10 New Years Resolutions to Supercharge Your Career

10 New Years Resolutions to Supercharge Your Career January is the perfect time to give your professional life a boost and set career goals for the coming year. Here are 10 of the best career resolutions to make, along with a few actionable tips on how to achieve them: 1. Perform an annual career checkup Before you can set any career resolutions, the first step is to give your past year a detailed review. Use this time to assess whether you want to grow in your current role or hunt for a new one. If you’re thinking of using your talents elsewhere, these questions will help you assess what is working and what to look for in your next company. Here are some good questions to ask: What is my proudest professional accomplishment from the past year? Did I receive the support and resources needed to effectively do my job in 2016? What could help me hit my goals? Have I learned something new from my manager? Is there a team within the organization where I would feel more supported and/or challenged? Are there any new skills I acquired this year? Does my resume need an update? Is this a positive and motivating environment? Do I enjoy the dynamics and office politics? Am I excited about coming to work each day? Do I feel fulfilled in this role? What is the most important constructive feedback I received this year? How can I carry that with me into 2017 and improve?  2.  Give  your online profile a makeover In 2017, the first thing a potential client, employer or collaborator will do is type your name into Google. Do a quick check and see what pages come up in search results. Then if you can, go in and fix up those links. Here are a few things to check: Photos â€" For everywhere that a profile photo shows, such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, make sure you have a bright photo that actually looks like you. No pets, partners or costumes should be in this photo. Keep it simple, clean and professional. Accomplishments â€" For anywhere a bio or resume is listed, add one or two key accomplishments from 2016. Did you run a major campaign, increase profitability of the business by XX percent or speak at a known conference? Freshen up your brag bullets. Personal site â€" Consider putting together a personal site to showcase your work that will come up high in search results. Weebly, Squarespace and WordPress all have easy to use, affordable (and often free!) templates to quickly build a portfolio. 3. Build  your professional network 70% of jobs come through networking. If the idea of going to boring industry events night after night sounds draining, here’s a few fresh ways to build your professional network in 2017: Ask colleagues from other departments to lunch. Take the time to learn more about their backgrounds, goals and hobbies. Host a networking brunch. Invite professional contacts to each bring one guest. You will meet new people and also be remembered as a connector. Remember to strengthen your existing relationships in addition to meeting new people! Dig up old contacts you met once or twice and reach out to grab happy hour cocktails. Try Shapr, a free networking app that introduces you to nearby professionals with common interests. Skip events and awkward icebreakers and just head straight to coffee for meaningful conversations. 4. Learn  new skills Sharpen your professional skills and learn a few shortcuts for getting faster and better at your job. Here are a few options: Let your supervisor know you’d like to get better a specific skill and be proactive in asking for advice. A good manager will help map out a plan such as mentoring you on a related project or giving you opportunities to learn that skill on the job. Take an evening class. Some companies offer tuition reimbursement for professional development â€" explore if your company offers this policy. Browse Coursera for a free online course or use your lunch break to check out YouTube tutorials. 5. Become  an expert in your field Get informed about the industry mavens, trends and changes within your field using these steps: Identify the top blogs in your industry and subscribe to those newsletters. Get a Twitter account and follow industry leaders. Be active in retweeting and sending out your own tweets sharing industry news. Volunteer to speak a conference. One of the best ways to absorb a subject is by preparing to teach others! See if there is a local event where you may be able to discuss some aspect of your industry and learn from others. 6. Volunteer  to lead a big project Ask for more responsibility on a project that will help you grow and look great on your resume. If there are no current projects available, come up with a new idea to boldly present at your weekly staff meeting. 7. Get  better at receiving constructive feedback It’s incredibly valuable to get better at accepting and learning from critiques. This year, take these steps to grow from your reviews: Take a breath. If you find yourself getting anxious or worked up, write down all feedback during reviews, take a walk and then read through the feedback with fresh eyes. Say thank you. Offer your appreciation for people taking the time to help you improve. Schedule a follow up. Once you have processed the feedback, try to make adjustments or come up with solutions. Then offer a time to present your ideas and get clarity that you’re moving in the right direction. 8. Organize  your files and desk Clear the clutter. See if you can feng shui your coffee cups, pens, books and papers. Once your physical space is in good shape, do a cleanup of your digital files. Sort through your documents and get rid of those that are no longer needed. Then create a clean archive so you can easily find any files for reference in the New Year. 9. Be  more productive Make 2017 the year you work fewer hours and get more done. Here are a few tips for staying focused: Take Facebook off your phone or at least turn off notifications. Unless you run your company’s social media, you can wait a few hours to see photos from the weekend. Use a project management tool like Redbooth to organize and prioritize your tasks. Track due dates and visit this check list every morning to make sure you’re focused on the high priority projects. Instead of 20 minutes trying to fumble in the break room, start bringing your coffee to work. Pre caffeinate on the way and be ready to start when you sit down at your desk. 10. Improve  your work-life balance All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. A terrific resolution is to get better at leaving work when you leave the office. Here’s some ideas: Take work email off your phone so you’re not tempted to respond to emails in the evenings. Plan a real vacation. Just ask for the time off and book a plane ticket. Find a hobby that helps you unplug. Join a book club, sign up for guitar classes or become a regular at a gym. Schedule more quality time the people and pets that matter! Take your pooch to a dog park, work on an art project with your kid or share cooking duties with your partner a few times a week. About the author: Mandy Menaker is the Head of PR and Brand Development at Shapr, a networking app for meeting inspiring professionals near you. When not writing about networking, fitness, and travel (three very awesome things) she can be found cycling through Manhattan with her 6 lb Maltipoo catching a ride. Connect with her @mandymenaker on Twitter or visit  http://mandymenaker.com.

