3rd Annual JobMob Guest Blogging Contest Has Been Extended

3rd Annual JobMob Guest Blogging Contest Has Been Extended 3 The 2009 edition of the contest will continue beyond the original deadline of September 1st 2009, but not by much. New deadline: September 14th 2009 In the original contest announcement, I said that the contest would be extended if there are many entries. With a few more guest posts appearing on JobMob this week and staying in competition until next week, the prize winners will now be announced on September 14th instead of September 1st. If you're curious to see how the competition is going, check the contest rankings. Thank you to our sponsors Get Friday eval Get Friday is one of the most well-known life outsourcing companies in the world. They pioneered “the idea of ‘Get the Personal touch of an assistant along with access to a pool of expertise' into the market that makes virtual assistance dependable and so scalable,” while “working round the clock 24/7? catering ” to busy individuals and small businesses in 30 odd countries across different time zones.” Gary Vaynerchuk In the past few years, Gary Vaynerchuk has become one of the most famous Web personalities on the strength of his personal branding skills and his video blog about wine, Wine Library TV.eval And you're thinking “great, but what does that have to do with job search?” Gary will soon be releasing his first book, entitled Crush It! Why Now is the Time to Cash in on your Passion and already available for pre-sale. In the book, Gary explains the secrets of his success in growing his family business to a multi-multi-million dollar venture while boosting his personal brand of being the enjoyable, inspiring and, he thinks most importantly, passionate guy that he is. Even if you have no intentions of starting a business, the personal branding lessons alone will make this book valuable to anyone, especially job seekers. Dan Schawbel My friend Dan Schawbel is the personal branding expert who created the Personal Branding Blog â€" one of the biggest career-oriented blogs in the world and where I blog on Fridays â€" and more recently authored Me 2.0. Before writing his book, Dan also created the Personal Branding Magazine, a paid Internet quarterly with articles from some of the movers and shakers in personal branding and career success.

The dos and donts of a graduate CV

The dos and donts of a graduate CV With 3 or 4 long years of hard studying behind you and degree certificate firmly in hand, it’s time to find your first full-time professional position. Andrew Fennell, the founder of CV writing advice website StandOut CV, shares his perspective on how to create an effective CV. Andrew is a former recruitment consultant and contributes careers advice to websites like Business Insider, The Guardian and FastCompany. The first step to securing that dream grad role is to demonstrate your transferable skills, knowledge and experience in a professional, well-written CV. But competition for entry-level roles is fierce, so your CV needs to paint you as no less than the perfect candidate for the role. With that said, check out the essential do’s and don’ts of a graduate CV stick to them to ensure that your application demands attention: Do keep it simple The more you over-complicate your CV, the closer you get to losing the reader’s attention. Hiring managers and recruiters often receive hundreds of applications for a graduate role so they appreciate simple, well-presented CV’s which are easy to read. If you cram too much information onto a disorganized page, you’re asking for immediate rejection. Unless you’re applying for a highly-creative role, there’s no need for fancy designs. Start with a simple structure, making sure there’s space between each section, for easy navigating. Stick to a clear, size 12 font and make use of bold for headings. Don’t be generic When you’re eager to secure your first role, it can be tempting to send out the same CV to tens of employers. But as soon as hiring managers spot a recycled CV, they move it straight to the no pile after all, it shows a complete lack of commitment to the role. You need to tailor your CV to each and every role you apply for. Make a list of the desired skills, experience and attributes listed in the job description and, if you can, work each one of them into your CV. This way, you’ll be painting yourself as a perfectly matched candidate for the position. Do make it scannable With piles of applications to get through, recruiters often scan CVs to initially separate the time-wasters from potential hires. That means you might have 30 seconds or less to prove your value!  During this time, recruiters are likely to focus on the top third of the first page of the document. Therefore, starting your CV with a punchy personal profile and core skills section which include your most valuable (and relevant) attributes is key to passing the initial scan. Don’t be clichéd Put yourself in the shoes of a recruiter. After reading “a great team player” and “a creative thinker with a can-do attitude” over and over again, how would you feel? Likely, completely bored and uninspired.  Don’t be one of those candidates packing your CV with meaningless clichés doesn’t actually say anything about you! Focus on selling yourself with hard facts like skills, knowledge, experience and achievements which are all backed up with examples and metrics which we’ll discuss next. Do focus on facts and figures Using real-life, quantified examples to prove your value is the best thing you can do to impress potential employers. This could be financial gains, savings made, time saved or targets hit but as a young grad, it could even be university grade percentages or customer goals hit during part-time roles. Take a look at the following examples for some inspiration: Reduced customer complaints by 30%. Achieved the highest class grade of 81%. Hit up-selling targets for 5 months in a row. By following these essential do’s and don’ts of a graduate CV, you’ll create an easy-to-read, flawless CV which effortlessly proves your value to employers.

