When I graduated college, I quickly realized that even though I was trying to break into a struggling job market, there were jobs out there that I didn't even know existed! My friends and I would talk about the crazy, cool new careers we were seeing – you can get paid to be on Twitter all day? Who knew! Not only are these new occupations cool and interesting, they are some of the highest paying jobs out there.
While the economy isn't exactly booming, and jobs are still difficult to come by, it really is an exciting time to be starting out and pursuing a career. Advancements in technology and society are creating some awesome new career paths for recent college graduates to explore. Here are 10 top jobs for 2013.
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"As my children leave home for college and for work, and I am left to begin my career again, I am reminded of some of my first work experiences as I navigate the new employment landscape."
Continue reading this installment of Diane Thomas' weekly work blog as she touches on issues of workplace harassment and the empowering changes that have occured over the years, as well as important (and maybe humorous?) information you need to know for yourself and your children.
Why should I include a photo in my LinkedIn profile? Do I have to reveal my age?
This installment of my weekly blog about returning to work after having raised a family answers some questions readers may have about creating LinkedIn profiles.
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If it’s been a long while since you’ve worked full-time, you’ll likely notice two things when you return to the work force – computers and computer-based technologies have revolutionized the modern office, and your co-workers are now younger than you.
Much has been written about the dynamics between younger bosses and older employees, but a lot of those issues stem from differences in communication styles. I’ve been working part-time for several years now while I raise my family, and I have always gotten along well with my bosses and co-workers no matter their age. There’s no mysterious trick to this, I just treat everyone with respect.
Here are a few useful tips to help baby-boomers and their younger counterparts see eye-to-eye:
My Advice To The Older Generation
1. Sure Mom, O.K. Dad
Your youthful co-workers want to be compared to your kids about as much as you want to be told you remind them of their parents, or worse yet, their grandparents. Talk about your children when its appropriate, but never by way of comparison. Offer personal advice only when asked - no one wants to be parented at work.
2. Check Your Email…A Lot
Post baby-boomers like to communicate electronically...even when they are sitting right next to you. It’s their equivalent of note-taking, only in reverse.
When you tell your co-workers something, they will often ask you to email them the information, as they will be doing with you throughout the day. (Email frequency rates can be calculated in reverse proprtion to the sender's age).
My Advice To The Younger Generation
1. Tell Us How Often You Want Us To Check Our Emails
Instant communication methods have may have revolutionized the 9 to 5 workday, but old habits are hard to break. If you want to email us outside the workday, and expect to receive an answer before the next workday, make that clear. Otherwise we’re probably thinking we’re “off the clock”.
2. Head To Foot
If a younger boss who wants to gain the respect of older employees, just looki them straight in the eyes. Face to face conversation is what we value. Neither should you settle for surrounding yourself with younger workers because you feel more comfortable with them. Experienced workers really do have a lot to offer and you’ll ultimately be shooting your own self in the foot anyway - you will be the older worker someday.
3. The Art of Social Interaction
My generation is adept at reading facial expressions, intonation and body language in order to communicate effectively. No matter how helpful :) or :( or !!! can be in an email message, knowing what you want us to think you feel is not the same thing as knowing how you feel. Someday your generation will be in charge of the world and I, for one, don’t want the leader with the nuclear missiles pointed in our direction to misread the tone of your email :o !
What is your advice for older and younger workers or bosses? Share your comments here.
Read part one: Adventures of a 50 year Old Intern: Returning To Work
Read part two: Aventures of a 50 Year Old Intern: The Comfort Zone
Read part three: Aventures of a 50 Year Old Intern: Managing the Internet
In Part 3 of my weekly series about returning to work after raising a family, I give tips on managing the flood of internet information that can overwhelm us in the digital-age workplace.
by Val Matta | CareerShift
As graduation draws near, college students become stressed about employment. After spending the majority of their lives studying, they suddenly have a new, often unfamiliar task: the post college job search.
But many college students don’t realize the bounty of resources available to them for the job search. Beyond employment agencies and company websites, college alumni networks are a great resource for potential job opportunities and employment ideas.
But just how can college students tap into the power of alumni networks? What are the proper routes to take, and what’s the right etiquette for approaching a potential networking contact? Here are six ways college students can use their college alumni network to land a job:
1. Start early. Don’t wait until the minute you need a job to start tapping into your school’s alumni network. While it’s never too late to get started, you should try to make networking connections throughout your entire college career so you have a good database of personal networking contacts to tap into after graduation.
2. Find contacts. Talk to your career services center to see if they keep a database of alumni willing to talk to students about their professional careers. Many colleges and universities do this. Most schools also have alumni relations offices that can put you in contact with professional alumni in your industry or field, or those that have relationships with employment agencies.
3. Get involved. Joining campus organizations--or even off-campus organizations--can help you to connect with current students and gain access to alumni who have participated in the same groups. Consider student clubs, volunteer groups, community centers, political organizations, student newspapers or blogs, theatre groups, or other organizations that pique your interest. Not only will you gain a great addition to your skill set and resume, but you’ll glean direct access to a large pool of alumni with similar career goals.
