Sunday, May 31, 2020

When should you look for a job

When should you look for a job Im going to be speaking tonight to a groups of volunteers interested in helping people become or remain self-reliant with regard to money, careers, etc.   I was invited to speak because of JibberJobber, of course, not because Im so great at looking for a job :p As I prepare for the presentation I had some thoughts that I wanted to post here all in line with when is the best time to look for a job which is, of course, when you dont need one! So, if you arent looking for a job, or dont need one, what should you be doing to have true job security?   Here are a few steps that everyone that is fat and happy in their job should be doing, right now: Take a personal job seeker inventory. sit down for about an hour and pretend that you have just lost your job.   What are you going to do RIGHT NOW? How much money do you have stashed away (which will translate into when exactly do I need to have a paycheck coming in again)? Where is that resume, and is it missing anything (your latest positions, experiences, successes, etc.)?   Do you have a master resume that you can copy and paste from. What recruiters/headhunters do you know *that know you*?   You need to call them right away and let them know you are now available. What networking/association meetings will you go to, and when are they, so you can begin networking? How are you going to apply to job boards, which ones (are there specific industry boards that you should be on?) Who are you going to call, and how many people will you call each day, to kick your networking into high gear? When you call people, what are you going to say? Sit down with someone, casually, and discuss your preparation with them.   It should be someone that is in a position at least on your level, preferrably higher.   A lot of times an employment counselor (or coach, if you are senior enough) is a great resource because they arent coming at this with emotions, and have a good way of being tactfully blunt. Going back to the first point, get all of those items in order.   It will take work, but it is better to have it ready and prepared now than to have to burn the first week or two getting it all together. Go to a networking event put on by an association or something like that.   There are tons of them, and the relationships that you develop can be invaluable down the road.   This is a great time to practice your elevator pitch it is better to practice it here than in your first interview! Take someone out to lunch once a week.   This is just an informal chat session with a purpose.   You need to strengthen your network relationships NOW, not when you most need them. Check out Monster and other boards once a month or so to see what jobs are being posted for.   In my last job I would frequently check out competitors job postings which would give me information on where they were at in their company, and what strategic decisions they had made. Develop relationships with some recruiters.   It might be annoying if they call you often asking who do you know they are just looking for leads to fill a position.   Take it as a compliment that they contact you, and know that when the time comes youll be able to call them and they will already know you especially if they have helped you. Mentor someone in their career.   Thinking about and helping others in their career moves, transitions, improvement, etc. will be beneficial to you during your career. When you are happily employed, the prospect of being unemployed is like the big fat pink elephant in the break room that no one talks about.   It could happen to anyone, at any level, at any time.   You can prepare now, or burn a week or two of your job search later. When should you look for a job Im going to be speaking tonight to a groups of volunteers interested in helping people become or remain self-reliant with regard to money, careers, etc.   I was invited to speak because of JibberJobber, of course, not because Im so great at looking for a job :p As I prepare for the presentation I had some thoughts that I wanted to post here all in line with when is the best time to look for a job which is, of course, when you dont need one! So, if you arent looking for a job, or dont need one, what should you be doing to have true job security?   Here are a few steps that everyone that is fat and happy in their job should be doing, right now: Take a personal job seeker inventory. sit down for about an hour and pretend that you have just lost your job.   What are you going to do RIGHT NOW? How much money do you have stashed away (which will translate into when exactly do I need to have a paycheck coming in again)? Where is that resume, and is it missing anything (your latest positions, experiences, successes, etc.)?   Do you have a master resume that you can copy and paste from. What recruiters/headhunters do you know *that know you*?   You need to call them right away and let them know you are now available. What networking/association meetings will you go to, and when are they, so you can begin networking? How are you going to apply to job boards, which ones (are there specific industry boards that you should be on?) Who are you going to call, and how many people will you call each day, to kick your networking into high gear? When you call people, what are you going to say? Sit down with someone, casually, and discuss your preparation with them.   It should be someone that is in a position at least on your level, preferrably higher.   