From the Desk to the Gym

From the Desk to the Gym Success Story > From: Job To: Job From the Desk to the Gym “I hated how mundane and unrewarding my work life had become.” * From the Desk to the Gym Denise Collman's job as a Systems Analyst had become dull and repetitive. After attending the Careershifters workshop, she decided to escape the desk job and become a personal trainer. She hasn't looked back since. Here's her story. What work were you doing previously? I worked as a systems analyst for a retail company. What are you doing now? I now work as a Personal Trainer, Health Mentor and Spin, Bokwa and CXWORX instructor at Nuffield Health Fitness and Wellbeing. Why did you change? I hated how mundane and unrewarding my work life had become. I wasn't happy and had the opportunity to take the leap into something new! Describe the moment you decided to make the change. My cousin had moved to Australia and had asked me to visit for a holiday. As we started to plan, I realised that to do everything I wanted to do I would need longer than 2 weeks! So, I left my job and travelled around Australia and New Zealand for 3 months. When I got back, I decided it would be crazy to go back to work I didn't enjoy, so I looked for something more fulfilling. Are you happy with the change? I haven't looked back! I actually enjoy going to work now! What do you miss and what don't you miss? Sometimes I do miss having my evenings and weekends free. I definitely don't miss sitting in front of a computer all day, repeating the same tasks for months on end. How did you go about making the shift? I went to a Careershifters workshop while I was still at my old job and that sowed the seed for my change. It made me focus on two possible areas I could move into: graphic design or a fitness career. I completed an evening course for graphic design and illustration to see if I enjoyed it. The course was fun, but it made me realise that I didn't want to do it for a living. I then went travelling, and realised I really missed keeping fit and going to the gym. I had enough money saved from my job to put myself on a Personal Training Diploma course, landed my current job, and have gradually worked my way up the ranks! How did you handle your finances to make your change possible? When I came back from travelling, I temped in a local business to start earning money again. Once I had chosen the course I wanted, I left that job and just threw myself into it! I was lucky enough to be supported by my parents and my boyfriend so I could focus on my studies for a year. What was the most difficult thing about changing? Moving into an industry that was completely different from what I was used to. Starting from scratch is hard, but it was also liberating and did wonders for my confidence! What help did you get? My family and friends all encouraged me to go for it. I also had support from some class instructors who I got to know through being a member of a gym. Their advice was some of the best I had. How did the Careershifters workshop help? It helped by making me realise that I wasn't alone in the way I felt. It also made me focus on the areas that were going to interest me most. It can be daunting, with so many options out there! What have you learnt in the process? Good things come to those who wait! It took time, research and listening to others to get me where I am now. Also, being willing to work hard and gain as much experience in your chosen field as possible really pays off! What do you wish you'd done differently? Nothing. It was a steep learning curve and it got me to where I am now! I don't even wish I had done it sooner. Working where I worked before has made me appreciate my work now. Even if I have a bad day, at least it's in a job I like, with people who share my interests. What would you advise others to do in the same situation? Get as much support around you as you can. Surround yourself with positive people! Make sure that you don't leave yourself or your family in any financial crisis. Do your research thoroughly and talk to as many people as possible within the industry you are wanting to move into. Then take that risk and do it! What resources would you recommend to others? Some might recommend books to read; I that found talking and listening as much as I could to people and getting their advice was the best resource! What lessons could you take from Denise's story to use in your own career change? Let us know in the comments below.