Make the Most of Your Summer Internship

Make the Most of Your Summer Internship Which college student has not heard that an internship or cooperative education opportunity is essential to a full-time offer after college? For the most part, summer hiring for internships is slowing down and I am listening to stories from young folks who are starting their internships. Stories about the relief of getting something for summer, complaints about how employers don’t “get” it and excitement around finally doing something practical with “my college degree.” As I listen, laugh, wonder aloud and sometimes, roll my eyes at these individual stories, I am struck by the fact that these folks are making a conscious career choice today: the essence of career development and progression lies in how we open ourselves to opportunities of risk, failure and growth. To all the Twenty-Something’s out there, including my own, I offer you the gift of three practices that I believe will help you turn your internship experience into one filled with grace, fulfilment and abundance: 1) Practice generosity: Show up: This is more than being on time and managing your time efficiently: What excites you most about your internship? Let that excitement show! How will you harness this excitement to create results? Light up collective goals! What will you excel in naturally? Say yes to what aligns directly with your strengths! What will NOT come as easy? Ask questions, commit to learning and build skills! Your work style and preference “shows up” in each and every interaction and can create long-lasting impressions of credibility, trustworthiness and capability. Make the most of this incredible opportunity to learn and build congruence between how you see yourself and how others experience you. 2) Build capacity: Here and now: These are the only two coordinates that matter. Inconsequential, everyday things add up to create a life of substance: What questions will you ask to understand expectations? Create accountability steps! What might get in your way of creating success? Check your mindset! What does hitting an idea out of the ballpark mean? Let your geek quality shine! What is outside your comfort zone?  Take that shot! The theme around building capacity is openness and vulnerability.   Over time, this is a life and career truth Cultivate a practice to remain open to ideas, seek out new ways of doing things and embrace what is not a preferred style. Combine this practice with a willingness to fail, to challenge assumptions and to admit not knowing. A Chinese proverb reminds us: “To open a shop is easy, to keep it open is an art.”   Make most of this incredible opportunity to build capacity and career resiliency! 3) Nurture relationships: Build a life, not just a career: Legendary work happens only with and through people. When we build relationships, we build a life of giving and receiving. How will you build trust, accountability and likeability? Be the brand people talk about! What impresses you about the leadership/colleagues? Learn from their career stories! What helps you engage people in conversations? Recognize what creates curiosity! What will help you take care of yourself? Stop your behavior from managing you! Everyday practice matters. From the outside, what other people do or how well they come across usually looks effortless. It is an unfortunate myth that is easy to believe, especially when faced with new opportunities, new tasks and new people. It is here that listening to experience matters â€" build in small moments of practice each day and see the brilliance of your talent shine through. Your talent matters that is why you were hired by your employer.   Make most of this incredible opportunity so that your employer can breathe a sigh of relief! I wish you joy as you intentionally create this life of purpose and abundance.   Would you come back and tell me your stories after these summer opportunities end and you head back to school?