A lot of times an employment counselor (or coach, if you are senior enough) is a great resource because they arent coming at this with emotions, and have a good way of being tactfully blunt. Going back to the first point, get all of those items in order.   It will take work, but it is better to have it ready and prepared now than to have to burn the first week or two getting it all together. Go to a networking event put on by an association or something like that.   There are tons of them, and the relationships that you develop can be invaluable down the road.   This is a great time to practice your elevator pitch it is better to practice it here than in your first interview! Take someone out to lunch once a week.   This is just an informal chat session with a purpose.   You need to strengthen your network relationships NOW, not when you most need them. Check out Monster and other boards once a month or so to see what jobs are being posted for.   In my last job I would frequently check out competitors job postings which would give me information on where they were at in their company, and what strategic decisions they had made. Develop relationships with some recruiters.   It might be annoying if they call you often asking who do you know they are just looking for leads to fill a position.   Take it as a compliment that they contact you, and know that when the time comes youll be able to call them and they will already know you especially if they have helped you. Mentor someone in their career.   Thinking about and helping others in their career moves, transitions, improvement, etc. will be beneficial to you during your career. When you are happily employed, the prospect of being unemployed is like the big fat pink elephant in the break room that no one talks about.   It could happen to anyone, at any level, at any time.   You can prepare now, or burn a week or two of your job search later. When should you look for a job Im going to be speaking tonight to a groups of volunteers interested in helping people become or remain self-reliant with regard to money, careers, etc.   I was invited to speak because of JibberJobber, of course, not because Im so great at looking for a job :p As I prepare for the presentation I had some thoughts that I wanted to post here all in line with when is the best time to look for a job which is, of course, when you dont need one! So, if you arent looking for a job, or dont need one, what should you be doing to have true job security?   Here are a few steps that everyone that is fat and happy in their job should be doing, right now: Take a personal job seeker inventory. sit down for about an hour and pretend that you have just lost your job.   What are you going to do RIGHT NOW? How much money do you have stashed away (which will translate into when exactly do I need to have a paycheck coming in again)? Where is that resume, and is it missing anything (your latest positions, experiences, successes, etc.)?   Do you have a master resume that you can copy and paste from. What recruiters/headhunters do you know *that know you*?   You need to call them right away and let them know you are now available. What networking/association meetings will you go to, and when are they, so you can begin networking? How are you going to apply to job boards, which ones (are there specific industry boards that you should be on?) Who are you going to call, and how many people will you call each day, to kick your networking into high gear? When you call people, what are you going to say? Sit down with someone, casually, and discuss your preparation with them.   It should be someone that is in a position at least on your level, preferrably higher.   A lot of times an employment counselor (or coach, if you are senior enough) is a great resource because they arent coming at this with emotions, and have a good way of being tactfully blunt. Going back to the first point, get all of those items in order.   It will take work, but it is better to have it ready and prepared now than to have to burn the first week or two getting it all together. Go to a networking event put on by an association or something like that.   There are tons of them, and the relationships that you develop can be invaluable down the road.   This is a great time to practice your elevator pitch it is better to practice it here than in your first interview! Take someone out to lunch once a week.   This is just an informal chat session with a purpose.   You need to strengthen your network relationships NOW, not when you most need them. Check out Monster and other boards once a month or so to see what jobs are being posted for.   In my last job I would frequently check out competitors job postings which would give me information on where they were at in their company, and what strategic decisions they had made. Develop relationships with some recruiters.   It might be annoying if they call you often asking who do you know they are just looking for leads to fill a position.   Take it as a compliment that they contact you, and know that when the time comes youll be able to call them and they will already know you especially if they have helped you. Mentor someone in their career.   Thinking about and helping others in their career moves, transitions, improvement, etc. will be beneficial to you during your career. When you are happily employed, the prospect of being unemployed is like the big fat pink elephant in the break room that no one talks about.   It could happen to anyone, at any level, at any time.   You can prepare now, or burn a week or two of your job search later.

