Many job candidates spend a lot of time trying to figure out how not to be nervous for an interview, but end up even more anxious than before! There are so many tips and pieces of advice out there that it can be hard to know where to begin. But at the end of the […]
The post How To Calm Nerves Before An Interview: 17 Relaxing Tips appeared first on Career Sherpa.
Know the saying, “Applying to jobs is a full-time job”? Don’t listen to it.
Applying to jobs you’re not qualified for is counterproductive to your job search. Competition is too fierce. Even qualified applicants aren’t getting callbacks. So, stop applying to so many jobs and allocate time each week to becoming more hirable. Here’s how:
Volunteering can increase your chances of being hired if you’re strategic about it. Unemployed teacher? Help out with after-school programs or volunteer to be a coach’s assistant. Web designer? Find a local non-profit in desperate need of a redesign and offer your services pro bono. By volunteering somewhere relevant, you’ll keep your skills fresh while enhancing your resume.
If you lack a skill commonly required for jobs you’re seeking, spend time each day developing that skill. Take advantage of numerous free resources online, including tutorials, eBooks, and how-to videos. If you’d rather have more of a class setup, then look for free or affordable classes in your area. Alternatively, if you already possess the necessary skills but haven’t been practicing, then do so. Skill atrophy is a huge concern for hiring managers, so practice and get yourself ready for pre-employment skills tests.
There are two parts to networking: reconnecting with your old contacts and forming new ones.
Depending on where you are in your career, reconnecting might mean contacting professors, college advisers, and internship supervisors, or it might mean getting in touch with old colleagues, bosses, and business acquaintances. Find them, email them, call them. Ask them if they would like to grab a coffee. Ask how they are (networking is social, after all) and let them know the specifics of your job search (industry, location, etc.). See if they know of anything or anyone. Most importantly, follow up!
At a temporary dead-end with your current contacts? Make new ones. Go to networking events sponsored by your university, industry, city, and so on. And look beyond traditional networking events. Consider going to lectures, neighborhood council meetings, and even community bar crawls (go easy on the sauce).
Each of these provides an opportunity to meet people with similar interests, and you can have fun in the process. Again, follow up!
Some job seekers are opposed to anything that’s not a full-time job. If this sounds like you, it’s time to change your mindset. Freelancing is a great way to boost your skills, resume, portfolio, professional network, income, and confidence.
Get found online. Start a blog, spruce up your social media profiles, and/or create an online portfolio to showcase your work. Find companies you’re interested in working for, subscribe to their blogs, and follow them on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Find decision-makers at those companies and follow them as well. Learn what they’re talking about, do a little research, and then engage with them online. Impress them with your interest and insights.
Worst-case scenario: You’ll learn what’s important to them and use this information to customize your application when a job opens up.
Better-case scenario: You’ll establish a rapport with someone who will recommend you for a position and/or tell you about hidden job openings.
Best-case scenario: You’ll impress someone so much over time that they’ll create a job for you or bring you in for an exploratory interview.
So, what are you doing to become more hirable? If you aren’t doing anything, then consider doing one (or more!) of these things, starting today.
The job search process can be incredibly frustrating and stressful, especially if you’re feeling lost, trapped, or burned out in your career. If you’re struggling to find a job that’s right for you, we can help.
We’d love it if you joined our FREE community. It’s a private, online platform where workers, just like you, are coming together to learn and grow into powerful Workplace Renegades.
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There’s nothing a lot more challenging at work compared to having a co-worker whoms rude, makes you question yourself, or simply hurts your current feelings. But how can you offer with a condescending co-worker?
When you are forced towards deal with a condescending co-worker, the first point you need to perform is understand why their own comment bothered you therefore much. What about exactly what this person said annoyed you? You might actually consider taking time that will write it out. Attempt to recall exactly what this specific person said. You’ll most likely find that it had been the specific word or strengthen this person used, or perhaps the way it has been delivered, that set everyone off. It’s essential the fact that you identify this due to the fact you have to be able so that you can articulate it when you are speak to the person.
That’s right. The particular next thing you have to do is usually confront the person involved.
This is simply not the time to hide it, ignore it, or maybe let it slide. Typically the moment you allow condescending behavior to happen, one are defining how you will are to be dealt with. People treat us this way that we ENABLE them to treat us all. Unless you want to package with a condescending co-worker, you have to go this behavior in often the bud.
