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How to Help a Loved One Take Their Next Career Step

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We all want to see the people we care about flourish and thrive in life. Often, this means helping our loved ones take important steps towards their career goals. Sometimes, this involves motivating a youngster to explore the professional landscape, or helping a partner consider a career change. Other times, it means providing consistent support and guidance as the people we care about figure out their own paths and move towards their goals. If someone you care about is looking to move forward in their career, and you want to help, here are some of the best things you can do. 

Know Your Options for Giving Financial Support

Although many of us will encounter several challenges when making a career move, financial issues are often the biggest concern. If a loved one needs to invest in a new degree or expand their education to move into a new role, they ll need to find the cash to pay for their tuition. When you care about someone, it might be tempting to offer to help as much as possible. You might consider offering to cosign a student loan to help the person in your life get the best deal on the cash they need to borrow. However, before you dive in, it s worth finding out as much as you can about cosigning, how it affects your credit and other factors. If co-signing isn t an option for you, look for other ways you might be able to offer financial help, such as assisting your loved one in creating a budget, or cutting down on their monthly spending. Even these little actions can make a huge difference in the long term. 

Help Them Set Goals

Alongside finding the money required to invest in an important career move, figuring out which direction to take can be another major challenge for many people. The world today is constantly evolving, with new roles and opportunities opening in every industry. If your loved one has skills and passions worth exploring, they may not be sure what they should do next. If the person you care about is struggling to figure out what they should do next, sit down with them, and help them to assess their options. Research potential job opportunities that might interest them together and make notes about the tasks they ll need to do in each role. Help them to evaluate not just the earning potential of each new job, but how much that role will help them to achieve their specific professional and career goals. This could make it easier for them to choose the right path with no regrets. 

Work on Soft Skills Together

While you might not be able to help your loved one develop the technical skills they need for a new role, you can help them to build valuable soft skills. Working on a loved one with their communication skills can help to make them more attractive for a range of roles. You can also help them develop leadership skills, and decision-making abilities, by giving them independence and assisting them with making choices when necessary. You could even help them find volunteer and internship positions where they can put their new skills to the test. Soft skills like time management, excellent collaboration skills, and the ability to lead, manage, and motivate a team can help your loved one to appeal to a wide range of employers. You might even help them develop some of the skills they need to excel in their next interview.

Taking the Next Step Together

For anyone, taking the next step in a career can be a daunting prospect. But even something as significant as a career change can feel a lot easier when we have the right support and guidance. By stepping in and helping your loved one move into the next stage of their career, you can ensure they have the support they need to thrive.

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How To Answer “Tell Me About A Time You Went Above & Beyond”
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How To Answer “Tell Me About A Time You Went Above & Beyond”

One of the hardest and most important job interview questions is, “Tell me about a time you went above and beyond.” Here’s the perfect technique to ace the answer every time.

Step 1: Think About A Time You Exceeded Expectations

The first step is for you to sit down and think about a time when you exceeded expectations on the job.

Imagine the times when you were given a lot of praise or maybe you got a promotion or even a raise. Think about what made you earn these things and ask yourself how exactly did you go above and beyond in order to get that appreciation and that recognition.

This is going to help you flesh out the stories that you’re going to want to tell in order to validate your experience and your ability to go above and beyond.

Step 2: Break The Story Down

Job candidate tells the hiring manager about a time he went above and beyond at work during an interview

Now, step two is for you to break that story down into what we call the “Experience + Learn = Grow” model for answering behavioral interview questions like, “Tell me about a time you went above and beyond.”

You want to think about the experience objectively and factually. Explain to the hiring manager everything that happened leading up to you earning that praise or that promotion or that raise.

Then, you want to talk about what you learned. As a good employee, you always want to be thinking about those experiences and what they taught you.

Lastly and most importantly, you’re going to talk about how you grew as a professional—how you’re going to take what you’ve learned and apply it going forward. This is going to demonstrate how employers like them could benefit from this added expertise that you’ve developed.

