How to Create Your Own Career Breaks Building Your Future Now

How to Create Your Own Career Breaks Building Your Future Now Chances are if you are waiting on people or luck to help you along on your career journey you not end up being too successful. There are many people, however that are essential in your career development and that includes even bad managers! Regardless, it is your responsibility to create your own breaks in order to fully realize your career potential. But that doesnt mean people wont help out or give you a push alongthough finding and surrounding yourself with these types of beneficial professionals ismost of the timeup to you. It is also up to you to build your professional relationships with those you happen to meet on-the-job, at general events, or during networking events. Creating your own breaks requires you to be vigilant at all timessometimes an opportunity comes along that goes under the radar. You need to assess those professionals around you, your current job and other jobs. You have to be a relentless networker and be ready to carefully assess any opportunity that comes your way. Any and all opportunities no matter how insignificant or small can lead to a major break that you needed in your career development. Image: Raw Pixel

3 Reasons Why You Cant Get a Promotion

3 Reasons Why You Cant Get a Promotion It happens to the best of us. You did not get the promotion you wanted and think you deserved. This  hurts, it is frustrating, but it is not a career ender. You can choose to mope and get angry, or you can  learn from this experience by taking a look at yourself and the situation to figure out the reason you  were skipped over. Here are three common reasons even the most talented, qualified professionals can’t get a promotion. 1. You Are Not Promoting Your Work: One of the more common reasons I see hardworking professionals get passed up for a promotion is  because they fail to promote the value they bring to the organization. Many people believe working  hard, achieving goals and going above and beyond will speak for itself to the value they offer. But, let’s  get real, your boss is not psychic and we live in a world where we have more to do than the hours in the  day will allow! It is all about gaining visibility. If your manager cant easily name the key areas in which  you have contributed to the organization, you are missing out on possible career advancing  opportunities. I want to be clear, when I speak of promoting your work, I am not asking you to be a self-interested, self-absorbed, self-promoter. I am saying it is time to stop relying on corporate lip service and start focusing  on how to be recognized for the merit of your work and overall contributions. Here are four simple way’s to promote the value of your work without looking like a braggart: Send weekly updates to your boss, telling him/her what you are working on and what you’ve  accomplished. Focus on the work talk about the outcome instead of what you did to accomplish it. Tell a story talk about your accomplishments in a way that will help others who are working on  similar projects be successful. Volunteer to facilitate meetings or for projects that will showcase your strengths. 2. You Are Not Open To Feedback: Being closed off to constructive feedback is a promotion killer without a doubt. We have all been guilty  of this at times, but I am referring to individuals who consistently: Act defensively to a perceived criticism. Think the problem is always with others, never with themselves Refuse to change, even though what they are doing is not working The hardest part of doing good business is not necessarily the day-to-day tasks involved, but managing  the human behaviours. Criticism is hard to take, but it is essential for you to not only identify weaknesses  and areas of improvement, but just as important, to foster business relationships that are open and  honest. When we hear criticism or areas of improvement, it can hurt and feel personal. Additionally, it does not  help people are not that great at giving feedback, so hearing it is not always easy. Here are three things  I find helpful in receiving and processing feedback: Don’t react. At the first sign of criticism, before you do or say anything stop. You have a  minuscule window to set the tone for how the conversation will go. Try not to react at all! It is  important to show the person giving you the feedback that you are open to what they have to  say and care about their opinion. Sometimes this means more than the feedback itself. People  want to know you are approachable and willing to work on areas of improvement. Listen! Just as receiving criticism can be hard, it can be just as hard to give. This is not the time  for rebuttal or to think of a way to defend yourself. Allow the person to share his or her  complete thoughts, without interruption. After the person is done talking, repeat back what you  heard, so he or she knows you were listening and understand their issues. Define a plan for addressing the issues. A plan is the best way to put you back in control of the  situation. Send a follow-up email to the person who gave you the feedback, with what you heard  and your plan to make the appropriate changes. It is also important to review your plan weekly  to assure you are on track. Be proactive. Receiving feedback; good or bad, is essential to your professional growth and to  understand the expectations your manager and others have of you. Don’t wait for the feedback  to be shared, seek it out regularly. You will not only gain the respect of your manager and  peers, but help foster good business relationships. 3. You Don’t Take Initiative: You do your job AND only your job. You do not move up the ladder for doing your job; you get paid for  it. Getting promoted is about doing more than expected, discovering opportunities, and providing  immense value. If you meet expectations, feel free to pat yourself on the back, but dont be surprised  when you get passed up for the promotion. It is one thing to be a top performer doing merely what you were hired to do, but it is those who use  their talents to help outside the scope of their job who get promoted. This does not mean you wait to  take the initiative until it means helping with something that will get you noticed. In fact, many times  your help can be less important than what you were hired to do. This means you take the initiative to  help wherever needed, with the one goal in mind the success and growth of the company. Some easy, but recognizable way’s you can start taking initiative is by asking your boss if there are other  things you can do to help grow the company or a project. Be available to help, even if the task is outside  your job description or scheduled work hours. Offering help before it is asked of you will be much more  memorable when it comes time to think about the best candidates who should be considered for  promotion. No hard work goes unnoticed if done for the right reason. Your efforts, big or small, will be recognized,  and you’ll be viewed as a team player; all the right ingredients to move up the corporate ladder. Gone are the days employees are tapped on the shoulder for promotion simply by showing up to work  and not making waves. Take these lessons and learn from past mistakes to get you started down the  right path to your next promotion. Author: Christine Karel is the co-founder of Resume2Employed, an online resume writing LinkedIn makeover  company specializing in helping job seekers crush the competition. When she’s not dishing out career  advice or teaching job seekers (and entrepreneurs) how to leverage social media to generate cool career  opportunities, she’s most likely spending time with her husband and two children or on her yoga mat. Follow Christine on Twitter: @ChristineKarel Image Credit: Shutterstock

