Alexandra Levits Water Cooler Wisdom How Hierarchy Is Killing Your Culture

Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom How Hierarchy Is Killing Your Culture Twenty-first century organizations are flattening, but the change can’t happen quickly enough. Although the corporate hierarchy was invented to promote efficiency, it doesn’t work particularly well in a business world that moves at the speed of technology. If you’re holding on to the old, bureaucratic ways of doing things, youre hurting your business. Dont believe me? 1. Hierarchies Move Too Slowly Organizations need to be able to adapt quickly to changing market conditions, but a complex hierarchy is like a lumbering giant. As Harvard professor John Kotter told Debbie Robins inThe Huffington Post: “Put simply, a hierarchy can’t handle speed well. Rules and procedures that inevitably accompany hierarchies almost never change fast even if they are now irrelevant, overly burdensome, and the like. Hierarchies can’t jump to the left or the right easily, and over time it’s easy to keep adding levels and rules, to keep making silo walls thicker.” 2. Hierarchies Are a Game of Telephone In order for communication to go from the top of the hierarchy to the bottom, it has to pass through numerous managers. Remember the childhood game, telephone? The message you ended up with was usually a far cry from the first one started. That’s a hierarchy for you. In a flatter organization, it’s much easier to promote a culture of transparency. For more where this came from, have a look at the full post at the AMEX Open Forum.

Tips on Describing Writing on Resume

Tips on Describing Writing on ResumeDescripting writing on resume is actually the process of showing a resume to a prospective employer. Resume is a written document that helps the employer sees your skills and experience. By making the resume short and plain, you will definitely get noticed by a potential employer and that in turn may lead to a job offer. Below are some tips on describing writing on resume.Job title - The job title is usually at the top of the resume. It should give a hint about the kind of job you are seeking and let the reader know that this is your first or even the second time you have applied for the same job. It will also remind the reader that you are not a rookie when it comes to job hunting. The job title is usually followed by other key details like name of the city or state where you are looking for a job.Skills - Every job requires certain skill sets and the resume summary should contain them. Skills should be presented separately and should be relevant to the job position and where you are applying for. The skill is also given a heading so the reader can easily identify which job will require the skills that you have.Experience - A skill is just as useful as a skill set and experience is often neglected in job searching. But it is still a good thing to include. Every job is different and does demand different things from the person applying for it.Education - It is always good to highlight your educational qualification on your resume because it shows the employer that you have been going to school for more than a year. It also helps in identifying which schools you attended and from where you learned the things you have in store for the future.Example of Past Employers - An example of your work history and career highlights your employment history and gives an idea of what kind of job you have had in the past. It also gives an insight into your leadership skills and ability to communicate effectively.Exhibits of Skills - Every sk ill is actually a small thing that you have acquired over the years. Some examples of skills include marketing and merchandising, office skills, project management and documentation skills. All these small skills contribute to your overall performance and achievements.Sample of Example of Papers Presented on One's Resume - This is a very important component in describing writing on resume. The writer should be able to give a glimpse of the papers presented and show them to the employer in brief form. Sometimes people fail to do this and actually present a complete resume that looks unprofessional and its lacks the professional touch.

