Where to Get Career Advice

November 28th, 2007 by Steve in Career | 1 Comment »

There are many places to get career advice. A short list might include the following:

• Family members
• Career services office at your school
• Friends

As a last resort, if your career seems stuck, you may want to consider a professional career counselor. Be prepared to pay several hundred dollars or more for this option, though. But by all means, don’t even consider Allen & Associates (that’s another story).

All of these options (at least the first three, anyway) are sensible, appropriate, and reasonable. However, I would consider these to be only part of the process. While it’s true that you should draw upon the expertise of those at a career services office, as well as the experience of friends and family, your greatest help can actually come from yourself.

Here’s what I mean. Let’s say you register with your school’s career services office. You take a SIGI test and use the career interest and aptitude tools they have available. You also consult with friends and family about what you want to do. After doing all this, you have a direction to head towards.

That’s great, but it’s not complete. No matter what profession you choose, there are perks and pitfalls that you can’t possibly discover without doing additional research.

In my case, I once thought that being a respiratory therapist would be a great career. I had helped care for someone who was mostly bedridden, due to emphysema, asthma, and bronchitis. The problem was that when I actually went on a pre-interview tour to see what a therapist’s duties include, I was shocked to discover that you had to help people expectorate. Couldn’t handle it—this career path ended abruptly.

Now, what if I had gone ahead and signed up for courses, made plans to relocate to attend another college, etc.? I’d be in big trouble. The pre-interview glimpse of the job up close was invaluable in preventing a career disaster.

So, if you want to be a cop, doctor, lawyer, butcher, baker, or candlestick maker, first learn everything you can about the job. Then, find out how you can see these people work. Have a list of questions to ask, to make sure this is the right way for you to go. This is some of the best career advice you’re likely to get.

No Tags

Share This

  The Pros and Cons of Independent Contractor Jobs

November 26th, 2007 by Steve in Contract Work | No Comments »

Have you ever thought about working as an independent contractor? How do you know if it’s right for you?

To sort this out, we’ll need to look at the pros and cons—and they’re pretty easy to discern. Here goes.

Pro: You can often set your own hours

This is nice. If you’re editing a large document, for example, you might have several days in which to complete it. During this time, you can create my own schedule, and make appointments or take care of personal matters (such as laundry or paying bills) whenever works best for you. With a 9–5 job, you’ve always got a problem with making appointments with doctors, dentists, or window replacement outfits, since they normally keep the same hours as you.

Con: No guaranteed salary

Yeah, this one can really be a bummer. You might make several hundred dollars in one day or next to nothing in a two-week period. It is so unpredictable.

Con: No benefits

If you’re looking for healthcare, 401K, stock options, or the like, you’d better forget about independent contractor jobs. Take the corporate or union route if these things are important to you.

Pro: Beef up your resume with this kind of experience

This can be huge. If you’re having trouble landing a full-time, permanent position, it may be because you don’t have enough of the right experience. Here’s your chance to get just that.

Pro: Work from anywhere with a computer

Okay, granted—this doesn’t apply to all independent contractor jobs, only those in which you use a computer. Note the need for speed, too, as dial-up won’t cut it if you’re doing this sort of thing professionally.

In sum, this career path is fraught with uncertainty, but it can help you gain good experience—and sometimes a very nice income. It doesn’t have to be your final career path, but rather as an important—and sometimes well-paying—stepping stone. It’s all up to you.

Tag:

Share This

  When Starting a New Job

November 23rd, 2007 by Steve in Career, Office Etiquettte | No Comments »

There are many things to consider when beginning a new job. First of all, even if you are working at a similar company and doing the same type of work as at your last job, there are bound to be many differences.

For starters, the people will be different. The relationships you may have built at your previous job are not with the people who will now be your coworkers. New relationships will have to be created, and that inevitably takes a certain amount of time and effort.

Another key difference is that no two companies do everything exactly the same. Policies and procedures will inevitably differ between organizations. Getting used to the way your new employer does things might take…well, some getting used to.

One of the best pieces of advice I can think of is to remember to be friendly and focused (or is that two pieces of advice?). Sure, it can be intimidating to jump into a new environment, especially if your coworkers are less than gregarious. But choosing to be positive and considerate will go a long way in most workplaces.

As for being focused, it’s vital. If you’re not focused, you won’t do your job well. And if that’s the case, no matter how friendly you may be, you’re not going to be very popular when other people have to pick up your slack.

