Month: March 2017

How to Market Yourself During A Career Search

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When searching for a new career, knowing how to market yourself to potential employers and recruiters can give you an edge over the other applicants. If you don’t know how to stand out from the rest, it could make your search very long and exhausting.

With marketing, there are tons of things you need to know. To help you get started, here are some of the essential things that can help you know how to market yourself.

Know Your Unique Selling Point (USP)

In my book “The Job Book”, I talk about the importance of understanding one’s true attributes and strengths. By having a clear understanding, one should be able to find meaningful job opportunities that fit.

Since you are the product, you have to figure out what your USP is before you start selling yourself. A Unique Selling Point might be the experience you bring to the table or the skills you have gained. Maybe you’ve gone through some type of special training which can make you the best candidate for the job.

Once you know your USP, it needs to be highlighted throughout your resume and interviews. It needs to be the focus of your marketing campaign as you search for a new career.

Understand your Value

job search sources

When it’s time to start a career search, you shouldn’t think that just because you need a job, any job will do.You need to know your value and settle for nothing less than what you’re worth. There are several online tools you can use to discover the average salary for the type of position you seek.

See Also: 7 Steps On How to Figure Out Your Career

Provide Growth

What you offer to a potential employer today is only a small part of the equation. Often, companies make hiring decisions based on where they think you can go in the next two to five years. If you provide plenty of upside and you’re motivated to advance, you might just land that dream career.

Promote Yourself

promote yourself

A strategic marketing plan often starts with a new product. You need to take a similar approach when searching for a career. You cannot just count on scattering a few resumes through email.

Instead, you need to use various channels to promote your skills and abilities. Making sure your message gets across online is just half the battle. You will also need to make sure it’s received offline, especially if the person you intend to send it to isn’t easy to contact online.

In addition, you need to take care of the details, such as sprucing up your LinkedIn profile, updating the job boards with your resume, and putting yourself out there through recruiting agencies.

You can use LinkedIn and other professional social media sites to network based on your specific expertise. This can be a very powerful way to attract the right employer who can give you the keys to your dream career.

Put Your Marketing Plan Together

Once you have an idea how to market yourself and you’ve created your USP, you will need a few tools to help bring it all together. You need to create an impressive resume/CV, optimize your LinkedIn profile and make sure your cover letter shines. It’s also a good idea to brush up on interview skills and make sure you’re ready to impress.

See Also: 6 Interview Hacks That Are Sure To Land You The Job

 

The post How to Market Yourself During A Career Search appeared first on Dumb Little Man.

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@signordal Searching for Stars

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Less Is More: 4 Things to Do When You Are Overwhelmed

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You’re reading Less Is More: 4 Things to Do When You Are Overwhelmed, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

Anxiety girl

Anxiety girl

Nearly everyone complains about having too much to do at work nowadays. The reasons may vary from ambitions and overcommitting to just being unable to say no to extra work. However, the result is always the same: you end up at risk of not managing to do everything you had planned.

Experts say that overworking is not sustainable in the long term for both the employer and the employee: its consequences range from simple tiredness to exhaustion and emotional burnout. So, what can be done if you feel overworked?

Talk to your boss about your overwork

Easier said than done: none of us want to be considered a “no” person or “not a team player”. That’s why talking to a boss and admitting that the workload is too heavy is difficult even for the most hard-working employees.

However, if you are overwhelmed, it’s best to let your manager know: it doesn’t mean that you are lazy or uncommitted. A reasonable manager would appreciate your honesty and ability to adequately assess your personal resources. Being honest and giving a heads-up as early as possible is essential for achieving the desired changes.

A good way to let your boss know that you have too much on your plate is to come to them with actual solutions. Suggesting ways to optimize the workflow or redistribute workload shows initiative and responsibility. Speaking up when you feel you’re not handling the workload well is not about being lazy and difficult to work with. It’s about preventing your team from missing important deadlines and goals.

Focus on small tasks

A thousand mile journey begins with a single step. If there’s no way to reduce the workload and you’re feeling anxious about it, it might be a good idea not to concentrate on the big picture. Instead, focus on what’s right in front of you, doing work in chunks of smaller tasks – and your anxiety will gradually fade.

When you’re not confident in your abilities, start anyway. Our negative thoughts are our worst enemy: they keep us from achieving more and contribute to our lack of confidence. Learn to ignore them and just get to work.

Learn to say no to extra work

No matter how hard-working we think we are, taking on every task available doesn’t mean being successful. Quite the opposite, in fact. And sometimes saying no is just as vital for the long-term progress of both your team and yourself. As questionable as it may sound, doing more does not always equal working better. Go ahead and ask yourself which one makes you feel better: accomplishing fewer tasks, but doing it really well, or wading through a massive list of assignments and ending up with below average results?

Don’t be a perfectionist. Many of us tend to judge ourselves too harshly, but perfectionism and our attempts to be as good as we “should” be only served to work against us, leading to negative thoughts, low self-esteem, and disappointment. You can be good enough without the extra work and being always busy.

And sure, sometimes overworking can feel rewarding. When we have a lot to do, we feel we’re needed, irreplaceable, in demand. However, the usual result is stress and exhaustion. To prevent this, we need to learn to evaluate our capacity and know exactly how much work we can handle.

