Reduce Job Search Anxiety

While job searching can cause a great deal of anxiety, managing your stress can make the process easier. By turning it into a positive experience, you can be in a better mood and make you excited about the prospect of new employment.

Focus on what you can control. Don't focus on just one opportunity, pursue several at the same time. Focus on any tasks that need to be done by a certain time. Write a customizable resume and associated cover letter containing 'your story', then work in the opportunities' requirements.

Find 18 tips to help reduce your anxiety here.

Traits of People Who Advance Their Careers

In these competitive times, advancing in your career is far from automatic. To move ahead in the workplace, consider learning from those who seize the day and seem to advance easily.

To advance in your career, embrace challenges instead of shrinking away. Not only will your skill set come out stronger as a result, your manager and other company higher-ups will see you taking the initiative. Remember, rewards come to those who stand out--not those who blend into the background.

See 10 traits of people who advance in their careers here.

Your Performance WILL be Evaluated

Once on the job you have to do a lot more than just show up. It would be good to have the rules for evaluation known in advance. Pay attention to the supervisors expectations, especially to any written specifications in the employee 'Welcome' package. Ultimately there will be review of YOU.

In addition to anything written, keep a few points in mind in an ongoing self evaluation. In a survey of entrepreneurs the most important points to consider when evaluating a team member have been identified.

In addition to 'showing up' see 10 key evaluation points here.

Be Aware of Company Culture

While your experience and qualifications are being assessed by a hiring manager, likewise you need to take the time to make your own assessments of the company. This could occur as part of your search effort or in an offer to interview.

Make the most of any opportunity to ‘get to know’ the company culture, its 'personality'. The character of the environment (formal / relaxed) (competitive / contentious) (strict / permissive) needs to fit with your expectations and your personality.

See additional hints here.

Handling a Team's Dominating Personality

Every team benefits from a talented colleague with exceptional skills who can be counted on to produce solutions to complex problems. But when an alpha personality in the group also dominates discussions and decisions, it can stifle other colleagues input, restrain collaboration, and ultimately hurt morale.

Team dynamics need an even distribution of contributing talent, not dominance. In such circumstances, effective team collaboration is required.

Find eight ways to work well with a dominant colleague here.

Get Noticed While Working Remotely

Stay visible and grow in your career. Showing your worth can benefit during good times, for advancement, and bad times, like downsizings. You need to continuously demonstrate value to your team and organization.

It’s harder for remote workers to stand out. You have less face-to-face time with your team and leadership. As a remote worker, you need to know when it’s the right time to advance.

See 5 steps to stand out as a remote worker here.

Staying May Not Be Good

Consider the stress level at work, and not having the proper balance in life. Once someone is burned out, there is no turning back. A vacation or even a sabbatical may not fix the problem. You may have to quit.

Burnout sneaks up, it is not easy to measure. There are other more specific situations. Not getting paid the market rate is fairly easy. Lack of supervisor support, a changing role and lack of upward mobility are others.

See a more complete discussion here.

Things to Do When Your Boss Quits

It can come as a surprise when your boss quits their job. No matter how or why your boss leaves, you’ll want to collect yourself and make sure that regardless of what happens, you’re set up for success. Pay attention and be aware, figure out what happens next.

While you may worry about your next boss, continue to be the professional you are and remember that the one thing that’s constant in life (including your work life) is change.

Find eight things you should (and shouldn’t) do here.

Identify Your Career Accomplishments

In a competitive job market, you need an edge to make your application materials stand out. You can do that listing your career accomplishments from each key position in a resume and cover letter.
  
Career accomplishments offer concrete examples, often based on data points, showing how you contributed to your company in your particular role.
  
Find three tips on identifying your career accomplishments here.

Check Your Work Email Early in the Morning

It's popular to warn against prioritizing email before breakfast – but does that advice really work for you? If you don't check your email early, you may miss important updates to a project you're working on.

The fact is that it often makes sense to at least graze your inbox before moving on with other planned items on your calendar and to-do list. Whether you work with a manager, team members or a client list – quick responsiveness often makes or breaks your essential professional relationships and ultimately determines your career success or failure.

For more insight dealing with your boss, team or clients see the article here.

Move up when your boss moves out

When your boss leaves, you have a chance to advance your career. It requires strategy, a little prior planning, a lot of self-confidence and the timing is essential.

There are four key elements to pay attention to: get in position, showcase yourself, ask for what you want and use caution.

For details on these considerations see the article here.

