Job interviews can be terrifying.It is one of the few times when you know without a doubt that you are being judged. Without judging you, how can potential employers know if you are a good fit or not? They can’t. They will go over everything in your resume and your work history with a fine tooth comb. They will call your references and they will make sure that you are worth their time and effort. Because of this, you need to be careful. You need to make sure that you don’t have anything in your past that could come back to haunt you and cause you to lose future job opportunities. This means that no matter what stage of life you are in or where you are in your career you need to be thinking ahead. Think about what effect the things you are doing today might have on your future. Here are some things that are obvious to avoid: bad talking your boss or superiors, being late, being unprofessional, etc. Those are things almost everyone knows to avoid, but there are some things people might not know, such as: talking about coworkers or superiors on Facebook or other social networking sites, posting vulgar or obscene things on your profile(s), or lying on your resume. All these things can be found out by future employers and harm your ability to keep your job and get a new job in the future. If you simply think ahead before you do anything, then you should be able to avoid doing something that could harm you later in the road and you won’t have to live up to it in an interview. Remember, you are being judged. Don’t give your potential employers anything they can judge badly.
Personal branding is, in the simplest definition, the way you market yourself. It is the way the world, and potential employers, view you. And if used correctly, your personal brand can land you that job. Since your personal brand is the first impression that employers can get from you, you need to ensure that it is creating the impression that will represent you in a way that gets you a job. This means it needs to be professional. Whatever you say, write, or do, that is linked to your professional brand needs to be professional so that you can avoid embarrassment and avoid losing those important job opportunities. Think about what you want to present and make sure that everything you put out reflects that. Be careful that when you are making a professional brand you don’t make it boring or impersonal. It is still your brand. Let potential employers know who you are. They are not looking to hire a robot. They are looking to hire a person with whom they can work every single day. Let them know you can be that person. In order to ensure that your brand is seen and recognized by employers you need to spread it far and wide. Put your name out there. Put it on Facebook, put it on Twitter, put it on Tumblr, put it on LinkedIn, start a blog. Do all these things and advertise them on all the other sites you are a part of. Make it easy for potential employers to find you. These are fairly simple things to do, but they do take some time and careful planning. If you are willing to put in the time and effort, then you will be able to create a personal brand that will land you that job you want.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, The Age Discrimination in Employment Act, protects workers 40 and older from age discrimination with respect to any aspect of employment:hiring, firing, job assignments, salaries, career advancement, benefits and other aspects. However, age discrimination is difficult to prove, so keep an eye on what you put on your resume. Is there any information on there that gives away your age? Listing a job you started in 1972 might be a bad idea. Look to the obvious. Do not put your birthday, Social Security number or other personal information on your resume. If you live in a community that is well-known as an older community or retirement community, leave off the community name in your address. Many people leave their graduation dates out of the Education section on their resume. The Work History or Professional Experience section and listed skill sets on an executive resume may identify you as an older worker. However, most employers only expect your last 10-15 years of employment history to be listed on your resume, so this in itself may not give away your age. Affiliations and Awards resume sections can also inadvertently give away your age, especially when they are age-related such as The American Association for Retired People (AARP) or lifetime achievement awards. Keep in mind that AARP membership and lifetime achievement awards are given out well before most American people now retire. Not a good idea to list AARP, just don’t do it. The publications section on a curriculum vitae can also give resume readers a clue to your age, especially if it is extensive. This is because you would typically list publication dates for each work you have published. If you have 30 years of published works, your readers may assume that you are at least 50 years of age. 50 isn’t old, but you might want to summarize your earlier works in a paragraph format and omit the dates. Check your resume or curriculum vitae routinely for anything that can easily identify you as an older worker. Do not give an unscrupulous employer any reasons to discriminate against you based on information from your resume or curriculum vitae.
The good news is that there are jobs out there for older workers, so get your resume polished up and go after them!
A common problem that many people come across, particularly for those recently graduated and entering the work force, is that their work history is not long enough for them to make a full, complete, and impressive resume. But it is nothing to stress over. You can still have an impressive resume without a long or extensive work history.
The biggest key to having an impressive resume without a long work history is to not create fake jobs or fake references. This is the biggest mistake anyone can make. It will only cause you problems in your search and may cost you multiple job opportunities.
You may want to take a functional resume route. In other words, focus on the skills that you have that will apply to the job you are applying for. You should still include the work history that you have, but the focus of your resume should be on your impressive skills and abilities. The skills would be formatted to look like this in your resume: Auto Mechanic:
Responsible for tune ups, tire changes, and other basic level mechanical work
Worked as an oil change technician for 5 years
Shade tree mechanic for two years
Used Car Sales
Sold pre-owned vehicles on commission for 6 months
Examined vehicles for mechanical problems prior to purchase
Fixed major and minor issues on vehicles before resell
Not only is this a simple format, but it can fill up your resume, make it impressive and professional, and keep you out of future trouble with potential employers.
