Getting to next - Making that first job a positive experience
Whether you are entering the job market right out of school or after a victory lap in Europe or South America, here are some important dos and don’ts to get you off to a powerful start in the world of work. With a positive attitude, enthusiastic approach to work, maintaining your child-like curiosity and back to school mentality, you will quickly be respected, admired and sought after in the work place. It is just as important to avoid conflict and politics, to not allow subversives to get to you, and to not be afraid that work is work.
Build your professional brand to be successful in the workplace
Your professional brand is a reflection of how people perceive you and what you are known for. Developing your brand comes not only from your professional accomplishments, but also from your interactions with those you work with - including co-workers, clients, and partner organizations. A strong brand can help you become the person in demand that everyone wants to work with and will put you in charge of your career.
Avoid job burnout: Practice self-care and stress management
Individuals across the U.S. are reporting continued difficulty managing their stress. According to the APA’s Stress in America Survey (2013), twenty percent of Americans are experiencing high, unhealthy levels of stress (8, 9 or 10 on a 10-point scale). Organizations are also noticing an increasing number of employees taking time off from work due to stress and burnout, in the form of sick days in mild cases, and short-term disability in more extreme cases. A chronic high-level of stress is considered a key risk factor for developing burnout. What is burnout, you may be wondering?
Women: The virtues of selfishness will help advance your career
Selfishness is one of those words that connotes all sorts of negative things. Usually of a spoiled, self-centred person with no concept of reality or of anyone else. But to be fair, selfishness does have many virtues that we seldom acknowledge. Being selfish is a natural human trait. In fact, it is one of the reasons we not only survived but thrived as a species. It means we looked out for ourselves and our own and hey, we are all here today because of it.
Strategies for owning your career and obtaining your career goals
Much of life is spent at work -- finally take charge of your work, and your life. All it takes is learning how to own your career. Know what you want, get focused, and don’t ever let anybody tell you what you want. Your goals are attainable, and now is the time to start working towards them.
Develop practical skills to reduce job stress and become resilient
Numerous recent studies have identified the workplace as a primary and growing source of stress. If you are one of the millions of workers looking to reduce work-related stress, here are several practical strategies — from managing your schedule to changing your thought processes — that will lower not just stress but also your risk of the physical conditions and ailments that often result.
A career coach helps you search for and land the perfect job
There’s an American tradition of talented individuals singlehandedly blazing a trail to success. Among the mythmakers are Steve Jobs, J.K. Rowling and Muhammad Ali.
The reality is a bit different: Jobs performed his magic with Steve Wozniak (at least at the outset), Rowling leaned on her editors and corporate marketing, and Ali relied on a man in his corner named Angelo Dundee. These business, literary and sports stars weren’t created in a vacuum. They had help.
What to do immediately after you are laid off from your job
Nobody thinks about what would happen during a layoff. Regardless of the reason, unless the entire company is shutting down, you can’t help stop asking questions about why you were chosen over someone else, and more importantly, what happens next? The following tips can help you manage the initial steps of surviving a layoff.
How to successfully apply for a new job in your current company
It’s easier to find another job when you already have one. Being employed is a plus, giving a prospective employer comfort that an applicant has already been successful and has gained some experience in a particular field. Finding a new job with your current employer may not be as easy as finding one with a new employer, for several reasons. Unlike an outside applicant, your current employer knows a lot about your habits, performance, attitude, and productivity. It’s difficult to embellish your strengths and hide your weaknesses.
Women: Stand out and be successful in the tech field and business
The tech field is a notoriously testosterone driven environment. People are aggressive, to the point, and everything is changing constantly. It is the type of environment where you have to have confidence to survive. Women are still few and far between the top ranks of most tech companies. In fact, according to the annual Study of California Women Business Leaders, fewer than one in twenty-eight of the highest paid tech executives is a woman. Women have the intelligence and the creative thinking that tech needs. However, women have to learn how to adapt to this environment.
How to be confident and successful in making sales cold calls
Salespeople who are required to make phone calls often experience trepidation. If you are required to make outbound calls for appointments, you may experience a common problem. At some point in your career, you may feel like you cannot make one more call. Perhaps you feel as if what you’re doing is not working, which leads to what is often referred to as “call reluctance.” Or your most recent bout of calls did not result in success, so you feel defeated before you even begin dialing the following Monday morning.
Perform a once-a-year career check-in to help reassess your goals
It’s good practice to do a job search once a year just to confirm that you are where you want to be. The process will teach you the important life lesson to manage your career through conscious choice. Are you ready to conduct a career check-in? Follow this advice to guide your way.