5 Free Tools for Personal Reputation Management - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

5 Free Tools for Personal Reputation Management - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career I guest posted on Keith Ferrazzis blog over a week ago. I felt that this post was so important that I had to re-post it here for you to read. Reputation management consists of tracking your personal brand both online and offline and reacting when necessary. A lot of people think that personal branding is synonymous with reputation management, but I like to position it as routine maintenance, after you’ve already established yourself. On the web, reputation management is when you have to monitor the web for sites that have cited your brand name. Offline, reputation management is where you assess the success or failure of your brand by seeking feedback from your network. Reputation management is mandatory for career development and personal brand management. Let’s face it, it’s nearing 2009 and if you aren’t online right now, what are you waiting for!? People are already creating loads of content. There are over 80 million YouTube videos, over 110 million blogs and over 230 million profiles on the largest social networks (Facebook MySpace). Content that is created on one website can travel to others and people can comment on you at an instant. Do you know what people are saying about you? If you want to know how to track your presence and monitor your brand, then you are in luck. Below are the top 5 tools for your personal reputation management. They can be used for product and corporate brands as well. Use each to search, locate and respond when necessary. Google Google.com/alerts Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic. You can subscribe through email and RSS. Many people use their RSS readers to view these alerts and PR agencies use alerts to track their campaigns. You can monitor a news story, keep current with your industry and competitors and see who is writing about you. Blog posts â€" Technorati.com If you have a blog, then you have to be on Technorati, which is the largest blog search engine in the world. Technorati tracks “blog reactions” or blogs that link to yours, upon registration. Search for your name on Technorati and subscribe to RSS alerts, so when someone blogs about you, you will find out. Blog comments â€" backtype.com Recently, a new service came out to solve the problem of monitoring blog comments. Think about it, someone can comment on you on a series of blogs, but if you only track posts, you’ll really miss out. BackType is a service that lets you find, follow and share comments from across the web. Whenever you write a comment with a link to your website, BackType attributes it to you. Discussion boards boardtracker.com Aside from blogs and traditional news stories, discussion boards are another channel when people can gather in a community and talk about YOU. Most people disregard discussion boards until they see other sites commenting on information they viewed on them. Use boardtracker.com to get instant alerts from threads citing your name. Twitter â€" search.twitter.com Twitter messages (tweets) move at the speed of light and if you don’t catch them, they will spread like a viral. Using Twitter search you can locate any instances of your name and either tweet back or remain silent. All five of these free tools can be used to monitor your company’s brand name as well. If you aren’t taking care of your online reputation, others will. It’s time to find out what people are saying and do something about it.