6 Ways to Streamline Your Job Hunt

6 Ways to Streamline Your Job Hunt Job hunting is often described as a full-time job in itself; so it’s no surprise that it can sometimes become challenging and stressful especially when you are not achieving the results you want. We often make changes to process and work-methods to become more efficient in our days jobs; so the same approach can be taken when looking to become a more effective job seeker. Here are six simple changes you can make to streamline your job hunt and quickly land more interviews. 1. Tailor your CV for every application: Although you are likely to be applying for numerous similar jobs throughout your job hunt, it just not good enough to fire off the same CV for every job application in a bid to send out as many CV’s as possible. In the employment game; quality is certainly more important than quantity, so spend some time ensuring that your CV meets the job requirements for each role. If you have the necessary skills mentioned in the job advert but they are hidden at the bottom of your CV; nobody will see them. You need to prioritise your own skills in line with what the job advert is asking for so move the most important skills to the top of your CV to make sure the recruiter can instantly see that you are a good fit for the job. Conversely, if you have a lot of experience in an area that isn’t being asked for in the job advert, then you may want to play it down a bit in the CV to avoid looking unsuitable. 2. Mix up your job search terms: Industry terminology and jargon is constantly changing, which means that in the modern job market there can often be dozens of terms to describe one type of job. For example a Salesman could just as easily call himself a Business Development Officer or a Sales Executive, but still be performing the same role. So remember this when searching job websites; be creative and use a few different job titles to increase the number of suitable roles you find. If you struggle to find variations of your preferred job title; have a browse through your connections on LinkedIn and see what titles they are using, as well as checking out industry publications and blogs online. 3. Introduce yourself properly: Job hunting can sometimes become a little tiresome but try not to get sloppy when sending applications. The first hurdle to overcome is ensuring that the recruiter opens your CV, which won’t always happen unless you give them a reason to do so. Use a short, professional introduction that gives a brief explanation of your suitability for the role and make sure you triple check it for spelling and grammatical errors â€" nothing will get your application deleted quicker than an introduction littered with errors. Add a personal touch too; remember you are addressing a person, not a machine.  Address the recruiter by name (it will usually be on the job advert) and open with a simple, friendly line such as “hope you’re well”. 4. Use multiple job websites: After a few weeks of job hunting, it’s easy to slip into a routine where you find yourself circling the same one or two web sites repeatedly and seeing the same vacancies over and over again.  The more job web sites you search, the more vacancies you gain exposure to; so therefore you increase your chances of landing an interview.  Use as many of the mainstream generic sites as you can find as they have a very high volume of jobs advertised and tend to attract a lot of the big well-known brands.  However don’t forget to search out some of the lesser-known industry specific sites as they tend to attract some of the smaller niche firms and you will often be able to side step the competition in to some lesser known vacancies. 5. Chase up applications: All too often job seekers will pour tons of time and effort into finding and applying for a dream job; only to forget all about it days later. If you don’t get an instant response from a job application, don’t give up. Just because you don’t receive an instant call back, doesn’t necessarily mean that you are not suitable for the role. Your CV will often be sitting an inbox amongst dozens of other similar candidate CV’s; so if you don’t hear back for a few days a quick call to the recruiter can be exactly what’s needed to put you ahead of the competition. A quick chaser call will not only draw instant attention to your CV, but will also give you a chance to build a rapport with the recruiter and sell yourself into interview stage. 