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Archive for the ‘Blog’ Category

Impressing the Boss: What You Need to Know (Including When to Say No)

Wednesday, August 18th, 2010

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It’s always wise to impress your boss, but in the current job market, it’s more critical than ever. You want to demonstrate your value to the company, but does that mean saying yes to everything? There’s an important distinction between currying favor and making a positive impression. The following suggestions will help you raise your ‘company profile’ and be respected in the workplace – by your boss and other employees.

Be Yourself, But Be Your Best Self. Let your true self shine through, but exercise restraint. A job is not the place to reveal confidences, air your grievances, or indulge your temper. You can be friendly, warm, and have fun without losing your professionalism.
Represent Your Company Well. Whether you’re meeting with a customer, attending a professional meeting or representing your boss at a conference, how you present yourself reflects on your company. Your boss should be able to trust your good judgment and feel comfortable letting you be the company’s public face.
Find Out What’s Important To Your Boss And Make It Important To You. Every employer has pet peeves and it’s in your best interest to find out how to avoid them. For some bosses, it’s coming in late, for others it’s having a messy desk. Yes, there are plenty of more important things to worry about, but overlook these and, come promotion time, your boss may overlook you.
Participate. Come to meetings prepared and be ready to offer opinions or solutions when issues are raised. Ask questions. Act interested and involved. You’re not being paid to warm the seat, you’re there to help the company reach its goals.
Know Your Priorities And Ask If You Don’t. You have deadlines to meet, numbers to make, and projects to complete. Make sure you know what’s expected of you, and when, and where on your boss’ priority scale each task falls. If your boss adds more work than you can handle, make a list of all your responsibilities for the day, week and month, and ask your boss to clarify for you in what order to tackle each one. Your boss may not realize how much you have on your plate. Explain that to give each task the attention it deserves, you can’t take on anymore until you cross a few things off your list. Offer to let your boss know as soon as you can take on more responsibilities. If that’s never, discuss your workload with your boss.
When You Approach Your Boss With A Problem, Offer A Solution. While you shouldn’t run to your boss with every little thing, going to him or her with significant issues is just common sense. Bosses like to be kept in the loop, but don’t just dump the problem in his/her court; be prepared to offer solutions, too.
Go The Extra Mile To Get The Job Done. Every job requires some late nights or a Saturday at work, so if it comes up occasionally, show that you have the company’s interests at heart. At the same time, don’t let overtime become the norm. Discuss with your boss how the workload can be divided up to be done during normal business hours.
Be Honest, With A Touch Of Diplomacy. When asked for your opinion, give it. You’ll only be considered trustworthy if you’re honest. But how you couch your response is at least as important as what you say. Think strategically about how to convey your opinion without giving offense.
Share Information. Don’t leave your boss in the dark. No one can make a good decision without enough, or the right kind, of information.
Be A Team Player. Employers value employees who can work together to get jobs done. Think like the boss, but work like a friend.

Lisa Kendricks writes for Medical Assistant Schools. You can look for a medical assistant job description that’s right for you.

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Beef up your email signature

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

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Check your email signature and online presence.

You’re on the hunt for your dream job, you’re making progress, and you’re doing most of it on the Internet…

…But are you taking advantage of your e-mail signature?

If you’re looking for a new job, chances are you’re sending lots of emails – to prospective employers, recruiters, contacts, and acquaintances – and every email you send is a golden opportunity to get yourself noticed.

In addition to providing basic information like your full name, title, and contact information, your email signature is the perfect place to distinguish yourself among the pack of jobseekers and promote your unique attributes.

- Do you have a slogan or tagline that expresses your value to an employer? Make one up.

- Do you have a professional website or online resume and portfolio? Be sure to include the link.

Here is a good example of what your email signature might look like:

John Q. Public
Senior Marketing Manager
“Linking Real Results with Cost-Cutting Marketing Strategies for Upstart Companies”
johnqpublic@xxxx.net
415-555-5079
www.MyOnlineCareerSpace.com/johnqpublic

The goal here is to make it ridiculously easy for people to learn about you. Often, making this simple change to how you conduct your online job search will boost the # of responses you receive, so don’t be shy…

Use your email signature to sell yourself and you’ll be happy you did!

This is just one of the 100′s of tips, techniques and how-to’s in a new eBook called “The Ultimate Online Job Search eBook”. For more about the job search and career development process, including mistakes to avoid on resumes, the most important interview questions, appropriate interview attire and creating your online presence head over to the store and get The Ultimate Online Job Search eBook today!

