6 Steps to Building a Solid Online Presence

6 Steps to Building a Solid Online Presence Hiring professionals are turning to social networks to source and vet candidates. What’s your plan for updating your online presence and building the right online resume which compels recruiters to call you? Here are 6 steps to building an online presence: 1) Take  a base line: Go ahead and search for your name using Google, Bing and Yahoo! Are you satisfied with the first page of results? Do the results speak to your expertise or the skills/abilities you want to be known for? This isn’t a once-and-done activity. Monitor the first page search results for your name every couple of months, especially if you are actively job seeking. 2) Prove  your communication skills: If want to be recognized as an excellent communicator, it is time to demonstrate this skill. Start blogging about trends in your field or things that interest you. Your topic doesn’t have to relate to your ideal occupation (but it is a good idea). You could blog  about sports, cooking, or other interests you are knowledgeable about  and it will become  a sample of your work. In order to help people see how great of a writer you are, share your blog posts on your Facebook page, as a LinkedIn profile update and be sure to share on Google+ too! 3) Visually represent your talent: Graphic artists and photographers know they must have an online portfolio for their work. Do you have one too? One way to begin is by capturing online references to your work such as awards, newsletter contributions, or newspaper mentions. You can even immortalize a major milestone on  social media. Take a screen shot of that moment you  cross over 500 connections on LinkedIn, your group discussion becomes most popular or your status update receives an amazing number of shares. You can use  Evernote’s Skitch, the tool on your computer or even from your mobile device. Embed the screen shots into your LinkedIn profile, in a blog post, or share on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ as a status update. Remember to tag images with your name and key words. Video is another hot way to capture special moments. Shoot and share video or create a video montage using Animoto or a similar online video maker. YouTube is great for hosting video, but what if you are shooting video from your phone and want to upload it quickly? Vine and Instagram are two mobile apps to help make shooting and sharing faster and easier. If you aren’t comfortable in front of the camera, why not record a podcast and share your knowledge and expertise that way. You may want to check out Spreaker or BlogTalkRadio. Both allow you to record and easily share links to your recording! If you are trying to demonstrate   strong presentation or verbal communication skills, this is just one more way to provide proof. 4) Host your own show: You don’t need to rent a studio to create a show. There are free and low-cost tools that enable you to record video why not try hosting a Google Hangout and invite your network? All you need is a Google+ account. This is another way for you to prove you have ‘excellent communication skills’ and subject matter expertise. RELATED: Top 5 Podcasts For Tech and Social Recruiting 5) Spread it around: A word of warning. If you invest all your time and energy mastering only one social network, what happens when traffic plummets, it becomes accessible only through paid membership, or the service is acquired and goes away altogether? You don’t know what the future holds. Nor are you reaching your full potential audience. You don’t want to miss the next big social network wave and being an  early adopter means there is less competition, therefore it is easier to be perceived as a big fish in a small pond! This is what makes the world of social media and technology so exciting. Don’t get left behind or worse, lose your audience, community and friends. 6) Regularly  share consistent quality: There are three  basic guidelines you want to keep in mind when embarking on brand building activities. The first is to be consistent. Use the same name and similar avatar across social networks. When sharing anything online, be sure you use the appropriate key words, your name or other terms you want to be associated with. Your key words are unique to you and could include your occupation, skills, or other words that people would search for if they were looking for someone like you. Make sure you consider how search engines find your name. The second is to never sacrifice quality. When you are writing, always double check your work to ensure it reflects your best effort. However, don’t let perfection get in your way of delivering. Practice and improve upon your work and the content you share. Third and finally, regularly  update and share your consistent, high-quality content. You can’t expect instant results. Building an audience of followers, fans and friends takes time. With some regularity, either hourly, daily, weekly or monthly, share and deliver value. Don’t feel you have to develop all the content you share yourself. You can share inspiring quotes, links to news articles relevant to your field, or a humorous video to lighten the mood. Just be sure to attribute the work to its original source. Don’t wait until you need it: You’ve heard similar warnings about building a valuable professional network. The same holds true for your online presence. Build content and your following while you have the confidence and security of a job. Don’t wait until the crisis of a layoff to begin a mad dash PR campaign.

Why a Resume Experience Section Should Be Part of Every Job Application

Why a Resume Experience Section Should Be Part of Every Job ApplicationThere is an overlooked part of a resume, and that is the section which lists the company and position you held at. That section should be completed in the reverse order of the employee's names. For example, if the person's name is 'Job Title,' then his position should start with 'Job Title.' As an example, the second person listed should be listed as:Now if a job title doesn't exist for that position, then that individual can list something creative and realistic like:Some people prefer to be listed first instead of last when listing their professional career goals. However, some companies do not have a first-name format, so it is best to stick with the order they were laid out in.The resume experience section can be one of the most important sections of your resume. In fact, having a professional resume is the first step to getting a job interview. A well-written and organized resume will make the person who read s it to get a better feeling about the resume writer. The resume experience section should not be treated lightly; it is a must for any job candidate.One mistake many job seekers make is understating the importance of the resume experience section. In many cases, the first thing that many employers look at is the resume experience section. If you do not spend some time in writing your resume experience section, then it is possible you may not be considered for an interview.The common mistake made by job seekers is not including information they may be knowledgeable of. The resume experience section is really meant to give the employer an idea of what you have done for a business. It is important to include details about your previous position, your business experience, and how you are going to apply what you have learned in the past to the job you are applying for. Using the resume experience section is also a good way to show the employer you have put some thought into the job you are applying for.Another big mistake many people make is adding incorrect information to the resume experience section. In many cases, the resume experience section will include specific things that should not be included. Keep in mind that the resume experience section is one of the first things a potential employer will look at.Last but not least, a common mistake made by many job seekers is showing everything in the same order. Many candidates have no idea why it is so important to list the correct position first and the correct job title second. Unfortunately, many of these candidates are never contacted for an interview and are never told why. Don't be one of those people!

