Guest post by Janice Farrar - You have worked hard to keep your credit record clean and pay all of your bills on time. You have lived in the same house for several years and have been good to all of your neighbors. Your work habits have always been excellent, and your boss has given you glowing compliments on your skills. Once you finish your degree, finding a new job should be a cinch, right? Well, for many people, this is not entirely true.
No matter that you have a glowing resume. Getting the desired position in a great company may also depend on your past criminal history. You may be thinking that you are in the clear in this area as well because you have never been arrested for a crime. However, if you have a DUI charge on your driving record, you may be surprised to find that your job search is not going to be quite as simple as expected. Each state has set different rules governing how long a DUI penalty will remain on a driving record, and an employer can access this information instantly in today’s electronic world. Because of this, the following actions should be taken by anyone who has been arrested for driving under the influence in the past:
Guest post by Michael Dolen - Fifty years ago, if an employee was going on a business trip, he was given a wad of cash and instructions to save his receipts. Of course nowadays, it doesn’t quite work that way! Instead, we have those magic pieces of plastic to pay for everything.
However along with the ease and simplicity of the credit card comes one big problem… fraud. Whether it’s being used for business trips or locally, the temptation of slipping in personal purchases is all too great for some people.
Guest post by Jane Smith - I’ve always been a fairly active person. I was a competitive swimmer and soccer player all through my primary school years. I swam in college and participated in several intramural sports through my school. Exercise was never something I really thought about throughout my day because it was such a natural and common process in my lifestyle. However, when I graduated from college and lost that team structure, my exercise routine lost its way. Of course, I was still active and exercised occasionally, but I was nowhere near as active as I had been before. This really started affecting me when I finally landed a full time position out of school.
Guest post by Ella Davidson - A person’s potential refers to who they could be, what they could do and where they could go. The term is vague and is often ignored particularly in the business environment. However underestimating someone’s potential, whether it is your own or someone else’s can have many negative consequences.
This is true both at the personal level, and in the workplace. People who underestimate their own potential tend to be unsure of themselves, unwilling to try something new and do not wish to develop themselves due to believing that they have nothing worthwhile to develop. When people’s potential is underestimated within the workplace, they can often become angry, feel like they are taken for granted, and this can result in many not feeling loyalty to their workplace.
Guest post by Daniela Baker - On average, a person born between 1957 and 1964 works in at least eleven different jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. While career and job changes used to be rare and infrequent, those who are in midlife today are taking more risks than ever. If you want to be among the many who completely changes directions – going from a job in engineering to one in catering, perhaps, or from a career in education to one in web design, maybe – then you need to make sure you consider your options carefully.
A midlife career change is a big deal. While it can work out to the advantage of many people, those who are most successful have though through the process very carefully before making the leap. Here are a few things to consider before making a midlife career change:
Guest post by Jacelyn Thomas - Staying motivated to get up and go to work every morning at 9 am (or, god forbid, earlier) can be a real challenge. Even the most motivated of individuals have those days where they just don’t want to work. However, it is essential in today’s competitive job market that we stay active, alert, and motivated with our work. Employees who put in their full effort all the time are the ones that move on to bigger and brighter futures. We can likely all admit it—there are days that we are under motivated and fairly in active at work. Rather than waste your employers’ and your own time, find ways to stay motivated throughout your work day and before you go in.
Guest post by Sasha Gibbs - Humans are gifted with an innate ability to produce innovative ideas. The only thing that makes a difference is the way of perceiving things.
Basically, there are two kinds of people. The first kind possesses what is called the “drawing room psychology”, which is another way of saying that their ideas are lost or forgotten as soon as they leave the room. The second type of people are generally successful in their lives and keep ideas in their mind, breed them and later when time comes, transform those ideas into reality.
In our daily lives, we think a lot and come up with some great ideas but unfortunately though, we hardly ever find the time or the guts to implement those ideas.
Guest post by Angelita Williams - Years ago when I first graduated from college, I had a difficult time finding my dream job. Too clumsy to wait tables and no patience for retail, I decided to look in the classifieds for a quiet office job to fill the void.
All of the postings seemed boring—until I ran across one that caught my eye: “First Impressions Officer for Hire, Bachelor’s Degree Preferred But Not Mandatory.” I remember immediately thinking, “I have a bachelor’s degree! And this sounds fun and important.” A phone and in-person interview later, I finally realized that First Impressions Officer was just a fancy way of saying receptionist, but I took that job and proudly presented myself as a First Impressions Officer to family and friends.
Guest Post by Brittany Lyons - Earning a college degree today is not the same as it was a decade ago. At one time, degrees that were obtained outside of a college classroom were the brunt of jokes and were scoffed at when they appeared on resumes. However, with an increasing number of reputable institutions offering online courses, students often find themselves wondering if online degrees are considered to be as credible as those obtained the traditional way.
Guest Post by Katheryn Rivas - Part of becoming an adult in the working world means learning to manage and respond to constructive criticism in a productive manner. This is something that parents, instructors, and schools have been training their pupils for since the start of their schooling.
