YOU Own Your Career, No-one Else!

YOU Own Your Career, No-one Else! Many people are advised that they should look for a company that ‘provides a career’. Often I hear candidates say they want to leave a job, because their current employer is not ‘looking after my career’. Sure, it’s important to work for a company where you can thrive, but you must above all understand this: The person who will always care most about your career is you! The biggest mistake you can make in your work life is leave your career to your employer, or anyone else. You have to work at your career goal, plan it, and drive it where you want it to go. You don’t outsource your career! Please understand that just having the qualifications is not enough anymore. Gone are the days where ‘getting the right degree will set up your career’. A degree just gets you the chance to get on the field, not win the game. Ponder this. Success in your career will never be just a matter of qualifications or skills. It will always be a matter of motivation. No one is going to serve you a career on a silver platter. Your career will be what you make it. No more, no less. And so, as clichéd as it sounds, the starting point is to find what you like doing. A career without passion and enthusiasm will have no meaning, no joy, and little hope of long-term success. Indeed, does your career goal keep you awake at night? If not, maybe you need to start to worry. You have 30 more years at work, and trust me on this. No one else is having sleepless nights about what happens to your career. So that means no one is steering your career ship. You ok with that?

Valuable Information About Resume Writing Workshops

Valuable Information About Resume Writing WorkshopsHave you ever attended a resume writing workshop in Dallas Texas? In order to get an idea of what you'll need to bring with you when you attend a resume writing workshop, I thought I'd take a look at what you'll need to bring.You're going to want to bring a notepad, pen, and some form of formal attire that you can wear. However, it's perfectly acceptable to bring your jeans or slacks. If you need to use the restroom, bring along your passport or other government-issued ID.Some of the benefits of attending a resume writing workshop in Dallas Texas include getting feedback from a panel of trained professional professionals and developing a winning plan for your job search. A professional event planner is also available to guide you through the process and provide further guidance.Another benefit of attending a resume writing workshop in Dallas Texas is being able to meet many like-minded individuals and being able to network with them. Networking can be one of the most powerful tools to use for your job search, so making the effort to attend a resume writing workshop in Dallas Texas will help you make the most of your networking efforts.No matter where you go for your resume writing workshop in Dallas Texas, you'll find it to be a valuable experience. Because this is your first time, you'll learn a lot about the requirements and guidelines for submitting a job application. You'll learn how to answer the questions asked by the hiring manager, including things like, 'What skills do you have that will be advantageous to this company?'While attending a resume writing workshop in Dallas Texas is great for understanding the basic aspects of getting a job, the skills you learn at the workshop won't necessarily transfer to your actual job. You'still need to be creative, articulate, and smart when applying for a job. A professional workshop is good for providing you with the tools and resources you need to get a new job.H owever, it's even more important that you apply the learning skills you learn during the workshop to your resume. Otherwise, you'll be wasting your time and effort.When looking for a resume writing workshop in Dallas Texas, consider meeting with a professional resume writing service to find out about their rates and what kinds of services they offer. They can give you valuable information about a professional workshop that will help you get that new job.

