Awesome Journey of a Job Seeker (Felix Feng)

Awesome Journey of a Job Seeker (Felix Feng) Take the time to read this very awesome and insightful article by Felix Fang: I spent 3 months applying to jobs after a coding bootcamp. Here’s what I learned. This is a MUST READ for anyone in job search. Think about Felixs processes and what he tracks and does. Its a very strategic, purposeful journey. In his first pro-tip, he links to a list of companies that people are collecting where it is easy to apply, as opposed to the ridiculous application systems that require you to copy and paste parts of your resume.  This is super cool: The github easy-application list. Felix talks about the resume black hole and networking into companies. Felix is a developer.  Even if you arent a developer, you should be able to glean quite a bit of wisdom, and correct your tactics and strategy. Have you thought about sharpening your saw, and becoming a better candidate, even as you interview?  Read Insight #3 and see how someone intent on getting a six-figure offer did it. Insight #4 is about dissecting your personal brand, and how you come across to others.  Its critical that you understand how your branding may be hurting your job search! Felix also talks about questions you could ask during the interview.  Dont make the mistake of not asking smart questions! Insight #5 is hard because, well, Im impatient.  But if you dont respect the longevity of the job search, and sprint, you might wear yourself out and be less-than-effective. Heres what I want you to get out of this article: tactics and strategies and ideas.  More than that, though, I want you to see what your competition (other job seekers) is doing. I want you to see that its not just a apply-and-pray approach.  Please, be smart, strategic, and purposeful as you spend your time in this job search! Awesome Journey of a Job Seeker (Felix Feng) Take the time to read this very awesome and insightful article by Felix Fang: I spent 3 months applying to jobs after a coding bootcamp. Here’s what I learned. This is a MUST READ for anyone in job search. Think about Felixs processes and what he tracks and does. Its a very strategic, purposeful journey. In his first pro-tip, he links to a list of companies that people are collecting where it is easy to apply, as opposed to the ridiculous application systems that require you to copy and paste parts of your resume.  This is super cool: The github easy-application list. Felix talks about the resume black hole and networking into companies. Felix is a developer.  Even if you arent a developer, you should be able to glean quite a bit of wisdom, and correct your tactics and strategy. Have you thought about sharpening your saw, and becoming a better candidate, even as you interview?  Read Insight #3 and see how someone intent on getting a six-figure offer did it. Insight #4 is about dissecting your personal brand, and how you come across to others.  Its critical that you understand how your branding may be hurting your job search! Felix also talks about questions you could ask during the interview.  Dont make the mistake of not asking smart questions! Insight #5 is hard because, well, Im impatient.  But if you dont respect the longevity of the job search, and sprint, you might wear yourself out and be less-than-effective. Heres what I want you to get out of this article: tactics and strategies and ideas.  More than that, though, I want you to see what your competition (other job seekers) is doing. I want you to see that its not just a apply-and-pray approach.  Please, be smart, strategic, and purposeful as you spend your time in this job search!