4. Tap into social media. In today’s technological landscape, the power of social media -- sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn -- is unmatched when it comes to connecting professionals across time and place. Brand yourself on your personal social media accounts by ensuring your image remains professional and focused on your industry, but don’t forget to showcase your interests, unique traits, and personality as well. Once you’ve established a professional personal brand on social media, you’ll feel more comfortable reaching out to alumni contacts. Alumni and employment agencies often reach out to students with completed LinkedIn profiles.
5. Start a conversation first. Approaching someone by saying “I need a job” isn’t going to get you anywhere. You’ll just look desperate and, even worse, inconsiderate. Whether you’re talking to alumni contacts via email, phone, or social media, always start a conversation first, and talk job opportunities later. Find a common point of interest with your new networking contact--it’s easy with social media--and go from there. Reply to their tweets, comment on a blog post, or send an email with a news article or online video you think they may like.
6. Set up an informational interview. Informational interviews are a great way to pick the brains of professionals you admire. Informational interviews can often lead to advice, job openings, or introductions to more networking connections. To set up an informational interview, simply ask your networking contact to meet you for lunch or coffee. Bring a copy of your resume and a few questions you want to ask. Keep the conversation short--less than 30 minutes--and follow up afterward via email or phone to thank them for their time.
Tapping into the power of an alumni network doesn’t have to be difficult. If college students are proactive about the networking process, they’ll have no problems establishing themselves in entry-level positions after college.
Val Matta is the vice president of business development at CareerShift, a comprehensive job hunting and career management solution for university career centers that gives students and alumni complete control over their job search. Connect with Val and CareerShift on LinkedIn.
Another Spring has sprung and college seniors are beginning to send out their resumes with the hope of finding their dream job, or any job. Even with recent signs that the job market is starting to look better, it can still take months before a new college grad. finds a job in their field of interest. But that doesn't mean one has to sit at home doing nothing - consider, instead, these strategies for part-time or temporary jobs to pay the bills and strengthen one's resume.
1. Become a Tutor
Tutors can work independently or be employed by tutoring companies. If you have one or more subjects that you are competent in and/or have tested well in, then somebody may want to hire you to tutor their child. If you earned SAT scores over 700, their are many SAT tutoring companies and test preparation centers that will hire and train tutors to work for them. If your strengths lie in courses other than math or English, consider contacting local school systems to list your services as a tutor, or put up flyers in the public libraries where students study. Depending on where you live and your level of expertise, tutors can typically make anywhere between $25 and $75 per hour.
2. Make a LinkedIn Profile
Gone are the days when prospective employees mail resumes to companies who advertise jobs in local newspapers. Everything is accomplished over the internet now, and employers can receive thousands of job applications for one job opening. Having your profile on LinkedIn, touted to be the world's largest professional network, can help you in two ways.
The first is that many employers will search for you on LinkedIn when they receive your resume to get a better sense of who you are and what you're all about - your personal brand, so to speak. Creating your LinkedIn profile is your chance to take control of what prospective employers see, know and think about you. It is often the first step to getting an in-person job interview.
The second way a LinkedIn profile is a plus is that many jobs are are farmed out to staffing firms and recruiters to fill. According to recent statistics, 90 percent of recruiters are on LinkedIn to research and discover potential candidates. From experience, I can tell you that after my son graduated college with a mechanical engineering degree, he sent out over 50 resumes to prospective employers without getting one response. When he updated his LinkedIn profile, he got the attention of staffing firms who began contacting him about jobs.
For more on creating a LinkedIn profile read Student Advisor's LinkedIn: Enhance Your Profile & Get The Job Of Your Dreams.
3. Contact Staffing Firms
Don't just wait for staffing firms to contact you. Research the firms that specialize in your field and sign up with them. Once relegated mainly to general and secretarial office help, staffing firms, also known as Temp. Agencies, have been created to specialize in most any field including Engineering, Computer Science, Health Services, Media Production, and even Art. As an employee of the staffing firm, you will have the opportunity to work in temporary jobs for a number of companies in your field of interest. This will give you a chance to make contacts, hone your skills, and find out what you like. It might even help you to land that job of your dreams - or at least put on on the right path.
The second in a series of weekly installments. Check back each Wednesday for more.
When was the last time you left your comfort zone? The first thing I did after applying for this internship was to begin worrying that I would get it. The office is nearly an hour's commute from my home and I began to dread the drive, particularly at rush hour. Then there was the new clothes I would have to buy if I went back to work. I've been a stay-at-home mom for so long, I did not have much that I could wear to an office. It's easy to find obstacles to change once you've become comfortable, and keeping things the way they are is often the safest choice; there's no chance of failure.
The point is that starting or changing careers later in life can be an intimidating process. Many women that I know, myself included, who are perfectly intelligent, capable people, begin to suffer from a lack of confidence when we reach our mid-life stage. If you find this to be true of yourself, then it's time to shake your confidence out and give it a little exercise – prove to yourself that you can take on new challenges and succeed. Here are a few suggestions to try:
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Exercise 1 - Fix it Yourself
The next time something at your house stops working properly, call neither a repair person nor your husband - fix it yourself. A leaky faucet, a toilet that won't stop running, a car headlight bulb that needs replacing – all these things are easily fixed with a trip to the right store and a quick YouTube tutorial. Challenge yourself to do the job and enjoy the sense of accomplishment you'll feel when it's done. Personally, I've moved on to plastering walls.
