Career Tips Blog » career advice

Nice Post

Stevie — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 19:57:42 +0000

This post make some good points relevant for careers today. Check it out.

http://www.parachute4teens.com/blog/81-grains-of-salt.html

Mentor Interviews Added

Stevie — Tue, 25 May 2010 01:34:11 +0000

New career mentor informational interviews added to the sample content area of CareerSparksClub.com. One titled “Get Your Opportunity Ears On” features Joyce Bone, author of “Millionaire Moms: The Art of Raising a Business and a Family at the Same Time.” The other with a retired human resources executive turned professional organizer for her encore career. That interview is with Karen Hancock of AmazingSpacesMacon.com and is titled, “Planning a Career.” Enjoy these complimentary podcasts!

Share/Bookmark

Steps to Enhance Your Career

Stevie — Fri, 21 May 2010 20:23:27 +0000

Step #1 Pay attention to what you’re focusing on.

This step alone can do wonders for you almost immediately. First understand that what you focus on affects your emotional state, or how you feel.

If what you’re thinking about makes you feel bad it affects your energy level in a bad way. If you’re thinking about something that makes you feel bad you will quickly start to feel stressed or tired or just generally have a bad attitude.

On the other hand, if what you’re thinking about makes you feel good it affects your energy level in a good way. It doesn’t really matter if what you’re thinking about it is true or not what matters is if it helps you feel good.

So use this to enhance your career. For example if thinking about the weekend or free time makes you feel good then don’t wait until Friday to daydream about the weekend. But if thinking about the weekend makes you feel bad because you want it to be the weekend now or it makes you yearn for the weekend, then avoid thoughts about the weekend choosing to focus on something to make you feel good instead.

Here is another example. On a recent episode of Dancing with the Stars, Olympian Evan Lysacek was being coached by his dancing pro Anna Trebunskaya. Evan is a top notch technician but was not good at showing emotion in his dancing. Anna asked him, “What makes you happy?” Evan mumbled something about cars and then said, as his face lit up, “my baby nephew!”

He then proceeded to show cute little videos of his nephew on his phone to his coach smiling & laughing the whole time. Anna capitalized on that reaction and brought it to his attention. Long story short, he danced like a whole new man in that week’s competition. Even more importantly, he now knows a trick (shall we say, a Jedi mind trick?) for something to focus on when he notices he is not feeling as happy as he could.

Step #2 Use your strengths in your career.
Strengths as related to careers are activities that you enjoy doing, that you do well, and that you don’t mind doing repeatedly. This new hot philosophy on strengths was developed by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton in the book, “Now, Discover Your Strengths.”
They promote the idea that we can be happier in our careers by focusing on strengths instead of trying to improve weaknesses. In fact, they say that one can advance further and faster in skill attainment by practicing and developing one’s strengths rather than one’s weaknesses (for example, their idea that you can work everyday to improve a weaknesses and achieve only lackluster results). The book is a little long winded because of all the theory and development talk, but when you buy the book you get an assessment code to enter online to take the assessment. The more recent version is StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath. The book is much more of a friendly, quick reference which also includes an assessment.

Step #3 Be selfish.
No, I don’t mean selfish in a bad way. It is simply that factoring in everyone else’s opinion of what you should be doing in your work, (or for that matter what anyone thinks about the work you do) is exhausting and fruitless…so be selfish! After all, YOU are the one putting in the time and attention to whatever you choose for your career, and you are the one noticing everyday how you feel about your career (see step #1). So be selfish, and take charge of your career development to make sure your work is life-enhancing.

Share/Bookmark

Finding a Career

Stevie — Fri, 14 May 2010 19:25:04 +0000

The importance of career choice in the “Finding a Career” department at CareerSparksClub.com.

Share/Bookmark

Harvest Reviews for Quotes to Use

Stevie — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 17:22:15 +0000

Annual performance reviews provide excellent material for employer/manager quotes. Save them each year, and more than that set goals from them and use them as a reference before your next review.

Share/Bookmark

Next Generation Career Coaching

Stevie — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 22:37:33 +0000

Skill Identification in a process that expands client’s personal skill vocabulary and effects and builds a positive change in self-confidence.
Explore both old jobs and new options. “New career direction.”
Development of different career options through a method/process that opens doors of opportunity that otherwise would be overlooked or discarded.
Personalized training and individual attention to those things that will set you apart from all other candidates.
Developing a clear self-presentation and unique marketing materials as well as learning key job searching tools.
Campaign focused mainly on personal one-on- one informational contacts where the jobs are in the making. When there is a vacancy or posted opening, “client usually gets an interview.”
In addition to posting a LinkedIn & Facebook profiles, all kinds of e-media are explored to build visibility and credibility in your chosen market.
Three-stage controlled networking campaign. Adeptly using internet for background research to locate, and connect with “countless” contacts.
Dual-approach to get interviews from employer- identified ads: applying through personnel and  approaching Hiring Decision Maker(s) directly.
Primary interview training: Referral Interviews, which build connections to the hiring decision makers. without waiting for “openings.” These interviews also train candidates for actual job interviews.
Step-by-step coaching to handling salary negotiations/questions given at the beginning of the search. Coaching at time of the offer generally increases comp package by 10% and more.
Client continues to build visibility and credibility in his/her chosen field. 5-year goals established as well as the development of your network “Power Team” that has been built to advance your career now and in the future.

Share/Bookmark

Career Development Planning

Stevie — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 19:46:41 +0000

The beginning steps to getting to the next level in your career.

Identify what the next level looks like.
Track your accomplishments.
Identify your personal brand.
Start talking to people and thinking often about what you are wanting.
Plan your networking.
Be on the lookout for the right opportunity.

Share/Bookmark

Build an Online Presence

Stevie — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 07:28:19 +0000

1. Ego Surfing – Search for your name to see what information comes up.

www.Pipl.com
www.google.com
Meta‐search engine (i.e., www.dogpile.com; www.Mamma.com; www.Metasearch.com)

2. Social Networking – Begin building online profiles using some of the following sites.

3. Blogging – Consider starting a blog about your industry and how you participate in an innovative way.

4. Automated Research – Set your searches up to be delivered to your email inbox or set up an RSS reader for sites you frequently visit.

Google Alerts (www.google.com/alerts)
RSS Feed Aggregators (www.google.com/reader, www.bloglines.com , www.FeedReader.com)

Share/Bookmark

A Happy Career

Stevie — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:39:34 +0000

Share/Bookmark

Meta Search Links

Stevie — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 06:50:42 +0000

Here are some tools that will come in handy for careerillionaires and infopreneurs!

Meta Search Engines (a.k.a metacrawlers)

This type of internet search sends search requests to multiple search engines at once and puts the gathered responses in one long list. It’s a good idea to use a metacrawler in addition to your favorite search engine just to make sure you aren’t missing anything major. Using a meta search engine saves time since you won’t have to go to multiple websites to perform the same search.

Top examples include www.mamma.com, www.dogpile.com, and www.clusty.com.

I like www.clusty.com because it also divides the search results by category which makes quickly reviewing more precise results much easier.

A variation is this tool specifically for searching career advice related articles – www.chimby.com.

Meta searching job openings posted on the web can also be done. Try www.simplyhired.com and www.indeed.com.

Share/Bookmark