14 career lessons from your favourite Christmas movies

14 career lessons from your favourite Christmas movies by Michael Cheary It’s Christmas time. There’s no need to be afraid…When it comes to improving your career prospects, lessons can come from a number of places. Whether it’s from some witty and well-written career advice (ahem), a wise colleague or even a well-meaning family member, everyone has their own words of wisdom. Think Christmas is any different? Think again.OK, so we all know that the best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear. The second best way? Gifs from your favourite festive films which are in some way applicable to you. Obviously.Here are 14 career lessons from your favourite Christmas movies (N.B. walking in the air optional):1. How to tell youre in the wrong job:Top five signs it’s time for a career change Eight signs its time to resign2. How not to write a personal statement for your CV:   How to write a personal statement Personal statement: dos and don’ts3. How to make your application stand out:   How to write a CV CV templates and tips 4. How to use business cards effectively (it’s all about networking):  5. When you tailor your CV, and get invited to an interview for your perfect role:  6. When you’ve not prepared for an interview:   How to prepare for an interview7. What to tell yourself before an interview:  Pre-interview checklist8. What not to tell yourself before an interview:   How to deal with the interview itself12 things you should never do at an interview9. Cue cards are always a good idea:  10. What to say to a recruiter at the end of an interview:Interview questions for employers  11. What not to say to a recruiter at the end of an interview:Job interview nightmares revealed12. How to react positively when you don’t hear back from an interview:  13. How not to react positively when you don’t hear back from an interview: How to ask for interview feedback14. How to react when you get that dream job:How to start a new job Top five ways to impress on your first day Think weve mi ssed any? Share them with us on twitter @reedcouk. Still searching for your perfect position? View all available  jobs nowFind a job What Where Search JobsSign up for more Career AdviceSign up for moreCareer Advice Please enter a valid email addressmessage hereBy clicking Submit you agree to the terms and conditions applicable to our service and acknowledge that your personal data will be used in accordance with our privacy policy and you will receive emails and communications about jobs and career related topics. Features

Writing a Resume Heading the Experience Perspective

Writing a Resume Heading the Experience PerspectiveWriting a resume highlighting experience can be challenging. After all, you want to highlight the most pertinent skills and achievements of your job history. However, it can be difficult to find the best candidates because of their own personal issues. For example, let's say you are trying to hire a receptionist, you probably want someone who is outgoing and social.If you are not sure how to showcase an outgoing and social receptionist, how do you find this? Here are some tips on how to go about writing a resume highlighting experience for a receptionist job. First, be honest. You don't have to over promise or lie to make a good impression. You just need to be completely honest about the job that you are applying for.Second, you need to prepare your content carefully. You don't want to over-sell yourself to potential employers. You should outline in the resumes that you are ready to prove a specific point, to say nothing of your expe rience as a receptionist. In this way, employers can easily read about your professional profile as well as how you demonstrated your abilities.Third, you need to tailor your content. You may want to include an experience from another company in your resume. This way, you can also emphasize the aspects of your job history that show what you have been doing for other companies.Fourth, writing a resume highlighting experience has two sides. On one hand, you want to focus on how you have demonstrated your abilities, how you are capable of doing your job. On the other hand, you also want to look for the weaknesses of the applicants. This means that you need to highlight the factors that make them less likely to be hired, so that they can also be given the attention that they need to increase their chances of being hired. Fifth, ensure that you tailor your cover letter to the specific needs of your company. A full resume is not always necessary. Sometimes you just need to emphasize the m ost relevant experience. Therefore, you should focus on your specific work history and highlight the specific facts about your professional experiences.Sixth, prepare your resumes in advance of your interview. It is best to prepare these documents a week before your interview so that your resume is well prepared when you appear at the interview.Lastly, be confident with your resume. You may have to proofread your resume, but the actual contents should still reflect your true self.