Do E-books Create Personal Brands - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Do E-books Create Personal Brands - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career How effective are e-books as personal branding tools? Stated another way, If you write an e-book, will your personal brand gain the same respect and visibility that youd receive from a printed version of your book? This is a particularly timely question since e-books and e-book readers are more and more in the news. For example, last month, Amazon.com announced that sales of titles for its Kindle e-book reader eclipsed sales of printed titles and Barnes Nobles Nook e-book reader in an out-of-stock until February. What are the implications of the growing popularity of e-books? Does this mean you no longer need a printed book to build your personal brand? Put another way Is an e-book, by itself, enough to brand you as a subject area expert, opening the doors to new opportunities and driving new clients and pre-sold prospects to your business? Pros cons of e-books The advantages of e-books includes: Freedom from up-front printing, inventory, and distribution costs.   E-books are distributed through the Internet as downloadable files. Anyone with rudimentary word processing skills and a copy of Adobe Acrobat can create an attractively-formatted PDF version of their book within hours of completing the last chapter of their manuscript. Lower costs can mean wider distribution. Because of the reduced initial costs and per-copy costs, e-books can be priced substantially less than printed books. Since there are more people willing to spend $14.95 than there are willing to spend $44.95,   e-books can a larger market. E-books can do more. Compared to printed books, e-books are easier to search and they can contain links to websites as well as audio, video, and presentation files. E-books can also be easily updated, so they always contain the latest information. E-books are available for reading within moments of ordering them. In addition, the new generation of e-book readers are more environmentally friendly than printed books, theyre a far better choice for traveling, and they take up a fraction of the shelf space required for even a small library. From a personal brand building perspective, however, e-books have some potential limitations. These include: Lack of tangibility. Printed books are often referred to as brochures and business cards. As Bob Bly, author of over 40 books, including The Copywriters Bible, told me in a telephone call over 20 years ago, When I visit a client and they ask me to describe my qualifications, I hand them a copy of my bookand theyre immediately convinced. Giving a client a PDF file, however, lacks the drama of a physical product that speaks for itself. Limitations of on-screen reading. E-books are primarily intended for reading on the screen of a computer monitor or using one of the pioneering e-book readers. Most find that on-screen reading is more difficult than reading from a printed page. More important, although PDF files can be printed, what do you do with the print-outs? In many cases, e-books are printed on 3-hole punched paper, and inserted into a 3-ring binder, but this involves a lot of hassle and additional costs for paper, ink, binders. Plus, binders are bulky and hard to hold when reading. Evaporating savings. A final note of concern relates to the pricing of e-books distributed through the major online online retailers. The possibility of wider universe of buyers created by lower costs may not work out in practice. For example, as I write this, the printed (i.e., paper) version of Garr Reynolds new best-selling Presentation Zen Design, (list price, $34.99), is $23.09, but the Kindle version is $20.43! This is just one example, but it does suggest the possibility that the potential savings of electronic publishing and distribution may not always be passed along to readers and authors. Why does a printed copy of a book cost less than $3 more than an e-book? Potential e-book personal branding strategies The following are some of the ways you might approach creating an e-book strategy for building your personal brand as an expert in your field. Here are some ways you can begin to build your personal brand with a self-published PDF e-book promoted and distributed through your own website: List-building. View a personally-published e-book not as a source of revenue, but purely as a permission-based marketing incentive. Your goal in publishing your PDF e-book is not to make money from sales, but to master the power of Internet marketing and to build a responsive e-mail list of prospects interested in solving problems you already know how to solve. Write the minimum e-book necessary to get published. Rather than writing the definitive volume on a topic, write the minimum book that will establish your writing credentials, perhaps a 45 to 80 page e-book, rather than a one-hundred to two-hundred page book. This provides a learning experience and opportunity to gain valuable e-commerce skills while helping you develop your writing skills. Create an e-book to create prospects for other products and services. Dont create your e-book, but as a key components in other products, such as audios, videos, DVDs, e-courses, workbooks, and training materials. Use an e-book to perfect the craft of writing. Writing, as most writers will tell you, is a craft, not a talent. The more you write, the better youll writeand the faster youll write. So, view an e-book as a work-in-progress, a first outing, rather than an ultimate expression of your knowledge. Use e-books to test new ideas. Uncertain whether your idea will fly? Instead of hitching your dreams to an idea that your market may not be as enthusiastic about as you are, write a 20-30 page e-book on the topic, and do what you can to engage with your readers and find out what they think about your initial attempt. Use an e-book as an incentive to create a better blogging strategy. Aimless blogging, i.e., blogging about whatever crosses your mind when you decide its time to add another post, is harder than purposeful blogging. If you start your e-book by creating a table of contents, and write your posts as chapter elements, your blog will be more interesting and your e-book will practically write itself. Whats fascinating about the above 6 points is that they apply to all types of publishingself-publishing and trade-publishingas well as e-books! In every case, the sale of a book is the beginning of a relationship, or the cultivation of a skill, rather than an end in itself. The above list, of course, is by no means comprehensive, and I encourage you to share your thoughts as comments, below. All of us are in this together; everyone can bring new insights and perspectives to the dialog. No one has a monopoly on the best e-book practices for successfully creating a personal brand, especially with all the changes currently taking place. Author Roger C. Parker is a “32 Million Dollar Author,” book coach, and online writing resource. His 38 books have sold 1.9 million copies in 35 languages around the world. Roger has interviewed hundreds of successfully branded nonfiction authors and shares what he’s learned at Published Profitable and his daily writing tips blog.