Could Your Personal Brand Survive Hurricane, Fire, or Flood - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Could Your Personal Brand Survive Hurricane, Fire, or Flood - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career What would have happened to your personal brand and business if you were a self-employed professional living in lower Manhattan or coastal New Jersey when Hurricane Sandy struck? Would your brand and business survive if your computer, iPad, and smartphone were lost or damaged by fire, flood, or hurricane? After the flood waters receded, would you be able to immediately resume businessor would you have lost access to your client and prospects data, your marketing plan and editorial calendar, plus ideas and completed chapters for your brand-building book? The experiences of two bloggers living in lower Manhattan, one by Fred Wilson, the other by his wife, Joanne Wilson, provide a chilling narrative of Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath. The photograph above, shows the doorway of the Wilsons doorway, after their evacuation. (The photo appears with Joanne Wilsons permission.) Their experiences, both actual and averted, provide a cautionary real-world tale for all self-employed professionals working out of home offices. Disaster and the Cloud I discovered their blogs through Fred Wilsons post, Disaster and the Cloud. The post described his previous lower Manhattan home, which contained a sophisticated basement data center that, was flooded. Luckily, in his casebeing a techno-savvy investorFred had previously backed-up his business data, personal financial records, family photographs, and favorite music, to the cloud. But, what about you? What would happen to your business and your personal brand if you had to evacuate your home, carrying only your laptop and your suitcaseand, in the evacuation, your laptop and smartphone were lost or soaked? Your personal brand. After the initial expressions of sympathy from clients, would your personal brand suffer because you hadnt backed-up your current projects and client data off-premises? Would this project an unprofessional image? Lost productivity. Would the pain and dislocation of evacuation be compounded by the time it would take to reconstruct your current projects from memory, or from PDF proofs you had (luckily) shared with your clients? Financial and tax records. Years later, would you still be trying to reconstruct your 2012 financials as various city, state, and federal agencies were challenging your tax records and itemized expenses? Bad things happen everyday to home offices Its not just high-profile natural disasters, like Hurricane Sandy, that cause disrupt lives, destroy computers, and put personal brands and self-employed income at risk. Its also the everyday eventslike the burst hot water hose leading to the second floor washing machine that destroyed my familys home, flooding it with 32,000 gallons of hot water during a hot Memorial Day weekend when we were away. Like Fred Wilson, I was lucky. Fred had the cloud, and I had a separate office, so my data and projects were safealthough we lost just about every possession in our home. Questions to ask yourself Take a moment to review your preparedness for either hundred year weather events (which are now happening almost yearly in certain parts of the country) or the smaller, everyday catastrophes that can destroy computers and back-ups: On-site back-ups. How often do you print-out and back-up important data to on-premise back-up hard drives and removable storage media? How long would it take to restore access to all of your files data on a new computer? Off-site back-ups. If youre using off-premises, or cloud, computing services like Dropbox, Evernote, iCloud, or others, do the back-ups automatically take place every day? How often do you check that your data is, indeed, backed-up and ready for instant restoration? Redundancy. Does your back-up plan include any redundancy, i.e., are you backing-up your back-ups? (Recently, several high-profile cloud services experienced data losses.) Back-ups versus syncing.   If youre new to backing-up your data to web-based servers, have you reviewed the differences between backing-up and syncing data. Its possible to back-up files, but the back-up files wont get updated unless you manually re-save them. When files are synced, however, changes made to files on your computer are automatically updated to the back-up files on the Internet. Avoiding confusion Finally, as more and more software publishers and vendors begin to offer remote hosting of files, the possibility of confusion grows. Your files may be backed-up on several different hosts, each protected with its own usernames and passwords. The worse-case scenario would be to find yourself locked-out of your own back-ups because of username and password problems, etc. Have you securely saved all of your usernames and passwords in multiple locations? Protecting your personal brand A sound branding strategy involves anticipating and preparing for both natural disasters like hurricanes and localized fire and flood damage. Unless youve taken steps to back-up your client and project files off-premises, using cloud computing resources, your brand could take a fatal hit if your computerand the information it containsare damaged beyond repair. Author: Roger C. Parker invites you to ask your questions about writing for brand building success. Roger can help you choose the right topics, create an editorial calendar, and learn how to write more in less time. Download Roger’s free workbook, Before You Start to Write.

When Should You Connect with Recruiters on LinkedIn

When Should You Connect with Recruiters on LinkedIn The recruitment climate has become predominantly online based over the recent years due to the introduction of new business technology, and  social media plays  a central role in both job search and sourcing candidates. Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter amongst other sites are all commonly used to seek out career opportunities and potential candidates,  through scoping out who is hiring and who is on the hunt for a new job; though  LinkedIn is probably  the most popular social tool for career development, being a principally professional network. From the job seekers perspective, connecting with recruiters and corporate headhunters on LinkedIn can really boost your chances of finding suitable job opportunities, whether youre actively searching for a new job or just keeping your options open; however it is best to be selective about who you connect with and you want to keep in mind some simple guidelines for communicating with recruiters. Here are some pointers  about which recruiters you should connect with on LinkedIn and how to make the most of your network. Make optimum  use of your profile: Dont rush into connecting with recruiters until your profile is complete and you have made best  use of this  opportunity to really sell your skills and experience. Your profile should highlight your previous work experience, achievements and education. Listing your professional skills,  both general and industry specific, will help recruiters to pin-point you in their searches for roles you may be suitable for.   Take advantage  of your about me section, as it gives you the chance  to promote any achievements you are particularly proud of and to build a positive representation  of yourself as a person. Including a photograph of yourself on your profile is also beneficial, as people feel more comfortable engaging with somebody when they have and idea of who they are talking to. You may also wish to attach a resume and some examples of your work  to support  the information on your profile. Identify your niche: When youre on the hunt for a new job, its easy to be lured in by a recruiters promise to give you a step up in your career, however you should avoid connecting with just any recruiter on LinkedIn. Identify what niche you fit into, what kind of role you think you would be suitable for and how you could help a specific company or department.  It  will only be of real benefit to connect with recruiters who work in your target industry, who will have a proper understanding of what you are after and will be able to match you up with appropriate opportunities.   Help them and they will help you: Working with a recruiter can be a  two way street and by helping them, they are more likely to feel inclined to help you in return.  Think about  how can you make their jobs and their lives easier. If you know someone who may be suitable for a role that they are working on, make recommendations.  If you are not adding value to those you connect with, they are not going to remember you or use their network to get you where you want to go. Grow your network: Although  I advised against connecting with just anyone on LinkedIn, having a big network can only work to your advantage  when making connections who are  relevant to your career. Once you have completed your profile, connect with as many people as possible who work in your industry  or could possibly  help you to get where you want to be. Dont be afraid to reach out to people, as you never know how your connections may be able to help you or  what lending a helping hand could lead to. RELATED: How NOT to Connect with a Recruiter on LinkedIn