Professional Purple A Free Purple Themed CV Template

Professional Purple â€" A Free Purple Themed CV Template Professional Purple â€" A Free Purple Themed CV Template A lot of job candidates use back and shades of gray to give some uniqueness to their CV’s â€" thousands of them, actually. We have nothing against the color gray. It’s classy and dignified, but it is too common.And who would ever think of using shades of purple on a CV? We would, that’s who. Purple does not have to be garish and “loud.” Many shades are both appealing and dignified. And what better way for your CV to stand out than using a color that no one else is even thinking about? We’re not saying that you should absolutely use purple. But how about downloading this free CV template and seeing the possibilities for yourself? You can do so much with this template add a personalized intro or a formal resume objective; smack an attractive profile photo and fill in all the career tidbits and achievements. Don’t be afraid to be a vivid, memorable candidate! File size: 55 KB Format: .doc Downloaded 14,258 times License: Free, personal use only. Please read the license terms for resources. Download previous article Conservative and Creative Free Word CV Template next article Cold as Ice â€" The Simplified Freebie Resume Design you might also likeThe Freelancers Resume Creative Resume Template for Independent Workers

Personal Brands Heres Why You Exist - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Personal Brands Here’s Why You Exist - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career What does it take for a personal brand â€" or any brand â€" to exist in the hearts and minds of your audience or target market? Attention Emotion Memory That’s it. That’s the big secret. That’s personal branding in three words. The personal branding equation Let’s tackle the first part of the personal brand equation: attention. You can’t be successful if you can’t get attention. But, it’s not just any kind of attention you want. You â€" or your brand image must be associated with a heart warming feeling, figuratively and literally speaking. Let’s consider the difference between a waiter accidentally dropping plates and sending them crashing in an upscale restaurant versus George Clooney walking into one. As diners, we turn our attention to both events. One is irritating and one is a delightful surprise. Even if you don’t like Clooney and feel irritated about the paparazzi lurking outside, who will mark your lack of celebrity by putting down their cameras, it is a kind of personal endorsement that he is choosing the same restaurant you did, because he could and does eat anywhere on the planet. In fact, it’s hard not to take Clooney’s appearance personally. Your brain does all this work for you, as it does 98% of its job: in your subconscious, out of your control. Yes, only 2% of your brain’s work is done under your direction: on the surface of the deep ocean you live in, unseen to us and you, with the possible exception of what your dreams might be trying to bubble up to the surface. Our brains pay attention and makes meaning, as much as they can, by taking in what happens in the environment around us, and integrating that with anything potential relevant we’re storing in our associative networks. The center of our universe You are not the center of our universe, but you are part of our environment: we the people with whom you work, bump into or otherwise interact. The marks of your personal brand, both online and on-ground are dots on the landscape we inhabit. For example, your Facebook updates are a huge interruption, albeit one we agreed to when we consented to being your so-called friend. If we find something self-referencing in your posts, something that we can relate to, aspire to or find a surprising and delightful connection to â€" you are a good interruption â€" you get positive attention credits. It’s like George Clooney walking into the restaurant where we’re having dinner. Because his personal brand is cool in kind of a Sinatra rat pack way, his presence elevates the vibe. When you arrive, do you elevate the vibe or suck out its sense of cool? Have you considered what people think and feel when you walk into a room? Would you get a rousing welcome at Cheers or the deflating reception that a cooler gets when he stands by a successful gambler in Las Vegas? Consider how we feel when we see your comments on LinkedIn. Do we think, hey, that’s was really smart! Or do we think: what a disappointment: another doofus made us go look when we got the email saying there was a new post on that discussion. Your waste-of-our-time comment is “Jack, you make a good point.” You go down in flames when it comes to getting our attention. So does your personal brand reputation. Your brand becomes “what a waste of time.” Ouch! We not only dislike you, we dislike ourselves by association â€" and that’s all assigned to your brand. Your underwhelming performance sets the bar lower for all of us, but not as in a Club Med limbo, limbo, limbo amazing flexibility way. A superfluous comment makes you a doofus, but so are we for being on the same thread with such a doofus. You not only give us a bad name, but also this discussion, maybe this group and even LinkedIn. Is that how you are mishandling our attention? Spend the week measuring the type of attention you get. Look at the comments that follow yours on discussion threads. Is your contribution ignored, and does the discussion go on irrespective of what you said? Or, did five people look you up and ask you to be a connection, because you said something that grabbed their attention and got them to think the three little words we all want to hear in business: Tell me more (about you). In similar fashion, measure the response you get when people are on the phone with you. Are they glad to hear from you? Do they seek your guidance? Do they feel lucky you called? Or, are they too busy to take your call? Measure what happens when you get into a meeting. Is the air more electric? Is there a sense of expectation? Does the discussion get richer, do more people join in, or are you a cooler, sending the energy plummeting and the texting soaring? Personal brands: check the attention units you get this week. It’s like keeping a food diary so a nutritionist can figure out why you are tired, fat or ill-nourished. Next week we evaluate your emotion appeal. And, finally we’ll evaluate just how memorable you are. This could be the breakthrough you’ve needed to assess the evidence of what your personal brand is actually doing in the environment. If you like metaphors â€"a big part of emotional connection, ask yourself: are you the irritating plastic bottles littering the beach, or the sparkle on the tips of ocean waves rising with the tide? Author: Nance Rosen is the author of Speak Up! Succeed. She speaks to business audiences around the world and is a resource for press, including print, broadcast and online journalists and bloggers covering social media and careers. Read more at NanceRosenBlog. Twitter name: nancerosen

