Five Ways to Become a More Confident Job Seeker | My Global Career

One of the most common problems I notice among entry-level job seekers is a lack of confidence.  Since most entry-level candidates have little experience in the industry, and minimal experience with the nuances of the job search process as a whole, it is no surprise that recent college graduates get nervous in professional situations.  On the contrary, confident and articulate candidates stand out among the crowd and are a highly valuable resource to any company.

Here are five ways to prepare yourself for professional situations and become a more confident job seeker:

• Read the (industry) news. Many recent graduates struggle in professional situations because they feel so different from the people they are meeting with. Well, one of the easiest ways to find common knowledge is to talk about current events taking place in the news.  Not only will you portray yourself as an informed individual who is in tune with the goings-on of the world, but you will also notice yourself forming opinions on current events and topics and gain personal confidence through your knowledge.Even better?  Read news directly related to the industry you’re entering so that you can speak on even more relevant topics.  Even if your knowledge isn’t impressive, you can show an initiative and desire to learn that other candidates may not display.
  

• Do background research. You should always enter a professional situation with some research under your belt because if you know what you’re dealing with, you will be much more comfortable and confident.  Spend some time on the company Web site learning as much as you can about the company.  Formulate some questions that show you did some preparation.  Look at it like studying for a test: If you put a lot of effort into preparing and you are comfortable with the information, are you going to be nervous? No.

• Practice with strangers. This is a fairly easy way to become more comfortable meeting and talking with people whom you just met.  Make small talk with the bank teller, start a conversation with the woman next to you at the bus stop, or introduce yourself to your neighbors in the apartment down the hall.  Get used to introducing yourself and talking to people you don’t know because you will get a good feel for the easiest ways to enter, continue and exit conversations.  Pretty soon it will come naturally.

• Get a tailored suit (or the female equivalent). I’m not saying that you have to go out and spend a lot of money on professional attire (you can get suits for under $100), but you should wear something that at least fits you properly.  Although true self-confidence must come from within, you don’t want to be worrying about your appearance when you go in for the interview.  If you are happy with the way you look, you will radiate self-confidence.

• Take every interview. This is just about getting practice in an interview setting.  You will notice that many of the questions you are asked in interviews are the same—or at least similar—and getting practice.  Nothing works as well as the real thing, so treat every interview as a learning experience and get as much exposure to the job search process as you can.

It is natural to be nervous in unfamiliar situations, but the more exposure and practice you have with the job search process, the better you will become and, more importantly, the more confident you will feel.  So get out there, get some practice and soon you will be wondering why you were so nervous in the first place.

Mario Schulzke is the creator of CareerSparx, an online course that helps recent college graduates begin their careers. For more information, download a free 61-page guide on how to start your career.

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Personal Brands: The Testicle Defense | Personal Branding Blog - Dan Schawbel

“I have testicular cancer,” the late flooring supervisor told me. I don’t mean late as in dead. I mean late as in 4 weeks overdue to put the last bit of my office floor in, and now at 10 PM on Saturday night, culminating three days of “I’ll be right there,” just arriving at my office. That kind of late.

To woo me and blow smoke at me over the last 4 weeks, the supervisor had spun tales of putting in Tom Cruise’s floor, being called to an “emergency job” in Oregon and the ever popular refrain in this town: the “traffic is really heavy on the 5 (freeway, I’m in LA).” He has just arrived: angry.

Why he’s angry, I shouldn’t know because I’ve already paid him and it’s just the last 300 feet in a 6000 square foot job that went undone because he failed to measure right. But, I actually do know why he is angry at me.

Hating you or themselves

When people make a mistake they have two choices about whom to hate: you or themselves. Statistically, it’s not a coin toss. The odds are rigged against you.

The biggest fear I have in business is someone else not doing their job, not because it won’t wind up done by them (or me or someone else I pay double to do it on a rush), but because they are very likely to get angry rather than apologize and do the right thing. In fact, that scenario is pretty much the only time anyone is angry with me.

So if you’re angry, I pretty much know you didn’t do something you promised.

However, the testicle defense? Very original! At first, I thought perhaps his testicles in some way kept him from showing up this morning. It so happens that I’m a woman so how would I know? I’m not a doctor.

In fact, it turns out he had another job also unfinished, located in Palm Springs (probably due to finish last year) and he thought he’d “get that out of the way” before driving up 5 hours to see me.

So what time zone was the “I’ll be there a 8 AM Saturday” zone when in reality he planned to be 400 miles away from me? It wasn’t the US Pacific Time Zone. I was here waiting for him in no special time warp; just 8 AM Saturday. And, as the clocked ticked away time? No supervisor. No flooring. But throughout the day, lots of calls to negotiate a new arrival time – hence he shows up at 10 PM.