Therefore, understand just what about their particular comment bothered you. When you need to, discuss it out with somebody else before you provide it up for your co-worker. Then, confront your co-worker privately so they know about how you feel. Whenever you have this discussion, your co-worker might act defensively. Nevertheless , they will likely end up being more shocked and amazed. They might not possess intended the comment to help you come out this way.
If someone has been condescending, whether they understand it or not, it is important to call all of them out on it. Yet make sure to carry out it in a peaceful and structured way. Also for those who hate any sort of potential fight, remember: don’t just remember to brush it off! You’ll always be glad you said anything whenever you did.
Navigating workplace problems may be incredibly stressful, specifically if you’re feeling misplaced, trapped, or burned out and about within your career. If if you’re struggling to overcome job burnout, we are able to help.
We’d love it all if you joined the FREE community . A fresh private, online platform exactly where workers, just like most people, are coming together to make sure you learn and advance to effective Workplace Renegades.
It’s time to discover work that makes that you feel happy, satisfied, in addition to fulfilled. Join each of our FREE community today to finally turn out to be an empowered business-of-one!
This particular article was originally released at an earlier time.
The concept of “spring cleaning” also extends to your career. In fact, it’s the perfect time to take a look at your resume and see what needs updating and what you can get rid of entirely. When was the last time you cleaned up your resume?
If it’s been a while since you’ve updated your resume, don’t wait any longer! Here are three easy ways you can spring clean your resume so it’s ready for your next job search.
One of the most important parts of your resume is the experience summary, which is a list of 6-8 skills at the top of your resume. (You can find resume templates inside Work It Daily’s FREE community.) This helps your resume get past the ATS and stand out from the competition, allowing hiring managers to quickly see how you’re qualified for the job.
When spring cleaning your resume, it’s a good idea to update your list of skills, adding new ones and removing irrelevant ones. What skills have you developed? Which skills do you want to highlight in your job search? What skills do you need for the jobs you want to apply for, and how many of those do you currently have? Which skills are no longer relevant in your career or aligned with your career goals? Think about these questions as you decide which skills to include on your updated resume.
If you haven’t done so already, when you clean up your resume, you should also quantify your accomplishments. In the bullet points under each position you’ve held, you don’t just want to list your job duties. You need to talk about your accomplishments, what you achieved on the job. You need to quantify your work experience so employers can see exactly how you add value as a business-of-one. Each bullet point should include at least one number. For example, a car salesperson might write: “Sold an average of 12 cars per week.”
Once you’ve quantified your accomplishments on your resume for your previous positions, it’s time to think about your current job. What have you accomplished lately at your current job? Are there any past accomplishments you haven’t quantified yet? Have you completed a certificate or received any awards? Whatever you achieved, chances are it can be quantified, and it definitely belongs on your resume.
The easiest way to spring clean your resume is to simply clean up your formatting. A resume with an updated, simple format will be easier to read and have a higher chance of getting past the ATS. A resume with an outdated format will likely get tossed by hiring managers because it gives them the impression that you’re old and/or out of touch.
Your resume should have a simple, clean format with consistent styling throughout the document. Bullet points and white space are also important. Choose a clean-line font like Arial or Calibri (11pt.), not a script font like Times New Roman. Also, make sure you have one-inch margins and no bold, italics, or underlining except in very specific places where you want to focus the hiring manager’s eyes. When in doubt, a simple resume is the most effective.
We hope these tips help you spring clean your resume so it’s ready for your next job search! If you need more help with your resume or with anything else in your job search, we’re here for you.
We’d love it if you joined our FREE community. It’s a private, online platform where workers, just like you, are coming together to learn and grow into powerful Workplace Renegades.
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There is one thing you can do that increases your chances of being hired: get referred for a job. Referred candidates are more likely to get hired, perform better and last longer in jobs. This is why companies, large and small, are investing in employee referral programs (ERPs). It makes good business sense for them […]
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Besides payroll, your organization’s next largest spend is probably for technology. Businesses are continually expanding their capabilities to keep up with their customers’ expectations and make employees more efficient. Organizations typically accomplish this with some type of technology. But does the organization have a process to ensure that technology meets the organization’s strategy and is being fully utilized?