10 Ways to Get Fired For Building Your Personal Brand - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Ways to Get Fired For Building Your Personal Brand - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career For all of you employed readers, this post is directed at you because I wouldnt want you to become unemployed, as you build your own personal brand. Branding has become very personal these days and the relationship we have with our companies is changing very fast, so I think its important to focus on what you shouldnt do at work, not just branding and career strategies.   I view web 2.0 technologies at the driving force that converges our professional and social lives.   Who you are and how you behave outside of work can impact how youre perceived inside of work and visa versa.   The way the world works now is that you have to spend more time thinking about your actions than you did ten years ago because words spread faster and they are accessible by everyone. Ways to Get Fired For Building Your Personal Brand 1. Friending your manager on Facebook and then complaining about your job. At work, people are trying to connect with colleagues on social networks Its a fact and part of human nature.   Sometimes, you feel that youre friends with your co-workers and other times you may think that if you friend your boss or an executive, it may pose for a future career opportunity.   By using social networks strictly for professional use, then this is a good move, but the second (and I mean the second) you want to make it a social endeavor, thats when the game changes. A recent survey by OfficeTeam indicated that 32% of executives are not comfortable at all being friended by their boss, and 33% werent comfortable being friended by people they manage or clients.   You want to get to know a person at work before you friend them or even ask them before you do, otherwise the work environment might be awkward for you and it might open you up to a world of misfortune.   Another survey by Proofpoint suggests that you better wise up on social networks, since 8% of people have been laid off in 2009 for bad behavior, which is double from 2008. Both Adam Ostrow (editor-in-chief of Mashable) and I feel that is one of the funniest social media bloopers around: 2. Putting your personal brand in front of your companys brand. This is still one of the hottest and most controversial topics around, so I feel that it deserves more attention.   A lot of people tweet while at work and dont deny it please.   The only thing is that 80% of people are tweeting about themselves, not about their companys, a report by two college professors at Rutgers states.   Companies, by nature, are looking to build their own brand, sometimes through the use of selectively chosen spokespeople who represent the brand and can be quoted within press articles (cited with the brand).   When youre getting more attention than your company, you know something is wrong.   Youre not getting paid to be the Oprah of a company.   Instead, youre being compensated based on the value you provide over time.   When you draw attention to your personal brand instead of your companys, then your coworkers will get jealous, your manager will wonder why you arent getting your work done and youll eventually get fired. 3. Complaining that your company blocks social networking sites. Company cultures are always different and have policies (some have social media policies for workers too).   Some block social networking sites, while others refrain because they know that people are doing work at home, so their employment contract is different.   Robert Half International found that 54% of companies prohibit use of social networking Web sites during work hours, including popular sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.   Another survey by ScanSafe, indicates that 20% more companies are blocking social networking sites and that 76% currently block them, which is much more than the Robert half survey.   Dont complain that your company blocks these sites.   If youre truly obsessed, why not access them from your mobile phone?   Otherwise, get fired and go somewhere else! Other companies realize the potential in good corporate web-citizens.   For example, eBillme offers training on how to use social networking sites to spread company information. 4. Attracting the wrong attention to your companys brand because of your own. Please dont say that a blog disclaimer is going to disassociate your brand with your companys because its not!   Brand association is powerful and cannot be undone, which means you have to be smart about what kind of attention you want to draw to yourself.   A reporter, journalist, producer or blogger can easily scrape your content and quote it in a story, without your permission.   They can also link you to your company, even if the blog topic isnt related to your current work position.   If news breaks out because of this visibility, your company can fire you for carelessness and for harming the corporate brand.   