Work, success, and meaning at every stage of your career
The idea of working for home is very attractive, but it’s hard to find jobs that pay well and aren’t multi-level marketing plans. For $14.95 a month or $49.95 a year, FlexJobs claims to save you the time and energy spent digging for the “real” jobs buried below scams and ads.
The credit for this post goes to Susan Heathfield, a Human Resources expert who has been covering HR for about.com since 2000. In her HR newsletter, Vol. 11 No. 81, dated July, 2010, she writes an excellent article for recruiters about how to construct questions for an effective telephone screening interview. Viewed in reverse, you can use her questions as a way to prepare for a phone screening – or any in-person interview.
Every day, we hear from jobseekers who are discouraged with their job search. “I’ve applied for hundreds of jobs online; I never get a response at all, let alone an invitation to interview.” It’s easy to believe that you’re doing something productive by applying online, but it’s only true if you are taking the time to make your applications as complete as possible.
After you’ve been job searching for a while, your confidence takes a beating. You may feel invisible; especially if your job search is mostly online, you may feel like no one knows you’re there. It may be tempting to go for comfort over style when you do venture out. After all, who cares what you wear to the grocery store, right?
One of the keys to a successful job search is networking, which can be defined as meeting people you don’t know to ask for something you don’t have. If you’re by nature a shy person, networking can be agonizing. When biologists and zoologists use the term shy to describe animals, it generally means “tends to avoid human beings.” Career coaches define it the same way.
Organizations like WorkSource are there to help with funding education for demand occupations. But that’s not your only option. Many top universities offer free courses online. Education Portal.com ranks several of the best free university courses available for people who want to enhance their personal knowledge or advance in their current field.
If hiring activity really starts to improve in late 2010, you’ll be getting more chances to put your resume in front of the right people (defined for our purposes as “people who have jobs to fill.”) Here are some tips for making sure that your post-recession resume tells a good story about how you weathered an extended layoff.
In Think and Grow Rich, published in 1937, Napoleon Hill speaks of persistence as an essential quality. He writes, “Without persistence, you will be defeated before you start. With persistence, you will win.”
Skills are one of the most important things you have to convey to a prospective employer. If you had to name your five most important and valuable skills right now, what would you say they are? Here is a way to organize your thinking about skills as you prepare for an interview.
Skills are one of the most important things you have to convey to a prospective employer. If you had to name your five most important and valuable skills right now, what would you say they are? Here is a way to organize your thinking about skills as you prepare for an interview.
