Here are some myths of professional career choices that can help you make an informed decision.

Myth: Choosing a career is simple

Actually, choosing a career is a complicated process and you should give it the time it deserves.

Professional career planning is a multi-step process that involves learning enough about yourself and the occupations which you are considering in order to make a wise decision.

Myth: Career counselors can tell me what occupation to choose.

Career counselor, or any other career development professional, cannot tell you what career is best for you. They can just provide you with guidance through the career planning process and help facilitate your decision.

Myth: I cannot possibly make a living out of my hobby.

Who told you that? It makes perfect sense to choose an occupation that is related to what you enjoy doing in your spare time. In addition people tend to become very skilled in their hobbies, even though most of the skill is gained informally.

Myth: I should choose a career from a “Best Careers” list.
Every year, there are numerous articles and books that list what “the experts” predict will be “hot jobs.”
It will not hurt to look at those lists to see if any of the careers on it appeal to you, but you should not use the list to dictate your choice.

While the predictions are often based on valid data, sometimes things change. Way too often what is hot this year would not turn out to be hot after all.

You need to take into account your interests, values, and skills when choosing an occupation. Just because the outlook for an occupation is good does not mean that occupation is right for you.

Myth: Making a lot of money will make me happy.

Salary is important. But it is not the only factor you should look at when choosing a professional career. Countless surveys have shown that money does not lead to job satisfaction.

For many people enjoying what they do at work is much more important. However, you should consider earnings, among other things, when evaluating an occupation.

Myth: Once I choose a career, I will be stuck with it forever.

This is definitely not true. If you are unsatisfied with your career for any reason, you can always change it. Many people change careers several times over the course of their lifetimes.

Myth: If I change careers, my skills will be wasted.

Your skills are yours to keep. You can take them from one job to another. You may not use them in the exact same way, but they would not go to waste.

Myth: If my best friend is happy in a particular field, I will also be.

Everyone is different and what works for one person may not work for another. Even if that other person is someone with whom you have a lot in common.

If someone you know has a professional career that interests you, look into it. But be aware of the fact that it may not necessarily be a good fit for you.

Technorati Tags: job search, employment

If you are planning or considering a career as a registered nurse, you should know these facts:

1. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that employment for registered nurses will grow faster than any other occupation through 2012.

2. Nursing students encompass more than half of all health professions students.

3. Nurses cover the largest single component of hospital staff. They are the primary providers of hospital patient care and deliver most of the nation’s long-term care.

4. Most health care services involve some form of care by nurses. Among the 60 percent of all employed RNs work in hospitals, many are employed in a wide range of other settings, including private practices, public health agencies, primary care clinics, home health care, outpatient surgicenters, health maintenance organizations, nursing school-operated nursing centers, insurance and managed care companies, nursing homes, schools, mental health agencies, hospices, the military, and industry.

Other nurses work in careers as college and university educators preparing future nurses or as scientists developing advances in many areas of health care and health promotion.

5. Although often working jointly, nursing does not assist medicine or other fields. Nursing careers are independent of medicine and other disciplines.

Nursing roles range from direct patient care to case management, establishing nursing practice standards, developing quality assurance procedures, and directing complex nursing care systems.

6. With more than four times as many RNs in the United States as physicians, nursing delivers an extended array of health care services.

This is including primary and preventive care by advanced, independent nurse practitioners in such clinical areas as pediatrics, family health, women’s health, and gerontological care.

Nursing careers scope also includes care by clinical nurse specialists, certified nurse-midwives and nurse anesthetists, as well as care in cardiac, oncology, neonatal, neurological, and obstetric/gynecological nursing and other advanced clinical specialties.

As compared to technical-level practice, the primary pathway to a professional nursing career is the four-year Bachelor of Science degree in nursing (BSN).

Registered nurses are prepared either through a four-year baccalaureate program; a two- to three-year associate degree in nursing program; or a three-year hospital diploma program.
Graduates of all three programs take the same state licensing exam, the NCLEX-RN.

The number of diploma programs has declined steadily, to less than 10 percent of all basic RN education programs, as nursing education has shifted from hospital-operated instruction into the college and university system.

It can be noted that the demand for nursing career seem to be evolving with the changing times. Today the demand is different because of these factors:

1. Employers are now seeking nurses prepared at the bachelor’s and graduate-degree levels who can deliver the higher complexity of care required across a variety of acute-care, primary-care, and community health settings, and to provide other needed services such as case management, health promotion, and disease prevention.

2. Demand is particularly acute for nurses in key specialties, such as critical care; neonatal nursing; emergency, operating room, and labor and delivery units; and for advanced practice RNs such as nurse practitioners and clinical nurse specialists.

From the information above, it is no wonder why there are a lot of persons are pursuing a nursing career. Need I say more?

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When choosing a field to enter or a job to train for, it is extremely important to look at job and market trends.

You want to make sure you pick a profession that is in high demand. That is because in high-demand professions, it is easier to obtain your first position than it would be in a career field in which there is a much larger pool of candidates competing for a relatively small number of jobs.

Experience becomes less of a priority, although skills, knowledge and training are important. When you select an in-demand career field, it is also easier to move between jobs if youre not happy, or to obtain a new position if you move.

Above all else, remember that higher demand often translates into increased pay, which is always a bonus.

There are many factors contributing to the positive job outlook for the medical career industry.

There is an aging population, an expanding federal healthcare system and a shortage of trained workers to fill the many medical assistant, medical coding and billing specialist and medical transcriptionist positions that become available every year.

For the last few years, careers in healthcare have been at the top of the fastest-growing occupations lists.

Medical assistants currently tops the list, followed by physician assistants, home health aides, medical records and health information technicians and physical therapist assistants.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, each of these healthcare professions is projected to experience more than 40 percent growth during the next 10 years. That makes medical careers a logical choice for those looking for a rewarding career.

Healthcare professionals work to flawlessly blend science and technology with the human touch. They offer comfort in times of medical crisis, illness or injury. Medical assistants, in particular, regularly interact with patients performing both routine clinical and administrative tasks.

Because they have such an important role in the healthcare industry, medical careers require training and education beyond a high school diploma. There are many career training schools that can prepare you for a rewarding healthcare career as a medical assistant, medical coding and billing specialist or medical transcriptionist among others.

You can have a career that improves the quality of someones life. Become a medical assistant or find work in the healthcare industry. You can get started toward a rewarding career today.

Students interested in the healthcare career path need a quality education, and have many interesting fields and programs to choose from.

Those interested in assisting doctors in important situations can choose from positions as clinical medical assistants, nursing assistants, nurses and emergency medical technicians. These programs offer students the opportunity to be where the action is and assist doctors and patients in a more fast-paced atmosphere.

However, fast-paced is not for everybody. For those who want more time and interaction with patients can choose medical careers in respiratory, radiology or physical therapy. These positions allow for a more personal style of healing.

There are many programs and positions open for those who want to be involved in medical career but not necessarily working with the human body.

These people should look into medical careers as psychologists, addiction workers and medical billing/insurance coders. All of these programs allow people to help patients
in alternative ways.

Technorati Tags: job search, employment

If you believe any of the following assumptions, you could be dragging your career job out longer than necessary. Cut your job career time by knowing the truth about the job market and learning how to combat these assumptions.

1. If the last job interview is a snap, the next one would surely be the same.

It is probable that your last job search was when the job market favored job seekers. Even up to 2001, jobseekers lived under a rosy glow of unrealistic optimism.

In the last few years, however, most job seekers have noticed a drastic drop in the market demand for their career skills.

Persons who were once courted by recruiters and headhunters from top firms wonder why they are no longer receiving calls with enticing opportunities.