Keep your job and get ahead by staying relevant to your company
It should be intuitive that if you are not adding value to your company, it won’t be long before your presence is no longer required. However, unexamined routine can lead to complacency and infuse a task with a greater significance than it may actually warrant. Hence, you might not see the Ax Man Cometh.
Expert advice for giving a bad performance review to a good employee
As a manager, one of the most impactful management tasks is creating and delivering performance reviews to your direct reports. This is a task that needs to be done on a regular basis so that both management and employees are aware of how they are performing in line with corporate goals and expectations. This task becomes more difficult when the employee is not performing at an acceptable level. The following advice should assist you in delivering a negative review in a positive light.
Leave your job on good terms when you quit or resign
There are many reasons why people leave employers. Sometimes the reason is due to a difficult work environment thanks to disruptive workers or a micromanaging boss. In other cases it’s the job itself – either a new and better opportunity comes along or the duties have changed so much that the very thought of sticking around is like nails on a chalkboard. And of course there are other personal reasons like illness or moving to a new area.
Take charge of your career and achieve your full potential
Can you be happy in your career? Really happy? Skip to the shower on Mondays kinda happy? Yep. Sure, it’s hard work and it takes vigilance, self awareness and the willingness to take some risks. But being unhappy at work is also hard work. Pick your poison. What does career happiness actually mean to you, in other words, can you define it? And after you have defined it, do you know how to get it? Before you crawl back in bed and put the covers over your head, here are some tips to get you on your way down the road.
Learn to job hop successfully to help you reach your career goals
No doubt about it, the concept of a corporate lifer has become a thing of the past. Americans are no longer staying at the same job for 40 years. In fact, on average, Americans between 18-44 years old held 11 jobs between 1978 and 2008. Here are some surprising statistics on the current state of the workforce:
Deal with the office bully to create a positive work environment
Establishing mutual respect and making sure you can both trust each other is essential when trying to get along with your coworkers. When there is an office bully, there are certain techniques and ways you should approach them when trying to come to an agreement so that both of your goals are met, and you establish a positive work environment. Disarm the office bully with this expert advice that will serve as solid negotiating skills for any conflict resolution.
Help for adults in the workforce thinking about going back to college
The decision to return to school should not be taken lightly. Adults usually want to return to college to improve the chances of earning a promotion, or of obtaining work or changing careers. This might entail completing an undergraduate degree or a graduate degree. With so many choices, how does an adult decided what to do or where to go?
Survive the office holiday party and protect your career
The holidays represent a special time to take a moment to acknowledge and give thanks to family and friends. In a corporate setting, the meaning is no different. Holiday parties are meant to celebrate the accomplishments of the year, allow leaders to give thanks for the hard work of their employees, and to get everyone excited about all the opportunities possible for the business in the New Year.
How women can get the promotion they deserve
We can sometimes feel that the challenges of the workplace are too great and we look for an escape. Perhaps we opt out because we don’t believe we can get ahead. Ambitious women can step up and take control of their success. Here are some things you need to do and need to avoid doing to get ahead.
Use your job as a ladder to climb up to your dream job
If you’re ambitious and want to build an exciting career, you’ll look at each job as a stepping stone to the next great opportunity. You can learn to leverage each job to get the most advantage if you pay attention to the dos and don'ts of maximizing opportunities on your way up the career ladder.
How to deal with toxic colleagues and not go crazy yourself
Is someone in your workplace wreaking havoc and no matter what anyone says or does, their behavior is just getting more intense and discordant? Sometimes we may find ourselves feeling the contagion of their negativity and become thoroughly bewildered by behaviors that make no sense.
Creating a LinkedIn profile that will get you noticed
From Facebook to Twitter, Google+ to Instagram, social media has exploded in the last decade. While many people use these different channels, and many more, in their personal lives, they have been slower to incorporate social media as part of their business strategy.
If you are a working professional, a professional in search of new opportunities, or run a business, there’s one social media channel in particular that you should not overlook -- LinkedIn.
Expert advice for parents on how to balance work and home life
If you are feeling stressed, exhausted, or disillusioned by the many competing demands you face as a working parent, you are not alone. Workforce studies report that enhanced work-life balance represents an important opportunity for increasing employee job satisfaction and well-being. While employers are working on finding ways to increase work-life balance, there are also things you can do to help improve your work-life balance.
Skills and techniques that will help you be successful at work
Diving into the business world is something that many people do at some point when they’re young and then their careers take them down a variety of paths. But there are some solid pieces of advice that can be helpful to almost any 20-something or 30-something that should make any career easier and more rewarding.