Teach Jobs and Resume Writing For Teachers Services

Teach Jobs and Resume Writing For Teachers ServicesResume writing for teachers services online is the cheapest way to advertise your potential. You don't need to spend thousands of dollars on advertising. A good resume can boost your career or certification, and it's a good idea to keep this information up-to-date. Even teachers that have gotten a certificate or degree that they feel is not as important or valuable as others may want to get a newer one.With so many people looking for jobs, the competition for the best positions is much harder than in years past. Teachers are often under-qualified, which is not fair. The whole reason that they teach, and the reason they are employed, are because of their ability to educate students.Teachers that offer resume writing for teachers services will help you get your career in the right direction. It's not just a matter of writing a resume. This means making it appealing to employers. In this day and age, this will include taking care of the writing skills that will benefit you in a job interview.Resume writing for teachers services will help you put together a good resume that will get you hired for the position you're applying for. When people see your resume, they'll notice what you have to offer. It's just common sense.Your resume will be just as important if you're applying for a certified teacher. When you've worked hard to earn that certification, it shows you really care about teaching and are serious about your career. It also shows employers that you are serious about getting your certification, and they might consider your application more seriously if they know you've earned it.Teachers have a tendency to gravitate toward one school district or one state over another. Often this is because of where they were educated, orwhere their parents worked. Often they could have moved to a different area with a better education system. But if you're looking to move up in the teaching profession, it is important to kn ow where you're going.There are some people who just don't have time to write a resume. If you're one of those people, there are companies that offer resume writing for teachers services. Some of these companies specialize in writing resumes specifically for teachers that will work in an English-speaking country or another country that doesn't use a standardized English language.Resume writing for teachers services will help you create a resume that's relevant to teaching. It will also help you find a job, because your skills will be considered relevant by employers. Before you know it, you'll be well on your way to getting the teaching job you want.

