How To Organize Your Job Search (2) Target Companies

How To Organize Your Job Search (2) Target Companies Yesterday I talked about organizing and managing information around your network contacts. Today we talk about target companies, which of course is the second main position on the menu within JibberJobber: I didnt think about target companies at all when I started my job search.  I collected names of companies as I applied, and heard about them, but I didnt know how to strategically incorporate them into my job search. Know I realize I needed to do two critical things with target companies (but this was not, perhaps, the most important thing about target companies, which Ill talk about below): Keep track of any important and relevant news with the target companies. I want to know CURRENT events stuff that is happening now with the company.  Wouldnt it be important to know some of this stuff if you were talking about the company, or interviewing with the company?  Perhaps this makes you out to be a quasi-stalker, but it is better to know than to get caught off-guard, especially if its something that everyone in the industry should know. Network into the company. When you have a target company, and you meet someone who works there, you start to network into the company.  Perhaps you ask them who you should talk to and get an introduction to the next right person who might lead you deeper into the company, or closer to your key contact. Those two things are really important, of course, but I think there is something even more important than that. I think it is critical to be able to recite 2 or 3 or 4 target company names when you are talking to someone who can help you in your job search. How do you know if they can, or want to, help you? Simple they ask this question: Hows your job search going? Your response should NOT be fine.  That is not a good response. Your response should be: Its going okay Im trying to get an introduction into a few companies do you know anyone who works at [Target Company A], [Target Company B], or [Target Company C]? I dont care if you change A, B and C to J, K, F or X, Y, Z, as often as you like.  But the key is to be able to give that person MORE, and REAL, information so they can start to really think about how they can help you. Target companies is key!  Track them, organize them, network into them and be able to recite a few of them at the right time.  If you are actively networking, youll have multiple right times throughout the day. How To Organize Your Job Search (2) Target Companies Yesterday I talked about organizing and managing information around your network contacts. Today we talk about target companies, which of course is the second main position on the menu within JibberJobber: I didnt think about target companies at all when I started my job search.  I collected names of companies as I applied, and heard about them, but I didnt know how to strategically incorporate them into my job search. Know I realize I needed to do two critical things with target companies (but this was not, perhaps, the most important thing about target companies, which Ill talk about below): Keep track of any important and relevant news with the target companies. I want to know CURRENT events stuff that is happening now with the company.  Wouldnt it be important to know some of this stuff if you were talking about the company, or interviewing with the company?  Perhaps this makes you out to be a quasi-stalker, but it is better to know than to get caught off-guard, especially if its something that everyone in the industry should know. Network into the company. When you have a target company, and you meet someone who works there, you start to network into the company.  Perhaps you ask them who you should talk to and get an introduction to the next right person who might lead you deeper into the company, or closer to your key contact. Those two things are really important, of course, but I think there is something even more important than that. I think it is critical to be able to recite 2 or 3 or 4 target company names when you are talking to someone who can help you in your job search. How do you know if they can, or want to, help you? Simple they ask this question: Hows your job search going? Your response should NOT be fine.  That is not a good response. Your response should be: Its going okay Im trying to get an introduction into a few companies do you know anyone who works at [Target Company A], [Target Company B], or [Target Company C]? I dont care if you change A, B and C to J, K, F or X, Y, Z, as often as you like.  But the key is to be able to give that person MORE, and REAL, information so they can start to really think about how they can help you. Target companies is key!  Track them, organize them, network into them and be able to recite a few of them at the right time.  If you are actively networking, youll have multiple right times throughout the day.

Writing Experience For Resume - What Is Writing Experience?