For many job career seekers, frustration and lack of confidence have replaced optimism.

Develop a strategic action plan that involves a high degree of proactive and systematic effort.

2. Employers and recruiters have all the time in the world to read entire resumes.

This could not be farther from the truth. If the best information is not in the top four to five inches of your resume, nobody will notice them.

Try this out for yourself. Open up your current resume on your computer. Do you see the entire first page?

Most likely when your resume is opened, the reader will see the top four to five inches. You must sell the reader in those first few inches or that person is not going to bother scrolling down to read more. Who has the time to hunt out the good material on a resume?

If your current resume is not making best use of the top four to five inches, consider using a hybrid format that will allow you to place your best assets up on top where they will be noticed immediately.

3. One resume can cater to all kinds of career job opportunity being offered.

Employers turn down perfectly qualified candidates because the focus of the resume is too general. A one-size-fits-all resume gives the impression that the job seeker is uncertain of his job career goal.

The most effective resumes leave no doubt as to the job seekers career objective. If you have more than one career objective, you need more than one resume.

4. No one reads cover letters.

The truth is the quality of your cover letter often will determine whether your resume gets read at all. The worst offense, however, is to send a cover letter that sounds like junk mail.

If you keep in mind the buying motives of your cover letter recipient, you will win their attention more often than not.

3. Skills in interviewing are enough to qualify someone for the job.

That may have been true back when there is less interview competition.

But today, employers have the advantage of choosing from the best talent available, because so much of the best talent is available.

Ask questions to uncover the interviewers hidden buying motives. Ask closing questions to win the job offer.

Once you are free of these false assumptions, you are less likely to fall victim to many of the disappointments, frustrations and anxieties associated with an extended job career search.

Technorati Tags: careers

This collection of expert tips is designed to help college graduates and others who are new in this field.

1. As you are entering into the IT career for the first time, it is best to learn your trade. Become the technical expert in an area of interest and excel.

This does not mean keeping your head down just to study the printed circuit-board layout. Attend trade shows and professional associations. Start interacting with customers, vendors and competitors. You are setting up your reputation and knowledge base for a long term career.

2. You are less vulnerable inside an IT career within a medium-size to large company than with an IT career as an independent consultant.

Move your skills up the value chain. Business analysis and business process skills are not good candidates for off shoring.

Grow your state-of-the-art technical skills. J2EE, .Net, the leading portals and business intelligence/analytics skills are hot. Know what is hot.

3. Register with the three highest-traffic job boards, three college job boards and three IT career job boards. Search their job postings and apply to those that are of interest to you and for which you are best qualified.

4. Build personal capability outside of the IT career. If you studied technology in the classroom, learn about business through an internship or entry-level operations position in financial services, insurance or health care.

5. Seek employment with established government contractors that can help you obtain a security clearance is an option for IT professionals.

A clearance can give you access to work on government programs, which have some of the most advanced computer systems in the world and therefore provide access to leading-edge technology and ensuing opportunities.

6. Your chances of getting that IT career you want begins with the introduction. You need to differentiate yourself from the competition by writing a solid cover letter, resume and follow-up communication.

Whenever possible, highlight samples of your work, including any Web site development or networking projects. This will give your employer insight about your professional work habits and your achievements.

7. Join technical associations, attend job fairs, go on informational interviews, and begin to develop a directory of people who can help you break into an IT career.

8. Look at management. If you haven’t already considered a technical management role, this could be the time to make that move. But don’t wait for an opportunity to find you — seek it out! Warning: You may be a brilliant IT person yet unsuited to management. Make sure it’s right for you.

9. Seek guidance and insight about the IT career from a person you respect and trust. This could be someone you have interned for, a professor or an active alumnus. Be inquisitive.

Ask for real-world examples of how they have accomplished goals and solved problems at work.

10. Don’t wait. Get exposure to a broad range of activities or functions quickly. If currently employed, offer to take on new and different responsibilities.

Get exposure to as many different segments within the function as possible. Learn what you like, what you do not like, your strengths and potential development areas.

These are just some of the valuable tools needed in pursuing that IT career. Find which one will work for you.

Technorati Tags: careers, finding employment

When it comes to your dream career, you are better off spending your time working toward being successful than losing precious moments thinking of ways to find it. Maybe just even waiting for it to happen.

What are the traits of successful people? They have drive and a belief in themselves. They are confident. They seem to have the touch of gold.

Instead of trying to emulate the qualities that made them successful, people sometimes assume that “they must know someone.” or, “they were lucky.” They forget that these people worked hard to get where they are today.

We did not see they struggle to find that dream career. We just saw the result. But we want what they have, quickly.

Dream careers are not just for the lucky. It is for those who want it and are striving hard to get it. There is no mystery or magic in the process. Follow certain steps and you will be successful.

So how do you find your dream career? Follow these steps.

1. Believe that you will succeed.

Self-belief is such a crucial and sometimes overlooked element. You have to believe that success is within your reach.

If you do not believe it, who will? The persons who make their career dreams come true are those who believe in their goals.
How can you become a believer? Sit down with a piece of paper in front of you. Write your ideal career and life. Create a picture you can look at every day. Does it inspire you? Belief comes from within. You just have to dig it out every once in awhile.

2. Get the facts.

Once you are a believer, back up your beliefs with facts. Find out specifically what steps you need to take to make that picture real. This way, you will be comfortable taking action.

Do you need more training? Do you care about money, or are you more interested in a better quality of life? Write down your questions and get your answers. Then you will be ready to act.

3. Commit to your success.

Successful people say “I will”. There is something powerful about making a commitment. First of all, the decision to be successful is made, and the back and forth is done.

Second, you have focus and direction that transforms your outlook and gives you purpose. As human beings we do not always like to make commitments. We feel that we need to keep ourselves open to all opportunities because we are afraid that we may walk away from something better.

Commitment gives you something greater; a reason to get out of bed every day and look for ways to find your dream career.

4. Put a plan in place.

Once you are committed, map out how you will succeed. Use the facts you gathered. Break down your success plan into smaller pieces. Put these smaller pieces into your calendar. Make to-do lists.

Manage your priorities and say yes only to those things that will bring you closer to success. Delegate and eliminate those tasks that take up your time.

Career success comes to those who keep moving. Take small steps every day. These small steps now lead you to finding that dream career in the future.

Technorati Tags: job search, employment

You do not have to leave your profession to change the world. Instead, try the transition to the nonprofit sector.

Any shift to the nonprofit career world means sacrifices, starting with a smaller salary. If you are one of those flexible type, you could adjust easily to the changes that will occur.

Salaries for accountants are 10 to 20 percent lower at nonprofits than at for-profits. The starting salaries are not significantly different, but as you go up to senior accounting levels, the disparities are greater.

The largest and best-known nonprofits are most likely to pay a market rate. While salaries are rarely more than $100,000 at nonprofits, salaries of $60,000 to $80,000 are not unusual for positions where an MBA or CPA is a major plus but not required. The lowest salaries Lieb has seen were in the $45,000 range for accounting professionals with several years of experience.

Why is your motivation for doing it?

Money doesn’t motivate some folks. Maybe your family does not need your salary, or you want to give back to an organization that helped a family member.

Whatever your reason, be ready to explain why you are willing to work for less money. If the pay is going to be considerably less, what draws you to that? You have got to think it through.

Making the Cut

Nonprofits are always looking for experienced finance career professionals. They lose a lot of talent to for-profit positions because of salaries. If you have great skills and experience and you want to take a nonprofit position, you definitely have possibilities.

Good candidates have a public-sector background or experience in a service-oriented niche such as law.

