Ethics

Getting Ready for Your Job Interview

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Once you get your foot in the door with your resume, the next major obstacle is the interview. The interviewer already knows the basics about your work experience. The point of the interview is to see how you fit with job and how you’d fit with potential co-workers. That means they’re looking for someone with a good personality who will mesh well.

The first step in preparing for the interview is to research the company. It helps to know what the company does and find a reason why you want to work there. Is there a product they’re producing that’s exciting? Are you interested in the service they’re providing? Knowing what the company does goes a long way in impressing the interviewer.

The second step in preparing is knowing how you’ll answer key questions. Find negatives in your past experience (such as not having experience with an aspect of the job) and find a way to turn it around so it’s more positive (such as saying, “Although I don’t have experience with that, I’m excited to learn. It’s something I’ve wanted to know more about, and this is a great opportunity to learn and grow.”). Practice these answers in front of a mirror. This will help you to know whether your facial expression matches what you’re saying. Also practice with someone who can give you feedback.

The third step is to pick out a professional outfit to wear to the interview. Men should wear suits and women should wear a modest business outfit that is moderate in color.

Filed Under: Ethics, Interviews Tagged With: Interview, Job hunting, Job interview

Using Online Education to Gain New Skills

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If you feel like your career is stagnating, it may be time to find a way to boost your career. One of the best ways is by gaining a new skill that somehow relates to your career but is something that you currently don’t know how to do.

One of the most common needs in almost any career is knowing more about businesses. This could include how to manage all people, how to manage a department, understanding business bureaucracy, and understanding money flow. By taking some classes on business, you’ll more likely be able to see how your company can improve. Using that knowledge, you’ll be able to show you’re superiors that you would do well with more responsibility and will more likely promote you within the company. If, however, you aren’t able to move up in your own company, you will look more enticing to other potential employers.

The great thing about taking classes online is they’re convenient. You can work on assignments and get work done on your own schedule without worrying about the class being held during your job. You can find classes on just about anything, so no matter what skills you’re hoping to learn, you’re bound to find a class on how to do it. They’re also typically less expensive than a traditional college course.

With online education, you can boost your career helping you to increase your earning potential, and more money is never a bad thing! You’ll also likely find that you enjoy your career more because of new challenges.

Filed Under: Ethics, Networking Tagged With: E-learning, Education, TD Canada Trust

Tips for Writing a Resume

Resumes are essential to getting a job. A resume introduces you to a potential employer and gets your foot in the door for an interview. Here are some tips for writing a good resume.

Introduce yourself. Start the resume by introducing your best qualities. Avoid using “I” or “me” in the statement. It should be about three to five sentences long.
Give relevant experience. Instead of listing your most recent employer and then back, put the job that gives you the most relevant experience to the job that you’re applying for. That means you may need to change your resume depending on what job you’re applying for. Drop the dates from your resume as well. If the company wants to know, your interviewer can ask when you had what job.
Use real numbers. On your resume, include concrete numbers whenever possible. This could be the number of people who were under you, the percent of increase in sales under your leadership, or how many projects you completed on average in a quarter. Real numbers help potential employers picture what you were able to accomplish.
Start with education experience. If your most relevant experience is your degree, it’s appropriate to start with that information, especially if you graduated recently.
Start each bullet with a verb. When you list your duties under each work experience, start with a strong verb. Avoid weak verbs like “was” or “had.” If it’s a current position, use present tense. If it’s a previous job you no longer have, use past tense.

Filed Under: Ethics, Interviews Tagged With: Employment, Résumé, Work experience

Online Degrees Well Accepted in the Education World

Many well known universities have placed the entire curriculum for certain degree programs online. Schools such as MIT and Stanford now offer what is called an OpenCourseWare program where people can earn degrees online. The accessibility and lower cost of online programs have increased enrollment over 10 times that of traditional programs. There are sites to help you find just the right school for you such as elearners.com. It can show you the pros and cons of several programs and then you can make the choice that best works for you.

Four years ago, over four million Americans were taking online courses. The old stigma that online programs weren’t very good is no longer true. Businesses used to rate traditional school degrees higher than those obtained through online programs. Now, almost every traditional university also offers online courses and some, like those mentioned above, even have whole online degree programs. The benefits are numerous to both the student and the university.

Students studying online don’t have to worry about housing costs (just because of college that is) nor do many even have to buy books. They can do even the reading needed online. They don’t have to worry about getting to and from school, which saves both time and money. The students can work full-time jobs and still go to school and be around family if they want and need to do that. Online programs are available in the environment the student most prefers which adds to the success of learning. Professors can monitor more students at a time. They are also able to spend more time on course content. The methods of online delivery are varied enough to accommodate different learning methods of students which enhances not only how well the students learn but how long they stay committed to the program.

Ready to enroll?

Filed Under: Ethics Tagged With: E-learning, online degree programs, OpenCourseWare

How it Worked for Sam

Sam was happy to be working a regular office job with regular nine to five hours. She got married and decided to give up her job to stay home with her precious baby boy. While she loved her son and did her best to make his life the best possible life she could, she was growing tired of spending all of her time at home. She knew that she needed a career that would give her the time to spend with her family, but also required her to have focus and energy.

She began taking classes online for her teaching degree. She loved the thought of working in the same building where her son was going to school. She did not want to have to put him in daycare at all. She had finished her degree by the time her son was six and began applying to schools for a job. She worked part time for a while, and then began teaching full time once the administration at the school saw her wonderful skills with the children.

She was able to drive her son to school every day and home every night. They had the same holidays and summer breaks together. It turned out to be wonderful for her whole family.

