5 Steps to Boost Office Morale During the Winter Months

5 Steps to Boost Office Morale During the Winter Months The summer months are sadly coming to an end, and as the sun goes in, businesses can often notice a decrease in morale. The winter blues can have a huge effect on the motivation and productivity of your workforce, so introducing some new morale boosting methods will help your employees shake-off the dip in productivity. Step 1 Brighten up your environment One main reason for the lull in morale during winter time is the lack of light associated with shorter days. If the environment you or your employees work in is dark and gloomy, then you can expect your mindset to also be pretty gloomy. Open the blinds, let all the light you can in. If this isnt an option, use a full spectrum light to get rid of the gloom in the office. Step 2 Start a lunch club Food is a great motivator. To get employees feeling boosted, why not start a lunch club or take your employees out for a team meal  once a week? This not only boosts employee relations, but also will break up the day and help employees to enjoy it. Step 3  Seasonal fun So summer is over and it seems like the fun is too. But dont forget about all the exciting things winter brings! Theres Halloween, Christmas, Thanksgiving (and probably loads more), so embrace the winter celebrations and involve them in your office. Host mini afternoon parties, have a halloween fancy dress day or even a carol singing competition. Summer may be over but the fun doesnt have to be! Step 4 Turn up the tunes Its been proven by researchers that listening to cheery or upbeat music can improve the mood of the listener. So make sure you invest in a radio or just get the tunes pumping in someones computer. Another good idea is to create a Spotify collaborative playlist, which means everyone in the office can add to the playlist so its to everyones taste! Step 5 Allow flexible scheduling It can be pretty horrible leaving the office at 5 and it being dark. Why not introduce a bit of flexibility in the office? Allow employees to leave an hour early on a Friday afternoon or to come in slightly later than usual. Your employees will be grateful for it. Winter months can be a difficult time for employees, so by introducing these steps it can bring some morale back into the workplace. Are there any season specific methods you bring into your office to boost employees? Let us know!

Resume For Home Sewer - How to Avoid Common Resume Mistakes

Resume For Home Sewer - How to Avoid Common Resume MistakesWhen you are preparing a resume for home sewer, you need to be careful because you do not want to have the wrong resume on your door step. These tips will help you avoid the mistakes you would not want to make when you are preparing your resume for the home sewer.This is the most important part of your resume for the home sewer. Make sure that you know the basics of what you want to say. Have a list of skills that you have acquired over the years. Your personal statement should include your personality traits and work experience.You should make sure that your job history and education details include everything that is required to be included. Some resume templates will automatically create columns that do not provide information. Do not use these templates because you will miss important information.Your education and experience will determine how you are going to be perceived by employers. Don't forget that these statements are just part of the resume. Always make sure that you are describing exactly what you can do for an employer.These are two of the most important aspects of a resume for home sewer. You need to write a very short resume. You can use bullet points when you need to, but it is not a good idea. There is no need to fill pages with boring information.Having a cover letter attached to your resume will also help. You should never leave your cover letter until the last minute. You want to make sure that your cover letter is good, not only for your self-esteem but for the employer as well.These are just some of the important aspects of a resume for home sewer. The information that you include will go a long way in helping you get your resume for home sewer completed and approved. You may need to hire a professional, but there are still many resources available online that can help you get a perfect resume.If you need some help writing a resume for the home sewer, don't forget to read some of the articles that are available. These articles will give you a fresh perspective about resume writing and also help you avoid common resume mistakes.