Here’s what happened. The supervisor was angry that I failed to greet him like a conquering hero bringing me chocolate and parachute silks. When he read my tired face as: “I’ve been up for 15 hours today and now will be up another 5 while you finally do your job,” he said: “It’s not even worth it for me to put in the floor. You are already unhappy. And, I have testicular cancer.”

So he threatened to withhold my flooring while waving some kind of testicle defense. My response? Remember, I have an unfair advantage in these circumstances: I communicate for a living. I teach people how to communicate with difficult people. Here’s my response:

“You and I are dying before each others’ eyes, aren’t we?”

He let a tear drop out of his eye and silently (hurray!) went to work (finally!).

Personal brands: what excuses are you giving yourself to underperform?

What happens to the personal brand you are trying to build, when you pull out a dopey, lame and TMI (too much information!) response to someone’s well deserved rebuke of you for what havoc you wreaked in their business or life?

We all are living to die. That’s the deal here. You get to make the reality you live in. You get to choose from an infinite spectrum of behaviors and words to describe what you are doing right, and what you are doing wrong.

It’s your choice that matters; it’s what defines you as a personal brand. Not some myth called reality. It’s all perception of you and by you.

Here a tip as you lay the foundation of your personal brand.  Lay down a track of self-talk that soothes you when you make a mistake and gets you back the self-control that saves you from yourself.

Author:

Nance Rosen is the author of Speak Up! & Succeed. She speaks to business audiences around the world and is a resource for press, including print, broadcast and online journalists and bloggers covering social media and careers. Read more at NanceRosenBlog. Twitter name: nancerosen.

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12 Life Lessons from Warren Buffett to Being a More Compassionate Writer | Write to Done

Guest post by Scott Dinsmore of ReadingForYourSuccess

Last week I spent a day with Warren Buffett at his annual meeting. The education was profound, and surprisingly serves to make us all better writers, bloggers and entrepreneurs.

12 Life Lessons from Warren Buffett:

1. Lose money and I will forgive you, but lose even a shred of reputation and I will be ruthless. This has been echoed across the business world for years and it applies to us all. Life is too short to cut corners to make an extra buck. Wealth can always be recreated but reputation takes a lifetime to build and often only a moment to destroy. As Warren says, “we will not trade reputation for money.” In the world of blogging, we are writing because we love it. It’s not for the money. This makes reputation more important than anything. Remember this when you are contemplating rushing to monetize your site by filling it with ads, links, etc.

2. The best defense in a tough economy is to add the most you can to society. Your money can be inflated away but your knowledge and talent cannot. No matter the external circumstances, you are always in control of your talent, learning and passion for life. There will always be opportunities for talent. This is the most empowering thing about web entrepreneurship and blogging. Develop those skills with the constant focus on helping others and you will never be without a job.

3. We get worried when people start to agree with us. The best fruit is found out on the limbs. The road less traveled makes all the difference. Make a rule to always stay on the side of the minority in your life’s path and you will be greatly rewarded. Not to mention it will be magnitudes more exciting. These are exactly the topics that people want to read about. Get a little edgy with your posts. Say something fresh. It will stick with your visitors and they’re likely to come back.

4. We celebrate wealth only when it’s been fairly won and wisely used. The goal is not to make money at all costs. It’s easy to forget that in a lot of industries and sub-cultures around the world where everyone is in constant competition. And this can especially be the case when so many of us spend hours upon hours writing and developing our web services for free. Do not rush it and do not get greedy. Help others and the fruit will be there. Wealth is worthless if you’ve destroyed all your relationships to attain it. Take the high road. It’s far less crowded. A bit sad but often true. Makes it pretty easy to stand out.

5. When you are exceptional you jump off the page. There really isn’t that much competition there. Be your own best competitive advantage. Then it doesn’t make a difference what others are doing. You are in control. In blogging, entrepreneurship and life, there are few people really willing to give it their all. Do this and your supporters will love you for it (they will also likely multiply).

6. Do what you’re passionate about. If you do this, there will be few people competing or running faster than you. The best way to be exceptional is with passion! As Tony Robbins says every day of his life, “Live with Passion!” And trust me, life is a lot more fun this way. I cannot think of a better motivator to get you to write for free and love it, than to jump out of bed dying to teach and help others.

7. I think I developed courage when I learned I could deal with hardship. You need to get your feet wet and get some failure under your belt. Courage does not grow on its own. Just like a muscle, it must be constantly worked out and developed. Life begins outside your comfort zone and that’s where courage is developed. Most people don’t succeed because they’re afraid to fail. Failure isn’t that bad anyway. It will make you tougher and more likely to win the next time around. If I had a dime for every time I heard someone tell me about an idea they wanted to pursue or how much they would like to give blogging a shot, without an ounce of action to follow…well, I might own a few more shares of Berkshire Hathaway stock. No one has succeeded without going through their own failures at some point. To try and to fail is much better than to never try. Why not get started early and get some of them out of the way! What’s the worst that could happen? As big wave surfer Laird Hamilton says “If you’re not falling then you’re not learning.”

8. There’s no better way to be happier than getting your expectations down. Most unhappiness comes from misaligned and unrealistic expectations of life. Expect the world of yourself, but expect nothing of the world. Then you cannot help but live your life pleasantly surprised. When I first started blogging a few years ago, I had these huge aspirations of how quickly I’d have a massive following. When it didn’t happen immediately, it got me down. Write and develop your business online with the expectation of it being a charity project to help others. Anything in addition will be icing on the cake.

9. If the only reason you find for doing something is because others are doing it then that’s not good enough. In fact, if everyone else is writing on a topic, maybe that’s the one best to avoid. Tim Ferriss is a master at evading the majority with his 4-Hour Work Week philosophy. Learn to be comfortable on your own path.

10. Decide early in life to make your money by selling things that you really believe are good for the customers. Make this a rule before you write another word to your readers or offer another product to your customers. Life is too short and your reputation too fragile to not have your audience first and foremost in your mind and in your heart. Rules like this make it very difficult to lose.

11. We’ve done a lot of stupid things but we’ve avoided a small subset of stupidity and that subset is important. It’s about avoiding the dumb things. Warren’s success does not come from doing so many things right. It comes from avoiding the things that are terribly wrong. Some say this is two sides of the same coin. It’s not. It requires a fundamental shift in psychology. The stories are endless of people who did a few things right and were massively successful, but then did something stupid that took them back to zero. Before Warren does anything, he and his partner “invert, always invert.” They list every way imaginable in which they could fail at a particular task and then take massive effort to avoid those failures. Do this for your blog or business and the success will come automatically. Always ask yourself, what would disappoint my readers or customers? Then don’t do it.

12. Go to bed a little wiser than when you woke up. This is the crux of the whole meeting. Life is about learning. If you are always learning you can never lose. Keep this as your only rule for the day and the world will be yours for the taking. There has been no better way for me to continue to add value to my readers and followers than this life maxim. Follow it and you will never run out of posts to write or people to serve.

The lessons from Warren are endless. We all stand to learn to be better people, writers and entrepreneurs from what he’s willing to share. He doesn’t charge any money or ask for anything in return. Except of course that we live a life with a burning desire to learn and do all we can to be valuable additions to society. Keep this as the foremost mission of your business or blog and your time spent will be well rewarded.

Read more action-provoking posts by Scott Dinsmore, a writer, and entrepreneur. You can read more by Scott at Reading For Your Success.

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When Your Personal Brand Outshines the Corporate Brand | Brand-Yourself.com Blog

It’s happening and more common than anyone wants to admit.  As the concept and importance of personal branding, social media, and an online presence becomes more common place, companies are becoming more interested in their employee’s personal brand.  Their concerns are legitimate.  Here’s why. . .

• Risk. Legal risk, perceived risk for the company and its own brand.  These are just two things that concerns bosses, executives, and your company’s legal team.

• Ignorance. Companies are scared and ignorant to how the concept of an employee’s own personal brand can help elevate or benefit the company’s own brand.

• Fear. Similar to ignorance companies are scared.  Maybe they or a company they know has been burned before.  Unfortunately, companies react and create policies, protocol, and procedures based on past experiences and perceived risk.

While companies and the court look to find a common ground in the world of social media, personal branding, and the concept of microcelebrity, here are some things you can do to ensure your own personal brand doesn’t outshine your employer’s brand.

• Have a Plan. Know your strategy and how you plan on going about developing your brand.  What is your goal and what does your brand look like?  This will help you clearly define yourself and able to articulate just who you are.  Because as your personal brand grows people take note, and articulating it clearly is half the battle.

• Be Upfront. With yourself, your audience, and possibly your current employer.  Research your company’s communications, social media, and electronic policies prior to0 developing your personal branding strategy.  Keep copies of these documents and policies for yourself to reference just in case.

• Get It In Writing. If and when you do come clean with your employer (and I believe you should), get written evidence the meeting and discussion actually occurred.  This could be in the form of an electronic email recap or signed statement.  I also recommend that you put your own thoughts onto paper and write a statement that outlines what took place in the discussion.  You are able to reference the document, the date, and what your conversation included just in case.

• Sell Yourself. Sell yourself and how your brand can help not hurt the company you work for.  Find ways to work together and be an advocate for them.  Demonstrate your value and align yourself within the organization as someone who can assist and highlight the company’s brand.  Develop relationships with PR and Marketing so their expertise and influence can work in your favor.

Photo Credit Lunch.

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is known as @Blogging4Jobs on Twitter, is a published author of “Tweet This! Twitter for Business” and  is a leading HR blogger and new media strategist.  Jessica is a subject matter expert and provides insights in the areas of  HR, recruiting, and new media consultancy with her company, Xceptional HR.  Her newest project isTexting4Jobs, a text based job board platform recently launched in Oklahoma.

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It’s Easy to Get Discouraged

Getting discouraged is easy. There are negative people all around us, and it’s hard to pick out which ones are being constructive and honest versus those who are being jerks. What I find interesting is just how easy it is to let their opinion scuttle my mood for a while. That’s sure a lot of power I’m giving them. It’s easy to get discouraged.

Not Rocket Surgery

One repeat criticism of my work is that I’m not telling anyone anything new, that it’s all common sense. That’s actually reasonably true. You don’t spend time with me, read a few lines, and then smack your forehead and say, “I’ve got it!” Most of my ideas are basically reminders for us to do the things we don’t do, but know we should.

I’m okay with this criticism most days, because it’s true. I’m not innovating by creating new methods. I’m innovating by holding us to the standards of treating people like they’re human beings instead of prospects or targets. It’s not rocket surgery, as my Boston friends say.

Don’t Need a Pep Talk

I didn’t write this post to get your kind words of support. To be honest, I’m pretty confident that I’m headed in the right direction. For everyone telling me that I’m not all that interesting, I’m evidently the number 1 uninteresting guy writing about marketing.

What I wrote this piece for was to tell you that it’s easy to look at what you do as uninteresting, or unimportant, or just the same old thing. And maybe there’s some truth to it. If I look out at the top social media blogs right now, a good many of them are covering all the same software applications and a lot of the same stories. Maybe we could all dig a little deeper to innovate more.

But don’t let that stop you, if you’re following a vision, and if you’ve got a sense of where you’re headed.

Michael Jordan worked on the uninteresting task of pushing a ball through a net. Eleanor Roosevelt worked on the uninteresting task of writing articles and visiting people. Mohandas Gandhi worked on the uninteresting task of sitting down and saying no.

Me? I’m a typist. I’m just typing and talking about typing. And I’m not all that discouraged any more.

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Green Business Jobs: Top 10 Job Search Resources | Career Rocketeer - Career Search and Personal Branding Blog

“Green jobs” is the hot topic of the day, and now more than ever, companies are embracing the sentiment, if not the practice, of sustainability. But, when it comes to career options, green business can mean many different things—sustainability, corporate social responsibility (CSR), cleantech, socially responsible investing, green building, carbon markets and finance, renewable energy industry jobs, green marketing, or corporate-NGO partnership engagements, to name a few.

Are there really any jobs out there? Absolutely. But the catch is: these openings can be hard to find. Few job search boards aggregate socially and environmentally responsible business jobs in all of these different areas of sustainability, and often sustainability is not easily searchable in a job’s title or descriptive keywords.

Here are my ten favorite green business job search resources:

1. Net Impact (www.netimpact.org). Any professional interested in sustainable business should join the global Net Impact organization as a full member. Members have access to a job board focused exclusively on social and environmental impact careers, as well as access to the global member directory (great for networking), the “Issues in Depth” educational series, and regular career newsletters. If your city has a local professional chapter of Net Impact, join that, too.

2. Sustainability Recruiting Blog (www.sustainabilityrecruiting.com/blog/). Recruiter Ellen Weinreb sifts through many different sources for the best new CSR and sustainable business job openings, and posts one to her blog each day.

3. GreenBiz (www.greenbiz.com). GreenBiz is the preeminent source of green business news and commentary, along with its affiliated sites ClimateBiz.com, GreenerBuildings.com, GreenerComputing.com and GreenerDesign.com. GreenBiz’s annual “State of Green Business Report” is an excellent resource, as is its job board.

4. Green Dream Jobs (www.greendreamjobs.com). This job board is easy to search by skill level (eg, “Senior Level”) or by keyword (eg, “MBA”).