Are You LinkedIn

Are You LinkedIn LinkedIn can be used in many different ways, from being your professional profile to show the world you are worth employing, to contacting people who might give you good information about roles you are applying for, connecting with employers or people who might help you on your career path right through to actually being head-hunted. If an employer wanted to find more out about me, what would they find? My Facebook is locked down so they wouldn’t be able to see all the photos of my knitting. My followers on Twitter have no idea of my real name and only know me as an adventurous soft toy panda who has strong opinions on Real Ale. Google me and I’m either a Land Surveyor, a Business Management and Teacher Training Tutor or a Managing Director. None of these things really help an employer know who I am and how I would be a good employee for them. Find me on LinkedIn and I am a woman with nine years’ experience in Higher Education professional roles, working across three Russell Group Universities in different departments. I am an accredited strengths practitioner with skills in group work development amongst others, all endorsed by current and former colleagues. I have gained skills through a variety of experiences which I might not have told you on a tailored CV. My work at the Royal Albert Hall and job  mentoring students with disabilities means I could bring a broad perspective to your workforce. Am I worth spending your time interviewing? I hope that I am! Start with your photo People don’t often remember a name but they usually remember a face. If you are trying to connect with an employer you previously met, they won’t remember if you are called Tom, Matt or Dave but they will remember roughly what you looked like. Make it professional and friendly and show an employer what you will look like in their role. Remember this isn’t Facebook or Instagram and we don’t want to see you in a club, on the beach or with your friends. Dress how you would for an interview and look at the profiles of other people working in the same sector to reference how you should professionally present yourself. Research also suggests that you are more likely to receive a response to a LinkedIn request (and to receive invites) if you have included a profile photo. Whats your headline? The next thing to think about is your headline. You could just go for ‘Student at the University of ’ but that really doesn’t tell me much about you. Are you studying Classics and want to be a TV presenter? Do you do Economics and run the Finance Society? Make it specific and be aspirational if you want. Try something like ‘Former Brand Manager, Currently Specialising in Global Media and Communications’, ‘MA (res) Student in Classics and Ancient History | President of the Classics Society’ or ‘Finance Student Looking for Graduate Roles in Audit’. Use an attention grabbing summary Your summary is where you can really grab peoples’ attention and tell them exactly what you want them to know about you before they either spend time quickly scrolling down the page and missing some of your key strengths or, more likely, clicking away from the page altogether. Think of the key skills employers are looking for. Not sure what they are? Just have a look at job adverts for the roles you’d like to go for and see what skills they are asking their candidate to have and use those same words when highlighting your key skills and achievements. Showcase relevant skills The rest of the profile is up to you. Like a CV, it still needs to make an impact very quickly so bullet points are a good idea when detailing your previous experience. Think about not only what you did in each role but how you did it as well. What skills did you develop and use in each position? Skills are very important for an employer and LinkedIn gives you the opportunity to not just tell an employer what skills you have but get them endorsed by colleagues or friends. If you aren’t sure what skills an employee would value, look at the profiles of people already doing the roles and see what skills they say they have. If you have those skills too, make sure you are listing them and asking people to endorse you. If you don’t have them yet, think about how you could develop them so you can add them to LinkedIn very soon. LinkedIn gives you the chance to tell an employer about more than just the few things you put on a tailored CV to show exact skills and experience. Think about everything you have done and how it might make you employable. Consider sports you have played, societies you have been in and awards you have won. Always make sure you are clear about how each experience has grown your skills and experience. Bring your profile to life Unlike a CV, LinkedIn can give you the opportunity to embed media or upload documents to give more focus to what you are telling an employer. Maybe you were interviewed on the radio about a project you were doing â€" put an audio clip up. Maybe you produced a poster for an academic conference about your research â€" put a pdf up. Really bring your profile to life for an employer so it goes beyond just words. Contact your university careers service if you would like advice and information to help develop an effective profile to ensure that it it shouting to the world that you are employable. Having a professional profile online for employers to find just might make the difference between getting an interview and not. Finally, you can watch my colleague Charlie Cunninghams Getting Started with LinkedIn video below.