Why Do Recruitment Consultants Ask Such Crazy Questions

Why Do Recruitment Consultants Ask Such Crazy Questions We cop criticism as recruitment consultants some of which is justified. So we thought we’d shine the spotlight on ourselves and explain why we ask the questions we do in interviews. What salary are you expecting? There’s nothing sinister behind this question. We want to understand what you are looking for so we can negotiate on your behalf. Please don’t believe what you read and be tempted to talk up your salary hoping that you’ll score an extraordinary pay increase next role. We have a strong idea about the companies that pay well and the ones that don’t. Be warned some clients ask us to verify your salary claims with your salary-slip. We know market rates. We know good candidates. We can tell you whether your expectations are realistic. We’ll also understand if you say you are underpaid in your current role and want more money. Some clients have salary bands. This means they can only offer salaries within a particular range.   When we ask what you’re after, we want to know whether your salary expectations match the range of roles we have on offer. More on salaries at the Top 5 Buying Signals in Job interviews. Why did you leave your last job? Fundamentally our role is to determine whether you match the roles we have with our clients.  You’d be surprised how many people forget this. We ask three questions of any candidate when we are considering them against a role on offer: Can you do the job? Will you do the job? Will you fit the team? We ask why you have left your roles for a few reasons. We want to truly comprehend what you are looking for in your next role. If you left because you didn’t like the company, the work, the size of the team, the limited career opportunities and so on, then what we are about to say makes common sense. We are not going to offer you an opportunity or a role with similar conditions. We’ll also delve deep on this question to understand whether your stated reason for leaving “makes sense.” We ask ourselves if the reason you give is consistent with what we know of that company, that type of role and the market place. You can expect more of a grilling if you have many short stints on your resume.  Plus our antennas are alert if you leave a company in less than three months, and we know that industry or company is expanding. More on leaving your job at So You Want to Leave a Job You Hate. We invite you in for one role, but we ask if you are interested in another. We will often do this. From our discussions in interview we may discover that you are a better fit for another company. If we do not think you are appropriate for one role, based on what you have told us what you want â€" and what our client needs then we will not put you forward to that client. If we have other roles that will suit you, we may well talk to you about that role in interview, or call you and discuss it at a later date. No, this has nothing to do with the old bait and switch. Why do you take so long to call? This isn’t a question we ask, but a question we’ve heard asked of us. Often the decision to appoint someone or even organize a second interview can take time. This is for a few reasons: someone internal appears out of nowhere someone internal makes a referral for another applicant the business restructures the employer likes you, but is not confident they have seen the best in the market the employer does not have their paperwork in order and forgot to get sign-off. the employer wants someone more senior to see you and that person is simply not available you are being hired for a newly created role. If an employer is hiring for a role they have already established, then they have a more tangible sense of the opportunity cost or the cost of lost productivity. Often for newly established roles there is less urgency as an employer has less sense of what they are missing out on. Now to turn the tables on the recruiter, check out Interview Questions for Recruiters. Author: In 1997 Liza Garrido founded Enigma HR with the philosophy: “be ethical; be professional; be friendly and serve your clients well.” Her firm specialises in insurance and accounting placements and she has been assisting professionals in this industry for over 20 years. Visit our website: enigmahr.com.au.

