Alexandra Levits Water Cooler Wisdom Why Youre Setting Yourself Up to Fail at Work

Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom Why You're Setting Yourself Up to Fail at Work No one wants to disappoint a colleague or manager. No one wants to be bad at their job. No one wants to fail. Nevertheless, people do these things every day, and more often than not, they bring the problems on themselves. In the event that you may be unknowingly sabotaging your productivity and success, here are six things to make certain you aren’t doing: You set unrealistic expectations You’re a can-do person, so it’s in your nature to automatically say yes every time you are asked to do something. The trouble is, some things â€" like three meetings in one time slot and a handful of heavy-lifting projects with the same short deadline â€" are just not doable. It is better to take a step back and assess what’s logically possible than to let people down who trust you. You insist that you don’t need any help As my grandmother used to say, no one is going to give you a gold star for being a martyr. Trying to be superman or superwoman is a surefire way to lose track of something important or make a mistake that costs big time. Be a better leader by recognizing that at times, other people may have more bandwidth and/or expertise than you â€" and let them in. For more where this came from, check out the complete post at Intuits Fast Track blog.

How To Wear Your Hair During An Interview

How To Wear Your Hair During An Interview Dear Classy Career Girl, I am really curious how to wear your hair for an interview. Is it better to have our hair up or down for an interview? CCG: My take is that its more important to feel comfortable and confident. So if you are more confident with your hair out of your face and up in a ponytail, do it. If you feel more confident with your hair down, do that. There is no right and wrong. I also  invited an expert recruiter with 15 years of experience interviewing candidates to give you even better advice than I could give you! Meet Becky, our newest Love Your Career Formula Certified Career Coach and Founder of The Job Search Success Coach. During her 15 years as a Corporate Recruiter for small and large technical companies, Becky has interviewed thousands of candidates. She understands the employer’s perspective and knows what it takes to make a positive impression, get hired, and negotiate the best salary. She now shares her game-changing, insider secrets with coaching clients. Heres what Becky, has to say about wearing your hair during your interview. How a candidate wears their hair  to an interview is definitely a big part of the first impression. You want to be able to make that first impression, not have your hair make it for you.   Unfortunately, I have interviewed a few candidates, that when they walked out of the interview all I could remember was their hair. I was so distracted that I couldn’t remember a  word they said, so I could not move them forward in the interview process.  [RELATED: What to Wear to an Interview] Here a few more  tips on how to wear your hair to an interview from Becky: Keep it simple and professional, know your audience. If you have bangs, have them trimmed over your eyes. You want to be able to keep eye contact with the interviewers. If one of your nervous habits is to play with your hair, pull it back. You don’t want to distract the interviewers. Your interview day is not the day to try out a new barrette or headband. Wear a hairstyle that makes you feel comfortable and confident.

One Perfect Way To Open A Meeting - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

One Perfect Way To Open A Meeting - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career What’s the one thing you can say to immediately get everyone’s attention, and focus them on working together to get results in a meeting? Well, it’s not one thing actually. You’ve got three ways to get any meeting started on the right track. A Startling Statistic A Dramatic Quote A Success Story You might have heard hundreds of people start a meeting. You’ve probably spent thousands of hours watching teachers start their lectures. For the most part, they’ve been doing it all wrong.   That’s why you’ve been bored, focused on the donuts and coffee or otherwise used the time to check Facebook or design a new logo for the company you’re starting on the side. Prepare to be the best When you run a meeting, that’s what your audience is doing, too â€" unless you plan ahead. So, take a few minutes to prepare one of the three best ways to grab their attention and laser focus their efforts on the tasks at hand. Today well focus on your first option, the startling statistic This is the easiest opening to prepare and it can be the most entertaining way to grab attention. Consider what surprising metric is directly or indirectly tied to the topic you’re talking about. Pile up a lot of these so you always have a new statistic or measurement to shock your audience. For example: In the solar energy business or tech support explaining data storage devices: “The sun is so large, it could hold one million planets the size of Earth.” If you’re selling flash drives, “This drive is that exact concept â€" just turned around. It’s whole lot of ‘space’ in a pretty small container.” In project management or global navigation: “About one in seventeen children born in a hospital are given to the wrong parents,” according to playwright David Mamet in a recent New York Times interview. “If people can’t get that right, imagine what can go wrong when there’s less at stake.” In electronics, quality control or technical writing: “Thirty percent of all electronics returned by customers for being defective, aren’t defective. They’re returned because consumers can’t figure out how to use them. Returns cost companies $100 billion annually. Think of what saving $33 billion would mean to profitability, job creation and global economic health.” In financial management, fundraising or oil and gas: “A gallon of gas in the US today is about $4.50 cents a gallon. Pretty high until you compare it to the price of other things we commonly buy. Starbucks coffee comes to $32 a gallon!” Getting statistics together isn’t just smart for getting attention in meetings, presentations, and conversations. It’s fun. Get onto your favorite search engine and let your curiosity lead you to asking loads of significant and quirky questions. Then, then sift through the sources to get metrics that create a wow factor for your meetings. Hearing wow, you give great meeting! is ideal for any personal brand. 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