This is especially important if each department has the authority to purchase its own technology (potentially in a silo). Was there sufficient consideration and communication with groups such as information security, internal audit, risk/compliance, and legal?
Here are four steps you can take to help make sure you’re maximizing your technology spend:
1. Make an inventory of all of the technology (both on-premise and in the cloud) being used/paid for throughout the entire organization.
2. Now that you have a good inventory, reconcile across departments.
3. Next, make sure the organization is using the software.
4. For future technology purchases (especially if departments have the authority to purchase their own software)…
For more information on maximizing your IT investment, follow me on LinkedIn!
Writing an effective thank you email after your second interview can give you some extra points when hiring managers are making their final decision. But unfortunately, many job-seekers struggle with this! This guide will teach you how to write a great follow-up email after the second interview and provides samples to get you started. Tips […]
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When I began my music career in Atlanta and the girl group that I had a stake in decided to break up (like all girl groups do), I was left to find my own way in the music industry and failure was not an option.
According to Music Times online magazine article on music artists breaking into the industry, only 0.2 percent of artists become “mega” stars, 0.9 percent are mainstream artists, 1.4 percent are mid-sized artists, 6.8 percent are “developing,” and the remaining 90.7 percent do not make the cut.
It’s difficult to break into the industry as a business executive also, and if you do not have a strategic roadmap and an incredible amount of determination including resilience, you may find it a tough industry to become established in.
To break into the music industry, you will need to utilize the right tools. Let me give you examples of what you’re going to need to do to get in and why.
LinkedIn statistics have proven that utilizing the LinkedIn platform for leveraging job opportunities and building your professional profile has helped millions of new job seekers.
Most music teams start from humble beginnings gigging as entrepreneurs to see if their music will resonate with fans and so should you.
The struggle is real. Understanding the mechanics of music will resonate with fans, and learning by experiencing the insane obstacles is key.
If possible move to a city that has the headquarters for music labels and third-party music distributors, etc. As of this date, that would be Los Angeles, New York, Nashville, Miami, or Atlanta.
Volunteer in any position at festivals, venues, stadiums.
Reach out to artist teams on tour by messaging their teams.
There are a number of things that can be done over the summer to enhance your LinkedIn profile.
The efforts to secure these experiences will serve you well in the music industry and provide copy for your LinkedIn page to get the conversation started. Legend has it that it takes 9 years in the music industry to end up in the Capitol Records Tower. With these starter tips, nothing is impossible. Leveraging your LinkedIn page, working at venues, studio time, connecting with music executives and attending conferences, and gaining certifications will increase your chances of breaking into the music industry.
Whenever you hear about job termes conseillés, you most likely think of typically the common signs and signs. You may have even experienced all of them a couple of times before. But carry out you know the lesser-known signs of job termes conseillés? Would you unknowingly be encountering job burnout right today?
Here are three lesser-known signs that you have got job burnout.
@j. t. odonnell 3 lesser-known signs of job termes conseillés #careermode #jobburnout #burnout #job #edutok #learnontiktok #careertiktok #careeradvice ♬ original sound – M. T. O’Donnell
The first lesser-known indication that you have job burnout is you are obtaining sick more frequently. A person seem to be choosing up every little cool, every little sniffle. Plus when you get ill, you receive sicker than normal. It also probably requires you a lot lengthier than it used for you to get over the disease completely.
The next lesser-known sign of job burnout is that an individual can’t envision the ongoing future of your current career. Maybe you aren’t even imagine new careers, a new career, or perhaps anything you’d be fascinated in doing. You’ve dropped all excitement for just about any type of work going ahead. Somebody who isn’t burned away will have career objectives and at least a idea of how these people see their career advancing.
The last lesser-known signal of job burnout is the fact that you’re practicing escapism. Might be you’re excessively binge-watching Television shows, eating too much, or maybe procrastinating. Basically, you’re carrying out whatever you can to discompose your mind because you avoid want to cope with this reality that you’re really unhappy in your career.
If virtually any of these signs usually are popping up in the life, you’re probably suffering from job burnout. The good thing is, I actually can help.
I’d like it if you joined our FREE community where professionals like anyone are learning to become strengthened in their careers therefore they can finally discover career happiness and fulfillment, and overcome job termes conseillés once and for almost all!
Sign up regarding my FREE community and become the Workplace Renegade today! My team and am are looking forward to help working with you quickly.