How to hit a wall at work, with grace

How to hit a wall at work, with grace I am lost. I have been lost before in my career. Its just that I did not write about it while it was happening. I wrote about it after the fact. Thats much easier. But in the past, during the time I was lost, I simply stopped writing. For example, I quit playing volleyball and went to graduate school for English. And, at the same time that I realized that English professors make no money and have no job security, I also got dumped by the guy I had been living with for five years. So this is what I did in graduate school: Nothing. I had already written two full novels, so I turned in a little bit of them each week. And I had to take literature courses, which I passed by reading New York Times book reviews (youd be surprised how far back those go.) And then, after burning every bridge possible at Boston University, I left, one credit short of a graduate degree. There were other times I fell apart. And stopped writing. For example, when I had a baby, I stayed home with it, every hour of every day, while I had an identity crisis. I still needed to support the family, but I couldnt write anything because I couldnt imagine giving career advice when I was having a total career meltdown. So I took columns from five years earlier and turned them in as new columns. And, after about three months of that, I got fired. So I know its not going to work for me to stop writing during my current crisis because it has not worked for me in the past. At this point in my career, I have a lot of achievements. I have played professional volleyball, I climbed the corporate ladder in Fortune 500 marketing, I was a journalist at the Boston Globe, and Ive gotten three startups funded. Theres no way Im going to go down in flames right now. I know that. So this seems like a good time in my life to tell you what its like to be lost at your job. Who else would do this? It would look like career suicide to anyone else. I worry, actually, that it looks that way for me. For example, I think maybe I went overboard in my comment, in a discussion about whether I am managing my personal brand well. Dan Schawbel gave a great answer and I could have left well enough alone. But heres a rule about being lost: You make bad choices. Last week, in addition to being lost at work, I was lost trying to cope with the farmer ending our engagement. So I flipped a grilled cheese with my bare hand instead of the hand holding the spatula: Insane pain. I drove myself to the emergency room, and they said I was actually at risk of going into shock behind the wheel. Okay. So it was bad enough that they gave me vicodin. They gave me 20. Yes. Right here in Madison. You can get 20 vicodin for a grill cheese burn. If hospitals in NYC did this, there would be a run on grilled cheese ingredients all over the city. I popped my vicodin. And I could not think. There was nothing. In only fifteen minutes, my head was a blank slate. The only thing I could see in my head was my hands literally trying to grasp for my problems. Where were they? Where were the things I was worrying about? I hated the vicodin. I woke up the next morning excited to have my problems back. This makes me think that maybe, somehow, I can enjoy being lost. To do that, Im going to have to tell you my biggest problem: I have no idea what Im doing at work and I am being a brat about it. I think I have already made it clear that Im difficult to work with. People cut me a lot of slack at the office. After all, I have this remarkable ability to know what works with social media even though clearly I am not able to use any tool the normal way. This must be valuable to a company. If they can put up with me in meetings. Ryan Healy has told me not to write about him anymore. (This was his final straw.) So Im just going to tell you that I have demonstrated for Ed, our new CEO, what Ryan does that makes me hate him, and Ed has said that Im nuts. That he just doesnt see what the problem is. And. Okay. Heres something disturbing: I have the exact same problem with my ex. The way he talks to me. And our nanny has heard him, and I ask the nanny, Do you see how rude he is? And the nanny says, No, I dont. He sounded fine to me. If only the nanny and the CEO knew how closely aligned they are in my life. So my problem is that I am not hearing people right. I am not a good listener. I try to be a good listener, but I do not hear things right. So I have a tone of voice problem, (which is typical for someone with Aspergers Syndrome, by the way). Ive been complaining to Ryan about his tone of voice for two years, and hed probably divorce me if he could, but, lets be honest, the company would not do well if we did that. So its not just that Im lost at work, but also Ive been a brat. I cannot solve the lost problem right now. I cannot quite figure out where I fit at my company. I mean, I gave day-to-day operations to Ryan and I gave CEOness to Ed. And where am I? Yes. I am very good at driving traffic to Brazen Careerist. Look. Im doing it right now. Its a game: Click. But I need to do more than that. I am figuring that out. And Im sure that Ryan and Ed would have more patience for me if I am not a brat while Im figuring it out. Which means I have to: 1. Be patient when people talk. No cutting them off. Here is the post about how hard that is for me. I dont know how Ill stop. I have to have a rule. No talking until there is quiet space. But honestly, I panic that that space will never come. 2. Try out doing new things even if I dont like them. Like, webinars. Im doing a webinar tonight. I should promote that now. Okay. Heres a link. Do you know what I hate about webinars? I cant stay on topic, I only want to talk about sex, and I have to make my hair look good. 3. Be positive. I am always telling people what is wrong. People do not like that. I mean, they like it in a blog. Look. Youve read this whole post. But people dont like it in real life. And Ed and Ryan told me they dont want to hear why things wont work. They want to hear the most promising idea; I need to talk like someone full of hope and promise. So I am being positive right now: I am thinking that I can decide what to try. And I can decide to think that what I try will work. And if I try something and it doesnt work, I can try again.