Criticism is an inevitable in life. And, although it is negative in some ways, it is rarely intended to be hurtful. In the working world, you are going to receive negative feedback on things that you do from your authority figures. Just as you received negative marks in school to indicate that you needed to change something or put in more effort, your boss will also provide negative feedback on things you could improve on.
How you deal with this negative feedback is one of the things that may determine how successful of an employee you will be.
Follow these three steps to better manage and react to negative feedback from your boss or supervisor.
Guest post by Lindsey Webster - The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) assessment is psychometric questionnaire designed to measure how people perceive the world and make decisions.
It is often used in the areas of career counseling, team building, group dynamics, professional development, marketing, leadership training, executive coaching, life coaching, personal development, and workers’ compensation claims.
The test uses four indicators that, when viewed together, create 16 different personality types. It is said that individual personality types prefer or exceed at specific careers. For this reason, the Myers-Briggs Test is often used in career counseling as a way to narrow down what type of work or career a person may find interesting or fulfilling.
Just like any other test, there are a few tips for taking the Myers-Briggs test. Although there are no “wrong answers” on this test, there is a “right” and a “wrong” way to approach it. Listed below are five tips for taking the Myers-Briggs Test.
We usually focus our branding efforts on the internet: social networks, websites or blogs. But what we often forget, is to put energy in “real life” promotion. At best, we limit ourselves to giving away business cards.
Surely, business cards are a nice and easy way of staying in people’s wallets and being easily reached.
The one problem with business cards is that they are intended solely for the person you give it to. It has virtually no use for someone you haven’t met or someone who stumbled upon your card on a table. Unless the receiver of your business card carries his or her Rolodex everywhere they go in case they run into someone that may be in need of your services, your card becomes a dead end.
So, what could work as a business card and get people to visit your site or business? Good old pens.
Even on a low budget, you can get a couple dozen Amsterdam Printing cheap promotional pens to give away with your business card or leave them in visible places. Keeping a lonely pen you found laying on a table does not qualify as stealing, does it?
The advantage of having a branded pen is that even if the person loses it -or someone pouches it… admit it, who hasn’t pouched a pen?- the finder or offender will have your brand’s name in front of them every time they need to jot something.
So there you go, one extra way of expanding your reach for just a few bucks.
Guest post by Amanda Clark - We all have those moments when we want to just quit our jobs. You have a bad week, nothing seems to go right, and you just think that quitting will make your life better. However, you know that there would be consequences for these hasty actions. Before you make a rash decision and quit your job, you need to consider a few things. There’s no reason to stay somewhere that makes you unhappy, but you may need some time to think it over.
Guest Post by Kimberly Wilson - You got a call back. You prepared. You even arrived on time. But in the end, your irrelevant answers and inability to think on your feet causes you to blow your interview. Do not worry. Caving under the pressure of having to impress a potential employer has happened to the best of us. But if you really want the job as badly as you say, instead of walking away home defeated there may just be a chance for you to recover from your bad interview. To learn how, continue reading below.
Guest post by Melanie Slaugh - Confidence is important in business and in life. But what is it? What does it do? How do you get it? Is it something that you’re born with, or do you learn confidence?
Confidence is trust or faith in something or someone. Confidence is knowing that you’ve made the right choice, or at least the best possible choice. Confidence is security.
As Donna Flagg says,
In the absence of confidence (and I mean real, true, authentic confidence, not ego-induced bravado and swagger) we have deep-seated insecurity driving people to find ways they can convince themselves they are not exactly what they fear. Weak.Powerless.Vulnerable.In a word, insecure. In the workplace we see insecurity take the form of defensiveness, irresponsibility and deception. In personal relationships it rears its ugly head through paranoia, distortion and fear.
Guest post by Barry Magennis - With over three quarters of corporations now utilizing some aspect of social media, media jobs are as multitudinous as clouds in the sky. Indeed, you may have noticed that media positions are as commonplace as admin jobs as you browse jobs sites in search of your next career move. The mere sight of this ubiquitous term begets the question: what exactly counts as a media job these days?
After setting up your jobs site profile to receive alerts when ‘media jobs’ become available, you may find that you’re inundated with related roles. A good number of them will be sales-oriented.
Muddied as the waters may be in the media jobs market, there are many creative jobs, writing, editing or working even in television which are available; you just need to wade through the voluminous number of jobs to find them. But if you’re planning on throwing as many resumes at the wall and seeing what sticks, you’re likely to apply for a raft of jobs including social media vacancies.
Guest post by Erinn Stam - Many women and some men would like to work less after having children so that they can spend more time with their families. More companies are offering family friendly policies so that employees can achieve more work-life balance. Some will offer different scheduling arrangements, such as a condensed work week (working longer hours on fewer days), job sharing, telecommuting, and working part time. However, not all companies readily offer flexible schedules, and some employees may have to prepare themselves to petition for and negotiate a new schedule. If you are thinking of asking your boss for a new working schedule after you return from maternity leave (or paternity leave), here are some things to keep in mind:
