How to Rekindle Your Job Search Fire

How to Rekindle Your Job Search Fire When you’re out in the market, sometimes it can be hard to focus your job search and to feel confident in finding your next role. Here are some questions and thoughts from career consultants â€" to help you along your way. Have you focused your job search on one specific area of opportunity? Most of us have a range of things we like to do, and are good at, and â€" often â€" have done. Sadly, that does not help in terms of finding a job. If you go to market with an unfocussed offer â€" look at me, I can do a whole range of work! â€" you are unlikely to succeed in your job search. The alternative is to find the one possible position that you will be ideally suited to. Working with a career coach, they can help you explore your capabilities, connections and networks, and â€" using our joint creativity â€" design the ideal position for you. I believe this to be the essential first step in securing your next career move. What’s your target? Who are you going to concentrate on? I believe that in order to find a new job â€" not just any job, but your next career move â€" it is crucial to focus on one target. That’s because if you communicate that you are looking for a particular job, the person you are talking to â€" whether it’s someone in your network, a potential employer or a headhunter â€" can then use their knowledge of the world to assist you. They might offer you strategic advice, or analytical help, or access to their network. Whatever it is, it will be valuable, and is only available if you communicate a specific and focused message to them. So get focused! Do you know enough about your target? The industry, the role, the environment? Once you know your target area of opportunity, you need to research and get to understand it deeply. Get to know who the key players are in the industry. Make sure you know everything you can about your sector and the company you’re going after. Is the target area of opportunity growing or shrinking? Who in your existing network can you talk to about what is actually happening now in the target area of opportunity, so that you can position yourself as a person uniquely qualified to offer value to potential employers? What does the role involve? What unseen advantage do you have, that this research will enable you to play up so that you become irresistible to your target employer? What value does this opportunity bring you, and you bring it? Once you have established your value to target employer, everything becomes easier. You can now take an active role in securing a job. You can arrange to meet potential employers, and since your communication with them will be clear and compelling, they will recognise you as a person they want to â€" indeed, at times, have to â€" employ. In my experience, once that happens, a job offer and the next step in your career, will come naturally. Related: The Hunger Games Survival Lessons for Job Seekers.

Five Things To Do When You Think You Have a Million Dollar Idea -

Five Things To Do When You Think You Have a Million Dollar Idea - So you think youve got an idea for the next big thing?    Tiffany Krumins, who successfully pitched her idea on Shark Tank, has these tips to turn your million dollar idea into reality. Do Your Product Research Search high and low to see if your idea already exists. Entrepreneurs often jump to, “I need a patent!” when they haven’t even done the work to see if their product idea is truly novel. More importantly, if the idea is already protected with intellectual property, you could be infringing on that IP and it could result in a lawsuit. I always recommend searching as if you want to buy this product. Use multiple different terms describing each word. IE Medicine Syringe, Medicine Dropper, Medicine device. You never know what you might find it filed under. You can also start a preliminary patent search via gov. Create a Prototype Create your own prototype, if at all possible. I created the prototype for my first invention, Ava the Elephant, using sponges, fabric, a store bought dropper and the inside components of a recordable greeting card. It gave me the ability to do exactly what I needed to do find out if it WORKED. It did and it showed me that if it worked at it’s worst, it could be a game changer when actually manufactured. I used it for months to further evaluate the changes that needed to be made. Do Your Market Research Do market research to see if this product idea is something that will actually SELL. Market research does not have to be done with a firm, you can do it with a group of people you trust. First decide who your target market is aka, who will buy your product. Is it women? Then break that down even further, is it women with children/without? Is it women in a specific region IE a cold weather product? Once you’ve narrowed down who might be purchasing your product, put together a group of those people who can give you feedback on the product. Accept and WELCOME criticism. You would much rather hear it in the early stages that after you have already invested time and money in your idea. If you do this upfront, you will enter the next step with more knowledge and the ability to skip steps that may have cost you more money in design. For example, if this group sheds some light on design features you need to change, you will know that going into the design phase. Find a Design Consultant or Engineer Find the right design house aka, an engineer that can help you create an actual prototype. Speak with multiple companies and make sure you feel good about who you are working with. If they talk down on you, move on. Sadly, this is common in the manufacturing industry. I’ve encountered it time and time again and it is the reason I now have a strong, respectful, talented team around me. I trust them with my projects and I enjoy working with them. Believe it or not, that is important and should be a requirement. Locate a Manufacturer Work with your design house to find the right manufacturer for your product. Finding the right factory can be a very lengthy process, the sooner you start, the better. I went through 3 factories (8 months) before finding the right one to manufacturer my first product. I then stayed with them for 7 years. If you have the right design house they should be able to help you with so much more than just the engineering. For example, if they have been in the industry long enough, they will be able to advise on if the quotes you are receiving for your product are reasonable. What About a Patent? You’ll notice I didn’t mention “File a patent” anywhere in these first 5 steps! I am a firm believer that you should file your patent at the right time, if in fact you need to file a patent. This is not to say you should do it earlier if its needed. But oftentimes, entrepreneurs spend funds on a patent and have nothing left over to do steps 1-5. If you would like to learn more about this topic, visit Product Genius with Tiffany Krumins to listen to our shows covering this topic! Dream BIG, Tiffany Krumins, founder, MomGenius.com (and first winner of “Shark Tank”) About Tiffany Krumins   Tiffany Krumins, the first Shark Tank winner, is an Atlanta native and the inventor of Ava the Elephant, a child friendly dispenser that takes the fear out of taking medicine. Called a modern day Mary Poppins, Tiffany has gone from nanny to entrepreneur, and has seen her passion to help children grow into a business that is now known and loved all over the world.

Why Your Brand Needs a Blog - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Why Your Brand Needs a Blog - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career In today’s competitive market, every brand should be on board with a website that is fully optimized along with an active blog in order to draw in the most prospects that can be nurtured and converted into customers. Blogging on your topic and providing a way they can comment and voice an opinion, provides connecting with an audience in a way that not only fulfills their needs but also provides the essential human interface that builds trust and encourages people to want to come back for more. How a blog connects your brand Think of a blog as a central location where the visitors to your website can get a glimpse of business operations and connect in a meaningful way. When done correctly, your brand can produce news and announcements about your business, answer customer service questions, and can even be ahead of potential problems by dealing effectively with those that may have occurred in the past. With such great benefits your blog can become a powerful branding tool, delivering the image and essence of your business that you want to project to your audience, and carry over into your social media channels. Let’s say, for example, yours is a small company and your brand is built upon that then you have the perfect opportunity of introducing your staff who continue to deliver a great service every day. This type of personal connection leads to trust, which can translate into sales. Large brands can also connect on a more intimate level with their audience through their blogs such as Sir Richard Branson and Virgin who have built a name around a particular individual associated with a brand. Bill Marriott and Marriott hotels have taken a similar approach in reaching out to their customers on a smaller scale. If your brand is purely online, a blog can give your business the chance to connect in a way that is the closest thing possible to face to face interaction by sharing your thoughts and showing your personality in your posts. By providing a valuable, personal resource in the form of a blog, you are far more likely to retain that visitor who will come back time and again to read your updates. Provided you present your content with an intelligent, human touch it is highly likely that at some point your audience will choose you over your competition as trust and conversation are built.