React to workplace bullies with knowledge, confidence and control
Recently, a great deal of attention is being focused on workplace bullies because they cost companies money due to less productivity. Psychologists refer to bullies as people who psychologically harass others or emotionally abuse employees and co-workers in a repeated effort to wound someone psychologically with words and actions. While it can be difficult to manage a workplace bully, it is possible.
Follow these rules of behavior and etiquette at the office party
One thing you can count in the modern workplace is the obligatory office party. It may be the summer picnic or the Christmas/Hanukkah holiday celebration. Regardless of the size of the organization, there is always an effort at some time during the year to bring employees together for a good time. Some people look forward to the chance to mix and mingle outside the confines of business and others would rather give up the annual bonus than have to spend precious personal time with the gang from work.
How to say no to your boss without the risk of losing your job
Invariably there are moments where you will have to say no to your boss. The reasons could be due to your inability to add yet another task to your workload or it could be due to a disagreement over a decision your boss made. Regardless of the circumstances, approaching the conversation can create anxiety depending on the relationship with your boss and the cultural norms of your work environment. Saying no requires the right mental framework that is both professional and respectful. The following tips can help you make the right moves when saying no to your boss.
How salespeople can overcome the fear and rejection of cold calling
Do you feel that fear and rejection have impacted your sales career? Fear and rejection are quite a common challenge for salespeople making cold calls. As a matter of fact, it’s natural for a human being to shy away for situations where they experience fear and rejection. But for salespeople that have to make cold calls for their work, you have to learn to overcome these feelings to be effective at your job. Here is some advice on how to overcome these to paralyzing emotions.
Manage your professional development for career success
Whether starting a new job or continuing at your current position, it is beneficial to know how to outline and execute personal growth in the workplace. Here is some expert advice for employees and executives about mapping their career development.
Advice for job hopping to higher salary and more responsibility
Moving from job to job is a smart career move if done properly. Some people call this practice job-hopping, but one needs to be careful to ensure that they aren’t ruining their resume and/or their long-term career goals by moving from job to job too much. Here is some expert advice to help you job-hop for a higher salary and possibly more responsibility.
Make the most of an internship to get the full-time job you want
The value of an internship in today’s competitive marketplace cannot be overstated, especially for new graduates. More and more companies require or prefer practical work experience, even for “entry level” positions. Securing the right internship for you, and making the most of this experience can set you up for a potential short or long term opportunity at that company, as well as increase your marketability in securing a position at another company in your target niche.
Expert advice for creating a professional image in the workplace
As you embark on the path to building a credible professional image, it is time to trade in exposed boxers for belted trousers and flip flops for finesse in your appearance and behavior. Discover the ways you can enhance your image and personal brand while building a strong reputation based on respect, personal responsibility, and considerate conduct for others. “Nothing succeeds like the appearance,of success,” says Christopher Lasch.
Self motivation is the path to career success
Are you motivated to succeed in your career? If not, why not? If your answer even hints at your lack of motivation being someone else’s fault, well, I think we may have found the problem. Despite the bazillion or so books that have been written on how to motivate others, the fact is, your motivation is in large part your responsibility. Not only will your ability and willingness to motivate yourself in your professional life undoubtedly lead to greater achievement, you will experience a greater sense of control and yes, even career happiness.
Make the most of a performance evaluation to help you succeed at work
When performance review time rolls around, everyone’s interest and investment in the process is piqued because it has meaning and impact for all involved. The outcome is important not only for the individual being evaluated, but also for the supervising individual, because their involvement in the process will reflect upon their own performance. With so much riding on it, the performance evaluation deserves attention and respect, because nothing is more effective in growing people and organizations than a thoughtful and well-honed performance review process.
To confront the office bully effectively be diplomatic at work
Are difficult colleagues becoming too much for you to handle? In order to be diplomatic, you should employ this simple advice to help you confront and deal with an office bully.
Control your anger and other negative emotions in the workplace
Maintaining emotional composure in the workplace is not only widely regarded as appropriate behavior, but is also expected in the professional setting. Like most expected behaviors, there are ramifications if inappropriate emotional outbursts occur. When emotions rise, ideally, one would keep their composure, not showing emotional strain or distress until an appropriate time presents itself.
Dealing with a bad boss
Reporting to a difficult boss is stressful and impacts your productivity. Some bosses act like bullies and demean their staff; others are more indirect and act indifferently or completely ignore team members. When the communication is really poor, knowing how to change your approach with your boss is critical to establishing boundaries and promoting the proper working relationship. Below are some tips to help you improve your relationship with a difficult boss.
How to overcome job and career burnout and be excited about work
Do you feel like the energy and passion for your work is starting to fade? Are you irritable toward others and struggling to come to work every day, only to perform tasks that seem routine and mind-numbing?