Again, our lives are different now, so you better be safe than sorry (and that sounds like something my parents would say). 5. Announcing your new job on Twitter when youre still employed. Your colleagues are following you on Twitter, trust me.   If youre looking for a career move right now or in the future and you want to promote it, wait till after youve moved from your company.   Supervisor references are always important because endorsements rule the world, so if you want to burn your previous employer by not being transparent offline, then youre in trouble.   You can tell your friends and family, but once you announce it to the world, its fair game and youll be laid off immediately without the chance to ever return to that company.   A lot of people dont realize that once you establish a reputation and a network at a company, it can be your safety net in the future if you desperately need a job. 6. Thinking youre superior to older workers because youre tech literate. If youre a millennial than you have to start figuring out how you want to position yourself at work.   Dont think for a minute that everyone thats older than you doesnt understand technology.   Theres five generations in the workforce, and although millennials will be the majority in the year 2020 (HBS), older workers still have senior positions.   Instead of trying to be superior than them, which can get you fired or put you in a corner, try and be helpful by supporting their projects with your tech expertise. 7. Wearing rags to work because its part of your brand. Im exaggerating by saying rags, but the point is that dressing well will help you get promoted and wearing something inappropriate for work, can get you fired over time, if you refuse to change.   A survey by Harris Interactive and Gillette reveals that 84% of HR professionals agree that well-groomed employees climb the corporate ladder faster than those who arent.   They put more emphasis on attire than a handshake!   Now, I know what youre going to say, but Dan, what if a mohawk or face Tattoo is part of my brand?   How are you going to get a job or be taken seriously that way though?   There are common social norms that are accepted in the workplace and how you dress and act is how youll be judged by everyone around you.   If you want to be so far outside of the norm, then dont get a corporate job in the first place! 8. Posting inappropriate photos on Facebook, forgetting that your profile is public. Ray Lam, a former NDP candidate for Vancouver-False Creek   was forced to resign from his job when photographs were discovered on Facebook.   One picture showed him palming a womans breast and another with his pants down and two people pulling at his underwear.   I was going to post the photo here, but its too inappropriate for this blog (see for yourself).   There are other examples of this happening, such as a teacher being fired for her MySpace picture and a nursing home assistent taking pictures with her patients.   I have knows for you:   you dont own your profiles on social networks.   Thats right, Facebook owns your profile and companies can pay Facebook for that information.   Always think of your profile as public! 9. Spending more time on yourself than being productive during work hours. A companys main reason for not allowing social networks at work (aside from legal ramifications for financial institutions, etc) is they feel a productivity loss.   If youre sharing advice on your social networks at work and blogging, then where is the real business value, unless youre in a social media specialist type role.   Companies are looking for you to bring in revenue, decrease costs or at least bring in some ROI for the expense theyre paying for you to work there.   If you cant do that because youre building your brand at work, then get ready for a big fat pink slip because youre easily replaceable, now that theres 6.3 job seekers for every job. . Calling in sick, when youre not, so that you can focus on your brand. 32% of workers have called in sick when they were well at least once this year and 28% of employers think more employees are absent with fake excuses because of the economy, reports Careerbuilder.com.   I know you love your blog and you want to get your name out there, but dishonesty will come back to haunt you.   If you arent sick, then show up to work please.   You can always work on building your brand when you get home from work.   Also, when you do excellent work during regular hours, that can do wonders for your brand. Closing remarks Use common sense.   Use common sense.   Common sense is encouraged!   The sad thing is I firmly believe were going to see more cases of carelessness in the coming years, as more people use social networks, more access social networks from their mobile phones and the lines between work and life balance are blurred.   Try putting yourself in your employers shoes the next time you post on Facebook or tweet. Are you thinking before you post online?