Manage your tasks efficiently

When you find yourself feeling overwhelmed often, taking a look at what takes up most of your work time can be extremely valuable. One of the most efficient ways to do that is to visualize your tasks and record the time that you spend on them. And timesheet software can help you do that. See where your time goes, analyze the big picture, and see where you can (and should) improve.

Normally, a quick glance at the results of your time-track is enough to tell what work assignments consume most of your time. Think on the ways to increase your efficiency at work. Seek support from your team: think of delegating part of your work to your colleagues or redistributing it. Optimize your work process so that routine actions take less time, and set priorities so that the most important to-dos get done first.

Summary

Saying no to extra work and delegating part of your current responsibilities to your colleagues doesn’t paint you as not committed or unproductive. Remember: more input doesn’t necessarily mean more output. And if you do have a lot of work to do and it makes you feel anxious, just start anyway. Taking that first step will help you go the entire distance.

You’ve read Less Is More: 4 Things to Do When You Are Overwhelmed, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

http://ift.tt/2mjt7Cn

Less Is More: 4 Things to Do When You Are Overwhelmed

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You’re reading Less Is More: 4 Things to Do When You Are Overwhelmed, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

Anxiety girl

Anxiety girl

Nearly everyone complains about having too much to do at work nowadays. The reasons may vary from ambitions and overcommitting to just being unable to say no to extra work. However, the result is always the same: you end up at risk of not managing to do everything you had planned.

Experts say that overworking is not sustainable in the long term for both the employer and the employee: its consequences range from simple tiredness to exhaustion and emotional burnout. So, what can be done if you feel overworked?

Talk to your boss about your overwork

Easier said than done: none of us want to be considered a “no” person or “not a team player”. That’s why talking to a boss and admitting that the workload is too heavy is difficult even for the most hard-working employees.

However, if you are overwhelmed, it’s best to let your manager know: it doesn’t mean that you are lazy or uncommitted. A reasonable manager would appreciate your honesty and ability to adequately assess your personal resources. Being honest and giving a heads-up as early as possible is essential for achieving the desired changes.

A good way to let your boss know that you have too much on your plate is to come to them with actual solutions. Suggesting ways to optimize the workflow or redistribute workload shows initiative and responsibility. Speaking up when you feel you’re not handling the workload well is not about being lazy and difficult to work with. It’s about preventing your team from missing important deadlines and goals.

Focus on small tasks

A thousand mile journey begins with a single step. If there’s no way to reduce the workload and you’re feeling anxious about it, it might be a good idea not to concentrate on the big picture. Instead, focus on what’s right in front of you, doing work in chunks of smaller tasks – and your anxiety will gradually fade.

When you’re not confident in your abilities, start anyway. Our negative thoughts are our worst enemy: they keep us from achieving more and contribute to our lack of confidence. Learn to ignore them and just get to work.

Learn to say no to extra work

No matter how hard-working we think we are, taking on every task available doesn’t mean being successful. Quite the opposite, in fact. And sometimes saying no is just as vital for the long-term progress of both your team and yourself. As questionable as it may sound, doing more does not always equal working better. Go ahead and ask yourself which one makes you feel better: accomplishing fewer tasks, but doing it really well, or wading through a massive list of assignments and ending up with below average results?

Don’t be a perfectionist. Many of us tend to judge ourselves too harshly, but perfectionism and our attempts to be as good as we “should” be only served to work against us, leading to negative thoughts, low self-esteem, and disappointment. You can be good enough without the extra work and being always busy.

And sure, sometimes overworking can feel rewarding. When we have a lot to do, we feel we’re needed, irreplaceable, in demand. However, the usual result is stress and exhaustion. To prevent this, we need to learn to evaluate our capacity and know exactly how much work we can handle.

Manage your tasks efficiently

When you find yourself feeling overwhelmed often, taking a look at what takes up most of your work time can be extremely valuable. One of the most efficient ways to do that is to visualize your tasks and record the time that you spend on them. And timesheet software can help you do that. See where your time goes, analyze the big picture, and see where you can (and should) improve.

Normally, a quick glance at the results of your time-track is enough to tell what work assignments consume most of your time. Think on the ways to increase your efficiency at work. Seek support from your team: think of delegating part of your work to your colleagues or redistributing it. Optimize your work process so that routine actions take less time, and set priorities so that the most important to-dos get done first.

Summary

Saying no to extra work and delegating part of your current responsibilities to your colleagues doesn’t paint you as not committed or unproductive. Remember: more input doesn’t necessarily mean more output. And if you do have a lot of work to do and it makes you feel anxious, just start anyway. Taking that first step will help you go the entire distance.

You’ve read Less Is More: 4 Things to Do When You Are Overwhelmed, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

http://ift.tt/2mjt7Cn

Get Second Opinion

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Worried That Your Next Decision Might Be Hard To Come Back From? Contact Me For Second Opinion You Can Count On!

O Canada!

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O Canada! Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide, O Canada,
We stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

Crystal Mill – Colorado – USA (by Max and Dee Bernt) 

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Crystal Mill – Colorado – USA (by Max and Dee Bernt) 

Words Can Kill

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George Orwell

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