The good and bad news about graduate recruitment University of Manchester Careers Blog

The good and bad news about graduate recruitment University of Manchester Careers Blog The Times reported  recently that employers are struggling to find ‘work-ready’ graduates. They said companies are struggling to fill graduate positions because they cannot find enough quality candidates as the economy picks up. According to the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR) nine out of ten graduate employers still have vacancies for this autumn. A poll by the AGR found that half of employers had increased their graduate intake targets but 87 per cent still had vacancies for this year. Two thirds said the applications they had received so far had been of insufficient quality. The highest percentage of vacancies was in areas of general management, IT and electrical and electronic engineering but there were roles available in almost every sector. The poll found employers complaining of graduates adopting a “spray and pray” approach, taking little effort to research a role or target their application. Many said that graduates had cut and pasted earlier applications, and failed to change the name of the company to which they were applying. Stephen Isherwood, chief executive of the AGR, said “In 2006, about half our members couldn’t fill all their vacancies. We’re getting back to that pretty quickly. Employers would rather hire nobody than the wrong person.” Mr Isherwood revealed that many candidates fell down at the application stage. “First impressions really do count,” he said. “I’d urge all graduates to really research sectors and roles that they’re applying for, tailoring each approach to show why they want that particular job and what they can offer.” Rob Wall, head of employment policy at the Confederation of British Industry, identified the economic upturn as having an impact on the graduate market; he said “Demand for graduates is growing with more employers looking for people with higher skills, leadership and management ability. Firms want to recruit young people with the attitudes and attributes that are essential for success, such as resilience, enthusiasm and creativity.” The Good News There are lots of graduate vacancies to be filled. The Bad News Many applications are not of sufficient standard â€" but, of course, following the above advice can easily turn that round. What can you do? A good place to start for finalists would be attending the upcoming ‘Boot Camp’ and the ‘Graduate Recruitment Fair’ both organised by the Careers service. For details see http://www.careers.manchester.ac.uk/events Can’t make it? Ok there are a few things to get started: Advice for researching employers: http://www.careers.manchester.ac.uk/findjobs/graduatejobs/researchemployers/ http://libassets.manchester.ac.uk/mle/careers/research/ Advice on CVs Advice on cover letters Advice on application forms Talk to us about your applications and how you can stand out. Graham Keating Careers Consultant All Undergraduate Undergraduate-highlighted applications Applications and interviews Careers fair employability employers graduate schemes job hunting job market jobs