The 12 Worst Things to Say to Someone Who is Unemployed

The 12 Worst Things to Say to Someone Who is Unemployed Being unemployed and on the job hunt  can be pretty rubbish. Its stressful, your bank balance is running low and frankly you become pretty sick of the sight of the inside of your house. So the last thing that somebody who is out of work wants to hear are patronising comments and do-gooders sharing their two pennies worth. You probably only mean well when asking your unemployed friend how their job hunt is going or offering  them advice, but Im afraid this is probably just going to make them want to give you an almighty shove! When talking to somebody who is out of work be tactful and avoid these phrases. Hows the job search going? Still unemployed? If it was going well, they would probably be sharing the good news of a job offer. Unless you can help in some way, leave them to it. I dont know why its taking you so long to get a job, I found something within a week  of looking! Oh get you with your employability and career luck! Talk about rub it in! Im sure things will look up soon! *Insert patronising tone* Oh so you can tell the future now can you? A friend of a friend of my brothers ex girlfriends sister  is in exactly the same position as you. Oh really? Great. Good for them. I wish I had as much free  time on my hands as you. Unemployment isnt just one big fun holiday you know? Sitting at home can get boring and the person youre talking to would most likely rather be spending their time earning a living. So what exactly do you do all day? If you were on the job hunt, what do you think you would be doing each day? Perhaps looking for a job? They probably think youre overqualified. Suggesting they have just wasted years of education and put themselves in a heap of debt has put them in a worse position for employment will not help, trust me. Maybe you need to aim a bit lower. Though the reality is that there just arent enough graduate jobs to go around, suggesting your friend applies for a job as a dog walker when they have a law degree may not go down well. Lets go on a super extravagant, expensive holiday! Not having a job means that they probably do not have an income, so unless you expect them to rob a bank, Id put pricey activities together on the bank burner for the time being. Ill get these. Its a nice gesture, but if you offer to pay for things to often it can come across as a bit patronising. I know how you feel. If youre currently employed, then you cant really know how they feel at that time and saying this can sound like youre  diminishing how hard the job hunt really can be. Sorry I missed your call, some of us have work at 3pm on a Wednesday, you know! This is a probably a punchable offence. [Main Image Credit: Shutterstock]

Example of Writing an Objective on a Resume

Example of Writing an Objective on a ResumeThe following example of writing an objective on a resume is used to illustrate that a good outline is a critical component of a resume. The essay sample on the resume should be a consistent element. If the resume is not uniform in style, the applicant will not have the same impact on the reader as others who are clearly written.The objective begins with the first paragraph and then proceeds through the entire document. It is important to keep in mind that this is a living document. As the writer changes, so will the perspective.The example of writing an objective on a resume includes a summary paragraph, which briefly summarizes the objective and describes the various aspects involved. If there is an employer or other reference, the author should indicate that. Where additional information is needed, the writer should supply it.The objective must describe the employer, or describe his industry, and his or her position in the organization. T he author should include an introduction that explains why the writer is being referred to in the objective. Also, the author should specify where the references are located. That will help the reader determine who to contact for more information.The second section needs to cover the organizational context. In addition to explaining the employee's role, the author should also explain the organization's purpose and culture. This type of information is particularly important if the reference is employed at a higher level in the organization.The third paragraph contains a clear statement of what the writer values most. The author may choose to state her or his vision for the organization, but he or she should not attempt to use that as a selling point. The writer should always use the objective to express a personal vision for the applicant.The fourth paragraph of the example of writing an objective on a resume is one that introduces the reason for the reference. That, along with the j ob description of the organization, and the company purpose, should be enough to introduce the reason for the reference. The last paragraph contains a qualification that explains the reasons why the writer finds the applicant to be suitable for the position. Finally, the reader should know that the reference believes the applicant will perform well in the job.The examples of writing an objective on a resume are a guideline for outlining a resume. It is not necessary to write the entire objective. Briefly summarize the objectives, and then use a summary paragraph that summarizes the applicant.