Step 3: Practice Your Delivery

Professional woman practices her answer to the interview question, "Tell me about a time you went above and beyond?" during a job interview

The third and final step is for you to practice your delivery. You do not want to walk in and wing it. It’s super important that, in addition to writing out your answers, you play them back to yourself.

What do I mean by that? Well, I suggest grabbing a mirror and talking out the answers, looking at yourself straight in the eye with a smile, or asking friends or family members to do a mock interview with you. Even recording yourself and playing it back on a video will do the trick.

Doing these things repeatedly is vitally important in job interview preparation, especially when it comes to answering a question like this. “Tell me about a time you went above and beyond,” can seem like a daunting interview question, but all you have to do is follow the three steps above to answer it effectively.

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This article was originally published at an earlier date.


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4 Easy Steps To Speed Up Your Job Search
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4 Easy Steps To Speed Up Your Job Search

I got an email yesterday from a client wanting to know if I had any job search tips. Unfortunately, he had been recently laid off and found himself on the job market. Talking to him got me thinking…What really makes a job search successful?

The bad news is that there isn’t a magic formula. The good news is that there are a number of very simple things you can do to improve your marketability.

Here are four easy steps to follow if you want to speed up your job search:

1. Update Your Resume As Soon As Possible

This might sound simple, but it is by far the most important (and first) step in a job search. You need to have your resume ready to roll at a moment’s notice.

The way I see it, there are two kinds of job seekers. There is the job seeker that draws confidence from being prepared and then there is the kind of job seeker that gets blindsided by the unexpected. I know which kind I’d rather be.

The best time to focus on your resume is when you don’t need it.

2. Figure Out Who Your Resume Is For

Man on laptop speeds up his job search by optimizing his resume

Is your resume for you or is it for prospective employers? The resume might have your info, experience, and accomplishments on it, but, ultimately, the documents that make it past the ATS not only have the right amount of keywords peppered throughout but also show, very clearly, what the applicant can do for the potential employer.

When writing your resume, always keep potential employers at the forefront of your mind. Make sure you quantify your experience, skills, and accomplishments. Give them a preview of the kind of positive impact you could have on their organization if they were to hire you.

3. Realize It’s Not About You

Woman on her laptop uses strategies to speed up her job search

Really. It’s not. The most successful job seekers understand that it’s about what you do for others, not about what they can do for you.

This is a fundamental idea that for some I hope turns the act of “networking” completely upside down. In every interaction, the most important thing is to demonstrate, “How can I help YOU?” It’s the folks who unselfishly look out for those around them who make opportunities happen. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

What connections can you help make? Ask open-ended questions. You may even choose to treat the conversation like an informational interview. What professional needs does the other party have and how can you fill them?

4. Determine Your Target

Man makes a phone call while looking for a job

This is such a simple concept, but it’s probably the biggest obstacle I see with many of my clients. You need to have a target. It is as easy as that. How can you expect to reach the goal of employment without aiming for a bullseye?

The first step is to clearly identify the job/profession/industry you are targeting. You may even have a company that you’ve always wanted to work at. (It’s always a good idea to have an interview bucket list—a list of companies you’re passionate about that you’d love to work for someday.)

Make sure that your goal aligns with your experience. Then (and only then) are you free to begin outlining a plan to achieve your goal.

Here’s an example:

I have an open door policy with my resume clients and I keep tabs on them throughout their job searches. Out of all the resumes and resume clients I’ve ever had, only one resume didn’t work. One. When I wrote the initial resume, my client was targeting retail sales positions. Then she called one day a couple of months into her job search wondering why she wasn’t getting any responses. I asked her to send me an example of the jobs she was applying for and guess what? All the online job applications she had filled out were for human resources positions. No wonder her resume didn’t work!
After rewriting her resume, she found work relatively quickly and it just goes to show how important it is to aim before you pull the trigger.

Know your audience, be proactive, and remember that it’s not about you. If you apply these things to your job search, you’ll be employed in no time!

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This article was originally published at an earlier date.