Top 10 IT Certifications to Start Your Career In 2019 CareerMetis.com

Top 10 IT Certifications to Start Your Career In 2019 Source: PixabayThere is no denying the fact that if you belong in the IT industry, sharpening skills now and then becomes nothing but a necessity. Having an IT career requires a lot of planning and plotting. And, out of all the things, having relevant and authentic certificates can help you to a great extent.This is one of the most vital things that can set your skills apart from your competitors and can even bring you worthwhile promotions. From the employer’s perspective, hiring certified employees helps them boosting the revenue and exposure of their companies.So, if you’re already a part of this vast domain or aspire to be, here are the top 10 IT certifications that you can consider to start your career in 2019.1) AWS Certified Solutions ArchitectevalevalAWS stands for Amazon Web Services. If you look out for reasons to pursue this certification, you’ll surely find thousands of them to do so. To begin with, the acceptance of cloud-based services and tech has increased treme ndously in the past few years. And, for good, it is here to stay.Cloud is one such aspect that helps companies save a lot of money, space, and time. Hence, more and more organizations are in seek for IT professionals who can leverage their cloud services. This specific certificate helps you prepare to design and deploy different systems with the help of the AWS platform.Although this certificate comes at the intermediate level, however, it can open the doors of high-level certification for you.Being an AWS Certified Solutions Architect won’t only boost your skills but can also fetch you an average of $125,591.To appear for this certification course, you will be judged by whether you choose the correct AWS services for apps, code-level application security knowledge, and software development kits mastery.The prerequisites comprise:One or more year of experience with AWSProfound knowledge of high-level programming languageUnderstanding of best practices for the development of AWS-ba sed appsYou can know more about this computer-based, multiple-choice exam here.2) Project Management Professional The Project Management Institute Currently, the average salary of a PMPs is $114,473 every year. You can apply for this exam on the website of PMP.3) Certified Ethical Hacker Requirements to appear for this exam include:Experience in information security of at least five yearsThree years of experience as a security managerAt least five years of full-time paid experienceYou can know more about how to take this exam here.eval5) Certified ScrumMasterThe fact that the Project management domain can leave specific gaps in talent calls for professionals to follow something else to hone their skills. Hence, being a certified Scrum Master is another stellar path that you can choose to gain better pay off.Scrum means such a management style in which teams conduct meetings each morning with the objective of reviewing progress and making appropriate adjustments to make sure that all the members are working efficiently and productively.If you’re looking forward to changing your pace, taking this exam will be an ideal choice for you. With this certification, you can grab many opportunities to work on different types of projects, which will retain your interest, hopefully.evalBusinesses have begun the selection of certified project managers. It’s especially useful for technical project managers, project managers, program managers, product developers, and team leaders. If you wish to gain a certificate in this domain, you’ll have to attend a two-day workshop course, followed by an exam of 24-35 questions.Upon completion, you can earn an average of $106,938 each year. You can learn more about this exam here.6) Cisco CCIE Routing and SwitchingIf you’ve already spent a lot of time in the IT security industry, being a leader, Cisco’s certifications are always a safe choice. This certification, known as the Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) can put y our profile at the stack of any number of resumes for IT jobs.This expert-level examination may turn out to be rigorous. However, it can pay you back amazingly once you’re successful in grabbing this credential. Considering how the networking equipment of Cisco has always been setting a standard for the industry, you can be sure of being in demand with this certificate in hand.Moreover, once you’ve got this certificate, you can also work with different technologies, like virtualization and cloud. Having a strong networking base will allow you to expand into several other areas, including IT security. However, this certification exam is only for those professionals who have already completed the CCNA certificate and have moved to the next level of exams.Under this certification, you can select to be certified in collaboration, cloud, data center, security, routing switching, wireless, or service providing. To appear for this exam, you must have completed the CCNA Routing Switch ing examination or any of the CCIE exam.When it comes to salary, you can easily earn an average of $99,402 a year. You can apply for this exam on the official website of Cisco.7) Six Sigma Green BeltDon’t get confused â€" this certification is no way related to martial arts. Instead, Six Sigma Green Belt is a force to be reckoned with in IT. As a green belt holder, you’ll get to apply your knowledge and skills in the methodology of Six Sigma business, which is a process for streamlining the management of quality.Not just that, but this certificate also simplifies the process of leading the company for improved IT projects. While pursuing this certificate, you cannot skip any of the six levels. Hence, regardless of where you’re in your career, you’ll always have to begin from the initial entry-level.In this course, a Black Belt holder will be there to mentor and guide you when it comes to learning the methodology of this certificate. To appear for this exam, you must have:Exp erience of a full-time paid jobThree years of experience in one or multiple Six Sigma Green Belt Body areasThe average salary after pursuing this certificate will be $104,099 every year. On this International association website, you can apply for this course.8) Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP)Another one on the list is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional certificate, which the ISC provides, and is accredited under ANSI. The US Department of Defense also approves this certificate. This professional certificate has been recognized globally by IT security professionals.If you’re related to auditing, analysis, systems engineering, or anything similar, in such a scenario, CISSP would be a perfect certificate for you.This certificate can make you a professional in information assurance and can bring several kinds of responsibilities, like architecture determination, design, management, and control that keeps the company’s security uptight. Appearing for this test calls for at least five years of experience in information security and formal practice of at least three years as a security manager. Once you’ve cleared it, you can be sure of the average pay of $111,475 every year. However, you must keep in mind that to maintain the credentials, you’ll have to get continuing education credits every year. You can know more about it here.9) AWS Certified Developer â€" AssociateAWS Certified Developer is one such course that is here to authenticate your technical experience in maintaining and developing applications on the platform of Amazon Web Services. This exam tests your judgment when it comes to coded application security, software development kits, and more.This certificate is for those developers who deal with the core AWS services. It is meant to display your skills when it comes to developing, deploying, and debugging cloud-based applications with Amazon Web services. With an increase in IoT, cloud technology, and machine learning, the demand of a certified developer has increased than ever before.To appear for this certificate, you must have hands-on experience in designing maintaining AWS-based apps for one or more years. You must also know high-level programming languages and AWS services understanding.The average salary that you can gain as a certified developer is $114,473. You can obtain more knowledge of this certificate here.10) Certified in the Governance of Enterprise IT (CGEIT)Provided through ISACA, this certificate is all about demonstrating your enterprise IT governance knowledge. If you’re successful in getting a CGEIT certification, you’ll be an expert in advising, managing, and offering assurance services to enterprise IT governance.This certificate can bring you a variety of roles, like IT Risk Leader, Risk Management Officer, Assistant IT Controller, and moreAnd moreover, it is certified in the Governance of Enterprise IT is also a lucrative job, thank s to the high demand of people with these IT skills. Having this certificate allows you to earn an average of $121,363 each year. But, before that, to take this exam, you’ll have to pay around $575.When it comes to requirements, you must have:Experience in managing, serving an advisory or oversight role for 5 or more yearsAt least a year of experience with an IT governance frameworkExperience of two or more than that in CGEIT domains, including strategic management, risk optimization, benefits realization, or resource optimization.You can find out more details about this course here.CONCLUSIONFor sure, IT is a thriving industry and has a variety of job opportunities for novices and professionals. A significant part of the population is employed in this sector globally. And, today, IT is one of the most approachable domains when it comes to building a phenomenal career.However, being an IT professional, the only thing that you must keep doing is upgrading skills. Technology is cont inuously evolving; hence, to match the pace, you must sharpen your skills. So, these certificate courses may add more stars to your resume and career.Choose the one that best matches your requirements and skills, pursues that certificate, and then reap the benefits in your career.