What You Get

In exchange for a lower salary, the nonprofit sector often offers very nice benefits. There will be a $10,000 salary cut, but employees can wear shorts and T-shirts on most summer days. He dons a suit and tie for VIP meetings.

The benefits at nonprofits are excellent. They often include retirement plans, family medical and dental coverage and three weeks’ vacation.
Most of all, there is the benefit of knowing you are helping to make the world a better place. Knowing this fact like giving yourself a silent pat in the back.

Maybe in the past, you would come home to the acknowledge that no matter how tired you are and what you have accomplished, your work served only the stockholders of the company.

With nonprofits, you are rejuvenating and rehabbing houses. And doing programs that support quality-of-life improvements for people you can see right outside your window.

Just think. In a sense, you are starting your finance career again from square one. Obtaining a part-time job or volunteering in your new career field not only can solidify your decision, but give you the much needed experience.

Unfortunately, only the very progressive employers recognize that once happy employees can be happy and productive again, but in a different capacity.

Once you have discovered the purpose behind what you are doing, you will realize all the money is not enough to keep you satisfied. Practicing your finance career in a nonprofit industry is one experience you would not want to miss.

Technorati Tags: finding a job, resumes, employment opportunities, interviews

What are the available career training courses available that one can enroll into nowadays?

1. Four-year college course.

Usually you should begin doing this by high school so that you can begin to prepare and train yourself for your chosen career training later on. You would probably do this so that you can go on to a 4-year college and major in your career choice so that you can get a degree as part of your career training.

Of course, that is the ideal. And ideals are not always possible. If you decide to go to a college or university as part of your career education, you have to first see if you can handle the requirements that will go along with your college major.

If you cannot handle the requirements, you might not get your degree and the years spent trying would be wasted. The time and money is worth it all in the end because you will receive a nationally recognized and accredited degree in the major of your choice.

2. Trade school.

If a four-year college degree is not possible for you as a means of getting your career training, you might want to consider a trade school instead.

You can get your degree in as little as 6 months to 2 years in many trade schools. The tuition is much cheaper and the courses are more condensed. They do not always include all of the extra courses that a college would put you through.

Some trade schools can offer you courses in engineering, heating and cooling, nursing and medical work, computer programming and much more. It is not a bad idea if time and money are a big concern. These types of degrees are not as accredited or recognized as college degrees, but they are also recognized by the state.

3. Online schools.

Some people will choose to go about their career training by enrolling in online schools. These types of career training courses are completed at home. Exams are often done online or on campus.
If you are given your exams online, it is likely not going to be valid. Some colleges offer online degree programs as an aide to the disabled or single parents for their convenience.

The courses are just as valid but they will require you on campus for the exams. These courses are often nationally accredited as well.

4. Correspondence courses.

The final choice for your career training is to go through correspondence courses that send you study materials through the mail. The exams are often open book and at home.

The degrees offered are generally ignored by the work force unless they are not particularly picky about whom they hire or what the education level is. All that you have in order to achieve a correspondence course is an address to send it to.

This is the cheapest method of all of these career education methods, but it is also the least valued method as well.

If you are hoping to get the best type of career training that will lead to employment, you should go through the four-year college training or at least the trade school to give yourself a good chance.

Technorati Tags: job search, employment

To begin with, some people hate all tests. End of story. Forcing a career tests on your best friend could lead to your premature demise.

Other people like tests, but hate particular kinds of questions.
For example, some people dislike “forced-choice questions,” where they must pick between two choices that are equally bad, in their view.

Other people dislike “ranking yourself against others” questions, because, with their low self-esteem, they rank themselves poorly in comparison with “others” in almost everything.

Other people do not like “pick occupations you like” questions, because they’ve learned by experience that all occupations, as commonly practiced, are a mixture of good and bad, and they keep thinking of the bad stuff, when each occupation is mentioned.

Other people do not like questions about how they would behave in certain situations, because they tend to pick how they wish they would behave, rather than how in fact they actually do.

The career test has to feel right to the individual who is taking it.

2. There is no career test that gives better results than others.

You may take a test that gives wonderful suggestions for future careers, but when your best friend takes the same test, their results may be way off the mark. How did that happen?

Tests have personality. With respect to a given test, one person will love its look, feel, taste, and touch, while another person will hate it on sight. Unfortunately, how one feels about a test will definitely twist your results.

3. No career test should be assumed to be accurate.

We turn to tests with the hope that someone can definitely tell you who you are and what you should do. A definite no no.

Test results are sometimes way off the mark. On many online tests, if you answer even two questions inaccurately, you will get completely wrong results and recommendations.

There are countless sad stories about people whose lives were sent down a completely wrong path by test ‘results’ that they believed when they should not have. You should take all test results with not just a grain of salt, but with a barrel.

Tests have one great mission and purpose: To give you ideas you have not thought of and suggestions worth following up. But if you ask them to do more than that, you are dreaming.

4. Take several career tests, rather than just one.

You will get a much better picture of your preferences, profile, and good career suggestions from three or more tests, rather than just one.

5. Always let your intuition be your guide.

You know more about yourself than any career test does. Treat no test outcome as ‘gospel’. Reject the summary the test gives you, if it just seems dead wrong to you.

Trust your intuition. On the other hand, if you really like the suggestions the career test gave you, do not agonize about whether those suggestions are worth tracking down. Just do it and listen to your heart.

Career tests are fun, but reading the results is not enough. You are not done until you have thought hard about what distinguishes you from every other member of the human race.

Nothing wrong with taking all the career tests you can handle until you finally realize that you are a unique individual.

Technorati Tags: finding a job, resumes, employment opportunities, interviews

The competition for available jobs is fierce. Yet, you can beat the competition and actually search and get hired in the career you really want.

Consider these secrets

1. Discover what you really want out of your work and life.

Discover your true passions, desires, beliefs, and talents so that you can paint a picture of your true work and life goals from your own perspective.

2. Develop and define the job you really want. Design and define the career that will allow you to fulfill your passions, desires, beliefs and maximize your talents.

What you are doing is building your ideal job around what you want as opposed to looking at job opportunities that come along to evaluate. Believe it or not, the career you are searching for actually exists in more than one way and within the personal parameters you set.

3. Find out what companies have positions that meet your ideal position requirements. Look and research all of the possible companies within the geographical area you designated to discover what positions within these companies you would want. Do not worry about whether they have job vacancies or are currently in a hiring mode.

4. Evaluate the companies that have your desired careers. Make sure you would want to work for the companies that have your ideal jobs. They need to have integrity and treat their employees and customers in the manner you would want to be treated.

Determine whether they operate in an industry that you want to work in.

Research about the career you selected. Do not be put off or discouraged if the companies are not hiring. Why? Because companies are always looking for the right employees and will have to eventually hire new employees to survive.

Determine who actually makes hiring decisions, and what is important to them. Many companies disguise this information through HR departments or hiring committees. If possible, try to find out how you can contact hiring decision-makers directly. Get their e-mail addresses, direct telephone numbers, or find someone in the company who can do that for you.

5. Contact the decision-makers and tell them you want to work for them in the specific career you are searching for. Express your enthusiasm for that specific job or jobs. The fewer jobs you designate the better.

You want them to know you can be trusted by truthfully exposing your commitment to seeking your dream job, even though they may not have an opening.

Let them know that you will be very productive because you will excel at the job. That you will be a very grateful and energetic employee because you are doing what you love. You are not just asking for a job so they will pay you, but you have targeted a specific job at that company, and you are committed to contributing in that position.

Employers constantly face the problem of finding and surrounding themselves with the right employees who want to work for them, whom they can trust, and who will be very productive with the least amount of supervision.

You are not the only one searching for the perfect career to come. There are many others who are still on the process of a career search.

Technorati Tags: finding a job, resumes, employment opportunities, interviews

Instead, career planning is an activity that is best done on a regular basis. You may already know that the average worker will change careers many times over his or her lifetime.

That is why, it is never too soon or too late to start your own career planning.

Career planning is not a tedious activity, not something to be dreaded or put off. It should be an activity that should be liberating and fulfilling. There should be goals to achieve in your current career or plans for beginning a transition to a new career.

As a whole, career planning should be a rewarding and positive experience.

Here, then, are some tips to help you achieve successful career planning.

1. Make career planning an annual event.

Many of us have myriad of other things on an annual basis, so why not career planning?

Find a day or weekend once a year and schedule a retreat for yourself. Try to block out all distractions so that you have the time to truly focus on your career — what you really want out of your career, out of your life.

By making career planning an annual event, you will feel more secure in your career choice and direction. You will be better prepared for the many uncertainties and difficulties that lie ahead in all of our jobs and career.

2. Map your path since last career planning

One of your first activities whenever you take on career planning is spending time mapping out your job and career path since the last time you did any sort of career planning.

While you should not dwell on your past, taking the time to review and reflect on the path will help you plan for the future.

Once you have mapped your past, take the time to reflect on your course. Note why it looks the way it does.

Are you happy with your path? Could you have done things better? What might you have done differently? What can you do differently in the future?

3. Reflect on your likes and dislikes, needs and wants

Change is one factor of life. Everybody changes, as do our likes and dislikes. Something we loved doing two years ago may now give us displeasure. So always take time to reflect on the things in your life that you feel most strongly about.

Make a two-column list of your major likes and dislikes. Then use this list to examine your current job and career path. If your job and career still fall mostly in the like column, then you know you are still on the right path; however, if your job activities fall mostly in the dislike column, now is the time to begin examining new jobs and new careers.

Finally, take the time to really think about what it is you want or need from your work, from your career.

Are you looking to make a difference in the world? To be famous? To become financially independent? To effect change? Take the time to understand the motives that drive your sense of success and happiness.

After all this has been done, you will see that the time given on your career planning is a time well spent.

Technorati Tags: careers

1. Look for upgrades.

Upgrades are roles that act as stepping stones towards your dream opportunity. They move you forward. Maybe not all the way but at least to a place that adds something to your career and resume. Think of them as steps on the ladder to success.

2. Keep up your eagerness.

If the right career opportunity comes up, you need to be ready. That means building your resume and polishing your track record to make you the obvious choice.

It also means being on top form, whenever chance hands you the golden ticket. You cannot fake enthusiasm. If your motivation sags, you would not have the “get up and go” again.

You need to keep building yourself into the kind of person who gets that dream job. Read. Train yourself. Focus on the positives. Do whatever it takes to keep your enthusiasm for life on the boil. No one likes depressives.

3. Focus.

The trouble with dreams is that they are fuzzy. That is just fine for day-dreaming, but it would not work to get results in the real world. You need to know exactly what you want and in detail, if you are going to see how to get to it.

A lot of so-called career opportunities are simply fantasies and hallucinations. Even the dreamers do not really believe they will ever turn them into reality.

So if your dream job is not a practical and hard-nosed possibility, set it aside and try a few others on for size. Do not fixate on a single dream until you have proved that it is possible in the real world.

4. Look for career opportunities that others have missed.

Life is uncertain. It is unfair most of the time. It can also downright cruel.

It is easy to get depressed and lose heart. Other people seem to be on the fast track into the future, while you are still stuck in a dead-end role with a boss who blocks you from going anywhere.

But there are hidden career opportunities in almost every situation. If the fast track looks inviting, remember that obvious opportunities attract the most competition.

Find a less obvious path where there is no one competing with you.

5. Keep an open mind.

It is easy to buy all the hype that proclaims certain kinds of jobs as the only ones that anyone sees as desirable. But that is simply fashion.

You are looking for your dream job, not whatever the media have decided to push this week.

Focus on what is best for you. And if that is unfashionable or not in vogue today, all the better. Less competition makes landing this job all the more easier.

6. Find a mentor.

This is probably the single most effective action you can take to land that career opportunity. If you can find someone who knows the ropes who will take you under his or her wing, you have suddenly improved your prospects.

A mentor can smooth the way for you, help you avoid the pitfalls and show you how to show yourself to the best advantage. All without exposing you to the kinds of career opportunity risks you might have to face on your own.

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After making a few phone calls you try to get into a positive frame of mind. You head out the door, a folder of resumes in one hand and a list of addresses at the next. You will drop off a few resumes and have plans for an interview this afternoon.

Maybe something different will happen today

Have you been looking for work for too long now? Have you heard of acquaintances laid off from long-term employment only to find four or five months later that they are still unable to find a job?

If you think the only way to find a job is to have connections, you may be partly right.

With such a demand for employment, many jobs never make it to the paper. How can you compete?
Try networking.

Tell friends, family and acquaintances of your career link search. These people can give you the opportunity to get into their businesses when positions come available.

They may also hear of someone who is hiring and keep you updated on opportunities you may not otherwise have heard about. Their personal referral can also make an impression on the employer in your behalf.

Career job links that are not posted.

You do not have to wait for a job to be listed in the paper, or even posted on the company board, to apply for work at a company.

Go through the phone book and make a list of companies you would like to work for. Call and ask if there are any positions available. Ask for the name of the human resources manager or the individual in charge of hiring for the area you are applying to.

Send a resume and direct it to the person in charge of hiring. Write a cover letter that expresses your interest in the company and why you’d like to work for them. Follow up several days later and ask for the individual. Tell them you’re checking to see that they received your resume and ask if there are any positions that may become available.

If they are not hiring suggest, check back at another time. Often positions are made available unexpectedly and by keeping in contact, you may be the first person that comes to mind.

Choosing a career link great start, but there is a lot more to do after that. A career action plan is a road map that takes you from choosing an occupation to becoming employed in that occupation to reaching your long-term career goals.

While first hand experience is great, there are other ways to explore an occupation. You can read about it either in print resources or online. You can also interview those working in that field.

This is not a secret. If you are not taking advantage, someone else will. You cannot afford to miss out on making yourself known to employers before the job posting is made public.

Accessing this hidden job market for your career link may open up opportunities you never thought possible.

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One of the first things you need to decide is what type of job interests you the most. Depending on what your degree is, there might be many positions in your field to consider.

For example, if you are a graduate of nursing, you can work in a hospital, clinic, nursing home, childcare center, school, private practice, or field setting.

Within those settings you can work within various units such as medical-surgical, pediatrics, and maternity. Then there are transitional opportunities.

Let us say you tried your hand at nursing and realized it was not what you expected. You can always consider pharmaceutical sales as a new career. Some fields, such as business management, are even more flexible.

The key is to decide which direction you are headed towards and learn as much about that field as you possible can.

A good way to start is to conduct some independent career information research.

But how do you decide?

You can go to the websites of various companies. Get involved in conversations. Ask lots of questions. Get advice from friends, family members, and neighbors. Ask them what they do and how they got started.

If you are not sure if a particular area of your industry is right for you, call or write professionals already in positions of interest to request an information interview. A career information interview will allow you the opportunity to question some professional about the nature and requirements of a position.

Once you have narrowed it down, have your rsum developed professionally and post it on major job boards to see what contacts can be made.

Join an organization to become acquainted with people in your industry, attend career fairs, become affiliated with recruiters, and research companies online, at the library, and even in the yellow pages to get leads to mail your rsum and cover letter.

Another great way to get started is to temp for a while. If you do decide to temp, be selective. You should only work for the best companies in your field to get the very best experience possible.

It is also a great way to prove yourself as a favorable candidate for a permanent position. Do not temp for too long because it might cause a potential employer to wonder why you have not secured a permanent position for a certain length of time.

If during an interview you are asked why you temped, confidently state that you chose to temp to gain well-rounded experience in your field. Do not apologize for anything.

Keep organized notes and track every move you make. Prepare a list of names, company names, addresses, telephone numbers, fax numbers, email addresses, and website addresses.

Keep the list near the phone of every company you sent your rsum and cover letter. That way you will know whom you are speaking with when they call to extend an initial or follow up interview.

This is especially important if you are going on several interviews. If you are not organized, you will get confused and seem unprofessional.

Once you have gotten the business information needed, you will be on your way to launching your career. Let your confidence shine through.

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While these career finder skills are important at any time, they are even more significant in a tight job market.

The good news is you can learn these skills. It is based on the premise that human beings must go through a personal learning or discovery process to create the future they want.

There are four distinct steps in this process of career discovery:

Projecting a vision.

It is often best to start this process with a description of the future you want to create. Something you can picture, like a movie projected on a screen.

It should be very meaningful to you and become a source of energy and commitment. Even if we are not sure what we really want, making our best guess enables us to begin exploring it more.

Refining that vision over time is how we create the future we really want. Without a stake in the ground, you will never get closer to your vision.

Taking action.

Executing a plan is how we move closer to turning our vision into reality. Executing a plan is all about taking specific, concrete steps toward your vision. Good plans are realistic, specific and always focused on moving forward. Since visions are usually longer term and can seem almost too big to achieve, executing a plan enables you to break a long journey into shorter trips.

Experiencing Results

Evaluating results is how you get feedback from the world around you, so you know how close you are to achieving our vision. It is the feeling actors get when the audience applauds or the critics pan their performance.

Evaluating results is sifting through this sea of sensory input to find evidence that your actions are working. Being as objective as possible is important since even bad news can offer tremendous learning and insight.

Reflecting on Lessons

Reflecting on lessons is sometimes the most difficult and essential part of the cycle. It can turn bad news into great insights; about the world and about yourself.

The truth is, as long as you are willing to learn, you can create the future you want. The more clearly you see yourself and the world around you, the sooner you will realize your vision. In fact, the lessons you learn will help you clarify your vision and make it stronger.

You may already do these things to some extent, but most of us are hardwired on one side or another. Ideally, everything should be balanced. Like the tires on your car, the more balanced and fully inflated your cycle, the smoother the ride and the more likely you will get to find the career path where you really want to go.

Keep in mind that people generally take you at your own estimation. If you present yourself as humble, ordinary and nothing special, that is exactly how they will see you.

If you take care to come across as confident, able and do not need any hyped career finder to dictate where the road is heading, then you are one of the few good kinds of person to know, they’ll believe that’s exactly what you are.

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What about the rest of your life? Are you working so much that you do not have a life anymore?

Giving the same energy to both your work and personal life is a tough balancing act. You can achieve balance if you know which questions to ask and where to go for answers but you need a plan.

To be able to cruise smoothly in your career and personal life, you have to:

Adjust your perspective. Remember that is just a job. Achieving success in your career enables you to live your life to the fullest, not the other way around.

Doing a good job at work while creating a valuable life outside work is worth the effort.

Here are some tips for balancing the career and life scales:

1. Set Priorities

Ask yourself some tough questions: What is most important to me; family, friends, work, or myself? What am I good at? Am I career cruising in the right direction? Is my job helping me reach my goals in life?

If you discover that your priorities are out of focus, then it is time to bring them back into alignment. Take an inventory of your life.

2. Test yourself

Does your personality match your job? If you thrive on stress, then a high-pressure job is just right for you.

What if the demands of your job are at odds with your personality? If you are in the middle of a job search right now, remember to look beyond the job title.

Find out how the job is really done; the work environment, the hours, the stress level, before making any move. If the job involves travel, ask yourself how that would fit into your lifestyle.

3. Think creatively

After many years of staying with the same company, majority of workers are realizing that work was taking over their entire life.
There began a job search outside the company only to find lower pay, fewer benefits, and even more demanding jobs. These employees know that leaving the company would not be worth it.
But what if they are unhappy with their job?

An idea worth taking is try to search for careers online. Any job that looks interesting deserves a second glance. Then try to put those ideas together with your own skills and experience to create new job possibilities.

4. Survey your career personality

What if you know what kind of job you want but cannot find anyone to pay you for it? Maybe you should think about consulting.

5. Hire a coach.

If you are more than willing to pay for it, a career coach offers personalized help. The coach will guide and lead you in the right career direction.

Some of the tips discussed above will probably appear to be too daunting for you. That is expected. Try to get the help of another person to discuss all of the above steps and to map out the best strategy to get your ideal job.

This person should be a trusted and strong supporter of your goal, as well as someone who will offer you another perspective to assist in the execution of your plan. Nothing like someone who will always be there as you go about career cruising.

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While you may be hoping to get some direction in choosing a career or the next step on your path, you need to start thinking ahead about the things you want out of your life, and also the things you do not from it.

Those are big questions that you want answered in your career counseling session. Do not be surprised by the counselor telling you that they cannot answer those questions for you. In fact, they really cannot.

Their job is to help you identify your own interests, skills, strengths, and weaknesses, so that you can make good choices for yourself. To prepare to get this help, try preparing for your session like this:

Grab a piece of paper. Make a list of your strengths. These do not have to be professional or academic strengths, but things that you consider to be the best parts of yourself, from which you can draw skills to transfer into a workplace setting.

This will tell your counselor that you have untapped project management skills.

Next, make a list of things you would like to improve about yourself. These are not items that you would necessarily mention in a job interview. The true issues that you would want to work on before you bring them into the workplace.

This statement may tell your counselor that you need to strengthen your communications skills.

After this, do some brainstorming. For about ten minutes, write down questions you would want to ask an employer, about what their expectations are for their employees, and write down what your expectations are for your employer and your career.

Again, forget about job interview protocol. Just write down your candid thoughts.

Finally, open your mind. Your counselor is going to look at your history, and listen to what you say to help them decide how to guide you.

They may ask you to participate in exercises that you do not expect. Or to answer questions that reflect you in a negative light. Do not be offended. You need to be able to work on your weak areas in order to become stronger.

Some exercises you may be asked to do in a career counseling session are:

Assessment testing.

You may take tests that ask how you would respond to or perform in certain work settings, or with certain people. These tests also ask about your interests that may seem unrelated to work, but help to build a complete profile of your personality.

Mock interview.

You will sit with a staff member to answer typical interview questions. This will assess your interview skills, and also highlight areas of concern for you that you may not even know about.

Information session.

You could be sent to meet with employers to ask about their company, typical workdays, and expectations. You can make impressions without pressure, and possibly find a mentor.

By taking the process seriously and responding with energy to these activities, you can become more confident, and able to get what you expected. You will be able to get more out of your career counseling.

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Remember that career change is a natural life progression. Most studies show that the average job seeker will change careers several times over the course of his or her lifetime.

Use this 6-step plan. This will ensure that you will be on the right footing and on a path toward career change success.

1. Assessment of Likes and Dislikes.

A lot of people change careers because they dislike their job, their boss, their company and so forth. Identifying the dislikes is often the easier part of this step.

You will not know what direction to change your career unless you examine your likes. What do you really like doing when you are working, when you are at home and in your spare time? What excites you and energizes you? What is your passion?

If you are still unsure, consider taking one of more of those career assessments. The key is spending some time rediscovering yourself and using your self-assessment to direct your new career search.

2. Researching new careers.

Once you have discovered your passion, spend some time researching the types of careers that center on your passions. Do not worry if you are feeling a bit unsure or insecure; it is a natural part of the career change process.

How much research you do also partly depends on how much of a change you want.

3. Transferable skills.

Leverage some of your current skills and experiences to your new career. There are many skills that are transferable and applicable to what you want to do in your new career. You may be surprised to see that you already have a solid amount of experience needed for your new career.

4. Training and education.

You may find it necessary to update your skills and broaden your knowledge. Take it slowly.

If the skill you need to learn is one you could use in your current job, see if your current employer would be willing to pick up the tab. Take a course or two to ensure you really like the subject matter.

If you are going for a new degree or certification, make sure you check the accreditation of the school. Get some information about placement successes.

5. Networking.

One of the real keys to successfully changing careers will be your networking ability. People in your network may be able to give you job leads, offer you advice and information about a particular company or industry and introduce you to others so that you can expand your network.

Even if you do not think you already have a network, you probably do. Consider colleagues, friends, and family members.

You can also broaden your network through joining professional organizations in your new field and contacting alumni from your college who are working in the field you want to enter. A key tool of networking is conducting informational interviews.

6. Be Flexible. You will need to be flexible about nearly everything, from your employment status to relocation and salary.

Set positive goals for yourself, but expect setbacks and change. Do not let these things get you down. Besides totally new careers, you might also consider a lateral move that could serve as a springboard for a bigger career change.

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Some go to college or get job training and that helps point us in a direction, though that may not be the career center they really want to go.

Sometimes, career counseling is needed more by those people who already have degrees and have just recently entered the workforce or may have been working for a few years. What do they need one? None of them liked their jobs.

Used to be that parents and school counselors thought more of the money-making potential of a job than whether it was something kids wanted to do for a living.

For example, there were home videos showing the natural talent some of these kids had, which lead their parents to enroll them in clubs and schools with aspirations of making a future Olympic team. The net result? The kids did not want to do this. They were miserable. And this was after a lot of time and money was invested.

How do you know if what you are focusing now is your career center?

There are a number of skills inventory instruments that can help sort out issues that are not easily articulated. There are things called psychological profiles or tests that can help in assessing one’s likes and dislikes about work.

Part of the career center test is to answer questions. The answer that the individual will give is enough to determine what he is interested the most.

Do you like to work with numbers?

A shy person may not want to go into marketing, even if it paid well. Someone strong with numbers may consider accounting or statistics. In addition to strengths and weaknesses, the results also point to careers that best utilize the profile of the individual.

Then, it is up to the individual to investigate these career centers to see if, in fact, they would like to pursue them further.

The main thing to consider in any of these tests is the mental state of the person taking the tests. That is, it is best to be neutral or in fairly good spirits.

A bad day or anything that affects attitude in a negative way could easily influence the individual to answer questions incorrectly and the results will then be inaccurate.

As a rule, it is good to take these tests every five years or so to see if your feelings are still the same. What you want now may not be the same thing you want a year from now.

We all change based on new experiences or new knowledge, and this could affect where one wants to go from that point on.
Do not stick with something you liked in the beginning but now feel some uncertainty. Psychologists say the average person will change career centers five times or more in their lifetime. The days of doing the same job for 40 years are gone.

You and you alone are the only captain of your professional career life. Sometimes the journey will be easy coasting, while other times it will be an uphill bumpy trek.

Either way, it is up to you to shift your professional life in gear and create the career center of your dreams.

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Read on and see if any of these behaviors are impacting your career in a negative way.

Today, everyone is looking for the secret to career builder success. Professionals read books, take training classes, ask questions, study others that are successful and strive to outperform themselves.

However, some behavior patterns can develop into bad habits and cause even the most seasoned and professional person to self-destruct.

Let us take a look at some common behaviors that can stop your career on its track. As you read these 9 behaviors you may recognize some areas you will want to change to keep your career and your career builder on course.

The following are some career builders and their opposite career breakers:

Career builder: Confidence.
Career breaker: Over Confidence:
While you need a healthy dose of self-confidence to carry you through those tough times you also need to keep your confidence and ego in balance.

Keeping your ego in check will prevent you from thinking you are more important than those around you and missing out on their good ideas and solutions.

Career builder: Time well spent.
Career breaker: Time abuse.
You only have 24 hours a day. Use each one of them wisely. Guard against intruders such as non-important phone calls, emails and messages that do not specifically relate to your job. Also make sure you save some time for personal development and pleasures.

Career builder: Good communication skills.
Career breaker: Failing to communicate.
The most effective professionals spend 80% of their time listening and only 20% of their time talking. They then spend 80% of their talking time asking questions. How does your communication ratio stack up to this standard?

Career builder: Long term concepts.
Career breaker: Short-Sightedness.
Approach your problems and decisions with a long-term view in mind. Ask how what you do today will affect the organization 2 years, 5 years and 10 years from now. While this does not mean every decision you make will have that kind of impact far in the future, however it is a good way to verify your thinking.

Career builder: A stable and organized record.
Career breaker: Not keeping good records.
Are you using a good contact management tool? If not consider starting today. A contact management tool will keep important information about peers, customers, and clients in one easy to access place.

Career builder: Continuous growth and development.
Career breaker: Stunted growth; a quitter.
Become a better person and reach higher levels of success by continuing to feed your mind.

Career builder: Keeping a fair share of the workload.
Career breaker: Not delegating some of your workload.
Today almost everyone is doing the job that just a few years ago were done by as many as two people or more. If you do not delegate a portion of your work to others that are capable of doing the job, you can become overloaded and perhaps all of your other work will suffer.

Take a look at your current workload and see what you can pass on to someone else. Do not forget to give credit to the person you delegated the job to.

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It is indeed a great idea. Be careful, though. Used wisely, career assessments can help you get a better sense of the types of jobs and activities that might be a good fit for you.

However, people who take career assessment tests misunderstand them, misuse them or mistake them for being more than they really are.

Career assessments are not tests at all.

The word “test” implies right or wrong answers. Most career assessments do not have right and wrong answers. Whatever career assessments you choose to pursue, know that your goal is not to be right but to be accurate and true to yourself.

Career assessments do not tell, they suggest.

No matter which career test you take, its purpose is not to tell you a specific career to pursue. No tool is that powerful.

All a career assessment can do is suggest ideas about careers you might want to explore in more depth.

Think about it this way: If any career test
could accurately tell you which occupation to go into, why isnt everyone be taking it?
Garbage in equals garbage out.

A career test’s results will only be as good as the information you put in through your responses. So be honest.

Respond in terms of the way you actually are, not the way you hope to be or wish you could be. And make sure the responses are yours, not those of someone else in your life.

Consider your results with a very open mind.

Some career assessments offer a list of potential careers that might be a good match for you in their results. Do not make these tragic mistakes. Thoroughly explore all the occupational suggestions that show up in your test results, not just the ones you are familiar with.

Beware of junk.

There are many career “tests” available online. Some of these tools are quite reliable and valid, but many are not.

Explore career assessments with a dose of skepticism and be a smart consumer. Has the test you are about to take, and perhaps pay good money for, been well-researched so it accurately measures what it claims to measure?

Do not get test-happy.

You can easily convince yourself that you are doing something about your career concerns by completing a whole bunch of career assessments.

But it is easy to fall into the trap of doing so much testing that you are not taking any other constructive action on your career: The paralysis-by-analysis quandary.

Go easy on the number of tests you complete; there are lots of other things you can and should also be doing to explore your career options, like informational interviews or reading books about a field of potential interest.

Career assessments have helped many thousands of people get a better sense of where they might fit in the world of work.