Creating Areas Of Expertise Resume Cover Letter

Creating Areas Of Expertise Resume Cover LetterAreas of expertise resume cover letters can make the difference between landing a job and being passed over for one. Employers that pass up candidates who have superior qualifications are more likely to say no to other qualified applicants. Keep this in mind when you are filling out a resume cover letter.Before you start writing your resume cover letter, it is important to identify what you want to convey to the employer. Although the typical resume cover letter is boilerplate and generic, employers will be able to tell by the first paragraph how you plan to make your case to them. So make sure that you can make a compelling impression when you get down to business.Start by listing your accomplishments and qualifications in the first paragraph of your resume cover letter. You may even choose to go beyond listing your professional accomplishments. You might include qualifications that come from your extracurricular activities, such as vol unteer work, community service, or leadership positions. All of these things can contribute to your development and your resume cover letter should begin by talking about your efforts and accomplishments.Your resume, cover letter should also include a section on your hobbies and interests. This gives the employer a better idea of who you are as a person. You might want to include a summary of your personal background, including your parents' names, and where you grew up, your schools, and your communities. In this section, you should be sure to mention any volunteer work that you've done. If you have written anything on your resume, you should include it here.You should also include your basic information. First, the name of your company, including the name of your department, the name of your department head, and the title of your position. Next, you should list the name of your supervisor, who is the person in charge of assigning you to an area of expertise. You might also want to include your job duties that relate to the job, such as your responsibilities in the Human Resources department.You will then want to provide the employers with your area of expertise resume. You should try to cover the areas in which you are familiar with and what you have accomplished while working in your areas of expertise. The basic idea is to describe in detail how you helped your employer achieve his goals or the results of an assignment. Do not try to be too specific about every small task. Instead, the focus should be on specific accomplishments.You should take care to include a brief summary of what the employer wants to know about you. This includes the exact title of your area of expertise, the exact assignment that you worked on, the name of the company or individual, and any details about the project or assignment. Your summary should also give some background on your work before you became the subject of the recruitment. It is important to indicate that you worked on the project on your first day or a week later.After listing your name, address, phone number, email address, and employment history, you will want to list any awards, certifications, or degrees that you have received. You may also want to include recommendations or any education or skills that you have acquired that may be relevant to the job. Just remember that these examples are not all that you should put on your resume cover letter. The key is to make sure that you make a positive impression and that your main contribution to the employer's goals is that you have what they need.