Tips, Tools, and Books To Write A Stunning Cover Letter

Tips, Tools, and Books To Write A Stunning Cover Letter Your dream job is out there. But no matter how qualified you are or how perfect for the job you might be, you won’t get it without an interview. And the only way to get an interview is to write a strong cover letter and resume. These tips, tools, and books can offer you practical advice to polish up your cover letter and give you the best chance possible of landing an interview. TIPS Keep these seven tips in mind when you sit down to write your cover letter. Don’t Repeat Your Resume It’s easy to be tempted to repeat your resume. Avoid doing this. Instead, use the valuable opportunity to delve deeper into your history. Talk about your experiences outside of those mentioned on your resume. Use Numbers Numbers are impressive. They show hiring managers that you understand what matters to them and the company. If you have any accomplishments that you can express in numerical form, do so in your cover letter. Don’t Start With Your Name Just skip this step completely. Your name should be in a header or footer on your cover letter in case it is separated from your resume. It should also be on your resume and your application. Introducing yourself by name is redundant. Show What You Can Bring To The Company It’s easy to gush about how much you love the company. Maybe you’ve been humming their jingle since you were a kid. But that’s not going to get you hired. Focus in what skills you will bring to the table and how you can contribute to the company’s mission and goals. Tell A Story Paint a picture with your cover letter. Tell the reader a story of how you developed your skills and what brought you to this company. Be unique. Tell them what makes you stand out. Write In The Company’s Voice Spend some time researching the company’s website and social media pages. Then, write your cover letter using the same tone of voice. If the web copy is extremely formal and you write a very casual cover letter, you will likely be dismissed. The same is also true in reverse. Incorporate Keywords Read the position description and requirements, and use the same keywords in your cover letter. If you’re a manager and the description calls for a strong leader, don’t write that you’re an “excellent manager.” Write that you’re a “strong leader.” Tools These online tools will aid you in the writing process and improve the clarity and readability of your writing. Hemingway Editor Run your cover letter through Hemingway Editor to check for readability. If any sentences are difficult to read, the website will highlight them for you. Read-Able Read-Able allows you to enter either text or a URL. The website will then check the content of the cover letter for readability. NinjaEssays Ninja Essays can help with the proofreading and editing process. They can also format your cover letter or write it for you. PlagTracker Be sure your cover letter is plagiarism free with PlagTracker’s software. Cover Letter Builder This website actually builds a cover letter for you based on your career goals. It’s convenient and shockingly effective at creating strong cover letters. Smart Cover Letter Smart Cover Letter builds your cover letter by letting you choose from a collection of paragraphs and then customize them as necessary. Books Pick up one of these books to brush up on your cover letter language and writing skills. Knock ’em Dead Cover Letters by Martin Yate When reading Martin Yale’s Knock em Dead Cover Letters, you will learn how to use keywords to improve the effectiveness of your cover letter. You will also learn tips and tricks on how to structure the letter, how to find the contact information you need, and how to learn where to send a hard copy of your letter. Cover Letter Magic by Wendy S. Enelow and Louise M. Kursmark Cover Letter Magic was written by a team of professional cover letter writers. The book teaches readers how to write phenomenal cover letters that not only engage the reader’s attention, but also get interviews. There are 130 sample cover letters and “before and after,” letters to highlight the impact of a few small changes. 15-Minute Cover Letter: Write an Effective Cover Letter Right Now by Michael Farr Beyond just a lesson on writing cover letters, 15 Minute Cover Letters also offers readers practical advice on the job-hunting process as a whole. There are sample cover letters and resumes as well as job-hunting tips. These tips, tools, and books have all the information you need to drastically improve the quality of your cover letters. Take the skills you’ve gained to impress your future employers, and get out there and write a killer cover letter! Julie Petersen is a blogger, tutor and an author of the educational blog AskPetersen. Check her profile and contact her on Linkedin.

Online Resume Services in Cincinnati Is Ready to Help You

Online Resume Services in Cincinnati Is Ready to Help YouWriting a professional resume is a skill that you can learn through professional resume writing services in Cincinnati. If you've ever been to any of their jobs, you already know how these professionals work - they make your job easier and they make it quick.You can find all of the things you need for your resume, at one place in Cincinnati, right now. You can search through hundreds of resumes for a single job - all for a small fee. That is incredibly valuable, and these professionals will not let you down.If you're looking for a career, and you're looking for a job with stability, then you've found the right place. It doesn't matter if you're looking for a job that is going to allow you to increase your salary or you want a job that has great benefits. Your resume will be right there, waiting for you.Anytime you need a job done, whether it's during a short notice or just in a few days, you want to make sure you have the right support. When you need a resume quickly, and you need it done right, you're going to need professional resume writing services in Cincinnati. They make your life easier.The online resume services in Cincinnati are only a click away. All you have to do is choose the job that you need, and they will take care of the rest.If you're looking for a career change or even just changing careers, you're going to need your resume right away. If you need it sent right away, you need to find one of the online resume services in Cincinnati.No matter where you are in the world, you'll be able to find the online services in Cincinnati, as well. They have locations in other countries, as well. Whether you need your resume in London, Paris, or anywhere else in the world, there's a professional service in Cincinnati that can get it done for you.If you need your resume quickly, or you need a resume written right away, you don't have to worry about that, anymore. The online services in Cincinnati are h ere to help you, so you can focus on what you need to do, instead of wasting time on the phone. It is time to get back to work.