The rules for doing well at a new job, then, are pretty straightforward. Start and continue with a good attitude; treat people well; learn the new way to do things ASAP; and be focused and do a good job.

Tags: ,

Share This

  Some Considerations about Retail Jobs

November 21st, 2007 by Steve in Career | No Comments »

Retail can be a great career. Like all careers, however, it’s not for everyone. There are certain things to consider before embarking on a retail path, and we will now look at a few of them.

Physical requirements
Retail = standing. Lots of it, especially if you’re in any kind of cashier capacity. There’s also the likelihood of bending, lifting, and lots of walking on very hard floors. It’s not for everyone. If you have any physical problem that would prevent you from standing for 30+ hours per week, lifting 20 lbs. (perhaps more) or walking a couple of miles a day on a rock-hard surface, retail’s not for you.

Mental requirements
To do retail well, you’ve got to be sharp. We customers are not always perfectly articulate about what we want, and it’s up to the brilliant and caring folks at the store to help us get what we came there for.

There’s also a need for basic mathematical skills—even if you’re just finishing up a 12-hour OT shift. Retail jobs require an endless array of basic math applications.

People skills
The be-all and end-all of retail. To say that “the customer is always right” doesn’t cut it anymore. Now it’s more like, “the customer must be coddled, pampered, and catered to as much as possible, without actually walking up to them and giving away products for free.”

In short, you’d better be extremely customer-focused if you’re considering retail. If not, you’ll quickly get a reputation as “unfriendly” or “unhelpful,” a label that might not have applied to your standard of behavior in years gone by. But my, how much we expect these days…

Retail jobs can offer a tangible upward path to management, sometimes in a hurry—provided, of course, that you meet all of the above requirements. A bachelor’s degree is helpful, but not required—people skills are the most important requirement. All the other stuff can pretty much be learned as you increase your skills at the store.

Oh, one other thing. Please note that retail jobs can radically alter the structure in your life. Don’t be surprised if you’re asked to work overtime, swing shifts (including overnight), and—if you want to get into management—you should know that you won’t stay at the same store forever.

Tag:

Share This

  Thanksgiving and Job Searching

November 20th, 2007 by heather in Job Search | 1 Comment »

Let Thanksgiving Inspire Your Job Search

By Joe Turner

Who doesn’t love Thanksgiving? Lots of good food and no need to shop for presents. It’s a day of turkey dinners, family gatherings and reflection; a holiday with deep roots dating back to 1621. Thanksgiving is a favorite holiday, our time to focus on everything for which we’re grateful.

Especially while job hunting, Thanksgiving is about seeing the good in our lives and feeling appreciation despite outer circumstances or conditions. Our happiness isn’t about how much stuff we’ve accumulated. Rather, it’s about feeling grateful for who, what and where we are right now. It’s about gratitude for how far we’ve come, what we do and for the challenges we’ve worked through.

Gratitude and the Law of Attraction
Gratitude is critical to the success of our job search. According to Rhonda Byrne, author of The Secret, we attract what we think about and concentrate on through the universal Law of Attraction. When we focus on our cup being half full, we attract more abundance and prosperity. This includes job opportunities.

Conversely, when we think that job hunting is hard, and focus on the jobs we didn’t get offered, we attract more rejection and disappointment. It’s been said that, “Attitude is everything.”  That’s especially true in job search. Although we may not control anything outside of ourselves, we are in control of what we think, feel and do.

This Thanksgiving, why not try these 4 simple gratitude steps to improve your job search?

1)    Start a Gratitude Journal
Oprah Winfrey has credited her success in part to keeping a gratitude journal, logging in at least five items each night for which she’s grateful. This shifts your energy. “What we think about and thank about, we bring about”, according to Dr. John Demartini, The Secret. Adopt an “attitude of gratitude” and start writing down five items each day for which you are grateful. This gets easier after a few days and soon it starts to shift your mindset from lack to prosperity.

2)    Focus on Prosperity
Jack Canfield, co-author of the series of books, Chicken Soup for the Soul, suggests focusing on prosperity and abundance. Focus on inner joy, peace, vision, and the outer things appear naturally. “Your voice and vision on the inside”, he adds, “must be louder than the noise outside.”