Writing Experience For Resume - What Is Writing Experience?If you are a recent college graduate and are thinking about including writing experience in your resume, then you need to understand the differences between a resume and a thesis statement. Before you decide to write a thesis statement for your resume, you should learn all about what a resume is and how it is used by the hiring managers of top corporations around the country.A resume is a formal document that outlines your educational history. It is used by businesses as a sort of personality profile. You will not be considered for a job unless you have a well-written and compelling resume.The purpose of a resume is to serve as a formal document of sorts, a way for prospective employers to get to know you and your skills before actually hiring you. It is not intended to be read 'just so people can read it.' In fact, it should be put together professionally, listing all your education, accomplishments, skills, and training tha t will make you an effective employee.Of course, it is not all about what you know, but what you have learned and applied from your previous jobs. By putting your writing experience paragraphs for resume together, you will show that you can write and that you have learned from previous experiences.Your resume is meant to summarize what you have accomplished in various skills areas and also to highlight your abilities to succeed in a specific career field. So, the formatting for your resume should follow a pattern of sections that can be called thesis statements or broad statements. There are many ways to format a thesis statement that will provide your prospective employer with enough information about you to properly assess your fit for the position.You can outline your education and describe how those courses helped prepare you for a specific job in the first and most important areas. This part of your resume shows what you have already done. You may want to use the term 'cover le tter' instead of 'resume' to describe this portion of your resume.In your second paragraph, you should explain why you are currently employed in the first place. Here, you can use skills that you have learned in order to demonstrate how you are currently doing in your current job. Again, you may want to use the term 'cover letter' instead of 'resume' to describe this part of your resume. You should also list any prior job references you have provided in the third paragraph.In your last paragraph, you should include the most important factor in your resume: your passion for your work. By explaining why you chose this job and why you would like to do more of it, you have answered the basic question on your resume. In addition, this final section of your resume serves as a 'cover letter' for your prospective employer.

Do What You Love An Inspiring Real Life Story - Classy Career Girl

Do What You Love An Inspiring Real Life Story You are kind of fabulous. I get it â€" I used to be pretty fabulous myself. I had a great job, I worked hard, and I spent a LOT of money on shoes, vacations, and makeup. See â€" I was fabulous. I wasn’t happy in my career even though from the outside it looked great: Great company, great co-workers, great salary, and great promotions that led to me having some great titles. Being fabulous is exhausting. So, to distract myself I spent a lot of time being fabulous. I thought that the price I paid (career happiness) would be manageable if I could just distract myself enough. So, I went to South Africa (twice). And traveled around Italy (and took hilarious “I’m fabulous!” photos. See above). I bought highly impractical Prada shoes. I hiked the Inca Trail. I tried amazing restaurants. I paid an insane amount of money for makeup in pretty packaging. And yet …. Underneath all of that fabulousness was a pretty unhappy person. All of that travel and makeup and fashion was a like a band-aid on a pretty gaping wound â€" the knowledge that I was capable of something extraordinary, but instead I was settling for mediocrity. And the truth was â€" none of it, the travel, the makeup, the fashion, was going to make me happy. What I really needed to do was spend less time on vacation, and more time on my career. Time spent not worrying about what I thought should do, but instead thinking about what I WANTED to do. What kind of work was going to be truly meaningful for me? But that was hard, because it meant admitting that *maybe* I wasn’t quite as fabulous as I had thought. And, I’d have to face down some tough fears â€" like what if I couldn’t figure it out? Or, what if this was as good as it gets? (Note: It’s not. Being unhappy in your career is NEVER as good as it gets). It was scary (what’s next for me? What if I fail?). Humbling (wow, that idea didn’t work out, and I really have a lot of bad ideas). It was scary (what’s next for me? What if I fail?). Humbling (wow, that idea didn’t work out, and I really have a lot of bad ideas). Terrifying (am I really going to do THIS?) and pretty darn wonderful (wow, I LOVE THIS). I finally learned the good news: You can be fabulous in different way entirely. You can be fabulous and do what you love at the same time. (Need help with that? Here’s a free challenge to get you over the fabulous thing and into the right career: Click here).   For me, it started when I began to reallocate my travel budget to investing in my career. I spent time signing up for interesting programs, researching careers on google and in person, and spending time and money going to inspiring conferences and learning new skills. The most impactful part of the investment actually cost me very little money: Google and talking to people to get real information. I took what I learned and explored some options. And slowly I started to figure a few things out â€" things like what I really wanted to do with myself (help people), how I wanted to do it (by being my own boss), and what it takes (just taking action…even when it’s terrifying). So, all of my research and investment lead me years ago to get on the path that I walk today â€" which is a pretty amazing and successful career as a career coach. Ultimately, I get to help other people find what makes them happy. And you know what? It’s even more fabulous than I ever expected! (And no, I can’t believe I used the word fabulous this many times in an article. But, I think you get my point). For you â€" what will you do to refocus some of what makes you amazing into making your CAREER amazing? If you need some help with that, join our free New Year, New Career 7-Day Challenge right over here. Seven days of free career coaching? You BET!