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Posted in Blog, Job Search, Online Career Space, Social Media | 4 Comments »

Blogging can help or hurt your career

Monday, February 8th, 2010

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What you put online, will be read.

Blogging can help or hurt your career

Blogging has become an impulsive contemporary art for careerists. Should you develop your own blog or shouldn’t you? Will it help or hurt your career?

What’s easy can be fun or dangerous. In a matter of minutes, you can set up your Blogger, WordPress, Typepad or related blog site. And the minute you post? Your words can be accessed by billions of people around the world. No Web designer needs to be hired. No technical guru at x dollars an hour has to listen to and potentially kill your ideas. You own this medium. You have freedom. You can say or cite anything. There’s no waste of time and no need to white-board everyone else’s ideas.

How it can help:

1. You have an audience. Keep it positive. Blogging may add to the company’s brand and your position as an authority or subject matter expert within your company or your field so take note of what you put on the internet.

2. Maintain a positive spin. Drive customer confidence. As you cite critical sources and make intelligent, important observations, your personal blog augments your position within your company and promotes your company. You never bash your company. You can be yourself and be authentic.

Get a raise and a promotion. Defend the faith. Blogging helps you document and publish your ideas while associating with great people.

How blogs can hurt:

1. Negative posts can be fatal. Blogging can open you up for many legal, liability and employment questions, problems or crises.

2. Pictures tell a thousand stories. For an example “Larry” seemed to pipe up at work a lot about things that bothered him. So he decided to publish a seemingly anonymous blog. As a techy he posted hundreds of comments on political ideas, named people he thought should be impeached and railed against what he considered bad taste and fashion. He did this anonymously under a lot of different names. But when he decided to take pictures at the year-end Christmas party and publish captions that offended nearly everyone, he was, well, suspended without pay forever (fired).

3. Beautiful art can be destroyed. Knowing that having no blog presence can leave a company vulnerable, it is increasingly interesting and titillating to add negative comments to company products; to dump a list of customer complaints onto the proverbial, anonymous IHATEXCOMPANY.com, the site a former employee developed to stick it to the man. Under pressure, the IHATEXCOMPANY.com author faced legal entanglements and gave up Craig’s name as a blogger.

Today, with more and more recruiters and employers going online, it is important to keep a positive online image. Weigh the pros and cons of starting a blog and then if you do chose to continue, be sure that anything you put up would be something you are proud to have in your ‘digital footprint’.

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Posted in Blog, Career, Job Search, Referrals/Testimonials, Social Media | 2 Comments »

Tweet Yourself to a New Job

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

Are you active on Twitter? Maybe you should be. Recently, ‘Twitter’ was named the Word of the Year by the Global Language Monitor, based on the frequency in use of words and phrases on the Internet and in the media. With over 3 million users and growing, Twitter is quickly becoming an online meeting place where recruiters and employers are connecting with potential job candidates.

Here are 10 tips for finding a job on Twitter:

Profile
1. Fill out your profile – This section can become your ‘elevator pitch’ such as ‘Marketing guru with over 15 years of experience.’

2. Include a link to your online resume or CV in your bio, or even a link to your LinkedIn profile.

Searching
3. Use Twitter Search to enter keywords for the kind of job you’re looking for such as ‘sales jobs Houston, TX’.

4. Utilize Twitter hashtags to search for jobs. A good starting place is for the general tags #jobs, #job, #hiring and #shjobs, as well as industry specific hashtags like #HR, #nursing, #tech. You can even use them in tandem with other search terms like ‘#shjobs manager’ to filter your results. Doing this can also help you identify recruiters, companies and other job search authorities to follow that post jobs.

Following
5. Follow people that you know. Ask them to keep an eye out for jobs that may interest you!

6. Follow general industry recruiters and writers for the recruitment industry. Not only do they post jobs, but they often share great job search tips (@SimplyHired, @heatherhuhman, @AlisonDoyle).

7. Follow the companies you are interested in working for. They may tweet about open positions that are available. Some companies even have a specific Twitter accounts just to post new jobs.

8. Follow job search accounts by location, industry, job type, etc. For example, @marketingjobssh or @SocialMediaJob.

9. Follow people at companies where you would like to work. They could become a great resource to find out what working at that company is really like.

Tweeting
10. Get involved in conversations about subjects you’re interested in. Networking with people that share your interests – especially professional interests like SEO or Ruby – connect you with people that could aid you in your search.

For related articles about personal branding and job search, review these articles:

Personal Branding Interview: How Mark Cummata Got a Job Through Twitter

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Your Professional Brand Pre-During-Post Interview

If you would like to get up-to-date information, join us on Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon, Facebook and MySpace.