3)    Visualize Without Limits
Joe Vitale, also featured in The Secret, suggests closing your eyes in the morning and visualizing what you want without limits. Then focus on what you’re grateful for. He mentally reviews a gratitude list in the shower. He then releases all of this to the Universe, while breathing deeply. Canfield adds that, “Energy flows where attention goes”.

4)    Be Grateful When a Job Falls Through
This may sound strange at first. However, when you pursue job opportunities, always leave the Universe the option to deliver the “right” job to you. It’s important to acknowledge that you don’t know which exact job is best for you. Be grateful when a certain job opportunity falls through, and always detach from a specific outcome. When job opportunities fall apart, the job wasn’t right for you. Who knows why? No matter. Surrender to the Universe, knowing that the best job for you, will come to you at the right time.

Summary
The wise give thanks for what most of us take for granted. Spend a few quiet moments during this Thanksgiving holiday to try some of these simple, yet powerful steps. These steps, based on gratitude and the Law of Attraction, will not only help move you toward the right job for you at the right time, they’ll also enrich your Thanksgiving weekend and last well beyond the turkey leftovers.

As a recruiter, Joe Turner has spent the past 15 years finding and placing top candidates in some of the best jobs of their careers.  Author of Job Search Secrets Unlocked, Joe has interviewed on radio talk shows and offers free insider job search secrets at: http://www.jobchangesecrets.com

No Tags

Share This

  Three Resume Tips

November 19th, 2007 by Steve in Resumes | 1 Comment »

What are the three most important resume tips? In my view, they are…

1. Target your objective. You need to make sure that your career objective matches as closely as possible with the position for which you hope to be hired.

A lot of people miss this by using (and not really modifying) one resume for every job. To do so, of course, their objective statement has to be pretty vague and all-encompassing.

But what will the hiring manager think upon reading such a resume? He or she will have a very clear set of parameters to use that will help narrow down the field. So, if the job title or description is x and you send out a resume that says you want y—or if you say that you want anything from q to z, this means you are not perfectly equal to x. And anything not perfectly equal to x equals an excuse to toss your resume, thus narrowing down the field, which is a big part of the hiring manager’s job.

2. Target your skills. You might have 400 skills. If so, congratulations. However, the job description lists 8 specific skills that will be needed to perform the job you’re trying to get.

Here’s an example. You are applying to a job for Marketing Coordinator. The required skills include MS Word and Publisher, Quark, customer service experience, et al.

Now, let’s say you’ve got all these, and they’re on your resume, but you also chose to include the following indispensable skills, along with the other 397 you happen to possess:

• Sanitation
• Fast food
• I can tear a phone book in half

It’s just possible that the hiring manager will only read the first 10 or 15 skills, not see the ones related to the job in question, and move on to the next resume.

3. Target your experience. This really requires skill, and a resume expert may be required. As much as possible, you should only highlight the areas of work experience relevant to the job you’re trying for.

So remember the three most important resume tips: target, target, target.

No Tags

Share This

  Do You Need a Human Resume Maker?

November 16th, 2007 by Steve in Resumes | No Comments »

For some time, there has been various software available to create resumes, business plans, and other written materials. These products tend to be inexpensive, but the big question is, Do they work?

You should assess whether computer-based resume makers work by whether they produce the intended result—i.e., getting you an interview. Unfortunately, it is often the case that such products are often unable to deliver. There is simply no substitute for the very human qualities of instinct and artful wording.

That said, a resume maker may still work for you, depending on what type of job you’re looking for. A software program can adequately put together a resume that would be appropriate and would probably be better than doing it yourself. Just avoiding typos and having a nice format can make such software a good investment.

However, if you’re in certain professional industries, such as writing or the arts, it will be very difficult for any software to convey what you do and why it’s important to you. For that, you’ll need a professional resume writer.

So, depending on the type of job you’re after, a non-human resume maker may be helpful. But remember, there is still nothing that can substitute for the human touch. All software, like all the computers that use them, is utterly brainless.

Interested in a top-notch resume creator? Click to read about The Amazing Resume Creator.

Tags: ,

Share This

  Sales Jobs: Then and Now

November 14th, 2007 by Steve in Career | No Comments »

Fuller Brush Man! Is this the image you conjure up when the idea of sales jobs comes to mind? Hopefully not. The days of door-to-door are now largely relegated to that same nostalgic arena that also houses baseball’s baggy pants era, very heavy cars that have been compared to large frogs, and a distinctly American rugged individualism.But what about today? What do modern sales jobs require? Not surprisingly, some things have stayed the same. The most important concept is that of convincing people that they have a need, which only your company’s product or service can best meet.