4 Tips for Getting Your Finances in Order

4 Tips for Getting Your Finances in Order Almost 1 in 3 Australians suffer from serious financial stress, concluded the research from CoreData. Financial stress leads to anti-social behavior, isolation, relationships conflicts, and breakdowns, losing sleep and depression. Feelings of fear, anxiety, and depression are common. Understanding your financial health and doing something about it is also stressful. But such hard steps are necessary if we wish to create a stable financial situation, one that doesn’t bring fear and commotion. This is why we collected these tips that can help you get your finances in order. Do the research Like in other areas of life, before getting your finances in order, you will need to research them, which isn’t easy, since most of us get stressed when we think about money and personal finance. Here, avoiding stress usually revolves around avoiding dealing with the finances directly â€" which is certainly not efficient. Unless you adopt a practical approach to your debts, ongoing expenses and options for dealing with them, you risk creating damaging and dangerous financial habits. Such expensive habits, like going out with friends and losing track of how much youre spending and where, will quickly deteriorate your financial health. Hence, the only path for you lies in understanding them. Pay off current debts Once you save some money, you will need to commit to consolidating and paying off your current debts, including mortgages. Pay at least double the minimum payments including the finance charge every month. Transfer balances to a single card that has low APR in order to keep track of credit card debts. Again, do the research. Unless you know how to pay your mortgage off in 5 years, you will be paying it off for much longer, not to mention bigger interest that comes with it. Know where the money is going, then find a way to save a bit, and ultimately put all the extras toward your loan that has the biggest interest. You can also freeze or cancel your other credit cards so you don’t get tempted to use them. Use a debit card or cash whenever possible for all purchases. If there is no cash for it, don’t buy it. Develop a rainy-day fund Life strikes us with unexpected emergencies often. Hence, building an emergency fund that has two or three months of income in it is crucial. If you don’t have one, you will have to borrow money â€" which is never a wise option. However, creating such funds in these hard-financial times can be a difficult thing to do. For instance, start with saving a few AUDs every week and throwing all your change in a piggy-bank at the end of the day. Low savings like these will add up as time passes. You can even write yourself a check â€" for $20 or $50 â€" every time you receive a somewhat bigger paycheck, and send it to your own special bank account. Alternatively, you can take a part of the money out of your savings account and then invest it in a Certificate of Deposit that doesn’t allow early withdrawal. Build a budget A healthy budget is the key to good financial health â€" no other option exists. Unless you keep track of how youre spending your money, it wont take much for spending to lose control. Understanding your spending habits will help you determine whether they align with your current personal or financial goals and make it easier to create a budget that bridges that gap. Keep everything in check. If you have a habit you don’t want to quit, build the budget around it and make sure it balances out with your other purchases. There is no need to deprive yourself of everything that isn’t necessary, like housing, utility bills or food. You just need to be honest with yourself about how your purchasing works, and how much you can spend on a thing that isnt life-or-death. For instance, if your social habits are devouring too much of your disposable income, impose a cap on them, and make everyone stick to it. Track the inventory of your income and expenses, and then take a clear look at what you’re spending and where. In conclusion, remember to save for your long-term goals as well. Retirement, buying a house or a childs education will be your last savvy financial decision. Even putting little money aside now, can go a long way in the future with compound interest.

Should You Hire a Professional to Write Your Resume?

Should You Hire a Professional to Write Your Resume?Writing a resume is a great way to get a job. Many people find it difficult to compose their own resumes, but they can hire professional resume writing services to help them out. Whether you are applying for a promotion, trying to land a new job, or just need a fresh perspective on your existing position, a professional service is the way to go.Professional services can help you out by taking care of all of the details that you may not be able to handle yourself. They will understand your needs and they will help you write a great resume. No matter what type of resume you are looking for, there is a professional service out there that can help you with it.One of the main reasons why a lot of people hire professional services is because they are able to get it done faster than they would be able to do it on their own. However, a resume is not something that you can just turn in and have completed by a certain deadline. It takes time to create it, proofread it, and then edit it. You will not want to let an applicant take all of that on their own.Most people find that hiring professional services to write their resumes is a lot easier than they had originally thought. Instead of having to come up with ideas and put together the whole thing on their own, it will be handed over to the professionals. The person who is writing it will be able to focus entirely on it. They will also be able to have someone proofread it and submit it to them in a timely manner.Another reason why hiring professional services is a good idea is because of the quality of work that they provide. If you are going to pay someone to draft your resume, you need to be comfortable with their work. This means that they should be writing that resume with a professional template that they use in order to make sure that it is of the highest quality possible. There is nothing worse than going into a professional service and having them charge you a fo rtune for a product that you could have gotten for free.In addition to all of the above, a lot of people find that hiring professional services to write their resumes makes them feel more confident in the way that they write their own resumes. The person that is doing the writing for them is going to understand exactly what you are trying to accomplish with your resume. He or she will be able to use those specific needs to help you get the job you are looking for.The only reason why people choose to have a professional services out to write their resumes is because they want to make sure that they do it properly. When they get a professional to do it for them, they are getting results. They are also saving a great deal of money, as well as time, that they would otherwise spend trying to do it on their own.You may be wondering if you should be having a professional to write your resume. You may also be asking yourself if it is worth the expense. The short answer is that it is definit ely worth it, provided that you make sure that you are using the service that is able to produce results.