Posted in Blog, Career, Job Search, Social Media | 9 Comments »

Why Controversial Blogging Is Scary

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

Yesterday, I asked for people’s opinions on unpaid internships after discovering that some are considered illegal. On my last blog, I wrote about whether or not interns should be required to fetch coffee. I’ve also written about what Gen Y seeks in the workplace and how recruiters use Facebook.

I wanted to start a conversation about these subjects to hear the viewpoints of students and employers. I often recieve great feedback from my peers for starting the conversation, but it’s scary to consider what the repercussions might be for my blogging.

With my name tied to each post I write, I try to be careful about what I write. I don’t write about my personal life, but I do write about things that affect myself and others in the workplace. Some of these subjects might come off wrong to certain people though.

For example, an employer might see me as saying I would never do an unpaid internship or get coffee for the office. This isn’t the case. I’ve done both before and neither were bad experiences.

Controversial posts receive the most traffic and retweets. But, sometimes I wonder what the risk is for posting them.

Has anyone ever suffered negative repercussions for a controversial post? Or, has anyone had a good result from a controversial post?

If you would like to get up-to-date information, join us on Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon, Facebook and MySpace.

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Posted in Blog, Job Search, Networking, Social Media, Specialization | 1 Comment »

You Don’t Have To Blog To Rise Up

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

Blogging and Job Search

I know this is a crazy post.

I know my blog has certainly helped me rise up. Other’s blogs have helped them rise up. I am going to an unconference that is going to focus on HR people who are interested in blogging. Someone may ask me if they should start a blog.

In the past, my answer was an unhesitant yes. Of course you should. Why shouldn’t you? The real question is how do we get you going and exposed as quickly as possible.

Now? My answer depends on a number of factors. In some cases though, my answer is going to be no.

What gives?

I haven’t soured on blogging nor do I believe the space is crowded. On the contrary, I still think there is a lot of space out there for people to talk about business and talent. We’ve barely scratched the surface of possibilities. But I think there are also a lot of dead blogs out there and that sucks. It means someone put in a bunch of effort, got frustrated and left it behind.

That could have been prevented because while I don’t believe there is one way to blog, there are many ways to fail at blogging:

You aren’t passionate about the subject – You want to use your new blog as a tool to rise up but you aren’t passionate about the subject. Reverse course matey! Go back and find your passion and then blog about that.
You aren’t interested in improving your writing – Blogging has helped me improve my written communication skills immensely. Rarely do people come into blogging with that background. Are you willing to craft and recraft messages until you get used to it?
You can’t write on a consistent schedule – This is a big one. I say writing once a week is the necessity. That’s 52 posts a year. I’ve averaged two posts a week for over three years. It honestly isn’t tough but if your schedule is rough and tumble, you’ll lose interest if you don’t post for a month.
You can’t do the other things that make your blog great – Keeping up on what other people are doing in the context of what you write is as important as what you write. Making comments, networking with fellow bloggers, and pushing stuff out to your network? That’s part of successful blogging.

So If You Don’t Do Blogging…

You can rise up in different ways. People have this tendency to assume that the path they take is the best path for everyone but that simply isn’t the case. Even with blogging. Now I believe that if you have those four traits, anyone can learn how to blog and do it very well. Seriously. Anyone.

There are other ways to rise up though:

Through your company
Speaking and volunteering through local associations
Doing interesting things and getting press coverage
Doing guest blog posts
Using other social media tools effectively
Start consulting and advising (even pro bono)

I am just scratching the surface here. My biggest point: don’t let anyone tell you that you have to blog. Should you have a findable, online profile? Absolutely. You can build that through any number of resources though that doesn’t involve a blog.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rehaul/~3/tT-uSPnATm4/

(Via Brazen Careerist.)

You only look for a job a few times in your life. Compared with the amount of time you spend actually doing it, investing time and energy in an effective job search repays the effort many times over. Studies show that people who understand and do well at the job search process enjoy substantially more job satisfaction and higher earnings over the course of their careers.

Those who put extra effort into the job search can bring not just a more satisfying life but extra salary.

We are here to help. ItsNotYouItsYourResume.com has compiled an impressive list of contributors including writers from 10BiggestInterviewMistakes, 10BiggestResumeMistakes, MyOnlineCareerCoach and MyOnlineCareerSpace, who have written the following:

Job and Career Books:

101 Tips Every Job Seeker Should Know
Ultimate Online Job Search EBook
Top 10 Interview Mistakes
10 Biggest Resume Mistakes

Posted in Blog, Career, Job Search, Social Media | 1 Comment »