Wednesday, May 27, 2020

Tips For Writing a Resume For A Journalist

Tips For Writing a Resume For A JournalistWriting a resume for journalist may seem like an easy task. But, it is actually quite difficult. If you want to know more about how to write a resume for journalist, read on.First, you need to ensure that you have completed a small amount of work experience. The degree you possess might be too strong in numbers and you will end up having trouble distinguishing yourself among the crowd. Writing a resume for journalist must also begin with this qualification.After you have done this, make sure that you have chosen a niche, such as business, nursing, writing, journalism or other various fields. Once you are clear on this, go ahead and find out what a resume is. Resumes are for listing your professional experience. They list the number of years of experience you have in a specific field. The resume should reflect your skills, education and other professional attributes.When you are done writing your resume, take a look at it once again. Make sure that you have listed all the necessary data, such as your name, location, phone number, company you work for, dates of employment, education, degrees, awards, certificates and so on. It's also a good idea to find out which employer you are interested in. To do this, go through the details of the company you are interested in and make sure that you have included this information on your resume. In fact, this is the only way you can compare between resume for journalist and those of other people.In addition, make sure that you have identified the job you are applying for. There are many cases where the candidate just asks for the job and then doesn't list his or her qualifications for the same position. Thus, it is very important to carefully provide details about the job and the position you are applying for.Lastly, you need to make sure that you present yourself as someone who can handle your responsibilities well. Many candidates make the mistake of not mentioning the qualities th ey possess but instead make the mistake of mentioning the limitations and qualities they lack.When you are finished writing your resume, you need to go through it one last time. You need to ask yourself if what you wrote was appropriate for a job as a journalist. For example, you might want to keep a track record of your awards and accolades so that you can showcase them to the potential employer.Even though writing a resume for journalist may seem easy, there are many details that need to be taken care of. In fact, if you don't take proper care of these details, you will not stand a chance of getting a job as a journalist.

Sunday, May 24, 2020

How to Listen Like a CEO of a Billion Dollar Company

How to Listen Like a CEO of a Billion Dollar Company How well do you listen? Do you give people your full attention when they speak, or are you preparing a strategy and waiting for your turn to talk again? Active listening involves hearing a persons words, understanding their message and its  importance to them, and communicating that understanding back to the person. But how often do we actually do that? In the paper Listening Leadership: A Study on Their Relationship, the authors point out: The apparent problem is, of all the communication skills, listening is the earliest learned and the most frequently used, yet it seems to be the least mastered. As Kevin Sharer, Chairman CEO of Amgen, reveals in an interview at  McKinsey Quarterly, he wasnt a very good listener in his younger days. For most of my career,  I was an awful listener in almost every possible way. I was arrogant throughout my 30s for sureâ€"maybe into my early 40s. My conversations were all about some concept of intellectual winning and I’m going to prove I’m smarter than you. He goes on to explain that his approach wasnt evil or ego-driven, but that it was a natural extension of being a striver and wanting to get ahead. And that meant convincing people of his point of view. Which did not require active listening    or so he thought at the time. But Sharer is older and wiser now. He states,  As you become a senior leader, its a lot less about that and its a lot more about getting the best out of the people you work with.  I shifted as a necessity to become a better listener. His pivotal moment occurred when he heard IBM Chairman Sam Palmisano explain why working in Japan was valuable in Palmisanos leadership development: Sam said, Because I learned to listen by having only one objective: comprehension. I  only was trying to understand what the person was trying  to convey to me.  I wasnt trying to listen to critique.  I wasnt listening to object.  I wasnt listening to convince.  I was listening solely for comprehension. Sharer points out that theres time later for critique and argument, but that listening with the goal of comprehension enhanced his bandwidth for listening in a very meaningful way. In his opinion, Listening for comprehension only thats the greatest  sign of respect you can give someone. This video contains excerpts of Sharers interview. Enjoy! Have you ever had a listening-related epiphany? Id love to hear about it! Image courtesy of ky_olsen.