But thousands of other people who have taken these same tests would have been much better off not using them at all. It will all depend on the person taking them.

It is better to be confident. Confident both in the career assessment tests you take and in how you interpret and use the results.

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They want the freedom to design the career of their dreams and the self-reliance to trust that they have made the right decision.

Think back for a moment to your first bicycle experience. Who taught you how to ride? What lessons did you learn? Are you the same now as you were when you were a little girl or boy?

When we look back at the many ways our bicycle experiences have impacted our lives, we gain a better understanding of how to recapture those childhood feelings of independence, adventure, and joy.

We learn how to maneuver though our business career journey. We are able to enjoy this ride we call life. The following suggestions will help you regain your sense of balance so you can grow to reach your true business career objectives.

Safely navigate work’s obstacles and challenges.

In order to excel professionally, you need the ability to learn from any past mistakes rather than dwell on them. While learning lessons only through positive experiences would be terrific, life is not like that for a good reason.

Our negative experiences teach us how to use failure as a learning tool. In fact, we would not be who we are if we did not have both the unique good and bad lessons that taught us what we needed to know.

The truth is that the only wrong mistake is one we do not learn from. Another key to mastering the ride of life is to understand that when things go wrong, we have a choice.

We can be our own worst enemy or we can be our own best friends. We can criticize ourselves and curse our own bad luck, or we can coach ourselves, extract value from what we learned, and focus on how we can handle that situation better in the future.
The next time something devastating happens to you, whether it is a layoff or a failed project, remember that there are lessons to be learned.

Take the direct route.

Many people are so confused at work that they do not know what is expected of them anymore. They cannot get honest feedback from colleagues or managers, and they question whether or not their work is up to company standards.

It is during these times that people need to use straight talk to build rapport with others and solve issues.

Straight talk means being able to communicate openly and honestly without alienation or hurt feelings. When you use straight talk, you are being direct and truthful, and this makes you feel self-confident and enables you to gain the respect and mutual feedback you deserve.

Encourage straight talk in your office by thinking about what you really want to say, writing it down, and practicing it. The more you use it, the more comfortable you will feel and the more your colleagues will follow your lead.

In order to continually improve and grow your business career, being direct and opening the lines of communication will be a step in the right direction.

Business career success has nothing to do with your financial success or your position title. It is about the sense of accomplishment you feel at the end of your day and the enthusiasm you have about your work.

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A sales resume must focus on results, clarifying dramatically how you helped your former employer increase profit. The first thing you need to do on your sales resume is to write a profile that shows your sales skills and what value these skills would have for this employer. Make sure that you include on this sales resume the primary reasons why you should be invited to an interview.

Point out your specific expertise and your knowledge of the employer’s industry. Here in the sales resume you portray someone with ambition, determination, enthusiasm and high energy. These, after all, are the key ingredients of a successful sales person.

In the part of your sales resume where you talk about your work experience you have to document sales successes. As you list each former employer and the position you held there you briefly list your responsibilities such as supervision, budgeting, outside sales territory and so forth. Also include a list, perhaps bulleted, of quantified sales achievements. Explain the process you used to succeed and how you overcame the obstacles. Be factual about the success - saved $1million dollars for the firm, brought in 120 new customers.

Before you start to write your sales resume focus on the following questions and note your answers. These are the things you should be including in your sales resume.

How did your former employers benefits from your sales acumen?

How did your sales performance compare with your work peers?

How much, specifically, did you sell (revenue figure or percentage of total sales or increase year over year)

How well did you perform in comparison with your quota or goals?

Did you win any awards or bonuses for your sales efforts?

What specific accounts can you note as successes - either as new customers you brought into the firm or current customers you were able to save or upsell?

Were you instrumental in any new ideas, products or sales procedures?

Were you involved in product development or a new product launch?

Were there any obstacles to sales success that you were able to overcome - perhaps a difficult territory or major customer that had been firmly entrenched with a competitor?

Did you help others in their sales success through training or coaching?

Was your customer service or attention to follow through of current customers gain you any testimonials, sales increases or referrals?

Have you published any sales material or made any presentations at conferences or seminars?

Have you served on any sales or industry related boards or held any industry-related positions?

One thing that is important to keep in mind as you include your past achievements in your sales resume that you not divulge anything confidential, or anything a potential employer might have reason to believe could be confidential. If there is any question about that you should have referral notes or backup information. As part of your sales resume you could say, for example, that the details are found in last quarter’s financial report, or attach a copy of your published acclaim for the documented achievement.

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Your resume writing should be succinct, clear and easy to read. No resume writing that is overly flowery, with hyperbole and superlatives that exaggerate your qualifications. Your resume writing should include lots of organization - bullets, lists and italics that make important points stand out, and plenty of white space.

Make sure that when you do your resume writing you catch all the grammatical and punctuation errors and all the typographical mistakes as well. There is nothing that will get your resume thrown on the junk pile faster than a grammar mistake or a misspelled word. No matter what experience you list or what qualifications you clarify you probably won’t get the interview if your resume writing indicates you are sloppy or a poor communicator.

Your resume writing should be focused and powerful. If you don’t want to state an objective (which, by the way, if stated, should be very specific) you should at least clarify a job title or industry somewhere up front. Your name and contact information might be immediately followed by “nursing professional,” centered on a line by itself, for example.

While your resume writing should certainly be honest and factual you also want to stand out and put your best job search foot forward with the use of powerful words. Starting each sentence with a powerful word is one good way of making yourself unique. Some powerful words are “accomplished,” “launched,” “managed,” “tackled,” and “coordinated.” See the powerful action in these? This type of resume writing makes you look proactive, strong, focused and determined.

Resume writing is first and foremost about stating your qualifications and experience, of course. Here are some tips on writing this section of your resume.

You should always list the positions you held in reversed chronologically. In other words, list the most recent job first and the job you held first is last on the list when you do your resume writing. Those jobs that you held years ago and probably were more entry level than your later positions don’t need much detail.

Where your resume writing should be more detailed is in the explanation of your most recent jobs and the ones whose responsibilities and achievements have the most relevance to the position for which you are now applying.

There is no hard and fast rule, when resume writing, about whether to begin each job with the job title or the name of the firm. Just decide on which will most impress the potential employer, and then start with that - and make it bold. Once decided, however, your resume writing must be consistent.

You should never start one job with the job title but the next with the name of the firm. If the firm is not well known it might be wise to parenthetically explain what the company does and is. Your dates of work should come last, and be italicized. There is never any reason, if you were employed more than a year, to include the months. All you need to state are the years of employment.

It is perfectly acceptable, when resume writing - and, in fact, is encouraged - to include volunteer work that is relevant.

Technorati Tags: finding a job, resumes, employment opportunities, interviews

The first resume tip is to put your technical skills, training and knowledge at the top of your resume. Make sure it is detailed and organized and that your technical expertise is clear. Keep in mind that prior to finding its way to the prospective employer the resume is going to be read by a gatekeeper, and will likely be electronically perused for the important keywords. The best resume tip to get your resume in front of the employer is to make sure you include relevant keywords, such as industry or job jargon, an all operating systems and programs with which you are proficient.

The second resume tip is to document your qualifications according to their relevance to the position for which you are applying, with the most relevant listed first. Your degree or certification is only listed if relevant to the available position. Don’t worry about reverse chronology. If, for example, you are applying for a system administration position and one of the prior positions you’ve held is as a system administrator that job should be listed first - no matter where it appeared in your work experience chronologically.

The third resume tip is to be factual with your experience, quantifying it where you can. You could, for instance, enumerate the code lines you debugged, the amount of money your budget costs saved, or note the number of computers and servers whose maintenance you were responsible for.

