5 Ways To Pump Up Your Career Muscle - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

5 Ways To Pump Up Your Career Muscle - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Your career is organic. It is a living, virtually breathing organism that needs to be nourished and exercised. Without attentive, continual care, you cannot expect your career heartbeat to remain vibrant and strong. To prevent career malnourishment, consider applying these five activities to your daily routine: 1. Stop Weighing Down Conversations. Too many people, especially early in their career or in the throes of transition, want to be open to all opportunities and are unwilling to ‘limit’ their options. Therefore, they weigh down career conversations with non-nutritional messages that lead to flabby results. Forget that. Reign in your fear, and get absolutely focused on what you want and where you fit. Then, lean up your communications with well-honed, sharp content that lifts your career advancement to new levels. 2. Build Up a Value Proposition. This means, you must take the time to do the heavy intellectual lifting. Perform extensive introspectionâ€"in writingâ€"as to what your unique areas of value are and weave these into your resume, online profiles, emails, texts and networking orations, among other venues. Ensure you are intimately digesting your own value and that it pulsates throughout your career bloodstream. This will make the natural articulation of who you are, and why you are different from the next great candidate, possible. 3. Quit Being a Lightweight: Yes, you know who you are. You’re the one who takes the easy way out and copies your friend’s resume, thinking it really doesn’t matter anyway. It’s ‘just’ a resume, and you’ll tweak a few ‘responsibilities for’ and voila, you can move onto the next step, copying/pasting the resume into 50 job boards. Quit doing that. A strategic resume is like a personal training program, designed uniquely, from scratch, for you. It recognizes your weaknesses, and more importantly, your strengths, and builds upon those. It requires you implement a career design regimen that adds muscle to your word tissues and eliminates the fat. You create a strapping message that represents the strongest you. 4. Stop Crash Career Dieting. Too many times, people wait until they are fired, downsized or simply at their wit’s end with a current job to worry about career relationship nourishing. Do not wait until you are so famished and short on time (and money) to fuel up. The energy that may help bridge your transition to the next gig must be replenished regularly. The problem with crash career searching is that while initial results may feign the attributes of success, they usually are not sustainable. Real career health is something that you must tend to day in and day out. 5. Select a Few Relationships to Feed You. While the advent of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus and Pinterest has had many peoples’ heads spinning, and palates tempted to taste-test a bit of everything, be careful. Before you know it, your career conversation plate is so full, you don’t even enjoy or gain value from any one relationship. Most importantly, the value you are able to offer others is exponentially diminished every time you try to balance a new relationship atop an already very full career conversation plate. Limit your intake, and  concentrate on the meaningful, fueling relationships to create a more nutritious result! Author: Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter is a Glassdoor career and workplace expert, chief career writer and partner with CareerTrend, and is one of only 28 Master Resume Writers (MRW) globally. An intuitive researcher, she helps professionals unearth compelling career story details to help best present their unique experience, skillset and interests in resumes and other career positioning documents as well as through social media profiles. In addition to being interviewed for television and radio stories, Jacqui has written for the Career Management Alliance Connection monthly newsletter and blog, ExecuNet’s Career Smart Advisor, The Kansas City Star, The Business Journal and The Wall Street Journal. In addition, she and her husband, “Sailor Rob,” host a lively careers-focused blog over at http://careertrend.net/blog. Jacqui also is a power Twitter user listed on several Best People to Follow” lists for job seekers.