6. Use LinkedIn (properly): With thousands of recruiters and hiring managers logging on to LinkedIn every day, it’s an absolute must for modern day job seekers. However you can’t just create your profile, sit back and wait for the job offers to flood in. If you want to make LinkedIn work for you, you need to stay active on it and build your professional network. Reach out to recruiters and industry peers to introduce yourself and explain what you have to offer them â€" they will not always have immediate vacancies for you, but it’s good to be on their radars for when opportunities arise. You can also keep up to date with what’s happening in your industry via your connection’s posts and participating in professional group discussions. Author: Andrew Fennell is an experienced recruiter and Director of Professional CV Writing Company StandOutCV.

Why your work matters during a war

Why your work matters during a war Theres nothing like forty bombs on a Middle-East metropolis to make you feel like your weekly widget report is meaningless. But we cant bring the economy to a screeching halt. If nothing else, we need to eat, we have to get paid. So we find ourselves making judgments each day about what is in poor taste and what reflects the needs of a workplace that must go on. On September 11, I was working at a company located six blocks from the World Trade Center. I exited the subway right after the first plane hit. Took a look up at the burning building, and then walked to my office. That might sound strange, but I am one of thousands of people who did that, because office workers are accustomed to order, predictability and routine. Five days a week we exit the subway and walk to work. If you do something that often, you usually start to like it. Even now, in the face of war, the predictability and stability of going to work every day provides a counterbalance to the unknown factors of battle. Some might say, How can you sell widgets when people are dying in Baghdad? But routine, really, is a way to cope. In the face of an unpredictable and violent world, the routine of the weekly widget report takes on near-spiritual meaning. After the second plane hit the South Tower, there was a steady rain of papers out our office windows. There was a steady stream of employees saying, Do we have a TV here? Do we have cable? Do you know what happened? And there was my boss. He said, Everyone should just go back to work. Theres nothing we can do. Even a half-hour after the second plane hit, my boss was in his office sending email to a department that ran around the office like over-excited school children at recess. We will always remember my boss, locked up in his office, oblivious to doom. And this is the danger of our penchant for routine. It should be comforting but not a means of denial. When it was time for my boss to acknowledge that the day, in fact, would not be a workday, he could not make the shift in plans. Oh he shifted, but not until the office was engulfed in debris and the FBI had taken over the street in front of the building. Working during wartime is a balance. We should appreciate the comfort of routine, but we should know when to make an adjustment. Take a tip from advertisers, who know that airing commercials about familiar brands is comforting, but commercials rife with frat-house humor or on-sale-now jargon are a turn-off to a fragile population. McDonalds, for example, will run branding commercials featuring children, and the company will save the hawking of value meal deals for a peace-time project. McDonalds knows that people need comfort in consistency. These tactics may seem heartless, consumerist, or crass, but the reality is that we are all going to keep the economy going while the war rages. So when you show up to work, understand the value of consistency but know your limits. Know why you do what you do, and when it is time to stop. And dont underestimate the stability work provides to a population on edge. Sure, we worry about another terrorist attack, especially now that the war has begun. But sitting in your duct-taped home, isolated, in a pool of nervous sweat will only exacerbate anxiety. We should all strike a balance between work and worry as a means to cope with war.