One thing that has changed, however, is the approach. Consumers are much more sophisticated than they were 50—or even 20—years ago. We have seen sophisticated marketing strategies before, in nearly every possible permutation. Today’s consumer expects to be made to feel important, and expects to receive added value, bonuses, and special treatment. This is quite different from the old days, when such efforts would more easily win people over.

Still, it’s all about people. In any sales job, if you are unable to connect with people, you’re pretty much finished. True, some products sell themselves, but then people can always get your product from a different provider.

In short, what has changed are the techniques, although many fundamentals remain the same. Generally, here’s what’s different these days:

• Consumers usually have an attitude of entitlement—don’t expect to automatically impress them.
• People are seriously time-starved; it is important that you take note of this in your approach.
• We live in an era of jaded consumers who really don’t need anything else. This means that you may have a tougher job persuading them to buy something, when their house is probably already cluttered with things they don’t need or even use.

With this in mind, you need to be sharp, focused, and know your product inside-out. Showing up with an active mind, positive outlook (without being obnoxious), and genuine desire to help people can take you a long way. If your product is any good at all, you should then do well.

Tag:

Share This

  Why Take a Job as a Teacher?

November 13th, 2007 by Steve in Career | No Comments »

I remember when I was getting my bachelor’s degree in English. One of the most frustrating things to me was that when I told people my major, their nearly universal response was, “Oh, so you’re going to be a teacher?” Well, no, actually, I was not planning to be a teacher.

The problem was that I was skilled in writing, editing, and proofreading, and I loved to read. But teaching? Just wasn’t my thing—or so I thought.

As it turns out, I’ve been teaching online courses for the past three years. Not exactly a teaching career, but nevertheless something enjoyable and of value (and it helps pay the bills).

So, why should someone not wanting to teach end up having a go at teaching? I would say it comes down to supplemental income, experience in interpersonal interaction (even if it’s online), and a chance to be exposed to an educational environment, which is very different from a corporate setting.

There’s another reason, however, which is less quantifiable, but not less significant. Namely, it is the opportunity to be a positive influence on others. Now, you can do that anywhere (and should). But to be a positive role model to those who have come somewhere with the specific intention of learning and preparing for life is commendable indeed.

With this in mind, I would recommend that anyone who has real-world experience and enjoys helping others should consider an adjunct faculty role at a local institution of higher learning. Please note that only a bachelor’s degree is required to teach many courses, particularly at community colleges.

Part-time teaching: This could be your way to give back, be involved, and even add a nice touch to your resume.

Tag:

Share This

  Jobs in Florida

November 9th, 2007 by Steve in Career, Job Search | No Comments »

WANTED: Gator handler. No experience necessary, must have insurance.

When you hear “jobs in Florida,” do you think something like this? Well, granted, there probably are jobs like that available, but those are not all that’s out there. In fact, there are tons of opportunities in the Sunshine State.

In addition to jobs you’ll find everywhere else—accountant, HR manager, journalist, bellhop, and car detailer—there are certain jobs in Florida that you won’t find just anywhere. Take a look at some of these:

• Spa Coordinator
• Sous chef
• Disneyland jobs!
• Cruise line personnel
• Spring Break resort manager

Do all these jobs really exist? I think so. If not, the point still stands that each state offers its own unique opportunities and has its own unique problems. To illustrate this, let’s compare Florida to New York.

Consider, for example, the issue of state taxes. If you’re an engineer, for example, you might make $80K in New York. Sounds good until you figure in the excessive taxes. But if you’re in Florida, you don’t have any state taxes. Even if you’re making several thousand dollars less per year, it could still be more economical to try Florida.

That said, New York doesn’t get a lot of hurricanes. Also, the population of unruly indigents is probably greater in Florida, although New York attracts a wide range of people, not all of them productive and law-abiding. And if you’re not fond of the Bush family, you might prefer to wait for Jeb to retire before moving to the state he now governs.

How do you know, then, if a job in Florida is right for you? If you already live there, it probably is. If not, then do your homework, but not just about the job. Consider carefully all the other factors involved in living in this or any other state before taking the leap.
 

Tag:

Share This

← Previous Entries
Next Entries →