Tips to Help You Get the Best-Looking Resume

Tips to Help You Get the Best-Looking ResumeThere are different writing lessons that you can learn from a professional writing teacher to make your resume stand out. Here are the top tips to help you get the best-looking resume in no time!Have you ever heard of a writing teacher? For those who haven't, this is a person who has written many of the resumes that you see. A resume is like a self-portrait, and a writing teacher can teach you how to express yourself in the most effective way possible.The most important thing to remember is that you need to have the best-looking resume possible. Before you even begin, make sure that you are comfortable with the type of writing you plan to do.You need to be clear about what you want in a resume. Be specific about what you want to put on your resume. This is important because you want to stand out and be able to get hired. Having a generic resume that has everything in it will likely get you laughed at or worse, passed over for someone who is truly perfect for the job.For those without education degrees, consider working on your covering letter. If you can write a quality letter, you can write a good resume. This will help you stand out and will help you get hired. Remember, covering letters are really just personal messages that will be sent out to potential employers.What is the single biggest mistake that a potential employer will make when hiring someone? It's not plagiarism. This is one of the biggest misconceptions that new graduates make. It is not unethical to write your own resume, but you should use some other writer's writing if you want to stand out and get hired quickly.Youwant to show a potential employer that you are the best candidate for the job. You need to write in a style that other potential employers will read. Another tip is to never ever do anything that has been done before.A writing teacher can teach you a lot. Remember that you want to make a resume that stands out. Whether you are an educator or a non-teacher, be sure to learn about resume writing.

How to Find the Right Keywords for Your Resume Get More Interviews CareerMetis.com

How to Find the Right Keywords for Your Resume Get More Interviews Keywords are descriptive words, mostly nouns, that best capture an idea, an object, an experience or even a concept. You use them everyday in your Google searches or hashtags on social media!In human resources, keywords are hard skills that you may have acquired through either education and experience. They are usually associated to specific industries.evalAnd while some keywords can apply to skills within a variety of industries â€" like Project Management or Customer Service â€" others are more sector-specific, like Electrical Engineering, Lean Manufacturing or Product Design.Why should you care?evalKeywords have become a key tool in candidate selection. Recruiters and employers select resumes based on the keywords they contain â€" for them, it’s the most efficient way of checking if your skill-set and experience are a close enough match to their requirements.And in fact, checking for keywords is now fully automated by Linkedin and Applicant Tracking System So make sure you use p owerful keywords that:will enable recruiters to find you,your recruiters can understand, andmake you sound like an insider.And here’s our process for finding thekeywords to include on your resume:1. Study the job postingStudy the job posting very carefully and make a list of the keywords in it. Employers spend a lot of time writing these postings, telling you exactly what they need.Your job is to show them that you are the closest match to their ideal applicant â€" and the best way of doing that is by using the same words they’re using. So feed their keywords back to them!For example:eval2. Scan through similar job descriptionsScan through job descriptions for a similar open role at other companies to pick out additional keywords.3. Find your peersFind professionals on LinkedIn who are working in the role you are targeting and check for keywords included in their ‘Skills and Expertise’ and ‘Experience’ sections.Like this person who occupies the role listed above:Can you spot the keywords this person listed in his experience previous to getting hired by Google?4. Use the Company’s Corporate LanguageCompanies often develop their own internal language. What one may call ‘User Experience’, another might name ‘Customer Service’, or ‘Product Launch’ or ‘Product Introduction’.The differences are subtle, but using the company’s exact vocabulary will ensure you’re using the correct keywords throughout your application. Something you want, right?5. Do your researchevalDo your research! Do an in-depth search for industry jargon:Check Google results,read websites of leading companies and professional associations,use the Company’s ‘Insight’ Page on LinkedIn,go through forums, andfind a few popular industry-specific blogs.6. Use our list of 1000 keywordsCheck out our list of 1000 industry-specific keywords For example, many startups list roles in Business Development that sound the same. But when looking closely at the listings, you may notice that some of them include sales responsibilities and client relations, while others focus on KPI management.Even if it may seem like the same role, there may be some key differences in responsibilities. So can you submit the exact same CV to these different employers?The answer is no. Review your resume content against the keywords used in each job description to update it as required.Include up to 12 Keywords in your Summary QualificationsAs we mentioned above, some recruiters only look at your summary of qualifications…well, when you have one because 95% of applicants don’t include one! â€" so make sure to use the right jargon.Then, the rest of your resume should focus on proving each and EVERY one of these bullet points from your summary.How should you NOT use keywords?evalHere’s a word of caution. Only include keywords you can support through verifiable work experience. For example, don’t list Project Management in your skillset if you cannot provide a concise example of how you organised a project and brought it to the finish line.If this means you may not be eligible for the job you are targeting, maybe it’s not the right job for you at this time. But you could become eligible very fast!Enroll in an online course about project management, and explain in your cover letter that you are taking steps to improve your skills for this role. Think to include one or two relevant successes in your explanation ??And while we’re imparting cautionary advice, here’s some more. Make sure you understand what the keywords mean! An employer can tell right away when you are ‘posing’ and misusing company jargon.The employer might then think you don’t know what you are doing, which could severely cripple your application.You can easily prevent this if you:conduct careful research as we advise above,if you can, get someone with experience in the industry to review your resume!