New research reveals some new ways to buy happiness, sort of

New research reveals some new ways to buy happiness, sort of It turns out that money actually can buy happiness, but not a lot of it. At some point, well under $100,000, the happiness value of a dollar starts to plummet, according to Richard Easterlin, economics professor at University of Southern California. This is because social interactions impact happiness more than money does. But heres a new way to look at the money and happiness equation, from a new study by Nattavudh Powdthavee of the University of London: If you make sure to see a friend or relative in person almost every day, that is like increasing your salary by $180,000 a year. However buying incremental happiness with a six-figure income is very costly. For example, Powdthavee says if you are going to relocate from a city where your family and friends live to a city where you have no family or friends, you would need to earn $133,000 just to make up for the lack of happiness you feel from being far from those people. Powdthavee drives home the importance of making a conscious choice about your time when he writes, Since it normally requires both time and effort to achieve either higher income or a stable social relationship with someone, the weight attached to each individuals investment decision thus depends upon the type of possession â€" money or friendship â€" that he or she believes will yield a larger impact on happiness than the other. Its great that Powdthavee does the money vs. relationship math for us, because as humans we are absolutely terrible at predicting what will make us happy and maybe shouldnt even bother. For one thing, we are all likely to tell ourselves were happy, whatever we are doing, in order to justify what were doing. This is a fine predisposition for maintaining our sanity, but its not a great attitude to have if you are trying to figure out how to change your life to be happier. Our judgment about our own happiness is so bad that Andrew Oswald, economist at the Warwick University has written a paper that to calls for researchers to stop drawing conclusions based on asking people if they are happy. So I recommend believing that the research is right and your personal predictions are wrong. But the caveat with all this money research is that when we ditch our relatives to take a high paying job, were not actually interested in the money, per se. Its something else. In a study where people make decisions about sharing money, Harvard University economist Terry Bernham showed that when it comes to money, we dont strive for some idea we have of what is enough but rather to have a little more than our friends. The Economist describes Burnhams study and reports, What people really strive for is relative rather than absolute prosperity. And this is likely to be particularly true in individuals with high testosterone levels. The Economist concludes that this is totally rational behavior, because while more money has not been shown to get more sex, more money does buy the social status to have more choices for sex partners. So money isnt an end in itself, but social status is, whether we like it our not, because it has been our means to preserve our DNA. This explains the study that blogger Gautam Ghosh quotes showing that someone who is a gatekeeper for a hospital can be happier in their work than a doctor based on their perceived contribution to the community. And it also explains the drive to forgo a big salary to make art: If your art hangs in the Guggenheim, you get your choice of girls to go home with, even if your home is sort of shoddy. So what can we do? 1. Recognize that you should make relationships your top priority. Really. Most of us say we do this, but many of us could not actually point to a time when we took a big hit in the money department just so we could preserve regular date night with our significant other. 2.Admit its an uphill battle to care less about social standing. But its worth it. The more you care about where you stand in relation to others, the less happy youll be. Social standing can take so many forms. Instead of patting yourself on the back for not buying a McMansion, be honest about the fact that you didnt want one anyway. Understand how you measure your social rank, and try to tame it. For my part, I tell myself that if I check compete.com fewer times a week, Ill be a happier person. (Maybe true. But look, I still linked to it.) 3. Trust the research when you are faced with a tough decision. Yes, all research is like diet research one decade cheese is bad, next decade cheese is good. But just because the research is not perfect doesnt mean you should go off and do whatever your gut tells you. Your gut tells you pizza is great and so is grilled cheese. But duh, it isnt. And your gut tells you that you will be happier with a little more money, and you could relocate from family if you make sure to visit a lot. But you know what? Duh. You know the truth. Hat tip: Senia Maymin

Why You Should Get a Genius App

Why You Should Get a Genius AppEveryone should get a Genius App. There are several great reasons why this will help you. If you really want to build a better life, this is the way to go. This eBook is about the smart thing you can do to make your life better.Most people only think about the obstacles in their life and how they can overcome them. This is a problem. You need to think about how you can make your life better and find ways to do so.The real problems in life usually aren't problems at all. You may not know exactly what they are but you will know they are there. That is where the Genius App can help you.You need to know exactly what is going on in your life. That's where you need to use the Genius App. When you have the App open, you will get all of the information that you need.There are many different types of problems and needs that you can encounter. This eBook is for everyone. You will learn all about what it takes to get through your life and get where you want to be. Using the Genius App can help you solve all sorts of problems. It will help you with your money and health care. You will also learn about financial success and all that comes with it. Everything you need to succeed in life will be laid out for you.This eBook will help you make it. You will see the results in no time. When you are ready to start taking back control of your life, you will learn how to get started now.When you really want to use the Genius App, you will see all of the time and energy you need to do so. This eBook will give you the tools to build a better life. You will be able to move past all of the obstacles in your life and get to where you want to be.

Is It The Right Time To Get Into Nursing - Margaret Buj - Interview Coach

Is It The Right Time To Get Into Nursing When we think of starting a career, or switching into a new line of work, there are always a key number of considerations to take on board. For instance, we need to think about if the line of work we want to get into is realistic for us (if youre unfit, you wont get into the military, for example), we need to think about the finances available, and our route throughout the career. Its not as easy as choosing some food off the menu (and that can be quite difficult on occasion). Choosing a career is a big choice, and there is always a lot to consider. Sometimes, you need to take on board some political considerations. The National Health Service has long been used as a political football in the political landscape in the United Kingdom. Some parties are fighting for it and increased funding; others accuse it of being bloated and in need of mass privatisation. The real truth lies somewhere in between, but because of the to-and-fro between parties about the NHS, it has led to a lot being put off of healthcare work. Under the current government, it certainly doesnt look like the NHS isnt getting the help it needs. If you look around, youll find a lot of news about underpaid and fed-up healthcare workers. This is unfortunate. However, it should not be enough to put you off nursing as a career path. Being a nurse doesnt just limit you to one role in one place and the time put in gaining experience in the nursing line of work can be helpful to your future While the NHS is in a poor state according to some, a nursing job isnt just based in the National Health Service. Nurses can find work in care homes and in the military. Check out some of the best nursing jobs available to get you started. If you want to be a nurse, you are sure to find some work if you put your time into learning the trade. Whats more, it is a line of work that could enable you to move abroad and work in different countries. Is it the right time to get into Nursing? In a sense, yes. There are still clear routes into work as a nurse, and if you dont make your decision now, these routes could close. If the current Government stays in power, it does look like those routes might be closed off for good in favour of other options, which changes things up. Is the work hard? Yes, it is, but its a good public service that is needed and nurses are needed, with plenty of open roles waiting to be snapped up. However, the experience gained as a nurse is invaluable and can be used in roles across the globe. This is not a pigeon-holed and limited career path, but one with huge options, however, youll need to earn your stripes, and if you do not get involved in nursing, you wont be able to do that.

The top 5 new rules of productivity - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