Wanna meet up In Orlando! - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Wanna meet up In Orlando! - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog Im going to the US next week to meet with and study some American companies and their approach to customer service. You may know some of them where was that list Oh, yeah: Theres Coca-Cola, Delta, Capital Grill and some place called Disney or something like that Ever heard of them? I have some free time in Orlando so if you want to meet and talk happiness at work or if you know someone in the area that I should meet just contact me. I have some free time on Wednesday Nov. 14 and Thursday Nov. 15. in the evenings. Also, if your company is in Orlando and you need a dose of happiness at work, this is a great chance to book me to speak without having to pay my travel costs, since theyre covered already! You can read all about my speaking gigs 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

A Free Floating Job Search Via The Net - CareerAlley

A Free Floating Job Search Via The Net - CareerAlley We may receive compensation when you click on links to products from our partners. Job search was a simple affair only in old times when people were employed even against their will. In modern times, in a free floating job search you can spend a very long time, although its variants have been significantly increased. For example, in recent years more and more of those willing to find a job try to find it through the Internet. Why is job search via the Internet becoming more popular? First, and this is most likely the decisive factor, job search via the Internet is very convenient. It is quite enough, for example, to type in a search engine the query jobs in San Diego and it will offer you more than a dozen references to specialized online resources where these jobs are located. Second, usually when placing a vacancy employers immediately indicate all the necessary for the applicants information salary, schedule, requirements for employees and so on. That is, when you are looking for a job through the Internet, you can find the most suitable one without unnecessary ordeals. Third, experts can send a well-written resume to several employers who need them, which greatly increases the chances of finding employment. For example, when looking for a job as a lawyer in San Diego via the Internet, it is enough to see the relevant vacancies in this city, choose more suitable ones, send a resume to the specified address, and hope for the positive result. Fourth, today a lot of the websites that specialize in searching and offering jobs send e-newsletters with suitable vacancies to registered users. It is only necessary to consent to such subscription when registering. In a nutshell, looking for a job via the Internet is more convenient, faster, cheaper (which is important for a person without a job) and more effective than by other traditional methods existed until recently. That is why this method is so popular today. Be careful! Of course, job search via the Internet has its pitfalls. In particular, it is possible to bump on unscrupulous employers or become a victim of spammers as your email address is in a public domain. There is also such a trick when you receive a letter on your email. In this letter a convenient schedule, a high salary, career growth, and so on are described. Be careful! If everything is so amazing, then such an organization does not need to send letters in a great amount to some unknown candidates, the doors in the personnel department will be blocked with a crowd of applicants. And then such an attractive position is usually given someones friend or relative from this company. And if there is a need to search through the Internet, any self-respecting company would not send spam. However, the benefits of online job search for the real visits of recruitment agencies and specialized sites as JobTonic.com are so obvious that many people choose to ignore such dangers. Source: JobTonic.com We are always eager to hear from our readers. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or suggestions regarding CareerAlley content. Good luck in your search,Joey Google+ what where job title, keywords or company city, state or zip jobs by