7 questions you must ask your Hiring Manager before accepting the job offer - Margaret Buj - Interview Coach

7 questions you must ask your Hiring Manager before accepting the job offer You have finally landed a job offer letter after having  interviews with numerous companies. Everything feels great and you are ecstatic. Why would you not be? After all, the tiresome process of applying for jobs and running around for interviews is behind you. Congratulations! This calls for a celebration! Given how difficult landing a decent job is in this  job market, it is natural  for you to be happy. After all, the hard days of showing up  for back to back interviews are over. However, don’t give in to the temptation of accepting the job offer right away. Just like you marketed your skills to the employer during the interview, it is their turn now to sell their offer to you. This means now is the time when you can ask all those questions that you couldn’t ask at the time of the interview because you wanted to avoid coming across as greedy or pushy. To make things easy for you, we have compiled a list of top seven questions you must ask your hiring manager before signing the dotted line on the offer letter. Q1. What would your title be? If often  happens that the offer letter states a job title different from what you have applied for. It can be good or it can also be bad for you. It can be good in cases where you are offered a position higher in the department that you had actually interviewed for. To state a bad example, let’s say that you got the job in a department for which you didn’t apply for and has no prior experience about the nature of work. Whatever the case may be, it is important that you discuss your job title before accepting the offer letter. Q2. Who would you be reporting to? Chances are that your immediate reporting manager may have been one of the interviewers, but the reporting structures arent always clear make sure you know how you fit in within the companys structure. Q3. What would be included in your day to day work responsibilities? Job descriptions don’t always give away much. Yes, you must have discussed this at the time of the interview, but then you discussed the same in a lot of other interviews as well. Now we are not questioning your memory, but it is still better to be doubly sure about your work responsibilities before accepting the job offer. Q4. What would be the work hours, shift timings and off days? You need this information for a number of reasons. Companies follow different shift timings depending upon the number of hours they require the employees to work each day. Your daily work hours also determine the number of days off you will get in a week. You need this information to check whether or not you can manage the shift assigned to you keeping in mind the daily commute from your home. Q5. What parameters will you be judged on at the time of appraisals? While you may be clear about what your day to day work responsibilities would be, it is important to be equally clear about the ultimate goal towards which you would be working each day. You need to know what is expected out of you and how you would be judged at the time of performance evaluations. Q6. Would you be required to travel? Some profiles require employees to travel. If your new job falls under this category, be sure about the frequency of these travels, the amount provided by the company to sponsor them as well as the reimbursement policies in detail before taking the final call. Q7. Is there a scope for further growth in the department that you will be joining? Most probably you will get a vague answer to this question. But there is no harm in asking. Asking such a question will give your hiring manager an impression that you are ambitious and there is no employer who doesn’t want to add an ambitious resource to the team. When you have checked out each of these questions on your list, you will find yourself thoroughly aware about the deal being offered to you and the decision to whether or not you should accept the offer will become easy. About Megha Raizada Megha Raizada is a professional writer working with the premium job portal Naukrigulf.com. She has a keen interest in the global job market, but also loves to keep a track of everything interesting happening around the globe. You can reach her at Twitter and Google+.