Before You Apply Get Ready to Lead

Before You Apply Get Ready to Lead 25 Flares 25 Flares Have you felt stuck in middle management for far too long, or do you think you can do better than your current position? If you’re feeling restless and ready to take on more responsibility, then it’s time to go after that new job or promotion. However, before you start spiffing up your resume and asking for bigger things, you need to make sure that you’re ready to lead. Get Some Credentials One of the common characteristics of effective leaders is that they never stop learning. Some people get into leadership by luck or sheer force of personality, but for most, having some credentials is absolutely essential. If you have work experience but need to beef up the education portion of your resume, then go back to school. With so many universities and industry groups offering online courses, there’s never been a better time to head back to school. If you want to get into a top management position, nothing helps like earning an MBA. You’ll get more than just coursework from an MBA program; you’ll get to tap into your school’s extensive network of current students, alumni, and faculty. If an MBA isn’t right for you, look into the certifications that matter in your profession. Earning certification can boost not only your chances of getting hired but also your paycheck once you are hired. You can also take continuing education courses that will help you boost your skills. Network With Other Leaders If you’re going to get a leadership position, you need to know people who can vouch for your abilities. Start going to leadership-oriented workshops offered by your current employer, or head out into the community to network with other business leaders. Also, attend conferences dedicated to your profession, where you can meet interesting people and learn something new. You should also remember online opportunities, such as joining LinkedIn groups or other forums relevant to your industry. Additionally, never underestimate the importance of informal networking opportunities around your workplace. If you’re riding in the elevator with the CEO, and she asks you what you’re working on, then you need to have an outstanding answer. Start Speaking Your Mind You should never start trying to give orders when you don’t have any authority, but you should look for opportunities to become an influencer in your company. When you speak up in a meeting or give advice behind the scenes, focus your advice on what the team needs to accomplish instead of putting yourself first. Also, look for what Muriel Maignan Wilkins, author of “Own the Room: Discover Your Signature Voice to Match Your Leadership Presence,” calls “the white space” in your organization. White spaces are opportunities that others haven’t seized, or they’re problems that other people haven’t been willing to tackle. Start talking about the white space and how you, as part of the team, can make a contribution. Lead Outside of the Workplace Taking a leadership opportunity outside of work can dramatically hone your ability to lead at work. Find an organization within your community that you care about, and either become an officer or volunteer to lead a project. If you see an opportunity that no one else is tackling, then go to a community organization or to the social responsibility department at your company. Tell them your plan for seizing the opportunity, and ask for their help. Test Yourself In addition to telling your current manager that you’re willing to lead a project, look for leadership opportunities in other parts of your company. By taking on a leadership role outside of your department, you give people a taste of what you’d be like in a senior management position. However, when you do ask for the chance to lead, avoid blabbering about your ambitions to anyone who will listen. Talk to bosses about how you can make a contribution to the company, not about how you can grab more prestige. Ask for the Job Being a leader is about a lot more than polishing your resume and looking for higher-paying work. It’s about buying into what an organization wants to do and seeing yourself taking the helm. Before you start sending out resumes, ask yourself whether you’ve proven that you’re ready to lead. If you haven’t, then hold off on applying until you’re leadership material.

In Life and Job Search, Preparation is Key

In Life and Job Search, Preparation is Key Ive been following the stories on the heroic pilot, C.B. Sulley Sullenberger and the incredible landing of  U.S. Airways Flight 1549  which was ditched practically in the backyard of the Career Solvers offices in midtown Manhattan. Several of the reports mention Sullenbergers veteran status as a pilot and one news reporter commented that Sullenberger has accrued 19,000 hours of flight time over his career. This fact reminded me of  Malcolm Gladwells most recent book, Outliers,  where he comments that many of the most successful people in the world have gotten to where they are today, at least in part, by accumulating 10,000 hours or more of experience and that experience, coupled with strong communication skills and luck are all contributing factors to success. Sullenbergers performance today certainly qualifies him as an Outlier in my book. He was skilled enough to know how to handle an emergency, he successfully communicated the situation to the crew and passengers, and he was luck y enough to be on a runway that made the landing in the Hudson River possible. So what does this have to do with job search? Well, a lot of people think that some people are born interviewers.great schmoozers who can talk their way into any job. But I dont see it that way at all. The great interviewers are the ones who practice their interview strategy and hone their communication skills. Luck does play a part in landing a job, but frequently the luck wont happen unless you have put in the practice time. And while Im not suggesting that a job seeker needs to put in 10,000 hours of interview practice to land a job, I am recommending that job seekers take interview practice seriously. Here are a few ways to be better prepared for your next interview.  Write out your job-related success stories. Craft your stories using the CAR strategy. Think about the Challenges you faced on the job, the Actions you took to address those challenges, and the corresponding Results.Review your CAR stori es and look for the themes within these stories. For example, do your accomplishments revolve around your ability to create and lead strong teams, improve a process, save money, or turn around at-risk operations.Review interview questions and try to match your stories of success to different interview questions. This strategy enables you to link your themes and proof of success to the questions you may be asked and make a more compelling case for your value-add when you are in front of hiring managers.Conduct a videotaped mock interview with a trusted friend, colleague, or career coach. The biggest benefit of the taped role play exercise is that it allows you to review what you said and make decisions on where your answers need editing and polishing.The old saying, practice makes perfect may be a bit cliche, but in life and job search it is often true.