The fourth resume tip is to be active rather than passive in your resume. Begin each sentence with an action, keeping it in the past tense.

The fifth resume tip is to blow your own horn. This is not the time to be shy. Treat your resume as a marketing and sales tool for yourself. Write it as if you are the product and the employer the consumer. Sell yourself. If you have a significant accomplishment that doesn’t seem relevant to the job list it separately, but do list it.

The sixth resume tip is to keep your resume as concise as practical, without minimize the point size to make it hard to read, or eliminating needed white space. If your resume includes fewer than six years of experience you should be able to keep it to one page. Unless you are applying for a senior executive position, however, you shouldn’t exceed three pages. Some of the ways to be concise is to leave out the details of projects of which you were not the key part. Articles and pronouns can be eliminated - you don’t need a, an or the - and you definitely don’t need I.

The seventh resume tip is to eliminate all unimportant, or non-pertinent information, as well as those things that will give away your right to be considered without bias. You should never, for example, include your resume, your marital status, any indication of your health or age, or any associations that would make clear your religious, sexual preference or political affiliation. You don’t need to tell a prospective employer, for example, that references are available, nor do you need to name supervisors at this point.

The final resume tip is to check for errors. Check yourself for grammatical and punctuation errors as well as typographical mistakes. Have someone else proofread your resume whose opinion and ability to catch errors you are confident about. This is probably the most important resume tip of all.

Technorati Tags: careers

Let’s take a look at one resume template that follows a format that works with Microsoft programs and products and is especially helpful for writing your resume in Word.

This resume template includes space for the applicant’s objective, work experience, related accomplishments in work and school, pertinent activities and interests, education and references. Keep in mind, however, that no resume template is perfect, and in fact, most resume templates and resume experts do not advise include references in your resume.

This resume template is really just a table that has been pre-formatted and was created in Word 2000 from Microsoft.

What could help, in using this resume template, is to go to your toolbar, to the Tables in the pull down men and choose Show Gridlines. Here you will be able to see just how the designers went about planning out this resume template. Before you even start to use the resume template to create your resume document you should click on a few various text lines in the resume template. In the upper left hand corner just above the resume template document you can see the exact formatting for each line.

If you should happen to lose the line’s formatting all you need to do is click in this box and you’ll then be able to restore the original formatting for the resume template.

The margins at both the top and bottom of this resume template have been set to one inch, with the margins on the left and right both set to one and one quarter inches. You can adjust these a little if you need to, to keep your resume on one page. In order to change these margins in the resume template you click on File and then Page Setup and then Margin. You can then adjust top, bottom, left or right.

Do not, however, adjust the top a different size than the bottom, or left different than the right. And you should never change any of the margins to less than eight tenths of an inch. To do so would give you a resume template that creates a much too crowded looking resume. Your resume must have eye appeal if the employer is going to read it.

One hint you should keep in mind as you use this resume template is that if you use the enter key at the end of a line the resume template can think you want to go to another section of the resume. What happens then is that you have left more white space than you intended, and then is attractive. What you do to correct this is hold down the shift key and press enter and this will remove one of the lines of white space from your resume template.

Source: http://www.collierschools.com/nhs/lmc/resume.html

Technorati Tags: careers

There are, however, four different styles of resume. The most common resume style is chronological. The others are functional, skills and imaginative. Let’s look briefly at each.

The functional resume style is common as well and is often used by job candidates who’ve held internship positions. The point of the functional resume style is to focus on the work experience you have had that gives you experience and a background for the job you now seek.

With this functional resume style you only include work experience, internships and volunteer activities that are pertinent to the position you now seek. You don’t need to list them in chronological order - and in fact generally won’t.

What’s important is that you first list the job that displays the most relevance and expertise for the job you now seek. If the employer or firm for which you were interned or volunteered for is an impressive noteworthy name then start with company name big and bold. If that is not the case, then start with your job title. Whichever you choose this is the pattern and resume style you should know follow throughout this resume.

The skills resume style may be the ideal resume style for college students and recent graduates whose job experience consists of several short term unrelated jobs but whose tasks at each honed skills related to the job for which they now are applying. The skills resume style may well be the best choice for someone who wants to make a career change.

What a skills resume style focuses on are not the industry tasks that you’ve become acquainted with but the overall skills that you’ve learned, such as project management, customer service, conflict resolution, teamwork and communication, for example. Your listings of job, internship or volunteer experience would not have to follow any chronological order here. You’d start with the job that shows the most advanced level of experience pertinent to the job for which you are applying and then work backward to the least pertinent, excluding any that are not pertinent.

An imaginative resume style is best for someone seeking a position that requires that you demonstrate individuality and creativity. Examples of the jobs for which this resume style would be effective are architecture, graphic arts or creative writing. In an imaginative resume style you could combine your text with graphic art, with creative layout, perhaps even color (though this can get costly for hard copies) and various fonts, borders, background shadings and images.

The use of an imaginative resume style would depend on the firm to which you are applying. Some firms are more traditional and even with an application for a creative position might be too non-traditional. Research the firm well before deciding to proceed with an imaginative resume style.

Technorati Tags: careers, finding employment

The best place to start your search for resume software is online, where you can choose, compare, pay and download in just a few quick minutes. With online resume software choices you can start your comparison shopping and complete your job hunt resume all in the same day.

Resume software comes in many varieties. You might, for instance, choose resume software that offers literally hundreds of resume templates from which you can choose just the right one for your industry, your skills and your specific job search.

With this resume software you simply choose the closest resume template to what you need and insert the job title. The resume software will choose the closest job title out of its more than 13,000 choices and design a resume that inserts the keywords the resume software professionals have determined employers search for most often in the applicable professions and trades.

The resume software walks you through the steps and guides you with questions that literally lets you see it grow in front of your eyes. With the help of this professional resume software it’s a snap to get your qualifications, credentials and job experience on paper.

Another handy piece of resume software is a proofreading or auditing resume service. This resume software checks for more than 100 different mistakes that can cost you that job interview. This resume software is much more advanced than the standard word processing spell check software. Where standard spell checks fails you is in its failure to recognize the right word for the right message. If, for example, you misspell a word and what you’ve written is no word at all the spell checker will catch it. If, however, you use the word “your” when you actually mean “you’re” many spell checkers will not catch that. You know a smarter resume software program to catch this sort of error.

You can also choose resume software that automatically faxes or e-mails your resume, with its built in contact management program and its mail merge capability. You can set up a job search campaign and prepare uniquely focused cover letters and resumes and in just a few quick minutes of installation and resume software preparation your mail merge program is writing and faxing or e-mailing your personalized job search message to your chosen prospective employers and firms.

You can also add resume software that designs and prints professional but unique attention getting envelopes. With this resume software you can add catchy messages on the outside such as ‘recent graduate’ or “certified programmer.”

Technorati Tags: careers, finding employment

Every time you apply for a position by submitting your resume you are competing against dozens, and probably hundreds of other job candidates. Many of these will have used a resume service to craft a top-notch resume that stands out among the rest. Not only must it be well written, and well laid out, it must be carefully scrutinized by an objective eye for any mistakes, any inconsistency or gap in time.

It’s not enough to have a complete, well-written, attractive resume. You need a resume service that can make yours an outstanding resume and cover letter.
A quality resume service offers many services beyond writing the resume. A typical resume service will offer more than one expert resume writer to oversee your resume and cover letter.

The resume service will print several laser quality hard copies of your resume on premium bond paper. It will provide storage of your document, sometimes for your lifetime. It will offer to save your resume and cover letter on disk and e-mail it to you. It may also offer to post the resume to dozens of top ca