5. Justmeans (www.justmeans.com) . This social networking site includes an active job board for social impact job openings, many with environmental and cleantech organizations.

6. Green Drinks (www.greendrinks.org). Many cities have regular happy hours events called “Green Drinks”—a great way to network with environmentally-oriented professionals in your area.

7. LinkedIn Groups. The “Green Jobs & Career Network Group,” “Acre Sustainability Recruitment Network,” “Sustainability Career Group,” and “Renewables Job Market” groups on LinkedIn are just a few of the groups posting green business job openings, and anyone can join for free.

8. BSR’s CSR Jobs Board (www.bsr.org/resources/jobs/). BSR (Business for Social Responsibility) posts mid- and senior-level CSR and sustainability positions on its site.

9. CSR Chicks (groups.yahoo.com/group/csr-chicks/) and CSR Jobs (groups.yahoo.com/group/csr-jobs/). These two Yahoo! groups are good sources for CSR jobs in the UK and other parts of Europe (despite the name, men and women alike are invited to join).

10. Simply Hired Job Search Agent (www.simplyhired.com). Simply Hired is a meta-search engine which will crawl other job boards and send you daily email summaries with any matches. A carefully crafted search agent (ie, “sustainability and MBA” or “renewable energy California”) can yield great results from places you might not otherwise look.

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Guest Expert:

Katie Kross is the author of the book, Profession and Purpose: A Resource Guide for MBA Careers in Sustainability (Greenleaf Publishing, 2009), available at Amazon.com and BetterWorldBooks.com.

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Career Challenges at 50: Unfulfilled and Bored - Career advice blog - Position Ignition - taking you to the next step in your career

At fifty, many of us feel we finally know what we are doing professionally, have a lot to offer others, and are wiser than ever before. On the other hand, we may also be sensing that this is our last chance to make our mark on the world; that our energy, while strong, is beginning to wane; and that others – amazingly – see us as ‘old’.  Are these some of the career challenges you are facing at 40 or 50?  

If this is your situation, how do you think about your career?

Broadly, you are likely to be in one of 3 situations and facing 3 main potential career challenges:

1)     In a job, but feeling unfulfilled, and perhaps beginning to be bored.

2)     In a job, but feel that changes are coming, and you may not be there much longer

3)     Out of work.

In each situation, the key to is take control of your career by putting yourself through a process of thinking about your options, and then taking action.

This is one of 3 blogs covering the above three situations that you could be facing as career challenges at 50. So to start with the first:

Safe but Unfulfilled

What keeps most of us in a job we find unsatisfactory are the benefits: the stability, status, package, accumulated knowledge and expertise. But if you are chaffing at the bit, and facing ten or fifteen years before you retire, these may not be enough.

In social studies, there is a hierarchy of questions which might help you to understand where you are.  If you ask yourself how are you doing and you reply “ok, has been better – just tough at the moment” – the subtext could be......I am ok with this place/this situation. We are running hard as we have a tight deadline or someone’s on holiday.  That sounds ok – it’s a tactical response and you are probably mainly ok.

If you ask yourself what is going on?  You may answer differently; perhaps along the lines of “we are shifting focus.  There’s a new crew in charge and they are going in a different direction”.  This sounds more strategic and there may be issues arising for you which challenge your approach, your values perhaps.  It is at a different level of importance anyway.

The next question you could pose is “why am I doing this?” This may be an irrelevant question.  If so, then great.  If you think about it seriously and find there are big issues for you, this is at a level which could be more profound for you and your working life.  This may be the point at which you ask yourself if you are happy to stay in this situation or whether you wish to shift your world.  Safety is important. Staying unfulfilled is a choice that for some is not acceptable.

With age and experience comes wisdom.  We are not always great at appreciating just what we are able to contribute as we gain wisdom.  It is easy to under appreciate ourselves and the contribution that we can make.  We might be self-deprecating (a wonderful British trait), we might carry regrets; we might have lousy feedback from the workplace and in our domestic lives.  Never forget thought that as you travel through your life, it is becoming richer and you have more to give.

It is possible to understand and appreciate your value.  You have to take some time to do it though.  You might just surprise yourself and find a route to greater fulfillment.

Experiment with asking yourself these questions:

• What do I need to do to keep myself learning, in terms of technology, visions, leadership?
• How do I stay fit and healthy enough to work productively?
• How do I manage myself so that I balance the demands of work, home, and family?

If you are facing your own career challenges at 50 - let us know what your story is. Have you managed to overcome your challenges? What have you learned?  Or if you're looking for some support - drop us a line now: enquiries@positionignition.com - to find out what your options are! 

Author: Simon North

www.positionignition.com

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