Bright Shiny Objects and Babies Like Me - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Bright Shiny Objects and Babies Like Me - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career I have a baby brain, even now after all these grown-up years. A baby’s brain is exceptionally plastic, “captivated by the most unexpected events” and keen on seeing probabilities, while not terrifically impressed by certainties, per Alison Gopnik in Sunday’s New York Times. Sounds like an entrepreneur’s brain, at least during the start up phase of business. And, a successful CEO’s brain if the company is continually evolving, even during the most inelegant of times: disruptive change. I think, a lot. I do, quite a bit of very different tasks. I speak around the world on communication, publish and promote authors in a variety of fields, coach young managers and mature CEOs who have life changing goals, lead a company of consultants and experts in social media and marketing, and directly serve clients who want to develop their sales and product portfolios. I’m deeply engaged in the research and literature of buying behavior. In other words: there’s a ton of shiny objects in my average day, which is unlike the average day of anyone else I know and rely on. I need a lot of “newness,” which makes me dependent on clients and colleagues to present puzzles, that to them look like problems or inconsistencies with how they would like to live life or grow their businesses. In the tornado, I can duck below flying cows and cars, and see where the land has been cleared with the opportunity to build a new and better structure. Authentic to a fault I am the same in my personal life as I am in my business life. I am authentic to a fault. I have a puny small talk center in my brain. I love to be on the phone if the discussion is nearly brain crushing. My skin itches awfully if the conversation is a continued, unending loop of the politics of anything, a relationship or some overworked knot on the planet that some people want to revisit for lack of taking action â€" like trying something different. Embrace or be embarrassed by your brand That, fundamentally is my brand. I can either embrace it or be embarrassed by it. I accommodate it by reaching out to clients and strangers in order to fulfill my desire and talent for leveraging disconnected facts, people, opportunities or even chaos. I can’t ignore the truth that I like to work with people who are much, much better than I could imagine being if I had their mission, talent or strength. It doesn’t matter if you’re a hyper talented Sudoku master or the guy in the gym who lifts more weight per inch of body mass than anyone else, or the person with the solution to healthcare in the US. I want to be with people who are remarkable, because like babies I am drawn to what is remarkable, as opposed to what is the same or certain. How about you? The sooner you come to grips with what drives you wild, both “good wild” and “bad wild,” the more successful you’ll be in defining your brand. When you know your self and what’s good for your self, you will draw the right opportunities toward you. You will also push away from things that don’t feed you. What can you do to find the real you in your brand? 1. Visit the first 200 pages of digg.com, and identify 20 posts that appeal to you. Tip: Start at the last page and move toward the first â€" to avoid the whole peer group bias thing. 2. Get to Paris. Visit the Louvre with only 30 minutes left before closing and pick the exhibit(s) that you are dying to see. Alternative: visit the virtual tours page of the Louvre online and mimic the same strategy. 3. Make a list of the 100 people you must meet before you die. Then, start working your list. 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.