10 LinkedIn Tips to Kick-start Your Job Search

10 LinkedIn Tips to Kick-start Your Job Search LinkedIn brands itself as the social network for professionals and a lot of people do use it successfully for sharing information and news about their companies or discussing key issues in their industry. But what can LinkedIn do for the jobseeking professional? Many of us are not as clued in to all of LinkedIns different features as we might be. However, its worth getting to know this social network better as it has a surprising number of tools for helping your job search. Here are ten ways in which we can use LinkedIn in our pursuit for the right career. 1. Check out the jobs section LinkedIn does actually have a dedicated jobs section. Employers post vacancies in the hope that a savvy jobseeker like you will come across them and turn out to be the ideal candidate. Click on the Jobs tab at the top of the homepage and youll be taken to a keyword search box as well as a list of suggested vacancies based on what your profile says. 2. Complete your profile The more complete your LinkedIn profile is, the more jobs LinkedIn will be able to suggest for you. A complete profile obviously also appeals to people viewing it, as the reason theyre looking at it is to find out as much as they can about you. When a potential employer looks at your profile, theyll be forming an opinion based on your tag line, summary box, and specialities. Your experience and education will most probably be important to them too, but you have more freedom in how you word those first three fields mentioned, so make the most of them. Also, right at the bottom theres a field where you can put what youre interested in. This basically means you get to say what youre on LinkedIn for and what people can approach you with. If youre on LinkedIn to boost your job search, dont be shy, select career opportunities! 3. Join Groups Youll get more traffic to your profile if people know you exist. One of the best ways to maintain a visible presence on LinkedIn is to join groups and take part in their discussions. If you join several groups in your chosen career field, chances are you will keep coming across a few people who are also in all those groups. People build up a rapport by contributing to one anothers discussions in their shared groups. You can even start discussions asking for advice related to your job search, such as recommendations for good vocational courses. 4. Get Connected Once youre more familiar with people who share your interests or specialities, youll find yourself with more Connections. Connections are to LinkedIn what Friends are to Facebook and Followers are to Twitter. You can invite people to become a Connection and be invited yourself. Dont wait to be invited though-if you believe someone could be beneficial to you, would genuinely like to connect with them on a deeper level, or just find them really interesting, send that invitation out. A major advantage of being connected to someone is that you can message them for free instead of having to pay for an upgrade to InMail. 5. Get the Messages out Why is the ability to send messages so important? Many LinkedIn Members dont have their email addresses on their public profile, so unless you know someone personally anyway, you have no way to contact them privately other than through the Messages function. Whether you message Connections to ask outright if they know of any job openings, to tap them for information on their organisation, or to arrange a voluntary/shadow placement, do it in the right way. Be clear about why youre contacting them and what youre asking for. Ask them if theres anything *they* need help with. Ive contacted several Connections in this way and theyve been all too happy to help me every time. 6. Take part in the QA Another function that helps you meet people and turn them into Connections is the QA. Here you can ask the whole LinkedIn community questions on almost anything, provided the topic loosely fits in with one of the designated categories. Again, asking questions is useful for getting information and advice on a particular job role, organisation or industry. Its not the quantity of answers that you get but the quality. Ive asked questions and only gotten one answer, but because that answer was useful to me, I went away happy. Just as important is answering questions. Its another way of drawing peoples attention to you and your profile. And if you answer questions on your chosen specialties, potential employers get to see your knowledge and experience in action. 7. Share updates Yes, LinkedIn, like every other social network, has the dreaded status update feature. Use it to your advantage by keeping your Connections up to date with your voluntary work, skills building or networking activities. This lets employers know that youre being active and creative in your job search-showing them your enthusiasm and commitment in targeting the right role. 8. Recommendations People dont just have to take your word for it, though. The Recommendations feature  allows people whove worked together in an organisation or on a project to endorse one another. Each recommendation only has to be 2 or 3 lines: sometimes Ms. Jobseeker is a very competent accountant and very easy to work with. She went out of her way to assist me is enough to help a potential employer or client build up their picture of you. How do you get Recommendations? Ask! On your profile page, click on the Get Recommended link and fill in the form it takes you to. Again, dont be shy-if the features there, you might as well use it! 9. Find events to go to As useful as social networking can be, you dont have to deprive yourself of offline networking. In fact, LinkedIn can even help you find events to attend, as thats yet another thing Members are able to post about. On the home page, roll your pointer over the More tab and select Events from the drop down menu. In Events Home, you can then see which events your Connections are attending or interested in and you can also view the most popular events on the whole of LinkedIn. Click on the Find Events tab for a keyword search filtered by date, location and type. Its a very handy way to quickly find local events connected to your specialities or chosen industry. 10. Explore the other applications There are even more LinkedIn applications that could be of use to you. By getting to the Applications Directory through the More drop down menu, youll see that you can connect your blog and Twitter updates to LinkedIn; share a personalised Amazon reading list, content and presentations; and create polls. Put simply, these are all ways to inform people about yourself and/or gather information for your job search. This is by no means an exhaustive list of all the ways a jobseeker can use LinkedIn. As with all online platforms, its both fun and helpful to play around with it for a bit, using these tips to lay the foundations. Once youve found other ways to make LinkedIn work for you, be sure to let us in on the secret! In fact, you probably already have a few tips of your own, so feel free to share them with us. Nisa Chitakasem is the founder of  Position Ignition  â€" a careers company dedicated to taking you to the next step in your career. Nisa is passionate about helping individuals find the right career path for them whether it involves finding a more rewarding career, making a career change, figuring out the right career plan or being creative about career directions.