9 Goals to Set for Your Freelance Career in 2019 CareerMetis.com

9 Goals to Set for Your Freelance Career in 2019 Employees in structured companies can quickly identify the steps they need to advance. But when you become your boss, manager, and worker, progress is what you make it. Whether you’re a freelance writer, graphic designer, consultant or another kind of worker, your career goals direct every part of your business.While your guidelines for starting in the freelance world may not have been concrete, it’s wise to consider how you want to grow and improve in the coming year. Because you hold the reigns in your career, you get to alter your trajectory without waiting for anyone else to.evalFrom how much time you spend working on projects to your typical rate, you can change your career for the better. You have a responsibility to yourself and your freelance business to intentionally navigate your profession.Manage your valuable resources this year by constructing worthwhile goals that can propel you forward in your field. Here are nine goals you can make for yourself in 2019 to grow in your freelance career.1) Develop a Selective Method for ClientsevalIf you’re like most freelance workers, you are eager to keep paying gigs flowing in. Sometimes this leads to compromising on your values and standards to pay your bills. But at some point, you’ll have to be more cautious about selecting your clients to progress in your desired career direction.Examine what kind of clients you’re servicing and judge whether they are hindering your career. Are they sapping your time or paying you too little? Is your interaction with them too stressful? Make it your goal to develop valuable client relationships with the right candidates this year.2) Explore a New Skill to Hone Your CraftWhen you’re an individual without a company, you have to motivate yourself to stay up to date on any innovations in your field. The latest developments in technology and best practices are essential to keeping your edge over the competition. Try out new software or tools that are popular in your field to improve your craft.Even observing the changes in the freelance workforce can equip you to approach this year in a new way. To remain highly desirable to clients, you need to make yourself stand out, and delving deeper into your craft can increase what you have to offer. Pick a specialty area in your niche or adapt your skills to the current market to flourish.3) Cultivate Your LinkedInAs the star social media site for professionals, LinkedIn continues to be a helpful resource for freelancers. But if you’re not active on it or messaging potential clients, you’re not getting all you can out of this networking goldmine. Reaching out to new clients can get your name out so others can suggest you for jobs.evalAlso, leaving older work and out-of-date information on your profile can turn away potential clients. This year, freshen up your profile with your most recent work, references and accomplishments to make the most out of LinkedIn.4) Engage With Social MediaAnother way to boost your freelance business is through rich engagement on social media. If you don’t already have accounts specifically for professional use, 2019 is the year you can start. You can raise your visibility by becoming higher on search engine rankings and through organic connections.Discussions over social media also contribute to your development as a freelancer. You learn more about your clients’ preferences and what most people like about your work. Set a posting schedule for yourself to check in with followers and pursue possible connections this year.eval5) Hold Regular Performance ReviewsSelf-critique is much more natural and relaxed than sitting under the scrutiny of a boss so that this process can lead to stress-free improvement. Sit down with yourself to hold a non-traditional performance review. Looking back on your work over the past year can reveal your weaknesses and strengths.evalReview what you’ve done well over the period, and allow yourself the praise you dese rve for successes. To bring in outside feedback for a performance review, set up a measurable way to gauge client satisfaction. You can include a form or brief survey for your clients to assess your work after you’ve delivered your services.6) Support Fellow FreelancersBecause you know what it’s like to seek out clients and manage your business, you’re also aware of the challenges freelancers face. You are in a unique position to understand and support freelancers you come in contact with.If you’re a writer, this can mean hiring a copy editor to edit your work, or if you’re a web developer, this can mean hiring a graphic designer to create graphics for your website. Especially if you are at a point in your career where you’ve found your footing, you can assist other struggling creatives and professionals on their freelance journey.7) Put Aside Money for RetirementWithout a 401As you look forward, establish objectives for your freelance career that can push you toward suc cess in 2019. Intentionally face this year with aspirations and a practical game plan to reach them. You have control over your position and the course of your business, so growth is up to you.

