Category: Workplace

Employee experience can seriously impact your bottom line. The Employer Brand Index gives you insight into what talent really thinks about your company.

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Workplace

5 Old-School Sections to Take Off Your Resume Right Now

There are many career networking opportunities available for job seekers. Networking opportunities prove useful however, at some point; you are going to be required to submit one of two documents. The documents required will be a resume or Curriculum Vitae (A typed summary of your professional and educational background). Resumes and Curriculum Vitaes are documents that should never be considered finished. These two things should be continuously updated in order to properly display pertinent information about your professional and academic careers. It is highly recommended that resumes contain no more than one page for sometimes, less is more and resume writing proves no exception. There are certain things that you should leave off your resume because they will look amateurish.
 
The following are five suggestions for worthwhile exclusions:
 

1. Leave photos off your resume

 
Discrimination suits prove rampant in the field of Human Resources and employment services. If someone presents a resume with a picture and that person is not hired, it leaves room to file a discrimination law suit claiming the person was not hired because their picture was not appealing. Most company Human Resource departments will just throw resumes with pictures away or save them to avoid the discrimination issue altogether.
 

2. References Available on Request

 
This statement should NEVER appear on your resume. Hiring mangers know that you need reliable references during your job search. Ensure that you have your “reference” list prepared upon request. You want the list to be updated with the correct contact and professional information. Do not forget to update your reference sheet before job hunting. It could prove embarrassing if one of your professional references is contacted and they no longer work at the same company. This can put uncertainty into the minds of hiring managers and could cause you to not get the job.
 

3. Unprofessional email address

 
Unprofessional email addresses should not be placed on resumes. Email address such as notsodumbperson (at) gmail.com or likestoparT (at) yahoo.com will not impress a potential employer. It is highly recommended before you start job searches that you create another email address. The address should include a basic first name [dot] last name. Yahoo and Gmail are popular email servers that offer free email accounts. These accounts allow for creating professional email addresses to use for job searches.

See more at How To Create a Professional Email Signature for Your Job Search.
 

4. Posting every job you had since high school

 
All of us remember working at the local theatre or pizza shop during high school. You should leave this point out of your resume. It proves necessary to keep your job history accounted for, but you do not have to list every job you have held dating back to your high school years. It is essential to determine what jobs in the past proves relevant to the job(s) you are applying for. Re-read your resume and you should determine if the jobs listed fall into these two categories: Recent and relevant. If a past-job does not qualify for these categories, leave it out.
 

5. Avoid boring and inadequate language

 
Phrases such as “detail-oriented” and “team player” are no longer phrases that can effectively promote you. Instead, use terms that describe what makes you a team performer or how you pay attention to detail in making projects and company missions successful. Keep in mind that the “verbiage” you place on your resume is what catches the attention of hiring managers. Words do prove effective and can make the difference in obtaining an interview or a letter in the mail stating you are not qualified for the job.

Further reading at 4 Vital Resume Tips from the Career Pros.
 
Wilson Campbell is an HR expert, who specializes in team building and team building activities. Also he is expert in troubleshooting the concerns and considerations of employees.
Image credit Maura McDonnell

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Workplace

How to Get a Job with No Relevant Experience or Education

When you finish your college education and try to land your first real job, you may run into a number of positions that, despite being entry-level, simply require too much experience to get your foot in the door. This obstacle is becoming more common, due partly to the overall workforce being deluged with experienced candidates…

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Workplace

8 Steps to Prepare for Your Interview

 
When you go for a job interview, it is very important that you are prepared and confident for it. It is necessary to be confident in a job interview so that you can deliver your best. Once you get a job, it will be easier for you to pay back your debts, especially if you are a fresh graduate and have a student loan on your shoulders. When you are sitting in front of a panel, which are ready to judge your every action and reaction, it is not easy to keep your cool. These are some tips that can help you to survive through an interview.
 

1. Be prepared mentally

 
It is important to think positive always and feel good about yourself. If you keep thinking about what will go wrong, you will automatically feel bad during the interview and lose the level of confidence that you have. In order to increase your self confidence you should remain quiet before an interview and think about positive things.
 

2. Get prepared about the subject

 
If you want to be confident for an interview, you have to know what you are doing. Prepare completely about the subject that you will be interviewed on. You should go through all the details of the subject but don’t be fanatic and over prepare. Once you are prepared with the subject you can answer questions with ease. You should be careful not to repeat memorized sentences. Your interviewers may thinks you are repeating sentences whose meaning you haven’t understood. Try and put ideas into your own words and be spontaneous.
 

3. Be careful about your body language

 
You should pay attention to your body language and make it impeccable. Your posture is what is going to show your level of confidence. You should sit straight and make eye contact when answering all questions which shows that you are confident and leaves a good impression.
 

4. Have a friendly attitude

 
It is important that you have a friendly attitude when you go for an interview. You should be gracious with every one whom you meet. Your employer may seek opinion of other people who meet at the interview site such as the receptionist in order to get an overall idea about your attitude. Arrogance won’t get you a long way.
 

5. Make eye contact

 
It is important that you maintain eye contact while answering questions of the interviewer. This will not only make you seem confident but also trustworthy.
 

6. Shake hands

 
After the interview is over, be sure to shake hands with the person who will be interviewing you. This leaves a positive impression on the interviewer and shows that you are interested to work there.
 

7. Speak clearly

 
Along with your posture, the way you speak is important in deciding whether you will get the job and creating an impression. If you speak in a low voice and be shy, then it can make your impression fall. You should speak in an energetic and lively voice which will sound good. You should also speak clearly so that the interviewer doesn’t have to give too much effort in understanding what you are trying to say.
 