This may seem like a sort of fairy tale story, but it is not. Many people are choosing the jobs they wish to have and going to school for them from home while they are raising their kids. While Sam decided to be a teacher, there are many other types of work that one can learn to do online. You can learn to be a psychologist, a nurse, a transcriptionist, or even a writer!

You do not have to sacrifice your family for school or a job. Find the right online courses for you and have some confidence in yourself! You can do this too.

Filed Under: Ethics Tagged With: E-learning, Family

Show Me the Money!

One of the key reasons for working is to get paid. This is a part of the interview process that can often be difficult for people. Here are seven keys to help you get the job and the best pay that is available to you.

1) Never introduce pay concerns. The interviewer will often breech this subject in the second interview. It is not uncommon to have no idea what you will potentially be paid at the end of the first interview.

2) When they ask you what you want to be paid give a range. “My range is $12 to $18 an hour. What range were you looking for this position?” This allows them to respond with the range they are looking to hire within. If you say $17, that could be out of their budget and they cannot hire you. Interview over.

3) When they give you the firm offer, now is when the negotiation begins.

4) If the organization thinks that your wage request is too high, review the qualities and contributions that you would be able to bring to the company.

5) When you see an offer that you don’t like, repeat the offer “$16 an hour.” Sit quietly and look at the offer. Count to 10. You will get one of three general responses:

a. “I am authorized to pay you an additional twenty-five cents an hour.”

b. “This is the maximum amount in our budget.”

c. Silence. They wait you out.

Option a gave you a pay raise and both options b and c show you are at their top.

6) If the offer is not enough but close, offer to think the offer over. Set up a call back appointment.

7) If the offer ends with a promise for a future promotion have it written into the contract before signing it.

Allow yourself the opportunity to be paid the maximum amount. Negotiate your price.

Filed Under: Ethics Tagged With: Money

The Two Most Important Words

As you have grown up you might have heard the two most important words are Thank You. You have just finished your interview, which you thought went quite well. You remembered to say thank you to the interviewer(s) for their time and interest in you.

Nonetheless, the interviewer told you there are others they are going to talk to and you really have no idea how well you did against everyone else. You still need to set yourself apart from the pack.

Go to the store. Buy a simple thank you card. But wait! You say. No one uses thank you cards anymore. This is exactly the point. No one expects to receive them either.

Think back to the last time you received a piece of mail that was actually addressed to you (not including bills and advertisements.) You were probably thrilled, surprised and maybe a little excited to see what is inside the envelope. Your potential boss might not be thrilled, but they will most likely be surprised and impressed.

Send that thank you card the same day. Thank them for the opportunity to talk with them. Briefly mention one key point from the interview and let them know you look forward to hearing from them.

If you decided at the interview that the job is not for you and you told them that, or they told you that you are not a fit, send them a thank you card. Thank them for their time and tell them you appreciate the opportunity even though this was not a fit at this time. They will remember you and when a position opens that more closely fits your abilities, they might call you. This is called networking and is where about 43% of the jobs come from. Do not burn your bridges.

Thank you, spoken and then written has been the final piece of the puzzle that has garnered many a job.

Filed Under: Ethics Tagged With: Important Words

Job Searching Tips: Ways to Find A Job That Comes With Less Competition

: Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Over the past few years the economy has taken a nosedive and thousands of people are left without jobs. That makes the competition for the limited amount of jobs that much tougher. However, there are ways that you can search for a job listings that haven’t gotten as much attention and therefore your chances of getting the job are better.

Here are some of the ways that you can search for a job and not have to fight to get that final employment spot.

Stick to Less Traditional Websites. There are hundreds of job sites available online. Some are more popular than others. If you are looking for jobs that might have less competition then consider going to some of the sites that aren’t visited frequently by thousands of job seekers. The less often a page is being looked at could mean that less people are viewing the results and your chances are greater of getting a job.

Community Billboards. Some community centers or libraries allow companies to be able to post job listings. While this are visible to the public they aren’t as widely viewed as websites are and you could be facing less competition.

Word of Mouth. For the least amount of competition when it comes to finding a job the best way to go is through friends and family. Many times friends and family members might know someone who is hiring and will extend the offer of employment to you before they even post to job sites or the newspaper. If you are looking for a job make sure that you let everyone know because you never know who might be looking to hire you.

The job market is tough out there but there are ways that you can lessen the chances of having to compete against hundreds of job applicants to get a job.

Filed Under: Ethics Tagged With: Employment, Job hunting, Labour economics

Job Market Roulette

: Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Keeping a job in the current unemployment situation in the country is difficult and competition has never been more fierce. Getting a job, if you are unemployed, is even more difficult and the competition, even more fierce. There are just not enough jobs to go around. We all need to be working. We have houses to pay for, children to feed and sometimes, mountains of bills piling up. You have confidence in you skills, you know you are the right person for the job. How do you convey that to a possible future employer, and do it better than everyone else vying for the position?

You can do all the right things, keep your resume current, be ready for an interview at a moment’s notice, keep your pressed clothes ready and waiting in the closet, and still, someone else can have the edge. How do you make that edge yours? You can start at jobscorpsworks.org. A lot of the application process to jobs is on-line these days. This is probably one of the most difficult ways to make yourself stand out among many, maybe even hundreds, or candidates for the same job. This site can help you from start to first day at work. You can start by learning the best way to present your resume, how to polish it, give it that extra something that every employer is looking for. However, the application and the resume are just the first step. Once you garner the all important interview, jobscorpsworks.org can help get you ready. There is advice on job interview tips, many ways to make you “the right one for the job.” In the country’s current situation, where jobs are fast becoming almost a luxury, it is time to put your best foot forward, and with a little help, the next time you need this website may be to hire people, not have people hire you.

Filed Under: Ethics Tagged With: Business, Business and Economy, Employment, Job interview, Job Search, Labour economics, Résumé, Unemployment