The Skill You're Not Showing Off, But Should Be

If you were in the shoes of a hiring manager and tried to pinpoint the most important skill for a new hire to have, what would you pick?

Technical prowess probably wasn’t too far down the list. A CEO of Syncsort, would agree. But today, he finds another skill at the top of his list: he now values the ability to prioritize over hard skills when hiring. Knowing this, your mission as a job seeker is to make sure you get across to the hiring manager that prioritization is a strength of yours.

See how to do it here.

The One Trait Hiring Mangers Seek Most

Think it's a technical skill? Think again.  If you're looking for a job and wondering how to stand out in a sea of applicants, being boring is unproductive. In a recent survey, 76% of hiring managers believe that being interesting is an important component of hiring decisions, with 22% believing that being interesting is very important.

The survey also found that being well-read and well-informed were among the top traits of interesting people, ranking higher than being well-educated, curious, or innovative. If you’re looking for a new job, or if you’re interested in expanding your career, this data suggests that reading more is the perfect place to start.

There are four ways to leverage your unique traits and experiences during the job search process.

Want more insight about being more interesting in your upcoming job interviews, click here.

Want to Be Happier at Work?

Whatever your current situation, you too can be happier at work simply by mastering your mindset. 
Work "happiness" is a difficult thing to obtain. Everyone wants it, yet so few people seem to get it.
The truth is pretty simple: The people who are happiest at work work at it. They just understand some basic truths about the nature of work, and they've leveraged that wisdom for their own benefit.

Whatever your current situation, you too can be happier at work simply by mastering your mindset. Here are some key concepts to consider.

• No Job Is Perfect
• Everything Is Temporary
• Work Is a Choice
• Fake It to Make It
• You Career Is a Lifelong Endeavor

Your happiness shouldn't rely on anyone – or anything – outside of yourself.

For more info, click here.

Showcase your unpaid work

You've probably done unpaid work at some point in your life. Featuring your volunteer work can show a potential employer you're dedicated to helping others.If you've graduated within the last five to 10 years, you should definitely include your volunteer work in the local community and internships on your resume. These should go in the body of your resume if you have a significant amount of unpaid experience or it's at well-known organizations. Include a few bullets to describe what you did in each case and the purpose of your work.

Consider the following areas of unpaid work.

• Serving on a committee
• Leadership role in a student organization
• Mentorship of students
• Fraternity/sorority
• Internships
• Volunteering in the local community
• Outside of Work
• Taking Time Off
• Changing Careers to the nonprofit sector

For more info, click here.

Tips on Landing an Internship

If you are in college and hoping to use an internship to get your foot in the door of any industry, you are not alone. The competition can be intense, but there are certain things that you can do to enhance your chances of landing a position 

This article highlights some of the important considerations to check off the proverbial list before going after that internship. If you know the career path you want to take, get started as quickly as possible with an internship

Find some pointers from the financial industry that are also useful for other industry internships here.

How to Be More Efficient at Work

In Today's world coping with Job pressure is really tough. Anyone who's held down a full-time job knows that an average work day is not always long enough to get everything you need to do done. However, your productivity can be greatly improved by adopting habits designed to make you work more efficiently. 

Being efficient at work won't just improve your productivity and win you recognition - it'll also make you feel accomplished, satisfied that you've had a full and productive work day. 

For a three part discussion see the article here.

Advance Within Your Company

In today’s tumultuous economy it is more important than ever to understand the fundamentals of how to manage your career. 

With the rapid rate of technological change and the effects of globalization, jobs are changing or even disappearing altogether. By applying time-tested principles you will be in a better position to help yourself and your company be successful.
See 9 areas of career management here.

How Productive People Do Things

We are all limited by the number of hours in your workday, it can feel impossible to complete all projects by their deadlines. Add in fewer resources, an increased workload and a downsized workforce, and the idea of adhering to a productivity schedule becomes an insurmountable task. Ultra-productive people rely on productivity hacks to complete goals without putting in extra hours.

Never put anything on hold that you can do immediately; complete small tasks as soon as they arise. Decide whether you should take action on it, delegate it tor delete it. Do this right away so you don't have to waste time revisiting the issue in the future.

For more ways to be more effective, see the article here.

Employed? Impress Your Boss

A good relationship with your boss is key to setting your career on the fast track and increasing your chances of being promoted. Developing this relationship means being a good employee while working to make your boss's life easier.

Showing some initiative may impress your boss; for seven steps to amplify your advancement chances, see the article here.