The top 5 new rules of productivity - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog We all want to increase productivity and get more done with our working hours. Theres just one problem: Most peoples view of productivity comes from the?industrial age. This leads to some fundamental misconceptions about work, including these: If you work more hours, you get more work done. Adding more people to a project?means you can finish sooner. Productivity is more or less constant and can be reliably predicted and?scheduled. For knowledge workers, i.e. anyone who works with information rather than physically producing stuff, these beliefs?are not only wrong, theyre actively harmful. So here is my suggestion for 5 new rules of productivity for knowledge workers. 1: Productivity varies wildly from day to day. This is normal. In an industrial setting, production and output can be planned in advance barring accidents or equipment failure. Basically you know that if the plant operates for X hours tomorrow youll produce Y widgets. For knowledge workers you cant possibly know in advance whether tomorrow will be a day where you: Reach a brilliant insight that saves you and your team weeks of work. Work tirelessly and productively for 12 hours. Or the day where you: Spend 8 hours gazing dejectedly into your screen. Introduce a mistake that will take days to find and fix. This variation is normal if a little frustrating. It also means that you shouldnt judge your productivity by the output on any given day but rather by your average productivity over many days. I have never seen this more clearly than when I was writing my first book. Some days Id sit myself down in front of my laptop and find myself unable to string two words together. Some mornings I banged out most of a chapter in a few hours. Writing is a creative process. I can do it when I?m in the mood. Trying to write when I?m not, is a frustrating exercise in futility. On the days where I couldnt write, Id go do something else. Probably wakeboarding :) The result: I wrote the book in record time (a couple of months all told), the book turned out really well AND I enjoyed the writing process immensely. Three things you can do about this: Dont make project plans based only on your maximum productivity days. Not every day will be like that. Base your schedules on your average productivity. Dont beat yourself up on the low-productivity days. Its normal, its part of the flow and these days have value too. I like to think that on these days, my subconscious mind is working on some really hairy complicated problem for which the solution will suddenly appear fully formed in my mind. If you do have a day where you get very little done, why not go home early and relax or get some private chores done? 2: Working more hours means getting less done Whenever we fall behind, its tempting to start working overtime to catch up. Dont! Instead, commit this graph to memory: It comes from this excellent presentation on productivity. Read it! Heres another data point: In 1991, a client asked me to conduct a study on the effects of work hours on productivity and errors? My findings were quite simply that mistakes and errors rose by about 10% after an eight-hour day and 28% after a 10-hour day? I also found that productivity decreased by half after the eighth hour of work. In other words, half of all overtime costs were wasted since it was taking twice as long to complete projects. After the study was done, a concerted effort was made to increase staffing. (Source) This may be counter-intuitive but its important to grasp: For knowledge workers there is no simple relationship between hours worked and output! Three things you can do about this: Dont work permanent overtime. In fact, some studies indicate that knowledge workers are the most productive when they work 35 hours a week. Take breaks during the work day and make sure to take vacations. Experiment to find out what schedule works best for you. Five eight-hour days? Four longer days and a long weekend? 3: Working harder means getting less done In an industrial environment, you can most often work harder and get more done. An increase in effort means an increase in productivity. For knowledge workers, the opposite is true. You cant force creativity, eloquence, good writing, clear thinking or fast learning in fact, working harder tends to create the opposite effect and you achieve much less. Three things you can do about this: Take the pressure off yourself and your team. Even if you make a mistake or miss?a deadline the world probably isnt going to end. Less pressure means higher productivity. Schedule a work load equivalent to only 80% of your work week. Trust me, you wont be wasting your remaining 20% but you will be more relaxed and more creative. In the words of Fred Gratzon: If it feels like work, youre doing it wrong. If you find that most of what you do is a struggle, this is a sure sign that you are not at your most creative and productive. 4: Procrastination can be good for you In an industrial setting, any time away from the production line is unproductive time therefore all procrastination is bad. Search for procrastination on google and you?ll find a massive number of articles on how to stop procrastinating and get stuff done. They will tell you that there is only one reliable way to get stuff done: Check todo-list for next item Complete item no matter what it is Go to step 1 They?ll tell you that if only you had enough willpower, backbone, self-control and discipline, this is how you would work too. Well guess what: Knowledge workers don?t work that way. Sometimes you?re in the mood for task X and doing X is ridiculously easy and a lot of fun. Sometimes doing X feels worse than walking barefoot over burning-hot, acid-covered, broken glass and forcing yourself to do it anyway is a frustrating exercise in futility. Sometimes procrastinating is exactly the right thing to do at a particular moment. This is largely ignored by the procrastination-is-a-sign-of-weakness, the-devil-finds-work-for-idle-hands crowd. Three things you can do about this: Procrastinate without guilt. Do not beat yourself up for procrastinating. Everybody does it once in a while. It doesn?t make you a lazy bastard or a bad person. If you leave a task for later, but spend all your time obsessing about the task you?re not doing, it does nothing good for you. Take responsibility, so that when you choose to procrastinate, you make sure to update your deadlines and commitments. Let people know, that your project will not be finished on time and give them a new deadline. Remember that Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted (according to John Lennon). 5: Happiness is the ultimate productivity enhancer The single most efficient way to increase your productivity is to be happy at work. No system, tool or methodology in the world can beat the productivity boost you get from really, really enjoying your work. I?m not knocking all the traditional productivity advice out there ? it?s not that it?s bad or deficient. It?s just that when you apply it in a job that basically doesn?t make you happy, you?re trying to fix something at a surface level when the problem goes much deeper. Three things you can do about this: Get happy in the job you have. There are many things you can do to improve your work situation ? provided you choose to do something, rather than wait for someone else to come along and do it for you. Remember to appreciate what is already good about your job. Often we forget, and overfocus on all the annoyances, problems and jerks. This is a natural tendency called negativity bias, but it also tends to keep us unhappy because we forget what works. If all else fails, find a new job where you can be happy. If your current job is not fixable, don?t wait ? move on now! The upshot The industrial age view of productivity has serious limitations when applied to knowledge workers but it remains the dominant view and still informs much of our thinking and many of our choices at work. Lets change this! This is not without its challenges. The old view of productivity may no longer apply, but it does give managers an illusion of control and predictability. The new rules are messy. Less predictable. They rely less on charts and graphs and more on how people feel on any given day. It ultimately comes down to this: Do we want to stick with a model that is comforting and predictable but wrong or are we ready to face what REALLY works? Your take What about you? When are you the most productive? What is your optimal number of working hours per week? What stimulates or destroys your productivity? Please write a comment, Id love to know your take. Related posts How to procrastinate effectively. Dont let The Cult of Overwork ruin your work life. 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