Can you risk putting all your eggs in the resume basket - Hire Imaging

Can you risk putting all your eggs in the resume basket - Hire Imaging The resume continues to be one of your most important career marketing documents. Unfortunately too many job seekers rely on it as the main tool to land that next position. It just won’t serve you well. Here’s why. The dreaded conversation It happens all the time in my practice, regrettably. This year, I was contacted by John via email. John’s a 40ish executive who had been in the printing business for 20 years. He wanted me to look at his resume and let him know how much it would cost to rewrite it. I said I’d be happy to call him for a brief phone conversation about his resume and job search needs. We spoke and he was delightful. But here’s the problem. When I asked him about his job search strategy and plan, he had none. “I just want to get my resume current so I can get it out there,” he told me. He admitted that he was not sure what he wanted to do. He had lost his job three weeks earlier, and had concerns about printing’s shrinking opportunities. “I feel I’m versatile; a Jack of all trades and I could contribute in a number of areas. I’d like to just get it out there.” Well, I stopped him right there. “Employers honestly are not interested in you being all things to all people. They want to know that you can fill a void to meet their specific need. They want a match for a certain opening. They often want a purple squirrel,” I said. I told him frankly, “John I can write you a great resume that’s focused, branded and rich with content relevant to your targets. But if you don’t know what those targets are; if you don’t know what you’re marketing, it’s the cart before the horse. John, the best resume in the world just isn’t enough today. Yes, you should customize it to mirror back to the position / audience you are marketing to. But all the tweaking in the world won’t make it the do-all-end-all in today’s employment landscape, no matter how much you wish it would.” John got more baskets Here’s another thing that often happens when people contact me. Although John said he knew that networking and social media were important, he admitted he had no approach, no plan. So, in a nutshell, John did not know what he wanted, where to find it when he did know, or how to get it after that. This was a setup for a long job search peppered with a lot of frustration. Here was an executive who was clearly not in control. I did not “sell” John on coaching, but I did educate him on its benefits. He was glad to know about this resource available to him. In our work together, John was able to: Manage his expectations of the job search and use techniques to stay proactive and positive. Conduct a thorough self-assessment of what he was good at and liked. Create authentic professional branding and a thick inventory of success stories. Research his targets markets, organizations and roles. Market himself beyond the resume with a suite of documents and powerful LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter content. Manage his online identity and promote himself online as an expert in his field (which he found, was Product Management). Learn more while selling in networking and informational interviews. Connect, clarify, collaborate and close in job interviews. Master the dance of salary negotiations. Jumpstart success in his new position (Yes, he landed two weeks ago in a growing industry, in what seems like a great fit). According to a study by talent management firm Lee Hecht Harrison (quoted in Wall Street Journal), people who use a career coach find jobs up to 46% faster than those who don’t. Yes, resumes are important. I write them and absolutely advocate their value. But making your job search dependent on primarily that one thing is like having all your financial planning in a bank savings account. Coaching can help you diversify with multiple resources and tools. Feeling stuck? I can help! Photo: kevinspencer

Essentials of Writing Education on Resume For High School Student

Essentials of Writing Education on Resume For High School StudentWriting education on resume for high school student is very important. This is a very important part of resume writing as it has to reflect the personality of the candidate.A candidate who is inclined towards writing and artistic can definitely make a career out of this. These skills may be applicable for other careers but not for a job in the computer industry.The resume should also have contact details of the employer along with the address. The skills which are very necessary are the written and oral communication skills, critical thinking, organization, research and problem solving, organization and time management. Other important qualities of the candidate are financial responsibility, integrity, organization, and self-discipline.In order to craft a successful resume one has to have a lot of confidence. It is not necessary that the candidate has to be perfect. The key is to have confidence and the confidence will help you in writing your resume. You have to compose a resume without any hesitations and with an edge.The candidate who has a good impression from a resume will surely get the job. The resume should also convey the required information in the manner in which it needs to be conveyed.You should try to get a resume in PDF format. If you are using Microsoft Word format then it would be wise to convert it to Word format or PowerPoint format and also the resume should be formatted in the same manner.The resume should be formatted in a formal way so that the employer will easily recognize the person. Even if he does not recognize the name, he will at least have a tendency to read the resume. The resume must also include any awards or achievements. He will surely check for these things in order to understand the quality of the candidate.