After being in the work force doing things that nobody really wants to do, you decide that you want something more. You want a career not just a job. Now, how do you go about it? Here are some tips to help you with the transition.
1. You need to take your education into consideration. If you want a better job you need a college education. You are not going to become a doctor without going to medical school. So you need to get a degree with a future career in mind. You also want a job doing something you have studied enough that you are very skilled in that area. If you are skilled and you work hard, then you will be able to advance and have a career.
2. Take your interests into consideration. Trying to find a job that you love is hard, but when you are trying to start a career it is a necessity. You will be in that field until you retire and you need to enjoy it in order to make it worthwhile.
3. Take your family into consideration. If you want to have a family you will want to start a career that allows you to take care of them financially. Now you also want to weigh in how much time you want to spend with your family. If you want to spend a lot of time with your family you do not want to start a career in a field that makes it nearly impossible to ever see your family.
4. Now one thing you need to consider about the company itself is if there is room for advancement in the company. In order to have a fulfilling career you want to be rewarded for your hard work and dedication. That includes getting promotions and pay raises. This is something you want to consider when choosing your career company.
Moving from a job to a career is scary and exciting, but more than anything it will make your experience in the work force fulfilling and more enjoyable.
There seems to be a rule of thumb out there that if you land a job you should always try to negotiate for more money as a matter of course. If you’ve done your homework and realize that the salary offer is too low for your level of education and experience, you should at least try to negotiate a higher salary. However, negotiating your salary just because you think you should can hurt you in a number of ways. Contract positions are usually set at a certain rate and are only sometimes negotiable. If you try to negotiate a contract job offer, chances are that you delay many onboarding tasks such as drug screening, background and references checks and getting signed up for benefits. You may also find that the employer still expects you to start on the original date stated in the offer, leaving you scrambling to comply. If you can negotiate your salary higher for other types of positions, you may leave yourself vulnerable to layoff if your salary is higher than your peers’. Your salary may be the first on the cutting block when it is time for your employer to make budgetary cuts. Negotiating a salary higher than what you originally stated you would be willing to take may make a potential employer think that you did not do your salary homework or are trying to get more money just because you think you can. This does not leave the employer with a good impression of you. Of course, you could prevent yourself from being boxed into a corner like this by not giving a specific dollar amount answer to the question, “What are your salary expectations?” If hard-pressed by an interviewer, give a wide salary range because this question is often used as criteria to weed out a large candidate pool.
The facts on your resume may get you an interview and even a job offer, but even these facts must still be verified before you start a new job. You should keep legitimate documents that back up the information on your resume. Some of these documents include: College and High School Diplomas: Degrees are being checked with regular frequency before a job offer is finalized due to the fact that many people lie about their education credentials on their resumes. Diplomas are also a good way to verify education when a school no longer exists. W-2/W-4 Tax Documents: The W-2 tax form is issued by your employer. It is an official record of taxes on the state and federal level that were taken from your paycheck. As such, it is also an official record of which company you were employed by. If a company fails to respond to background check inquiries, at least you have one legal document that shows you worked there. The W-4, which lists your tax exemptions may work as well. Job Offer Letters: If you receive a verbal offer, either in person or over the telephone, you should also request that the offer be put into writing on the company’s letterhead. You then have an official document that at least illustrates the job offer and proposed starting date.
Most of these documents may be hard to get your hands on, especially if you were not thinking about education and employment verifications needed for future employment. Pay stubs, however, should be relatively easy to keep and pull out if you need them. They serve two purposes: to verify employment and wages. Wage verification may be needed to negotiate a higher salary rate at your next job.
Certain art and design careers such as graphic design, automotive design or illustration may require a portfolio. The portfolio, whether online or a physical book, gives interested viewers an idea of the artist’s or designer’s skills. This does not mean, however, that a resume is not needed. The resume gives a potential employer an idea of how this person’s professional career has played out so far. It may list apprenticeships, internships and jobs that the artist or designer performed to enhance his or her natural skills. The resume illustrates experience while the portfolio illustrates talent and how it has developed. Artists and designers have found clever ways to integrate their resumes within their portfolios, or to add them as extra print to mini portfolios or smalls, the small postcards given away to potential employers by artists and designers. Although it may seem expensive to produce postcards with a designer’s work on one side and his resume on the other, it is still cheaper to do so than to produce mini portfolios of his work. The smalls are given away at design shows and exhibitions that are open to the public, including potential employers.
Resumes that list a designer’s positions and past experience are often mounted inside a regular-sized portfolio or minimized to fit into a mini portfolio. Some designers such as graphic designers have included their resumes inside a piece of their portfolio work. The resume is turned into a work of art as well as an informative document, all in one piece.