A celebration of failed New Years resolutions

A celebration of failed New Years resolutions The pressure is mounting for the New Years resolutions posts. First is the flurry of pitches from public relations firms that want to get their clients into the press. Resolve to clean your house more thoroughly! Then come the academics weighing in with their research about how resolutions take willpower and how we only have a finite amount. Or how we need to make goals for ourselves that increase happiness. Or whatever will stick in mainstream media so the professors can get six-figure book deals for their research. Next come the bloggers who round it all up in a round-up post because bloggers never get to take days off from blogging, so they write a bunch of posts ahead of time that are really lists of other peoples resolutions. Im going to skip all that this year and jump to the celebration of failed resolutions. Here are some resolutions you can be proud of breaking. 1. Spend less time doing stupid stuff on the Internet. Did you know that fifteen percent of all content online is about cats? This tells me  we have an inherent need to share cat information. You should honor that. And, while youre at it, did you ever search for pus-popping videos? There are full channels devoted to pus poppingcysts, blackheads, ingrown hairs, theyve got it all. Also, extractions have the perfect pacing of a good porn video; the digging out of the impacted blackhead has the same sense of relief  as porn but none of the guilt. Do you think Taylor Swift is gay? You would cry for me if you knew how long I spent reading articles on this topic. Its very controversial, though I am not sure I even care. But I am very goal oriented, and I needed to have an object for my sleuthing because goals are always easier to meet if you define them clearly. To meet my goal of searching for less stupid stuff on the Internet Ive limited my Amal Clooney searches to once a day. Because I have limited willpower so I use it only for important things. 2. Be loyal. Follow through. Dont waste other peoples money. Those are the types of resolutions that box you into bad relationships. How about just dumping the person whos wrong for you? Do it before you have kids, okay? It seems like its so difficult to break off an engagement, but compared to breaking off a marriage with two pre-teens in tow, ending your long-term, unbetrothed relationship is valuable rehearsal. So go ahead and call off the engagement. And honor the law that says the ring is a gift by reselling it on WP Diamonds. You can use all that extra cash to buy last years books by academics about what makes resolutions stick.  (Note: engagement rings falls under property law, and who gets the ring  varies state by state. So  if youre a girl, break off the engagement in Montana.  And if youre a guy, break it off in New York.) 3.  Write more. I am uniquely qualified to tell you to dump this resolution because I have had it for 400 years and Ive failed every year. Or not. Because heres the thing. Its semantic. This is a great time for me to mention that I have a course about how to blog. You are probably not blogging as much as you wish you were blogging because you have no idea what the point is. And you would be right to ask the question. How can you get yourself to write on your blog every day if you cant pinpoint the point? My favorite course ever was How to Write About Your Life. You can sign up for that one, too. I liked it because I got to tell people how to be reliable, consistent writers instead of hating myself over how I am not a reliable, consistent writer. Its so nice to focus on other peoples problems instead of your own. And I am, actually, a professional when it comes to that vein of escapist behavior. Instead of writing more, I suggest you redefine what writing means. Sometimes in my sons music lesson I think I should be  taking notes, so I pretend the music notebook is my journal and I write write write. And that counts. Now it counts. Now after 400 broken resolutions it counts. 4. Improve social skills. This is a New Years Resolution thats really about earning more money. Its just a clever, evolved way to say it. Because people with good social skills earn more money. But really, its only to a point.  Because we can all think of people at the top of their game with terrible social skills: Steve Jobs, Marissa Mayer, Larry David. And look at Lena Dunhams character on Girls. In Season 2, in an effort to keep her friend from taking the kitchen chairs when he moves out, she sits on a chair with no underwear and rubs back and forth on it. Its my chair now, she says. If Lena Dunham is, indeed, the voice for her generation, then the voice for her generation is lacking social skills for sure. In a good way. Chris Rock says he doesnt like to do stand up at colleges anymore. He says a good comedian is always trying stuff that pushes people a little too far, and if the joke doesnt work, you think, OK. That didnt work. But because the kids record everything on their phones, and any joke that goes too far, they publish on the Internet and scream about it. Rock says that the best artists are pushing past whats okay in order to figure out what works. Thats how you find something new. Im thinking you might have to exist in a social skills vacuum in order to try stuff  that goes too far. 5. Get more sleep. Getting enough sleep is so important that if you are sleep-deprived, you function like a drunk person. But look, you have been drunk before, and its  probably felt like a party, and your life is not so fun that its a party all the time, so you are not that sleep-deprived that you need to waste a resolution on it. Anyway, recent data has shown that while sleep is a competitive advantage at work, and the richer you are, the more sleep you get. So since most people reading this are living above the poverty line, youre probably getting enough sleep. The real issue, according to Chip Walter writing in Popular Science  is stress. He says human evolution is killing us. We are too smart for our own good and our brains have evolved faster than our bodies. He shows the  influx of data coupled with our endless supply of food is making us unable to function the way our bodies were meant to function. In other words: Sitting is the new smoking. And your brain needs rest time when its awake. So everyone should meditate  for twenty minutes a day. The army mandates it, my friend in LA says parent groups are doing it, athletes do it and musicians do it. And Silicon Valley companies like Google have been  paying employees  to meditate for years,  which is evidence that if you are making resolutions to make more money,  meditation is the New Years Resolution for you. Its a meta resolution, really. Because there is no real reason why we cant meditate. We all have 20 minutes to spare. We can do it anywhere. We can do it  even if were  sick. We can meditate when we are sad. It doesnt matter. You just sit. If you are staring at the wall,  doing nothing, you get credit. And thats probably the resolution were all looking for anyway.