What You Need to Know About Your Employment Rights CareerMetis.com

What You Need to Know About Your Employment Rights â€" CareerMetis.com Photo Credit -pexels.comEmployment law or as it’s otherwise known, labor law, is a set of rights that workers and employers must adhere to. Although they do include protection for employers, their main aim is helping to keep workers safe and treated fairly.Together with employment law, other rules may also be written into an individual’s contract if they have one. The basic employment law is made under Federal Law with each state can add additional protection if they wish.‘At-Will’ PresumptionThere is a presumption in many states that employment relationships are at will. This means that both the employer and worker are free to terminate their relationship at any time. This is mainly the case with jobs that don’t have the added clauses of a contract.evalHowever, there are exceptions that protect employees from certain bad practices. For example, there is protection from discrimination, whistleblowing, or by having a compensation claim. There are also other exceptions that a court can use if it’s needed.ContractsIt can be very easy to simply sign a contract of employment without reading it fully. However, it is always important to do so for your own protection. If there were a problem, it would be difficult to resolve if there was a stipulation in your contract that you hadn’t read. This is apart from certain exceptions such as those for the ‘at will’ presumption.Your rights as a worker will also be set out in your contract, so this also needs to be checked to make sure you are getting a fair deal.One area that has become the subject of much discussion is social media. Some employers are now adding clauses in workers’ contracts regarding the use of social media. Many are prohibiting its use while in work hours, but some companies are becoming concerned with workers’ posts outside work.For example, someone who posts inappropriate material that the company feels is bad for their image may be subject to termination of their contract.Legal Help If you are dismissed and you feel it is unfair, you can engage an employment lawyer on your behalf. They will take a look at your contract if you have one, and decide on the best course of action. It must be noted, however, that you may not have a case for unfair dismissal if you have broken the terms of a contract.If you decide to hire employment lawyers, you need to make sure that they have the training to deal with your specific problem. Some lawyers specialize in a particular aspect of employment law such as sexual harassment or occupational health and safety. Finding the right lawyer may improve your chances of success.evalEmployment law covers many areas and has multiple layers. There is no harm in trying to understand your rights as an employee and using them if you are being treated unfairly. However, maintaining open and honest communication between you and your employer could solve many problems.

5 Tips to Ensuring Your Resume Produces Top Results - CareerAlley

5 Tips to Ensuring Your Resume Produces Top Results - CareerAlley We may receive compensation when you click on links to products from our partners. By Teena Rose, a highly endorsed, highly referred resume writer with Resume to Referral. You can reach her at (937) 325-2149 or via her website. Teena provides daily job alerts which many of her clients love! Also, act quickly to get a free copy of her book, Get Job Leads Fast Using Twitter A professionally written resume is an important component to any job search. The overall effectiveness of the document however depends on certain variables; such as how/how often the resume is used, the types of marketing/submission strategies, and the continued relevance of the resumes content. Concentrating on these important aspects (and others) ensures the resume will produce the all-important interviews that we strive for. You see the resume one way, but hiring managers see it differently. 1. Use your resume as it is geared not how you see it. You see the resume one way, but hiring managers see it differently. Its true. You quickly spot all the things that match the hiring companys job requirements, but all too often, hiring managers painstakingly look for those skills that you see so easily. For example, think about an experienced purchasing agent. Hiring managers will only see purchasing skills in the resume, unless the proper steps have been taken to gear the resume appropriately. Crossing over into another career is doable, but certainly a move that requires preparation from you and definitely for the resume as well. 2. Persistent actions, not blind submission. Taking a persistent and consistent approach to submitting your resume is one aspect of job search that few jobseekers take seriously not necessarily because of the inability to be assertive, but rather due to the large task at hand. Job searching can be exhaustive, and individuals tend to lose initiative after receiving any degree of rejection. Submitting one or two resumes every day or so allows the jobseeker to remain active in their search, yet allow enough time to focus on other aspects of their lives. Job searching can be exhaustive, and individuals tend to lose initiative after receiving any degree of rejection. Need tips for focusing your job-search efforts? Start by building a list of industry-specific employers that best match your skill set and current career focus. Avoid applying to anyone and everyone what some might call a spitball approach. Create a new list each week, submit your resume and introduction cover letter accordingly, and follow-up with each at some point over the next 5-8 business days to ensure receipt of your submission. By conducting follow-up, you put yourself on the phone with a company rep, which also enables you to answer any questions they may have about your skill set, resume, or whatever. 3. Add an eye-catching, action-provoking introduction to your resume. Marketing professionals will tell you that the best marketing material has a hook: something that will make the reader take action. Relative to job searching, a hook should cause the reader to call for an interview, or possibly discuss your candidacy further with a colleague. There is no clear definition of what a hook actually can or cannot be, but it should answer two or more of the following: (a) How is this candidate different from the others applying? (b) Does this candidates resume clearly outline and focus upon the companys requirements, rather than cloud this information with irrelevant content? (c) Does this candidate possess the educational requirements specified? (d) Does the candidate possess the minimum knowledge, skills, and abilities to satisfy the companys short- and long-term goals? 4. Your resume should be a key. Envision each available position as a door lock, and your resume as the key that allows you passage. The resume should be a certain shape and size for the first lock, but require modification or a completely new design for the next. No surprise, job roles vary from one company to the next, and are rarely identical. Some require a straightforward set of job duties, while other companies need their employees to wear many hats. Take a secretary, for example. The job responsibilities for a secretary vary tremendously. Modifying the top section of the resume is generally the only upkeep required to ensure the resume continuously fits the lock of the door youre trying to enter. Yet other modifications, such as rearrangement of categories/headers, replacing certain keywords or key phrases, and the restructuring of employment details, may be some of the additional changes that are needed. The idea is to continuously customize the resume to fit the employers point of entry. 5. Present your resume to your network both online and offline. Networking is still the tried-and-true king relevant to an effective job-search campaign. Today, however, job seekers are taking their campaigns online due to the ease of researching hiring companies, locating job openings using only 2 or 3 keywords in their favorite search engine, and resume submission. spitballing your efforts has proven time and time again to be a huge waste of time. Although establishing and building an online network can be time-consuming, spitballing your efforts has proven time and time again to be a huge waste of time. Experts believe jobseekers that dont leverage their networks ultimately spend extra time, effort, and resources to produce the same results that come from networking. Taking a serious approach to your job search campaign is mandatory to securing a favorable return from the resume. Avoiding some of the largest pitfalls that many job seekers fall into, will enable you to conduct a strategic and effective campaign thats designed to get a job in the least amount of time. This is a Guest post. If you would like to submit a guest post to CareerAlley, please follow these guest post guidelines. Good luck in your search. Joey Trebif