8. Don’t show an urge to get the job

 
You should refrain from being overexcited or eager which gives the impression that you need to job badly. You should give out the impression that you have other chances of showing your skills and work out with the complete ability of yours. It is important that the company feels that they need you to do the job rather than the other way round. This will make the chances of you getting through the interview with flying colors higher.
 
Thus you can that the above 8 tips can help you to prepare for your interview in a complete manner and excel in it.

More interview tips at the Top 10 Killer Interview Tactics You Ought to Know.
 
Erica Holm Marin is a regular writer for various finance related Communities including Debt Consolidation Care. She is a PG degree holder in Marketing and Finance and right now working in a reputed bank as a relationship manager. She is well equipped to write articles on debt consolidation , debt settlement, frugality, savings, economies of states etc. You can get it on her Facebook business page.

Image credit orangeacid

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Workplace

What Do UK Jobseekers Search For On Job Boards?

Have you ever wondered what people are searching for on Monster UK? Your sleepless nights are over, with the brand new Monster journey infographic you can see some fascinating trends from what days are the most popular for searches to how many graduate positions are searched for every week in Great Britain. Takeaways: 17,778 job…

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Talent Acquisition Workplace

How To Protect Your Online Personal Brand and Reputation

Your online reputation and personal brand is made up of what people can find about you when they tap your name into a search. Not only is it integral to have social media profiles at places like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Your brand will also be reflected in any blog posts you have written, forum entries and comments online. 

You don’t have to be squeaky clean – it’s as important to be interesting and relevant – but an awful lot of damage can be done in a very brief period of time by behaving in an inappropriate manner. Before you know what’s happened, your reputation is in tatters and the fallout is irrecoverable. 

This infographic from digital marketing agency KBSD looks at how you can manage your personal e-reputation.
 
Key takeaways from this infographic: 

• 48% of recruiters and HR professionals refer to personal websites when deciding whether to hire YOU
• 63% of recruiters check social media sites to find out more about potential employees
• 8% of companies have fired someone for abusing social media

Further reading at How Recruiters Use Social Media to Screen Applicants Infographic.  

Source: KBSD

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Workplace

How to Find Graduate Jobs and Internships on LinkedIn

A new career portal was introduced a few months ago on LinkedIn: LinkedIn for students and recent graduates. Apparently, it has been quite popular in the US, but hasn’t really been known enough here in the UK and Europe just yet! The platform enables its users to search for internships and many entry-level jobs, offered…

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Employer Branding Workplace

6 Ways to Prep for Your Salary Negotiation

You can never underestimate the importance of having a plan. By that I mean doing some simple salary calculations so you go into an interview with a range in mind. Negotiating salary during the interview process can be very overwhelming. You don’t want to sound greedy or too high on yourself; but on the flip…

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Workplace

Top 5 Most Commonly Misunderstood Interview Tips

If not unusual if you find yourself scouring the web for advice the day before a key job interview, even if you’ve successfully interviewed previously at other jobs. We consult advice blogs and ask ridiculous questions on Google as if we’ve never before had the experience of speaking to another human being about ourselves. There’s…

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Talent Acquisition Workplace

The 7 Rules of Effective Personal Brand Statements

I will assume that you have already crafted a personal brand statement and you may even have used it a few times. Before you spray every social media outpost with it, take a few minutes to go through this checklist to make sure it does you justice.

Here are seven hallmarks of an effective personal brand statement: 

 

1. The length of one out-breath

 
You should be able to take a deep breath and then comfortably deliver your statement. If it’s any longer than this, you risk not making that impact you were looking for so chop it down.
 

2. The WOW-factor

 

Just like any performance, your personal brand statement should be received with a mixture of surprise and delight. If this isn’t the case, you are probably saying something very similar to your peers. Make it unique and you’ll evoke the WOW on people’s faces.
 

3. An eight-year-old understands it

 

Or a four-year-old if you are really tough on yourself. Your statement should never contain any technical terms or jargon, it should be in plain English and touching on the lowest common denominator. Test it on your children and see how you fare, can they tell you exactly what benefit and value you add?
 

4. Yours and only yours

 

Can you be sure that your statement is unique? Well and easy way to test that is by asking colleagues, peers and competitors what they use. Or you can go to an industry event and do some eavesdropping to see what NOT to say. If you find that your statement is similar to others, try harder to really make it stand out by examining exactly what you do uniquely and how to present this.
 

5. Delivered with confidence

 

The delivery is equally important to the content. You must be able to put on your best story telling voice and really mesmerize your new found acquaintant. Great delivery comes with practice so get in front of your mirror and get rehearsing today.
 

6. Leaves them wanting more

 

A classic trick in show business is to dazzle the audience and have them begging for more. By only giving out a teaser that is interesting enough, you are likely to be asked to elaborate and that’s when you go into selling mode.
 

7. Catchy, memorable and repeatable

 

To cover a lot of ground you are going to need others to spread your statement via word-of-mouth marketing. In order for them to do this, you have to stay punchy and memorable enough to get repeated over and over.
 

Final thought

 

Remember that your personal brand statement will always be a work in progress and you should update it as your career or business changes over time. Revisiting the statement every now and then is great for introspection and give you great direction in your professional life.

Would you say your statement cuts the mustard?

For more on this topic, check out Personal Branding from the Inside Out, a workshop series in the UK.

Image credit Kevin Lallier