You Would Expect Executives to Know - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

You Would Expect Executives to Know - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career In America, people are generally very busyâ€"especially higher-upsâ€"and many of them are good at what they’re doing. You might expect they’d continue being good at it even after losing their jobsâ€"that is, in terms of finding the next assignment. But as a career coach who deals with them daily, I find that my expectations are by far not met. Many of the job seekers I coach remind me of the overused expression “deer in the headlights.” They seem to be caught off guard and can’t or don’t know how to take the next step. This despite the fact that while working, they were making ongoing major decisions all the time. It is just amazing! Many of them react (mistakenly) to their intuition. They’re not taking into consideration, though, that the business world has changed significantly and that the competition for openings is unprecedented. Many start out with old-style résumés, and it takes them weeks if not months to realize that such résumés no longer work to get them hired the way they did in the past. Today, only outstanding résumés are generating employers’ reactions. The business connections today’s job seekers used to feel good about have fizzled out because those job seekers are no longer decision makers, and the authority and power they once wielded have disappeared with the loss of their jobs. The American job market is changing. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says that in America, 120 million employees work for 8 million employers. Lots of jobs, right? Well, 60% of all of those employers have fewer than 10 employees each. But new jobs are being created all the time: 32% are new ones, and 68% are replacement jobs for employees who died, moved, got promoted, or retired. Approximately 40% of job openings are filled by selecting from internal candidates. On top of all that, some jobs just plain fade away, while others are being newly created. Technological innovations change job demands; and skills that were very useful in the past have migrated to different sets of skills, yet people are not prepared for the situation. For example, in the future there will be great demand for management analysts and medical secretaries, while file clerk and payroll clerk jobs will diminish in demand. In the fields of science and engineering, we will see decreased demand for mechanical and electrical engineers, while the need for network system administrators and network system analysts will grow rapidly. All of those changes will require retooling not only of employees’ and job seekers’ skills but also in the education and selection of job candidates. Most people I talk to indicate they’re looking for jobs at large companies. The companies with 500 or more employees employ only 19% of the workforce. Better job-landing chances lie with the 26% of companies that employ 100 to 499 employees. And the best chances are at the 55% with fewer than 100 employees. It’s clear that in today’s job market, finding a suitable job is extremely challenging. The guidance I provide for my clients is based on several principles. Create an outstanding résumé. Develop a doable and achievable job search plan. Network ad infinitum, since 60 to 80% of job placements result from connections. Practice answering interview questions with someoneâ€"preferably a professional career coach. Learn the tools of social media, and use them to your advantage. Be dedicated and relentless about the job search. There are very few miracles happening nowadays in this regard. When all is said and done, most people will find jobs. When, where, and in what capacities still remain, unfortunately, unanswered.

Resume Writing and What Company to List If Worked Through an Agency

Resume Writing and What Company to List If Worked Through an AgencyThere are many ways to boost your resume writing and what company to list if working through an agency. It may take a little bit of effort to get through all the necessary documents and make it in time for submission, but the results can be well worth it. Here are some of the more common things that need to be done to prepare a fresh resume for the company you want to work with.First, you will need to understand the types of information you are submitting. This should include things like your skill set, experience, education, as well as any letters of recommendation. Once you have gathered all this information, you will need to write out your resume in a word processing program and then send it to the company that you want to work with. They will review your resume and if they agree to work with you they will get back to you to give you a quote for employment.The last thing you need to do is to find the right employer company to work with. It could be in the form of a recruiter, a human resource department, or even an agent on your behalf. Your best bet will be to find a company that offers a competitive, yet affordable pay rate to work with.You should find a recruiter that has a website that will help you find the employer company. Also, make sure that you contact them directly before you submit your resume to be sure that they understand what you are looking for and what is expected of you. When you speak with the recruiter, you should also ask them about the way the company will handle job boards and websites for resumes.Your first step is to go online and start creating a resume. You should create a page that will be set up as a letter of interest, an employment letter, a cover letter, and the cover letter itself. The cover letter should outline everything you need to know in a concise manner, including why you think you are the best candidate for the position you are seeking.After you have your resume set up, you will need to work with the employer company to see if you can get any new information or forms completed prior to applying for a position. They may offer to help you out and fill out any paperwork needed for you to complete. If they do not offer to help you, you should still send in your resume, but you should make sure that the employer company will help you in any way possible.As you can see, the process of applying through an agency can be much easier and more efficient than trying to do it yourself. Companies that offer these services are generally more experienced and can do more for you than you would if you tried to do everything yourself. That being said, you still need to be prepared to submit your resume and send it in for consideration by the company you want to work with. You should be able to get a personal interview through these companies, so be prepared to give them everything you have to offer.By now you should be able to work with resume wri ting and what company to list if working through an agency to help you on your way to getting hired. You should be able to get this information in a matter of minutes. By working with a company like this, you will save yourself a lot of time and make the entire process much faster.