A 22 degree Triumph not Tragedy University of Manchester Careers Blog

A 22 degree â€" Triumph not Tragedy University of Manchester Careers Blog ‘Well, I wanted to do a Graduate Scheme in Marketing, but they don’t take 2:2’s, so I’m going travelling. There’s nothing much else I can do’. â€" 2016 Graduate As she said these words, a gloomy silence fell on our little meeting, and we both sighed in an ‘ah well, nothing to be done’ sort of way, gazing wistfully out of the window, imagining what glittering career might have been. That pesky 2:2 went and ruined everything.. ‘NO!!’ I started, whipped into a frenzy of frustration, ‘there are loads of things you can do!! And congratulations on your degree’. Here are a few for starters:  Don’t underestimate the huge value that a 2:2 degree from the University of Manchester carries with employers. Truly, it is globally recognised as a tough gig, and a 2:2 demonstrates skills such as research, analysis, project management and resilience. BE PROUD, it really is impressive. If employers state specifically and unequivocally that a minimum 2:1 is required, then don’t spend energy on making applications ‘just in case’. You will not succeed, and it will demoralise you. Instead, start thinking creatively. To find worthwhile work experience with a 2:2 is absolutely possible, there are jobs (great ones) out there, but you need to draw on that creativity, that resilience, those skills you’ve developed in your degree.  The 2:2 does not define you as a failure. Positivity is catching â€" if you can think positively about your achievement, others will too â€" that includes employers. If you don’t believe me, then try it and see. Email me if I’m wrong and I’ll buy you a bar of choc. That’s how confident I am. Come and see us/skype us at the Careers Service â€" I can absolutely guarantee you will leave our 30 minute meetings with a positive plan of action, some steps forward and/or renewed energy. http://www.careers.manchester.ac.uk/services/  Have a look at the Manchester Graduate Programme it has saved many a soul who felt a bit like things were hopeless, and proved to be a really great stepping stone. www.careers.manchester.ac.uk/findjobs/graduatejobs/mgp/ Banish from your speech things like ‘I only got a 2:2’ and start saying ‘I have just graduated from the University of Manchester with a 2:2 degree â€" how brilliant is that’. Congratulations! By Bernadette Lyons Careers Consultant All Graduate Graduate-highlighted employability Getting started graduate schemes Graduates job hunting jobs A 22 degree â€" Triumph not Tragedy University of Manchester Careers Blog ‘Well, I wanted to do a Graduate Scheme in Marketing, but they don’t take 2:2’s, so I’m going travelling. There’s nothing much else I can do’. â€" 2017 Graduate As she said these words, a gloomy silence fell on our little meeting, and we both sighed in an ‘ah well, nothing to be done’ sort of way, gazing wistfully out of the window, imagining what glittering career might have been. That pesky 2:2 went and ruined everything.. ‘NO!!’ I started, whipped into a frenzy of frustration, ‘there are loads of things you can do!! And congratulations on your degree’. Here are a few for starters:  Don’t underestimate the huge value that a 2:2 degree from the University of Manchester carries with employers. Truly, it is globally recognised as a tough gig, and a 2:2 demonstrates skills such as research, analysis, project management and resilience. BE PROUD, it really is impressive. If employers state specifically and unequivocally that a minimum 2:1 is required, then don’t spend energy on making applications ‘just in case’. You will not succeed, and it will demoralise you. Instead, start thinking creatively. To find worthwhile work experience with a 2:2 is absolutely possible, there are jobs (great ones) out there, but you need to draw on that creativity, that resilience, those skills you’ve developed in your degree.  The 2:2 does not define you as a failure. Positivity is catching â€" if you can think positively about your achievement, others will too â€" that includes employers. If you don’t believe me, then try it and see. Email me if I’m wrong and I’ll buy you a bar of choc. That’s how confident I am. Come and see us/telephone us/ Skype us at the Careers Service â€" I can absolutely guarantee you will leave our 30 minute meetings with a positive plan of action, some steps forward and/or renewed energy. http://www.careers.manchester.ac.uk/services/  Have a look at the Manchester Graduate  Talent  â€" it has saved many a soul who felt a bit like things were hopeless, and proved to be a really great stepping stone. http://www.careers.manchester.ac.uk/findjobs/graduatejobs/mgt/ Banish from your speech things like ‘I only got a 2:2’ and start saying ‘I have just graduated from the University of Manchester with a 2:2 degree â€" how brilliant is that’. Congratulations! By Bernadette Lyons Careers Consultant All Graduate Graduate-highlighted employability Getting started graduate schemes Graduates job hunting jobs Positive thinking