Monday Motivation Be curious, generous and learn

Monday Motivation Be curious, generous and learn Be curious, generous and learn. Use these three words to boost your motivation this Monday? I deliver a week-long boot camp (and I co-developed the program!).   I love this more than almost anything I do right now! I get to watch individuals and the group transform.   There are all sorts of Aha moments and by the end of the week, the group has bonded in a unique way.   Really, it is like watching a butterfly come out of its cocoon.   It is from delivering this class that I pull ideas for my posts and stay in touch with job search issues and obstacles. As you face this new week of job search, here are some ideas to keep you moving forward! Drop the assumptions and proceed with the wide-eyed wonder of a child Dangerous things happen when we assume.   The truth is, we dont know what we dont know.   Whether it be an assumption about a person, process or company- lose it.   Instead become more curious, inquisitive and a seeker of information.   It is so much more fun! I found this in  SheNegotiates newsletetter.   It points out some of the many assumptions we make on a regular basis, most are limiting us! Do you these ring true or do you have other assumptions you make? You carry lots of opinions and assumptions about everything under the sun. Unchecked, they can augur your life into the ground. I cant ask for a raise because Ill get fired if I do. I cant raise my fees or nobody will hire me. I cant ask Jane to pick up my son at school when Im in a pinch because shes too busy. I cant sit on the board of my favorite nonprofit because theyre all Republicans. I cant join the leadership council because thats not the way its done. I have to be invited. Life-long Learning:   A necessity not an option While closely related to the first topic here, being a life-long learner will make a significant impact on your life! In Bud Bilanichs post:   Life Long Learning and Career Success, he spells out different ways to do this! And in case you are looking for additional resources on where you can find no-cost curriculum and learning material, check out this post:   Finding Professional Development Opportunities Part 2 Heres a question to test your life-long-learningwhat are you reading right now?   What book is next to your bed?   (Hint, hint, read!) Be kind, heck, be incredibly generous Give more than you receive.   Go out of your way and make your thank you memorable.   Go above and beyond to show your appreciation. As your week rolls forward, incorporate these actions into your life and feel free to let me know how it is working for you!

Stressed At Work Look for These Intangibles for a Better Work Life -

Stressed At Work Look for These Intangibles for a Better Work Life - Work presses your stress button? You are not alone. It doesnt take a rocket scientist (or an MD) to figure out that work stress can cause health problems and a generally miserable life. It turns out that employees need some very basic things to help them feel valued and committed to an organization, thus reducing stress and work angst. You may be surprised to find out that none of these basic core needs have anything to do with salaries or free massages at work! Click to read the rest at my blog on GreatPlaceJobs.com to learn more about basic stressers and the environments that may help you avoid them!