Are These Things Limiting Your Career Progression - Margaret Buj - Interview Coach

Are These Things Limiting Your Career Progression Are you stuck in a career standstill? Many of us are, but there are usually ways to progress up the career ladder and into more fulfilling and better-paid job roles. However, there are often limiting factors to our progression, and some of them are detailed below. Are any of them true to your situation? #1: Your boss is blocking your attempts If you keep getting passed over for promotion, then you need to do one of three things. The first is to speak to your employer. There may be good reasons why you havent been promoted yet, and they should be able to tell you why. If they offer you good advice, do what needs to be done to improve your chances next time. Secondly, and especially if you feel you are being discriminated against, speak to your human resources department. You have the right to take action against your boss if you feel he/she is holding you back without a good reason, as there are labour laws that need to be adhered to. Your final option is to quit your job and move into a company that will actively support you with your career progression. Speak to anybody you know working in your profession and ask them for advice and recommendations. #2: Your behaviour at work As we alluded to above, there may be reasons why you havent been promoted yet, and it could be down to your behaviour. If you turn up late for work on a regular basis, wear inappropriate and unprofessional dress, turn in poor work, and act irresponsibly around your colleagues, then you are never going to get promoted. You need to arrive to work in good time, wear the appropriate dress, do the best work that you possibly can, and act as a positive role model to your coworkers. Improve your behaviour, and you will improve your progression chances. #3: You are not taking steps to help yourself Putting the onus on you again, think about what you need to do to progress in your career. Are there people you need to network with, such as those high up in your company who could give you advice and guidance? Attend business meetings, make those phone calls, and knock on the appropriate office doors. Do you need to take extra qualifications to move into better positions? Some courses, such as this family dnp for those in the nursing profession, can be taken online, and your workplace might help you finance such courses if it benefits them as well as you. Do you need to research the opportunities within your career? Too many of us fail to progress because we dont know what is available to us, so go online and research career ladders for your profession and then plan a course of action. By taking steps to help yourself, you will start to progress further. Finally Have we hit the proverbial nail on the head with regards to your career progression, or lack of it? If so, consider our advice and do what needs to be done if you are intent on climbing further in your profession. A better salary, new responsibilities, and perhaps a deeper sense of fulfilment awaits you if you do.

How Far Would You Go to Find the Right Contact for a Job

How Far Would You Go to Find the Right Contact for a Job Last night I had one of those moments that every mother dreads. It was three hours past the time my teenage daughter was expected home and she wasnt answering her cell phone which appeared to be off. Shes a pretty responsible girl, so I was concerned to say the least. The fact that I had recently written a post about a sex offender that lives nine blocks from my house probably wasnt helping me feel more secure about her tardiness.So I did what any neurotic mother would do. I reached out to everyone I could think of to figure out where she might be. And heres what I realized. If you really need to find someone, now more than ever, you have the resources to quickly create a web of contacts to get the information you need. I made some phone calls to the parents of her friends, but I simultaneously had my son instant messaging her friends who were online. At the same time, I worked through the one teenage friend both my daughter and I share on Facebook to get the name of a girl who I tho ught might know her whereabouts and messaged her on Facebook even though we are not friends. Through these efforts, I started to piece together a time line of when she got off the school bus and where her location might be. Within minutes, kids were texting my daughter checking to see if she was ok.After about 45 minutes of craziness, my daughter walked in the door and told me where she had been (with a student uptown who is tutoring her in math) and that her phone battery was dead. And while she claims she told me about her evening plans this morning, my aging and overloaded brain has no recollection of this conversation. Of course now Ive completely embarrassed her with my over-the-top sleuthing capabilities, but in retrospect, I wouldnt have done anything differently if confronted with the situation again.I think there is a great lesson here for job seekers. If it is truely important to you to find a certain contact that will help move your job search forward or give you key info rmation you need, you will do it. You will think creatively about who knows who and who will be willing to advocate for you and your candidacy. Because its that important to you and you wont stop searching until you have the information you need.