Are bosses nice or nasty Get our survey results. - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Are bosses nice or nasty Get our survey results. - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog I recently blogged about the value of nice bosses and why being nice, considerate and empathetic can actually be quite a challenge for managers. Basically, nice managers are much more likely to make their employees happy and nice managers get better results. However, some forces in business and psychology conspire to make bosses less nice than the could be. Read the article here. In the latest edition of our newsletter (read more and sign up here), we launched a survey to get a feel for the level of niceness currently found among managers: The survey only has 5 questions and takes about a minute to do you can really help us out by taking it here. So far, the results are interesting. First question was: Is your boss nice. Fortunately, it seems that most are: 76% say their boss is mostly or always nice. The pattern repeats when we ask about most managers in the organizations: So far so good. But here comes the interesting part. Compare these two questions: 94% of you say that having a nice manager matters to you (88% even say it matters a lot) yet 72% of you say that being nice is not a required trait of managers in your organization. That is a major disconnect right there. I think we need to make many more workplaces realize that being nice is not just nice it should be an absolute requirement for anyone in a management position. This is reflected in many of the comments on the survey: Im lucky to work for a very nice boss right now, but I have worked for miserable bosses in the past. These miserable bosses breed miserable teams and employees. It was such a relief when a miserable boss left the company a collective sigh of relief from employees. Ouch! Ive often wondered if its the job that makes a director/manager into Uncle Joe Stalin or if they were that way to start with. Does anyone have an answer to that question? I wrote about this in my original blogpost about nice managers. Being given power tends to do some bad things to us. So some managers are born Stalins, others go Stalin as a result of becoming managers. It is so unfortunate how my boss is disrespectful to myself and others and how she gets away with it. Shes nice to those above her and behaves however she feels like it to the rest of the people below her. I just started this new job in June and am already looking to leave. Its very unhealthy to be in such an environment. Its too bad that the crappy bosses never get sought out and fired or, at the very least, reprimanded. Double ouch! People get ahead here regardless of whether or not they are nice. It is very discouraging. Nice guys get laid off. And they wonder why morale is poor. Ouchouchouch! But this comment takes the cake: We seem to be naturally selecting for jerks aggressive win-at-all-costs tyrants. Sad really. So much potential and people just end up checking out. This is precisely what we need to avoid. Remember that people tend to hire in their own image so nice managers hire nice people and jerks hire jerks. Your take Is niceness a trait you want to see in your boss? Who?s the nicest boss you?ve ever had? Or the nastiest? What did he or she do? What did that do to you and your colleagues? Please write a comment, I?d love to know your take. Related reading How not to let annoying people annoy you. The power of nice your ultimate resource if you want to explore the value of being nice. Bob Suttons blog the author of The No Asshole Rule and Good Boss, Bad Boss always has something fascinating to say on the value of being nice. 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

New Grad No Job No Problem.

New Grad No Job No Problem. Its graduation time for college seniors across the nation and according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, companies plan on hiring 19% more new grads this year than last. But what if youre not a graduate with healthy job prospects? Worse, what if youre a parent whos son or daughter is graduating with debt but without a job?Dont despair. Opportunities to gain not only work experience for your resume but also critical, real world business skills and knowledge while getting paid are there if you know where to look.The secret is crowdfunding pooling resources from a network of people for a project and Laura Vanderkam outlines how it can work for grads in her recent USA Today column.I have to agree with Laura that theres no better time to take a risk and pitch a project than when you are 22. Many famous people got that way by putting themselves and their ideas out there (See When They Were 22 by Brad Dunn.) With crowdfund websites like Kickstarter, that is easier now more than ever. Check out Lauras article and share your feelings on this new crowdfunding approach below. It may just be your ticket to an even better career than corporate could offer!College grads and their parents are welcome to call into my SiriusXM show, Fridays 4-5p ET/1-2p PT SiriusXM 110 at 866-675-6675. And for more inspiration to take smart career risks, watch this recentcommencement address from Denzel Washington!Put your future in good hands your own. ~Author Unknown(Photo courtesy of Thirty 30 Photography.)