of work experience. Those who build their experience build their futures. And, you can build experience without changing jobs. Building experience is about the depth, diversity, challenges and learning you gain by offering the best of who you are at work. It's about seizing and creating opportunities. And it's about continual self-improvement and constant self-feedback. You know you're gaining experience when you problem solve your own mistakes; learn to use knowledge building blocks to handle more complex issues; make contributions more valuable than the year before; acquire new skills by venturing outside a comfort zone; embrace new ideas or technologies; or recognize you don't know as much as you thought you did as you begin to see a bigger picture. People who try new things, push the envelope, pitch ideas, offer innovative problem solving, take accountability, and never stop learning and making a difference, are people gaining experience and building their work future. (c) 2004 Nan S. Russell. All rights reserved. Job Search Advice for Desperate Job Seekers Another morning of job hunting lies ahead of you. You pour a cup of coffee and open the paper to the employment section. With a mixture of anticipation and desperation you pick up a stub of pencil and prepare to target and identify some possible job opportunities. How To Become a Mortgage Broker The mortgage industry accounted for $1,815,949,279,000 in loan transactions in 2004. That's one trillion, eight hundred and fifteen billion, nine hundred and forty-nine million, two hundred and seventy nine thousand dollars... in one year! How To Establish Trust, Credibility and Enthusiasm To Your Interviewer If you use your voice to get attention, you use your eyes to hold attention. People tend to believe you, trust you, and listen to what you say if you are looking at them. How to Answer The Most Difficult Interview Questions The following 'difficult' questions are common to most tricky or adversarial interviews. In order to convince the interviewer that you are the best person for the job, you must prepare and rehearse your answers meticulously. Study the job description and the candidate profile; research the company; and match your skills and accomplishments to the employer's requirements. What A Former Stay At Home Mom Knows About Creating A Stunning Resume That You Dont Recently I was asked to touch up a friend's resume. Her challenge was simple. She was a stay-at-home mom who had not worked in four years. A difficult task however, with the information in this section, I generated a listing of skills she did not know she had. Here is a partial list. (Organized, patient, detail oriented, energetic, ability to multitask, works well under pressure and capable of meeting deadlines) Now ask yourself, what company would not want their new employee to showcase these skills? 50 Things To Do To Your Boss That Are Fun For You, But Not For Them 1. You're eavesdropping and you hear your boss has reservations at his favorite restaurant. You know, the one you can't afford. Call them back and cancel his reservations ? say you're his wife. Job Hunting Tips: Assessing Personal Value A week out of work is a vacation. You can sleep late in the morning, revel in your newly found free time, shop when the stores are empty, and get around to those chores you have been putting off for too long. Importance Of Your Job Search So that you can decide just how critical your job hunt is in your total life scheme, let's put a kind of frame around the importance of the effort ahead. Moving From A Weekend Hobby To Career In The Arts Building a career as an artist takes hard work. Because the field attracts so many talented people, jobs in this field remain competitive. If you major in an art program at the university level, the focus is not on business, but in studio art, graphic design or humanities. So it's wonderful that you learn about how to perfect your skills in art ? you need these skills. And, if you want to work for someone else, this education may be all you need to succeed. But many artists and creative professionals wish to sell their work independently from home. There maybe a looming gap in the education you receive in art class and I believe it is about basic business. Discontentment in the Workplace While more people are finding employment, more employed workers are discontent and experiencing frustration. In most cases it can be boiled down to four factors: feeling undervalued, unappreciated and powerless, and world events. Be Prepared for the Unexpected How long has it been since you last had to search for a new job? These days it's not at all unusual to change careers or jobs several times in a lifetime. The idea of retiring from the same company after a lifetime of service is much less a reality in today's world than it was a couple of decades ago. The likelihood of unexpectedly losing your job is greatly increased today due to a number of different factors such as corporate downsizing, technological evolution, and globalization just to name a few. Being thrust into a job search can be a rude awakening and an eye opening experience. Ideally a job seeker should already be prepared for the unexpected with an up-to-date resume and versed in good communication skills. The reality is most people don't have a current resume much less know how to effectively converse with a prospective employer. This lack of preparedness intensifies the stress and fear that comes with being unemployed. Having current documents and sharpened interviewing skills will greatly increase your sense of control over the situation and relieve some of the stress. The process of writing your resume will highlight to you the skills you have acquired and the challenges you have overcome. In turn your confidence in your abilities will have a positive impact on your self esteem which will effect a potential employer's impression of you. Review your resume and determine whether it portrays you to be the candidate a prospective employer would be eager to meet. It should paint a picture of a person ready and willing to use your skills and talents to further the mission and improve the bottom line of a prospective employer. A progressive climb to bigger and better opportunities should be evident upon first glance. Knowing how to answer and ask questions intelligently with professionalism and grace is just as important. Your resume is the tool to unlock the doors to interviews. Once the door has been opened the ability to communicate well is necessary to convey how you can be an asset to the company. This is the time to present your personal sales pitch. You should be prepared to ask intelligent questions as well as answer questions. Inquiries about the company's philosophy and mission, what will be expected in the position, and the degree of camaraderie among employees are examples of some of the questions you should ask. Usually applicants are given an opportunity at some point to ask questions and are very well expected to do so. Spend some time reviewing your personal marketing documents. Do some research on the internet or at the local library to learn how to communicate well in an interview. Make your own list of questions about the job and the company to pose toward the end of the meeting. Practice answering and asking questions with a friend or family member. Pay attention to your body language and composure as well as your verbal responses. You can turn an unexpected job loss into a positive experience. Take some time to discover the multitude of possibilities in which your skills and talents can be used and make it a positive one. You know the old saying, "When a window closes, a door opens." Even if you aren't currently seeking a new job, a career advance, or a change to improved employment conditions, be proactive and do the best you can to stay a step ahead. Keep your resume updated and your interviewing skills sharpened...just in case. Your First Summer Work in the UK - Picking Strawberries The Right Way Most jobs on farms in the UK involve picking strawberries or berries in general, raspberries and possibly other berries with which I have not have the lucky chance to pick. Career Job Satisfaction - Get Off the Treadmill - Exit Your Rat Race! Get Off the Treadmill - Exit Your Rat Race! Do You Work to Live or Live to Work? Let's be realistic here - hands up all of you who bounce out of bed every single morning, raring to get to work and enjoying yourself every minute of the day? Overcome Interview Nerves: Be Better Prepared than Your Interviewer Although interview preparation is everything it's sad to say that perhaps as many as half of all interviewers you're going to meet will be unprepared or incompetent. It's not all their fault, it's just lack of interview preparation time or responsibility; some of them will be co-opted at the last minute to meet you and won't have had time to prepare. Find Free Resumes Online Have you been spending money on countless job boards, only to find that they don't offer the types of candidates you need? If the answer is yes, don't fret any longer, you're about to learn crafty techniques to help you find free resumes on the net. There are numerous free resources online that offer resumes. These include: Free Resume Databases; Free Member Resumes on Association websites; Free College and Alumni resumes on University websites; Free Resume Newsgroups; Free Resume Blaster sites and active and passive resumes hosted on individual candidate websites. All of these resources can be found by using simple search techniques.
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