The Power of Gratitude in Your Career - Career Advice Blog for Millennials

The Power of Gratitude in Your Career - Career Advice Blog for Millennials Thanksgiving is here, and even though it may be laden with awkward conversation starters from relatives at the dinner table, it’s also a time to reflect on everything you’re grateful for. However, in the chaos of holiday preparations as well as the general bustle of our busy lives, the underlying theme of Thanksgiving â€" gratitude â€" can still get forgotten. If gratitude is missing from your daily routine, Thanksgiving is the perfect time to show your family members, friends and co-workers how much you appreciate all they do. Not only does a nice gesture make you and the other person feel good, but it also has many benefits you may never have thought of. Gratitude Improves Your Health That’s right. Gratitude might be the key to your health issues. Gratitude has been proven to improve people’s health, and there are many studies to illustrate this claim. One study done at the University of Connecticut found that a group of people who showed gratitude reported less health problems and a lower risk of heart attack than the group of people who didn’t show gratitude. Everyday stress that comes with life can be minimized when you are thankful for what you have; a little gratitude can help even big problems seem a little more manageable. Get Better Sleep Do you spend half of the night tossing and turning in your bed? Perhaps a little gratitude before you doze off can help you get better sleep. It’s been proven that both sleep quality and length improve among individuals who had positive cognition â€" thoughts of gratitude and thankfulness â€" before going to bed. Good things do happen every day. It just can be difficult to take notice of them when your mind is usually occupied with the stresses of work or your social life. Take a few minutes each night to reflect on the positive things that took place that day, and you will see an improvement in how well you sleep. Boosts Your Happiness You can become a much happier person when you let gratitude into your life. There are many ways gratitude can make you happier â€" so the studies say. In one study, a group of people wrote down what they were grateful for each day for ten weeks. At the end of the exercise, they reported feeling more positive and more content with their lives. Gratitude can help boost your self-esteem and improve your well-being because acknowledging what you do have instead of what you don’t breeds positivity. Those positive emotions eventually spill over into all areas of your life. Gratitude can also improve your relationships with other people. There is no better way to get closer to someone than to tell them how much you appreciate them. This can be helpful when trying to improve your personal relationships, as well as those in the workplace. Demonstrating Gratitude in the Workplace Gratitude goes a long way, no matter where you are. Here are some ways to show gratitude to your co-workers: Talk to that person. This might seem so simple, and that’s because it is. In today’s modern technological world full of texting and email, we rarely speak face-to-face with people â€" unless you count something like Skype or FaceTime. While these digital methods of communication are very convenient, nothing beats the social interaction of actually physically talking to someone in person. Thanksgiving is an ideal time to pull someone aside and tell them much you appreciate their work. You don’t have to give a twenty-minute speech to show your appreciation, either. People in the workplace sometimes aren’t sure if their work is useful to the company, so giving them a quick compliment can go a long way in your relationship with that person. Write a handwritten letter. A handwritten letter does wonders for showing gratitude. A letter is something tangible that someone can keep and look back on when they’re having a bad day. There is something special about receiving a physical note that is personalized to you. Just the concept of you writing the letter lets the other person know you appreciate them because otherwise you wouldn’t have taken the time to do it. When you go this route, be sure the note is handwritten. Typing may convey what you’re wanting to say, but a typed letter often doesn’t have the impact a handwritten note does. Tell your boss. If a co-worker helped you out with something, let your boss know about it. Don’t make a big scene and announce this person’s good deeds in a meeting. You could embarrass the person by putting them on the spot, and it might seem like you want attention for pointing out what this person did. The most gracious thing that you can do is to be humble. Go to your boss and let them know what the other person has done for you. Your boss may also provide kudos to that person and perhaps share what you said about their accomplishment. Do something thoughtful. While everything so far are thoughtful actions, sometimes you can go the extra mile to show your appreciation. Maybe there is something special one of your co-workers enjoys. Perhaps there is a common interest you share and discuss with them. A small gift related to these things can improve your relationship. It’ll show them you listen to them and care about their interests.   Gratitude isn’t just for Thanksgiving â€" use it to fuel your career today and every day!   Happy Thanksgiving!!