It can be very demanding looking for another job when your current one is constantly stressing you out. After all, when you get home from a long and frustrating day, the last thing you want to do is give any more thought to the world of work. Unfortunately, most new jobs don’t just fall into your lap—you have to go out and get them.
Approaching your job search as strategically and as systematically as you would approach your next business deal can help keep the process manageable. Here are three keys to a successful job search:
If you were going to start a huge new project at work, would your first step be to just sit down and start the project? Of course not! A lot of planning and preparation go into any major project, and your job search should be no different. Therefore, the first step is NOT to sit down and start sending out dozens of generalized resumes to any job that sounds like a relatively good fit.
Your first task should be to determine exactly what you’re looking for in your next position. Just like you can’t write a project plan until you know what the project is, you simply cannot write an effective resume or cover letter without some idea of where you’d like your career to go. You may find this part of the process to be the most time-consuming, as it requires some soul-searching. However, it’s an essential step in the process that must not be skipped.
Once you’ve determined your professional goals, you’re ready to spend some time assembling your marketing tools—a cover letter, resume, and any other pertinent documents that support your message (like an optimized LinkedIn profile). This is essentially the same process as setting up a project at work; you need both plans and human resources for an effective job search.
It’s important to tailor your resume and cover letter to the specific job that you’re applying to. In order to have a powerful resume, you have to lead with results and quantifiable accomplishments. This process takes time, so plan your schedule accordingly.
Only when you’ve established a goal and pulled together the tools needed to accomplish it should you actually start looking for and applying to jobs. Setting up email alerts through sites like Glassdoor.com or Indeed.com can save you hours of scouring through online job postings.
If you tackle your job search in a strategic and systematic manner, you should soon reach a place where you can go to your inbox, look through positions that may be a good fit for you, and then simply customize your polished resume for each application. Consider each quality job application you send off as a deliverable in the project of finding yourself another job. Whenever you successfully land your next position, you’ll be able to close out this project and move on to the next one!
The job search process can be incredibly frustrating and stressful, especially if you’re feeling lost, trapped, or burned out in your career. If you’re struggling to find a job that’s right for you, we can help.
We’d love it if you joined our FREE community. It’s a private, online platform where workers, just like you, are coming together to learn and grow into powerful Workplace Renegades.
It’s time to find work that makes you feel happy, satisfied, and fulfilled. Join our FREE community today to finally become an empowered business-of-one!
This article was originally published at an earlier date.
When projects are green-lighted, one of THE most important things to do is to hold a kickoff meeting.
Higher overall project success and, more importantly, improvements to the bottom line are among the many benefits of holding an effective kickoff meeting.
A kickoff meeting is basically a meeting held between the buyer and seller to officially initiate the project once the contracts have been signed.
In this meeting, the key stakeholders on both sides are present, as well as other interested parties that have a stake in the project. The aim of the meeting is to cover the main contractual parts of the project and ensure understanding from both sides and alignment on how the project will be executed.
There is also an internal project kickoff meeting which is held after the external meeting and the aim of this meeting is to ensure that the company has understood the minutes issued as well as any impact on the strategies or procedures considered during the bid phase.
These meetings are extremely important as they will, in effect, summarize the activities to be performed during execution while providing important context to the project teams.
There is nothing more powerful to increase engagement on a project than a face-to-face (or virtual!) meeting with the person with whom you will be interfacing on a project. Sometimes certain project positions do not have this opportunity due to travel constraints or other issues which are generally concentrated on the project manager or project coordinator’s shoulders.
When project expeditors, schedulers, and cost control, quality, and finance team members have the opportunity to bond with their counterparts in this way, many of the doubts regarding operational tasks which may not make the main screen can be aired out or even taken offline much easier once personal contact has been established.
It is also a great way to network and elevate the visibility of the entire project team.
There are many procedures to be followed on most projects and the kickoff meeting provides an avenue to read through the main highlights of each one while ensuring understanding and alignment.
Among some of the main procedures that need to be covered are:
A) Communication Interface – the stakeholders are listed in a matrix format which lists with whom and how they will interface on the project, as well as their roles and responsibilities.
B) Reporting – most project teams love to issue reports and this will set the guidelines regarding which reports will be required, along with the specific formats, frequencies, and distribution requirements.