Tuesday, May 19, 2020

2 Careers You Do from the Comfort of Your Own Home

2 Careers You Do from the Comfort of Your Own Home Are you tired of the same old office job, day in and day out? Are you sick of having your boss bark orders at you each and every day? If so, you should resolve to go it alone by embarking on a career from the comfort of your own home. Rest assured, there are many ways for you to climb your chosen career ladder and make some serious cash from your humble abode â€" all it takes is for you to be brave enough to make a change and leave the traditional 9 to 5 behind. If you have a desire to work from home but don’t know what professional path to embark upon, you’re in luck. Read on to find two careers you can enjoy from the comfort of your humble abode. Credit Repair If you have experience and a passion for the financial sector, then starting your own remote credit repair company could be the perfect home-based career path for you. Aside from the all-important fact that this type of business is not location-dependent, there are a host of other reasons why you should go down this professional route. Some of these reasons include: Unrivalled scalability â€" By investing in a piece of automated credit repair software such as that provided by DisputeBee, there’s no telling how far you could take your business The industry is not economically dependent â€" Credit is a cornerstone of the financial sector regardless of the climate, which means you will be able to enjoy profitability and recurring revenue over a sustained period of time You will be helping others â€" There will always be people out there with bad credit, which means you will always have the opportunity to help others improve and repair their financial well-being Virtual Assistant If you have experience in administrative work and no longer wish to sit behind a desk all day, a virtual assistant could very well prove to be the perfect remote career path for you. As the name suggests, taking on this type of independent contractor role will see you provide your clients with administrative assistance while operating outside of their workspace. Generally, you will provide this assistance via VoIP communication technology and business telephony systems. Whether you choose to run your own virtual assistant business or whether you work for another business, no two working days will be the same when you take up this type of professional challenge. One day you could be offering administrative support to a healthcare franchise, the next you could be sorting out technical problems for an accountancy firm; and the day after that, you could be providing creative services to an educational establishment. Autonomy, flexibility, no commute, money saved on workspace rental and no dress code â€" these are just some of the benefits that you stand to gain when you resolve to work from home. When you decide to go down this particular professional route, be sure to consider the career pathways listed above. Once you do, you won’t look back.

Saturday, May 16, 2020

Cashier Job Description Resume

Cashier Job Description ResumeAny good resume writer can create a cashier job description resume for you. Resumes are important and that is why they should be given a lot of attention and should not be ignored. Unfortunately, sometimes you just want to get started and can't seem to find a job you are qualified for. But the good news is that there are still a lot of cashier job descriptions out there that you can apply for if you have spent some time looking around.Now, if you are not sure what cashier job description resumes are, it's basically a set of information that you need to include in your resume. This job description is designed to show potential employers exactly what you will be doing and how much you are worth to them. That is why it is very important that you take the time to make sure this is included when you create your cashier job description resume.If you are wondering how to write a job description that will put you in an important role, the first thing you need to know is that you should always start with an overview. This is where you describe your main skills, strengths, and other important qualities. You should also highlight any relevant experience you have had in the past. This will give potential employers a better idea of who you are and what you are capable of doing.Another important characteristic that you should take the time to mention is your work history. You should include all your current jobs, what were the job like, and any projects that you have worked on during that time. This will show employers that you have the skills they are looking for and that you have shown that you are willing to make an effort when you are working.The next thing you need to mention in your cashier job description resume is your education and experience in the field. Many people choose to leave this section blank or omit it entirely. So it is up to you to know what you need to include in it and put it in the area that you think it will fit best.Wh en creating your cashier job description resume, you also need to make sure that you put your contact information where it is most visible. This means that you need to be very specific about your name, your position, and even your contact information. The more specific you are, the better chance you have of getting a call from an employer who needs to hire you. It doesn't hurt to put a little advertisement in your local paper either, as it will get your name out there even faster.If you still have questions about how to write a cashier job description resume, you should ask someone that is an expert at it. You should never rush into something that may cause you to get disqualified, so don't just rush through the steps. Take your time and do the research before you make any final decisions.The more time you spend writing your cashier job description resume, the better chance you have of convincing a potential employer that you are the right person for the job. Don't take this job des cription lightly and put in the time necessary to make it a strong one. This will help you land that job that you are really qualified for and have been looking for so long.