Tips For Writing a Selling Resume

Tips For Writing a Selling ResumeWriting a selling resume is one of the most important skills that you can acquire in order to be successful in today's job market. If you're struggling to find the right job or you need a new career, having a strong resume that proves your skills and talents are critical. You never know what kind of employment opportunities may pop up around the corner, so having a strong selling resume is an asset that will help you move up the ladder quickly. The following are five tips for writing a selling resume that will be sure to land you that job of your dreams.o Let your resume speak for itself - It's the first impression that you make on a prospective employer that counts. One of the best ways to do this is to build a resume that is cohesive and stands out from other resumes that are already on the market. Don't get bogged down by too many different aspects of your skills and accomplishments. Instead, focus on the main points of your skills and let the othe r details fall into place naturally. In other words, don't put all your accomplishments on the front of your resume, but give them some weight when they are mentioned.o Find out what the vacancy is for and tailor your resume to fit the vacancy - You're more likely to get the best position if you're able to fit your skills and experiences into the requirements of the opening that you're applying for. Although there are job openings available, it's not uncommon for employers to view resumes as one-sided or incomplete. By telling potential employers how they'll benefit from hiring you, you're adding more than just a piece of paper to your portfolio. By properly exploring your personal strengths and skills, you're ensuring that you'll be a better match for any opening that you apply for.o Be sure to include skills related to the vacancy - It may be tempting to put all of your skills and achievements on the front of your resume, but if you don't include related skills, you'll only frustr ate yourself. For example, if you are applying for a sales job, you should list your sales experience first before mentioning your technical skills, expertise in sales, etc. In addition, be sure to also list the skills and achievements that will enable you to provide the key selling points for the job.o Include your leadership ability - Every employer needs a good leader, so it's important to include those skills that you bring to the table. You'll be pleasantly surprised at how many employers require an executive candidate who can effectively lead and motivate others. In other words, if you have executive level skills, consider including them on your resume.o Socialize - Don't think that a resume can be complete without a few social dates. Besides, you never know when you'll need to demonstrate that you're friendly, outgoing, or charming to land a great job. In fact, be sure to add your social skills and interests to your resume. For example, if you enjoy teaching English as a seco nd language, it's important to list that on your resume.If you follow these tips for writing a selling resume, you'll be well on your way to landing the job that you've always wanted. With so many job openings available, it's important to set yourself apart from the competition so that you stand out among the other applicants.

How to Keep Your Job Search a Secret

How to Keep Your Job Search a Secret We’ve all been there, gainfully employed but daydreaming about the next thing. It’s a tricky situation. A successful job search requires time, attention, and balanceâ€"scarce resources for the average worker. To avoid burning bridges, you’ll need to look for another job without raising a red flag at your current one. If you’re employed and looking, here are some stealth moves that will help you make a smooth exit. Be Prepared Jot down a list of contributions you’ve made at your company so you’ll know how to sell yourself to prospective employers. Then research what has changed in your field during your tenure. Skim online job postings for positions similar to yoursâ€"if multiple ads ask for a certain skill or certification, you’ll probably need to add that to your arsenal. “Before you start looking for new employment, take stock of what you have to offer prospective employers,” advises career coach Cheryl Palmer. Update your résumé and social profiles ASAP, and covertly reach out to your network. Keep It Incognito As you start to tap your connections, be careful not to spill any dirt on your current employerâ€"especially if your company isn’t doing so well. “It’s wise to limit how much you share,” says Dele Lowman Smith, founder and CEO of Atlanta-based Bold Move Consulting. “It’s enough to say you’re ready for a change or new challenges.” You’ll also want to avoid feeding the rumor mill at your current gig, so be low-key about your plans to leave. If you can, schedule interviews after work hours as not to tip anyone off. Update your LinkedIn profile, but don’t advertise that you’re seeking a new job while you’re still employed. Don’t Make the Same Mistake Twice The last thing you want is to join another employer that’s not right for you. Spend some time planning your next move and researching prospective companies and industries. “Just as an investor has to take a step back and say, “Where do I see the market going?” you should be doing that for your career as well,” says Claire Bissot, managing director of CBIZ HR services. Know How to Spin It Even if your company is tanking or if the management is a disaster, refrain from talking unfavorably about it to a hiring manager. Never bash an employer.