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Exercise 2 – Learn Something New
By this, I don't mean take a class in something that you've always wanted to learn. I mean challenge yourself to learn something that has always eluded you. Don't know how to change a spark plug in your car? – find an adult education class in basic auto mechanics. Tired of looking at the ugly tile in your bathroom? - attend workshops at your local home improvement store to learn how to replace it. Need to ask your kids to “fix” the computer when it stops co-operating with you? (I always did, but they're all leaving me soon) - try signing up, like I did, for an on-line class in Computer Science 101. Whatever it is that challenges you, learn to master it instead, or at least, to better understand it.
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Exercise 3 - Join a New Group
You probably already belong to groups populated with more people just like you, consider instead joining a group that involves people who are different. Whether that involves signing up for a book club with complete strangers, volunteering in another city or town, or something else, meeting up with people who are different from ourselves can be both intimidating and invigorating. It's also a great way to start networking as you start to define and refine your new career goals.
Ultimately, I was offered this internship. I arranged agreeable commuting hours, bought some new clothes (boo-hoo for me, right?) and followed the same advice I keep giving my own kids as they graduate college and look for jobs: Don't turn down an opportunity! As I was making my notes for this blog, I happened to be watching Dancing with the Stars, a show full of inspiration from people who are being pushed out of their own comfort zones as actors, athletes, astronauts and more learning to dance in front of a national audience. Purely by coincidence, or maybe by design, dancer Tristan Mac Manus looked staight at the camera and said, “If you get an opportunity to learn anything, no matter what it is, take it.” It seems Tristan and I are in full agreement.
Read part one of The Adventures of a 50 Year Old Intern.
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Recently I had the unique opportunity to listen and speak with someone who I consider to be a “LinkedIn guru.” At 200 million members strong, you know LinkedIn is the best site for career networking and development. Brendan Browne is LinkedIn's head of global talent acquisition. Basically, he hires all the staff at LinkedIn.
Brendan is based on the West Coast, in the main offices of LinkedIn, but had flown east for an interview and live webinar. I spent the afternoon with Brendan and some of his extraordinary team members in New York City. Brendan was incredibly inspiring and motivating as he shared LinkedIn tips on how to find a job, how to leverage social media and even his personal philosophy when it comes to creating your digital brand. Brendan also shared his secret LinkedIn tips on how to best leverage LinkedIn tools, as he is passionate and knowledgeable about profile optimization for users to be noticed and get hired. He was so inspiring that soon after our conversation my colleagues and I were at our desk updating our LinkedIn profiles. Read more...
In a competitive job market, it's necessary to stand out among other candidates. When the average recruiter spends less than 60 seconds looking at your resume that you spent hours creating, how can you make sure to capture their attention and get remembered…in a good way?
We found 5 of the coolest, think-outside-the-box, social media-driven resumes that aren't just creative – they are extremely successful. Not only were they shared, liked, tweeted, and featured in the news, they also landed job interviews at top companies like Google. Get inspired and take a lesson from these insanely creative minds.
1) Sell yourself on Amazon.com
Phillipe Dubost, a web product manager from Paris, clearly understands how to sell himself. He put together this awesome Amazon page, complete with a “Product Description,” various images, links to his social media sites, and even 5-star reviews from previous employers. His “Add to Wedding Registry” option is a cheeky touch.
2) Put your mouth where your…mouth is?
This resume really speaks to you. Victor Petit, also from France, felt that a paper resume wasn’t the best medium for a person seeking a job in communications. On the back of his resume is a full-page picture of his face, with a QR code over his mouth. When someone scans the code and puts their phone on it, a video plays with Petit’s mouth.
3) Update your Facebook Status
What better way to prove your social media knowledge and skills than creating a resume based on Facebook? Sabrina Saccoccio tweaked a typical profile page to market herself and her creativity. She kept some of the standard Facebook profile features that already translate to a resume, such as “Contact Info” and “Education,” adding a relationship status as “Married (to my job).”
(via www.stevepratt.com)
4) Search yourself with Google
How could Eric Gandhi not land an interview with Google with such a spot-on resume? The layout is simple and familiar to anyone who’s ever used Google search. It doesn’t deviate too much from the traditional resume structure, with just enough cleverness to keep your interest. “Did you mean to hire: Eric Gandhi?”
5) An Infographic is worth a thousand words
In a visual world ruled by image sharing platforms like Instagram, infographics have become one of the quickest and easiest ways to learn new information. Web designer and developer Alice Lee presents her resume as an infographic dedicated to Instagram, with some eye-catching design features and a healthy dose of honesty.
An important note to remember when writing your resume – although it can be easy to get caught up in the creative side of things, design and images can’t take the place of great content. Make sure the structure of your resume is solid before moving on to the fun stuff.