Shortcut to making big life decisions

Shortcut to making big life decisions You become the people you surrounded yourself with. Once you accept this, its much easier to answer tough questions like Where should I live? or What jobs right for me? or Who should I marry? I think the biggest barrier to making decisions based on how we become the people we hang out with is that we live in denial. 1. Geographic stereotypes are true. When I moved from LA to NYC, I was horrified at the lack of yoga studios in NY. Yoga was already huge in LA, but not yet in NY. I was also scared that New Yorkers were always a little bedraggled, and I had just spent ten years learning how to look perfect everywhere I went in LA. Its fun. Its fun to have no weather and no fat and no rushing in LA. Its fun to get a day off from work to prepare for watching the Oscars. I grew up in Illinois, but I got used to living in LA. The panic about New York was unnecessary, though. After ten years of living in NYC, when I imagined leaving, I thought I could never leave because the cultural opportunities are so amazing. The expertise people have in NYC is so vast and varied and I thought Id never get that anywhere else. When I left NYC I didnt care about looking perfect everywhere I went. I didnt care about the kind of car I drove. I was a New Yorker. 2. Never say never. When I moved to Madison, WI, there were some things that were just plain shocking. There are no foreign cars here. I mean, maybe there are. Maybe ten percent of all people drive a foreign car. Its usually someone from out of state. Recently moved here. Because after you live here for a while, you get so used to the idea of driving a Ford that it doesnt seem weird. You know the pictures of Midwesterners in NYC? I spent ten years learning how to spot a Midwesterner in NYC but really, it only takes ten minutes. Because people in the Midwest have no style. Its plain top, plain pants, plain shoes. You can rarely peg the decade their outfit comes from because it is tied to no particular style. I have made fun of this for years. And now Im pretty sure its what I look like. 3. Its not about genes. If your friends are fat, youll be fat. This is true irrelevant of class, education, race, etc. The Framingham Heart Study goes a good distance to show who you hang out with is who you become. Not just for fat. For drinking and smoking and dying early. (Interesting tidbit from the Framingham Study: You are likely to drink the amount the women in your life drink. Men dont like drinking without women.) 4. Its not about values. How many people go to law school thinking they are going to represent the underdog and save the world? Thousands. And how many people can pay off law school loans and support a family and save the world? None. You have to marry someone who makes more money. This is so common that people are making parodies about the save-the-world-types who apply to law school. Once you get to corporate law, you dont want to leave. This is what you tell yourself: You will just stay there to pay off your loans. Then youll stay there and do pro bono work. Then you tell yourself its silly to go to nonprofit law when you can earn so much in a big law firm and just donate the money. It happens to everyone. Its arrogant and delusional to think youll be the exception. And that is true for everything. When you are deciding what you want to do with your life, look at peoples lifestyles. Ask yourself if you want that lifestyle. Dont tell yourself youll be different. Statistically, that is absurd. And why put yourself in a situation where you have to be different than all the people you choose to be around every day? 5. Emotions are contagious. If you have a happy person close to you, youll increase your own happiness by 9%. I have announced, of course, that I am done looking for happiness in my life. I think its overrated. Which means reading this blog is not going to boost your happiness by 9%. But I am hoping that interesting lives are also contagious and your life is much more interesting from spending time with me.