How To Get What You Want Out Of Your Professional Life - Work It Daily

How To Get What You Want Out Of Your Professional Life - Work It Daily You live at the most exciting of times: the dawn of a new era when change and opportunity are constant in professional life. If you're truly committed to working towards your goals, you can develop the strategies and tactics that will deliver a meaningful and fulfilled life â€" you can learn to live life on your terms. Related: 10 Reasons Happy People Get More Job Opportunities But no matter what you have been told, living in an era of change also means a successful career no longer comes with the purchase of your degree. Getting what you want out of life demands you take responsibility for your professional destiny now. Achieving success takes time and it's already later than you think. With some help from these tips, you'll know how to get what you want out of your professional life. The Facts Of Professional Life You're likely to change jobs about every four years for the span of what will be a half-century worklife. In that time, you will quite possibly experience three or more distinct careers. So, in reality, your future is going to be full of unexpected twists and turns that will require some pretty savvy navigation skills. Don’t Drink The Kool-Aid You know people who drank the Kool-Aid of job security in return for blind loyalty, and you can see where it got them. Persist in believing that loyalty will be rewarded with job security and you will be an employer’s ideal pawn. Then one day you’ll look back on a career that was just a series of jobs that kept you psychologically shackled to a string of employers who greedily chewed you up and happily spat you out. You need to replace outdated ideas with a commitment to a new philosophy of professional success: enlightened self-interest an approach that puts you and your long-term economic survival at the center of your career plans. The Wisdom Of Self-Interest If you want learn to get what you want out of life, start to think of yourself and the professional skills that define who you are as a professional commodity. Then think of this commodity as an economic entity, as MeInc: a corporation that, like any other, must operate solely in the best interests of its long-term economic success. When you make the management of your career a more business-like proposition you dramatically improve your odds of living life on your own terms. MeInc, The Engine Of Your Success As MeInc, you need products and services that evolve to meet the changing needs of your customers. So just as a company has departments you’ll have ongoing initiatives to consistently meet the changing needs of your target market and keep your company profitable. You’ll need initiatives for: 1. Product Research Development To keep your skills in sync with market demands. 2. Strategic Planning To develop strategies and tactics for professional growth and diversification. 3. Accounting Finance To invest in the tools that will deliver your emancipation. 4. Marketing Communications To establish a credible, desirable and most importantly, a discoverable brand. To survive and succeed over the span of a long worklife, MeInc must consistently develop, differentiate and sell these skills to a constantly changing customer base: employers who hire the current manifestation of the professional commodity that is you. Life’s Most Critical Survival And Success Skills You know just how hard it is to find a job and the statistics say that you might well have suffer through 12 or more job and career changes over the years, so how come no one ever told you at school or at college that successful careers don’t happen by accident? Looked at objectively, you can recognize that life’s most critical survival and success skills are career management skills. This includes resume creation, networking, job search, interview and negotiation skills, making a job secure, winning promotions, and strategizing job and career changes. These are the skills that will allow you to live life on your own terms by seeing the professional world more clearly and making strategic career moves on your timetable. Make Your Life Shine Professional success is determined by your ability to set a course and navigate the twists and turns along the way. It's determined by your ability to survive and evolve in response to change, and it’s determined by calendars not clocks. But life also has a way of whizzing past while you watch “reality shows” instead â€" it's always later than you think. To make your dreams come true, start living those dreams today byinvesting yourself fully in the activities that will make Me, Inc. successful and help you get what you want out of life. Related Posts 7 Vital Habits Of The Successful Professional Want Career Happiness? Identify Your Top 5 Desires In Pursuit Of Happiness: Love What You Do Photo Credit: Shutterstock Have you joined our career growth club?Join Us Today!