Writing a Resume For the Government - Know What to Include and Leave Out

Writing a Resume For the Government - Know What to Include and Leave OutYou've been hired, and now you need to write a resume for the government. It may be an obvious decision to make, but it's still a pretty big one, and one that shouldn't be taken lightly. Because if you forget a bit of information here or there, it can literally mean the difference between getting the job or being passed over entirely.The first thing to remember is that your experience with the government is really going to help you when it comes to writing a resume for the government. Your resume will need to be filled with all of the relevant work experiences you've had for the last few years. Even something as small as an extra promotion or two can go a long way.But just because you have a positive profile with the government doesn't mean you can expect to get every type of job that exists. There are some specific requirements that employers have that will make you more likely to get the job, as well as other j ob skills that you may have that they'll consider. What it comes down to is that you need to realize that writing a resume for the government is not the same as writing a resume for anything else.For example, if you're looking to apply for a job in public relations, you're not going to get a response because the idea of such a position is one that doesn't exist yet. For one thing, the public relations field is constantly changing, so your resume won't be quite up to date. A traditional resume will make it more likely that your application will be returned to you by a human being. Writing a resume for the government should include all of the experience you have for the specific job position you're applying for.If you've never worked in a job like this before, you'll want to focus on all of the skills that you have that may be required for the job and how they may be relevant to the job that you are seeking. If you're looking for a job with some sort of public relations agency, you're going to need to know the basics of what's expected of you. You'll need to know about communication skills, the ability to generate press releases and to run conferences, as well as technical knowledge and the ability to provide references.As you continue to write your resume, you should also think about what they will be looking for. This will determine your ability to market yourself and build your reputation and will also inform how much information you'll be asked to supply. You'll want to avoid a resume that is too vague, so you'll need to develop a general idea of what you'll be needing to include and then list it on your resume.Do you need to create any personal or professional references? This is something that many people don't consider when they are writing a resume, but it's very important. They will give you a reference, but it should be from a person who has nothing to do with you. It should come from someone you know and trust, and not someone who works for you or hav e a relationship with you through work.For some, this is easier said than done, but knowing what to put in and what to leave out can save you a lot of time when it comes to finding the right information and knowing how to craft your resume the way you would if you were looking for a job in a more traditional manner. You will be surprised at how simple it is, though, to get the most out of a resume when you know what to put in and what to leave out. For the government or in public relations, for example, it doesn't matter what type of position you are seeking.