Do Grades or Marks Measure, Reflect Define Intelligence Career Geek

Do Grades or Marks Measure, Reflect Define Intelligence Career Geek Universities, colleges and employers always ask for it. For some of us, even our parents demand it. But the question is: are they demanding to reach the apex of our intelligence to give exams the best we can, or are they asking for us just to provide proof of intelligence we may or may not have? On the one hand, with regards to A Levels and GCSEs, the design of examinations is based around various topics which reflect a particular module or unit and with regards to university, examinations are mostly based on your choice of topics you know most about. On the other hand, where more detail is asked for, it is only asked for in one particular area or topic. This means that only your knowledge in that one area is being examined. Yes, granted that the examination structure requires students to learn topics in a great amount of detail, but I do think we all know that there is no way to tell the difference between person A who has learnt all of the topics in detail and person B who has only learnt one topic in detail. So I pose the question, is person B who learnt only one topic with full conviction that it will appear in the examination more intelligent than person A who learnt all topics by staying up night after night and eventually achieved the same grade? Furthermore, we are all examined based on the words or numbers we write on the paper. Does that mean that person C who writes the answer 1234 after understanding and conducting careful, lengthy calculations is less intelligent than person D who guesses the answer 1234, when they both receive the same marks for a correct answer? Something to take into account with people that succeed with exams and people that struggle with exams is that they both undergo various circumstances in their lives. Persons A, B, C and D would all gain excellent marks in their examinations, rightly or wrongly, but what if they all suffered from extreme anxiety the minute they sat down in the exam? Does this mean they are all unintelligent even though all the same knowledge was in their mind before and after the exam? Or what if only persons B and D were perfectly calm and able to perform where persons A and C completely blanked out? Does this mean that those who risk and guess are more intelligent than those who exercise their minds and ensure success? My problem with the whole examination and grading system is that persons A, B, C and D would all get the exact same marks under ideal conditions and to me that is not how you measure somebody’s knowledge on a subject. When person E fails many exams, there is often a silent assumption that person E is not as intelligent as the rest of the class, in the same way that if persons A, B, C and D achieved the highest results, they are deemed to be more intelligent than the rest of the class.There is a quote from Albert Einstein: “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree it will live its whole life believing it’s stupid”. There are many types of learners in the world but they have been categorised into three main types, which are visual, audial, and kinesthetic, where visual learners learn predominantly through what they see, audial through what their hear and kinesthetic through action. Kinesthetic learners learn best when they are moving around and their various muscles are engaged. As children they could have been deemed to be hyperactive to even be demanding attention. As Sir Ken Robinson once amusingly stated, “sometimes fidgety children are not suffering from ADHD, but they are suffering from childhood”. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY) Some people are born with a mental strength in mathematics, others in English literature, others in science and others in the arts. I know plenty of engineering who struggle with writing long pieces which English literature students excel in. I also know plenty of English literature students who struggle with mathematical equations. The lesson learnt after reading all of this? People have different strengths in different areas. Einstein failed at mathematics, Michael Jordan wasnt selected in his high school basketball team, Richard Branson and Steve Jobs both struggled significantly with formal education. This does not and will never mean that they are not intelligent people just because they didn’t pass every exam or just because their GPA wasnt at a particular level. Suli Breaks says in one of his spoken word poems: “if you remembered a fact 5 minutes after the end of the exam and that means you missed a 1st class when someone else remembered 5 minutes before the end of the exam, does that mean you’re less qualified for the job?” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-eVF_G_p-Y ) The answer is no. Never allow yourself to fall into the trap of assuming somebody is less intelligent because their grades are lower than yours, or the contrary where you assume someone is more intelligent than you because their grades are higher. The problem today is, according to Timothy Leary, “We are dealing with the best-educated generation in history. But theyve got a brain dressed up with nowhere to go”. If you can remain ambitious, inquisitive and humble at all times about a subject you enjoy, to me that is a far more accurate measure than any grade or written examination. READ MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR 1.  Are Self-Esteem And Self-Confidence Mutually Exclusive? 2.  Why Do We Fail? 3.  A Day In The Life Of A Master’s Student 40

Tips For Creating A Resume That Meets All Professional Requirements

Tips For Creating A Resume That Meets All Professional RequirementsA receptionist resume skills are needed for a lot of positions. When searching for employment, the best way to get noticed by prospective employers is to present yourself as the best person possible. You do not have to be an excellent writer in order to create a good and convincing resume.You should know how to organize your job search with the various resumes that you need. This will give you more confidence and will help you find a job faster.There are a number of search methods available today. However, not all of them can help you generate a positive image about you. Some of these methods include reviewing websites, posting your resume on a resume network, and searching through classified ads. One of the first steps you should take in order to ensure a successful resume is to do research on several sources.The first basic thing you should focus on is to compare as many types of jobs as possible. For instance, if y ou are looking for a receptionist position, look for information about positions that are available in the local area. You will want to look for jobs in the type of position you are interested in. For instance, if you want to become a customer service representative, you will want to look for jobs that require the same skill set as the one you desire.Also, it is very important to write an effective cover letter. Do not be afraid to use the word 'please' and do not use the word 'thank you'. Remember, when applying for a job, this is what potential employers will most likely see. It is important to focus on creating a professional yet human experience for the letter.As soon as you are able to talk to a potential employer, ask them if they would like to schedule an interview. Be very honest when making your request. It is important to respect the time that they have available to interview you. If you make it seem like you will come in immediately and make it sound like you cannot wait, the employer will be suspicious. Always provide a formal introduction and don't assume that they know you or what you do.The receptionist resume skills that you choose to use should reflect your personality. You should be aware of what your strengths and weaknesses are so that you can highlight your talents and abilities. Also, you should be able to address any questions that may arise during the interview. The best way to do this is to provide a complete and accurate summary of your qualifications and experience.Finally, another basic way to present yourself to an employer is to create a website. Create a website that presents you in a positive light, provides links to your references, and includes testimonials from current and past clients. If you take the time to research your options, you will be able to answer any questions about the job and create a good impression about yourself to potential employers.