Ask The When I Grow Up Coach Why do you think you never made it big in musical theater

Ask The When I Grow Up Coach Why do you think you never made it big in musical theater City of Lights/Times Square by Jason Gluskin It’s been awhile, but its time for another installment of  Ask the When I Grow Up Coach! In this series, I pick one of  the questions that have been posed on Formspring (or sent to me directly) to feature here, until there are no questions left! Disclaimer: A few of the questions that have been posted are from other coaches or would-be coaches. While I’m absolutely happy to share my story and offer any advice I have on being a coach, I’m only gonna post the questions that can be applied more universally. Hope that’s helpful! Heres a juicy question that arrived in my Inbox which, I admit, shook me up a bit: I wanted to ask why do you think you never made it big in musical theater? Id wager if you did, you would still be doing THAT.  Im asking so I know what to tell my young friends who love the arts. It is hard, it is competitive, but SOMONE has to make it. How do you know its going to be you? How do you know it is not? And it is always sad when someone gives up a dream for reality because they were not the chosen oneAnd how can your services help those who might have had the same dreams you had?  Your insight would be lovely This question has stuck in my head since you asked it thanks so much for the food for thought! There are no guarantees in this life. Sure, I couldve stuck with pursuing acting as a business, and who knows where I would be now or what the future would look like Broadway, regional theater, summer stock, cruise ships, commercials, movies, etc. But I also could have been doing that while working restaurant jobs, or temping, or renting apartments in NYC like I did for two years (and quickly burned myself out on). The bottom line for me was that  I was no longer happy doing that in the short-term, and looking ahead to the long-term I didnt like what I saw. I felt sitting around for 8 hours during an open call to sing 8-16 bars (or get typed!) wasnt a worthwhile use of my time (the phrase wasting my life came into my head more than once). The performance opportunities I was being given werent always a good time (theres lots of bad/poorly run theater, whether inside or outside NYC), and I didnt like how it affected my personal life being given notice sometimes 24-48 hours before a g ig that lasted for months, having to be separated from my family/home/friends for months at a time, missing lots of important life events (my brothers high school graduation, et al) because of my performance schedule, etc. There  was a time that I was  happy  auditioning. For years, I was  happy whenever I had the chance to sing, or step on stage, or meet an agent. Until I wasnt. When I was 19, I was an intern at a summer stock theater and was working alongside actors in their 30s-60s. I remember trying to put myself in their shoes and asking if I would be happy to be there then when I was 30, 40, 50, 60 and I remember responding, Yes!, emphatically.  Thats when you know you have to do it. Thats when you know you cant walk away from The Dream, no matter how much rejection you face or how many hours you waste in an audition room or how much money you spend on voice lessons, acting classes, headshots, yada yada yada. Thats when its worth fighting for, when the good outweighs the bad, when you know you have to keep trying. I remember teacher after teacher saying to class after class, If you can do anything else, go do it. Only do this if you cant picture any other way. For years and years and years I couldnt picture any other way. Until I could. I feel like it takes  more strength to realize that what youre doing what youve  been doing for years and years and years isnt working any longer, and you dont see it working in the near-to-far-ish future. It takes  more strength to get yourself out of old habits, to admit its no longer what you want, to grieve for that life, to be a  statistc  of The Biz. The only reason I dont regret it was because it was  my choice. I didnt make it too late, or too soon and it took me a year to listen to it, to take it seriously, to accept it and Im thankful for all that it gave me. I still perform (Im part of  a cabaret next month), and also found new ways to express myself writing, speaking,  playing the ukelele, even being an entrepreneur is a creative playground for me. And who knows? I might get out of bed in 5, 10, 15, 20 years and decide to pursue performing again, and can still have my Broadway moment. But for now, this is where Im at because this is where I  belong. This is where I  wanna be. And when its not? Ill discover it all over again. In regards of my services, they can help in a few ways. Life coaching is all about clarity, and I know I help my clients figure out what it is they wanna do when they grow up. Do they want to go full-force into The Artistic Life (whatever that means to them)? If so, we can work together to figure out how to make it happen, based on  their strengths,  their values,  their priorities and what works for  them. If not, we can work together to figure out what could be a new passionate career (again, based on  their strengths/values/priorities/needs/interests) and, if they want, how The Artistic Life could still come into play for them. The annoying thing about working with me is that I  always believe theres an answer its just a matter of finding it. _________________________________________________________________________________________