Wednesday, May 13, 2020

Openness at Amazon - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Openness at Amazon - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog Technology Review shows how Amazon use transparancy and openness by giving away most of their product data: The strategy behind Amazon Web Services is to give programmers virtually unlimited access to the very foundation of Amazons business its product database. whether they are inside or outside the companys walls. Developers can grab product data, reformat it, add related services, and use it to attract eyeballs to their own sites. If they feel like it, theyre even free, like Taylor, to create parallel-universe Amazons that have the added features they crave. Amazon demands only one thing in return: that visitors to these satellite sites complete any purchases through Amazon.com itself. The site owners, meanwhile, earn a decent commission on each sale. Exposing the worlds largest product database along with the editorial content and personalization functions that make Amazon.com so uncannily useful is such a counterintuitive business strategy that analogies are hard to come by. Amazon: * Has very little control over what people choose to do with their data * May ultimately loose web traffic to other sites using that data * Also allow competitors access to the same data And they see a critical business advantage in this naked approach. Yay! Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related

Saturday, May 9, 2020

Your Resume - What Are Your Accomplishments - Jane Jackson Career

Your Resume - What Are Your Accomplishments - Jane Jackson Career Have you kept your resume up to date with your latest accomplishments?   Or is it lurking somewhere in the dusty cornice of your mind waiting to be dug out and brushed off at some time in the undetermined future?   It’s always a good idea to keep an updated resume with tangible accomplishments. Not just for application purposes but also for performance review purposes (why, specifically, do you deserve that raise?) and, if nothing else, a reminder of how good you are and what you have achieved in your career so far.A good resume  thats up-to-date and ready to use is a great confidence-booster.Many resumes are responsibility based however the most effective ones are accomplishment based.   Accomplishments are examples of how you have actually used your knowledge and your skills effectively with tangible or intangible positive results.An accomplishment based resume makes you stand out from the crowd.   It demonstrates that you have made a difference in your role, you have not just †˜clocked in and clocked out’ each day.   Everyone is hired to do a job.   If you have simply done your job, well that’s great, but you are paid to do that job after all.   It’s what you have done above and beyond that makes a difference to employers.What have you done ‘above and beyond?’   Did you lead an important initiative, solve a difficult problem, identify a wasteful procedure and recommend improvements, improve profits, reduce downtime, improve team morale, consistently work ahead of deadlines and within budgets?It’s always a good time to take a step back and review your professional career and identify important contributions you have made.   You may be pleasantly surprised when you are honest with yourself.   Many of us are too humble.I have had so many clients say to me, “Well, I was just doing my job.”    Some people do their job exceptionally well.   Does this mean you too?What do accomplishment statements do for you? ·             They make you feel gre at about yourself ·             They highlight the benefits you bring to any role ·             They are the springboard for discussions in interviews ·             They are the basis of a highly marketable resume ·             They help to identify why you are a valuable employee ·             They highlight why you are worth hanging on to (or deserving of that raise!)Here are some questions to ask yourself to help you craft effective accomplishment statements: ·             Did you generate new business?   If so how much? ·             Did you save time, improve procedures, save costs? ·             Did you create something new or something better? ·             Did you achieve more with the same resources? ·             Did you improve operations or make things easier? ·             Did you solve a previously overlooked problem? ·             Did you streamline a process? ·             Did you prevent something that could have been a disaster?Once you have identified what could b e your accomplishments on the job, turn them into statements that you can bullet point in your resume.Start with an action verb in the past to make them punchy and to the point … use relevant words such as achieved, adapted, broadened, challenged, completed, devised, delivered, enhanced, improved, invented, managed, organised, pioneered, redesigned, secured, strengthened, transformed, etc.Accomplishments in your resume make you stand out from the crowd.They demonstrate that having you as part of the team will make a difference and you will contribute to the success of the organisation.Take time to think about what you have done, have fun devising your accomplishment statements and include them in your resume!   You will notice the difference and so will potential employers.Need help? Learn how to write a powerful resume click the image below and get started with me today!Or book in for a Complimentary Career Clarity Chat Im happy to help! Click here to book