10 Must Read Money Books That Will Change Your Life

10 Must Read Money Books That Will Change Your Life Wealth consciousness means making a clear decision to break out of the mental patterns that impoverish us and draw us repeatedly into the poverty cycle. It’s all about your mindset. If you feel like you aren’t bringing in the cash flow that you know you can be, these money books are definitely for you!  What’s stopping you from creating wealth in life? In these books, we  look at some common myths and mindsets we carry about wealth â€" and how to break free of them. Read some of these books every day. Get your mind used to reading wealth books like these. 10 Must Read Money Books For Every Professional Woman: 1. Think and Grow Rich by Napolean Hill 2. Leveraging the Universe by Mike Dooley 3. The Divine Law of Compensation by Marianne Williamson 4. The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D. Wattles 5. The Game of Life and How to Play It by Florence Scovel Shinn 6.  The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey 7. Get Rich While You Sleep by Ben Sweetland 8. 4 Spiritual Laws of Prosperity by Edwene Gaines 9. Get Rich Lucky Bitch by Denise Thomas Duffield 10. Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki What I learned the most from reading these money books is to look money in the eyes. We cant be intimidated by it, we need to treat it like a tool we use to accomplish things. Most people have no idea what is in their bank account. We just write checks or use a debit card or whatever we’re using to spend money or buy things without really knowing what we have. We actually have to look money in the eyes. If money was a person would it want to be hanging around you right now? Are you even making eye contact with it? Are you acknowledging it? Money likes to be acknowledged. From that perspective, if money was a person, it would like to be acknowledged. It just wants to be your friend. It wants to hang out with you, have a good time, and provide for you. When you begin to look money in the eyes, it may feel weird in some ways. It’s kind of like looking into a mirror and saying “I love you” over and over again or saying mantras while you look at yourself. I know that can be uncomfortable for a lot of folks. But the more that you allow yourself to look money in the eyes and see it for what it really is, it will start to transform right before your eyes. It will be easier and easier over time, just as it is to look at yourself in the mirror and say your mantras, to appreciate money and to energetically and consciously develop an appreciation for this energy, which is money. Which of these money books  are you going to read?

Writing a Resume For Co-Op Can Be Difficult

Writing a Resume For Co-Op Can Be DifficultWriting a resume for co-ops can be the most difficult part of the whole process. There are many things to consider, and some documents to be saved. While many schools will ask for information about your previous job experience, it is very important to keep your resume relevant to the current position.Make sure that your document is not a cookie cutter document that no one would be able to recognize. If it is not, you should try to avoid including it in the resume. A basic document that could be used for a variety of different resumes is a list of the duties of a future job, with a section for highlighting the skills and responsibilities you possess.One reason for including an information section is to make it easier for the potential employer to contact you if necessary. Most positions at universities require this section and may include a phone number, email address, or other means of communication. Include any references you may have on yo ur resume, even if they are former employees. It will help to make sure that you are included on any communications that a potential employer makes.Find out what type of documents you will need to save for each school you apply to. The answer to this depends on the level of experience you want. The more experience you have, the more you will want to consider making a document for each school.The files that you make for each resume must be relevant to the job in question. Many employers will request certain types of documents, such as a list of addresses, the names of family members, and/or dates of employment. It is not required that you write these in your document, but you may wish to find the best way to include them. Some schools will request documents like this, while others may not, so do not let this stop you from writing your own. You can make your document according to any organization style, whether it is chronological or functional. Keep in mind that employers will be loo king for an organized person, not a random one. It is important to include specific information regarding each job that you have held, and make sure that you include the date you started, ended, and responsibilities that you had. Include details of any educational work you may have done, such as degrees or professional credentials.Writing a resume for co-ops must include all relevant information. This includes achievements, education, and relevant experience. Do not forget to include any volunteer activities that you might have participated in. Try to include as much information as possible in each section, although be sure to keep in mind that some employers may require that your resume be more specific than others.Make sure that your resume is useful to the co-op position that you are applying to. There is no reason to create a document that no one will read, and it may actually hurt your chances of getting the job. If you do not know how to make a resume for co-ops, consult a res ume writing service.