11 Simple Steps You Can Take For Your Career Development

11 Simple Steps You Can Take For Your Career Development In every company, some employees linger around doing the same job year after year without ever-advancing and making their way up the corporate ladder. But then, some employees do all they can to progress with a company because they want their career to be more than just a job.The employee that takes control of their career and puts forth the effort it takes to do more than just show up and do a job are the ones that will progress faster than others. These types of employees also understand that competition not only exists but that if they don’t take their career seriously, replacements are always available.evalSuccessful employees recognize and utilize Simple Steps to Improve Career Development and apply them to their everyday work performance and grab a nice performance appraisal. Such employees accept the responsibility that their growth in a company is strictly up to them which enables them to take charge of their career and the growth required to fulfill their goals. Applying S imple Steps Can Improve Your DevelopmentThere is truth in the statement “those who invest more into their careers are the ones that gain the most from their career.” No CEO got where he/she is by waiting for someone to take him by the hand to lead him to the highest position within a company. He/she got there by setting their sites on the golden egg and making their way there no matter what it took.The following are tips you can learn from and incorporate into your job performance to ensure you fulfill your goals while being the best you can be at your job.1) Establish a visionevalWhen it comes to your career and your life, it is imperative that you develop ambitions and goals. By understanding that the two categories, your life, and your career are a whole, you can apply the same learning techniques to make sure you are as equal in one as you are the other. You can’t strive to be successful in your career if your personal life is a disaster. As they say, you have one life, yo u might as well make the most of it as you can. If your goals change as time progresses, that’s ok too. However, if you fail to establish goals you want to accomplish, then you will fail at achieving everything you hoped for in your life and your career. Set Goals!2) Document your planJust like a “to-do” works with your personal life, you should apply the same logic to your mission, vision, and goals for your career. Establish three goals you want to accomplish on a daily basis, weekly basis, monthly basis, quarterly basis, and a yearly basis and document them where you will see them and not tuck them away out of site. Remember, out-of-site, out-of-mind!3) Have faith in yourselfThe more you apply yourself you will increase your level of skills. Once you begin to see how much you have made progress, the more confidence you will have in yourself. With confidence builds a better acknowledgment of your importance to your organization. The more you believe in yourself, your ability to display your skills, and your determination to succeed, are all critical in your career development.4) Always be willing to learnevalThe day you stop wanting to learn is the day you can stop looking for a better life. Learning is the key to a better life and a better career. With today’s technology, learning is made simple by reading blogs, online books, online courses, and online training; it’s all right there, at your fingertips.The more you know about your line of work, the better you stand out from other employees. Learn as much as you can about current trends and new developments and if possible, incorporate them into your job.5) Improve your people skillsEmployees that obtain great people skills always have a crowd gathered around the break room listening to their stories. Having strong people skills is a big part of earning respect from your co-workers and upper management.Always be outgoing, friendly, and personable, and you will find this opens many doors of opportu nity for you. Being an effective and clear communicator is also a huge plus in personality development as well.Source â€" Pexels.comeval6) Expand and strengthen your networkevalBy attending conferences and joining professional associations affiliated with your field is an excellent way to strengthen your career network. Meeting others that work in the same field as you can offer insight and often open many doors for you in the future.Always be sure to collect contact information and gather as much knowledge as possible from those who have worked a few years more than you in your given industry. The more people you make aware of your abilities and strengths, the more chances you have of having future opportunities come your way. 7) Establish mentor relationshipsMentors, both inside and outside your organization, make strong foundations to learn from and lean on for career guidance. Mentors make great sounding boards and can provide hands-on experience and knowledge that doesn’t exi st in books or videos. Find someone who believes in you, works well with you and has the success and expertise you seek, and you will have landed a goldmine.8) Build yourself a good reputationIn business, your reputation and good name are the only two things you own. At your organization, be known for being professional, dependable, and cooperative while looking and acting the part of a professional, and you will always stand out from the rest. Make a name for yourself by writing articles, attending conferences, and delivering speeches. Put yourself out there!9) Sell yourselfSelf-promote yourself by sharing significant accomplishments and make sure you let those in influential positions aware of your successes and devotion that may have a say so in your future advancements. Speak up and let management know you are interested in the promotion and you feel you are ready for the next level up in your career.10) Establish trustNobody wants to associate with someone who is not trustworth y. Developing trust often takes time and effort but is well worth it in the long run. Trust goes two ways, not only do you need to gain trust from others, but you also should learn to trust others to establish good working relationships.11) Give back to othersExplore ways you can give back for those you have met and who have assisted you in getting where you are today. Volunteer with area youth programs and be a mentor to another as mentors were to you.Volunteering teaches a person to be humble and prepares you for future endeavors as you make connections with your community. And, always show gratitude to those who stood by you as you progressed over the years.

Woohoo - a German company just bought 5 tickets to our conference in May - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Woohoo - a German company just bought 5 tickets to our conference in May - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog Woohoo a German company just bought 5 tickets for our conference in May. Imagine if every participant brings back and implements just ONE simple, cheap initiative to improve on the happiness at work in their company it will pay for the conference tickets many times over. Are you joining us? See the program and get your tickets here. Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related

Tough (Question) Tuesday Installment 34

Tough (Question) Tuesday Installment 34 By Ashley Brooke Inzer of Experiment31, who also encourages you to download the file for free. So friggin cool, right? If youre anything like me, youre being challenged right now, all you can see is whats going wrong: I made the wrong choice, Im feeling the wrong (aka bad) feeling, Im afraid to choose wrong.   But what is you flipped that thinking on its head asked the question: What are you doing right? Yup, Ill start off the comments by answering the question in the next few minutes. Hope youll join in! You can see all of the Tough (Question) Tuesday installments here.