C) Quality – this procedure will cover the quality requirements which will include the documentation, inspection procedures, and corresponding approvals required for each document.
D) Logistics – an often contentious, volatile, and misunderstood segment, the logistics portion of most international projects is very complex and requires very detailed alignment in order to avoid costly delays, additional charges, taxes, and other potentially political consequences.
E) Finance – processing of project billing can be a very tricky endeavor as supporting documentation and the customer payment processes are not always clear. This is an extremely important topic to align during the kickoff meeting as it will have a direct impact on cash flow as well as the bottom line.
F) Management of Change – this process is also important to address as it will establish an agreed-upon way to manage any changes on a project, both customer and supplier-driven changes.
Projects can have so many documents and procedures to consider that it is really easy to get lost in the sea of paper that needs to be digested. As a good practice, I advocate that the documents be divided up amongst the team members, usually by functional area, so that the ones who will have to process each document will be intimately familiar with the requirements before the kickoff meeting.
There are some definite overlaps in documents so the teams need to be aware of this and highlight those portions which the other members will need to consider before execution begins. The project manager needs to read ALL of the documents so that he/she can properly delegate tasks as needed as well as identify any areas that may compromise the team’s ability to execute. This should ideally be brought up during the bid phase and prior to contract signature; however, this is not always possible and the PM needs to be on high alert so as to address these points during the kickoff meeting.
The absence of rules is chaos!
This could not be more true in the world of project management as customers, third parties, or even internal stakeholders can create mayhem on the project by not following a structured execution process.
During the kickoff meeting, these procedures, rules of conduct, and communication methods need to be clearly addressed so that the teams know the course of action in case of a conflict or contractual dispute. The project hierarchy, roles, and responsibilities of each stakeholder as well as scaled, governance-based decision-making are the keys to keeping the project on course.
When project documentation is analyzed, priorities have generally not been set and they can also evolve over time. For this reason, it is a good practice to ask if any priorities have been set by the time of the kickoff meeting and also include the expected impacts on the agreed-upon baseline schedule. If anything changes and work needs to be re-prioritized at any point, both sides must come to a mutual agreement so that the baseline schedule is revised.
The top risks identified at the bid phase should also be included as a topic of interest to be debated during the meeting as risks can and will evolve over time. Sharing risk registers is a very good way to improve the alignment of both parties while also actually improving the mitigation strategies. This, in turn, leads to the release of fewer contingency sums and a better bottom line!
Project teams (and most people for that matter!) HATE change.
Change is always disruptive and causes unwelcomed re-work for all those involved in the process.
If both parties take a reasonable approach to this process, then the Management of Change (MOC) process can be streamlined so that neither side change orders the other side to death. While changes will inevitably occur, the way in which they are processed and make their way into the contract is definitely something that both sides can and should negotiate during the kickoff meeting.
Some customers prefer that changes be grouped into a MOC register which is then revisited periodically, usually monthly, so that a determination of GO or NO GO can be made, along with the required changes to the contract pricing, delivery, and scope sections. I think this is the best strategy to reduce disruption while also minimizing the strain on the relationships with the stakeholders.
Kickoff meetings can last several days or even weeks, depending on the number of stakeholders, sites, and time zones to consider.
Once the meeting(s) wrap up, the project manager needs to issue the Minutes of Meeting (MOM) to cover all of the points addressed during the meeting, while being sure to list ALL of the people who participated.
Despite everyone’s best efforts, not all of the issues will be addressed or fully resolved; as such, there should be a section to include the punch list, or all of these open items to be addressed and target dates for each one to be resolved, along with the responsible party(ies).
It is absolutely critical that ALL participants sign the minutes and initial every page so that a clear agreement is reached among the parties. This document will then become an integral part of the project contractual documents so it is very important to be as clear and thorough as possible when issuing this document.
The minutes is one of the main documents the project team will then refer to, along with the project execution plan (PEP), so streamlining its appearance will encourage the team to refer back to it!
We all acquire stressed in the office from moment to time. Tasks adding up, co-workers pestering that you, deadlines looming – we have all already been through it. Whilst this particular often just comes along with the territory of job, it doesn’t necessarily have got to be the situation, and even you can certainly consider the pressure off on your own with a few little changes. […]
The article Streamline Your Admin Jobs at Work With These types of Handy Methods appeared first on Jobacle. com .