Flexible Jobs for Seniors Who Want to Retire (But Not Really!) - Sterling Career Concepts

Flexible Jobs for Seniors Who Want to Retire (But Not Really!) Flexible Jobs for Seniors Who Want to Retire (But Not Really!) Photo by bruce mars from Pexels There are many reasons that seniors continue to work past the age of 65. While money is an obvious desire, avoiding boredom, loneliness, and mental decline are all also driving forces. If you find yourself looking for a new career to supplement your senior years, you are in luck. There are many flexible jobs for seniors that will allow you to continue to earn and learn without giving up the freedom of retirement.  Here are four to consider: 1. Customer service If you’re patient, articulate, and have a knack for making people feel at ease, a job in customer service might be just what you need. Many firms even offer remote working opportunities if you only want to take calls part-time and have a reliable internet connection, home office, and a quiet space. CNBC notes General Electric, Amazon, and Humana are just a few well-known companies that offer work-at-home positions for qualified employees. 2.  Accounting/tax preparation When you have experience in accounting, you can use your mathematical prowess as a tax preparer. As a retiree, you might enjoy seasonal work as a non-credentialed tax preparer, working for companies like HR Block or Jackson Hewitt. You won’t make as much money as a CPA, but there are very few barriers, and you do not have to have a license in most states. If you want to prepare taxes on your own without working for a company, you’ll need to obtain an Electronic Filing Identification Number from the IRS. One of the biggest benefits is that you are usually done by mid-April, leaving your summer open for travel and recreation. 3. Insurance sales Insurance is a product that everybody needs, but far too few people understand how much or why. If you have a background in sales, helping people get themselves set up with life insurance may be a financially lucrative option. You can work full-time or part-time, and you might just find that helping other people prepare for the future is more rewarding than the paycheck. Before you sign up as an agent, do your research. In the beginning, your clients will likely be friends and family, and you should get to know the various types of life insurance that can meet their needs. You also want to make sure that you are working for a company that offers the kind of environment and support you’ll need. According to the Lincoln Heritage reviews on Indeed, that might be a good company to help you get started. 4. Child care and early education There are a few obvious downsides to childcare. Exposure to germs is one, especially in the winter months. But despite the risk of the flu, working with children has many benefits for mature adults. Per HealthDay, older volunteers and teachers get to experience the “joy and exuberance that comes from being around kids.” Further, spending your days playing with giggling little ones can make you feel young, needed, and energetic. A few options here are to work for a private daycare, a Mother’s Day Out program, or the aftercare at your local elementary school. To help you avoid colds and the flu, you’ll have to prioritize yearly vaccinations, make sure everyone keeps their hands washed, and boost your immune system by eating well, taking a good multivitamin, and getting enough sleep. In conclusion Just because you’ve wrapped up your career doesn’t mean that you have to be content without a paycheck. There are plenty of excellent job opportunities for retirees, and many of these offer flexible hours. More importantly, you have a chance to keep your mind and body busy and stave off the boredom that often comes with retirement.

Us vs. them - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Us vs. them - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog Nature had researchers blind-test articles in Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica looking for errors. The result: The exercise revealed numerous errors in both encyclopaedias, but among 42 entries tested, the difference in accuracy was not particularly great: the average science entry in Wikipedia contained around four inaccuracies; Britannica, about three. Only eight serious errors, such as misinterpretations of important concepts, were detected in the pairs of articles reviewed, four from each encyclopaedia. But reviewers also found many factual errors, omissions or misleading statements: 162 and 123 in Wikipedia and Britannica, respectively. This might seem surprising, knowing that the brit is written and edited by experts while Wikipedia is written by, well, us. Theres been a lot of Wikipedia-related FUD in the media lately, especially over the Seigenthaler hoax. Heres my point of view: Hoaxes like that are going to happen. Changing Wikipedia to make this impossible would kill it. Its a trade-off: On the one hand Wikipedia adds new complexity at a fantastic rate precisely BECAUSE everyone can contribute. On the other hand this will lead to inacuracies, pranks, hoaxes and vandalism. However: Wikipedia has shown itself capable of dealing with most of this it has in effect developed a highly capable immune system. Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related