How to Write a Resume For a Temporary Layoff

How to Write a Resume For a Temporary LayoffIn this short article, I will show you how to write a resume for a temporary layoff and help you find temporary employment. There are many people that are looking for work but they have just been laid off.It may be because they were asked to work long periods without any pay, or they were not given a raise, or they were even fired from their job altogether. In these cases, the workers usually do not have the same kind of skills as when they first started their job, so they are forced to look for another job.The reason this happens is because their employers did not foresee how much time would be needed to train these employees. If the company was planning on keeping employees, it should have had a time table. It should have planned how long it would take them to train the workers, and if it was after the first day, it should have been given the go ahead to train them the following day.Sometimes businesses would try to use the laid off worke rs for other projects, thinking that they would be able to finish these jobs in one day, and that this would be much easier than hiring new employees. Of course, if this is the case, they will just be wasting time and money.When trying to apply for a job, most people find that they are looking in all the wrong places because they are trying to apply for an opening at a place that they know nothing about. It is not as simple as searching the newspaper or looking in the yellow pages.First, if you have never searched the local newspaper for jobs, then you are wasting your time. You probably would not get a reply from the employer either.On the other hand, if you know the exact kinds of jobs that a paper job can give you, then you can search online to write resume for a temporary layoff. You can also find out more information about your position by doing this type of research.The main reason why most people do not know that there are places that will hire them for a job is because they do not want to ask for the chance. They do not want to waste the employer's time either.

Motivation Monday Newtons Three Career Laws

Motivation Monday Newtons Three Career Laws Todays motivation comes from Sir Isaac Newtons Three Laws of Motion. Now wait, before you click away, it relates to your career, really! (Because I am not a physicist, I relied on Wikipedia and Physics4kids.com to define Newtons three laws! Gotta love the internet!) Newtons First Law An object at rest tends to stay at rest, and an object in motion tends to stay in motion. Counteract inertia by taking action. Translation: if you are exploring career options, take action, dont just think and research. Talk to people.   It is too easy to say I dont know what I want to do next. Just commit to exploring and learning everything you can about ONE occupation. Once you begin learning, the path will become clearer to you! Newtons Second Law The more force, the more acceleration! When you get excited about something- a project, a career option, or become a subject matter expert, youll find you can gain great momentum in propelling your career! However, heres the flip side: The bigger they are the harder they fall! Counteract this potential disaster by adding new skills to your portfolio. Stay current on trends impacting your industry and occupation. Dont become a dinosaur! Newtons Third Law For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Forces are found in pairs. Beware of those that try and take you down! Take a pro-active approach and build alliances with company insiders, peers and superiors! I hope you realize that there is little you can accomplish on your own. You will need the support of others to propel you and your ideas! And this concludes todays career physics lesson!

I Never Hear Back From Them - How to Work With Temp Agencies - Hallie Crawford

I Never Hear Back From Them - How to Work With Temp Agencies I was talking with career coaching client Kevin in NC this week about working with temp agencies. He is looking for a short term position to keep busy and add structure to his day, but also to let potential employers know he didn’t just sit on the couch while conducting his search for his dream job. I suggested he contact 3 agencies in his area to cast his net wider and increase his chances. And, gave him the following job search advice I wanted to share with you as well. When working with temp agencies try to establish a relationship with them. If they don’t invite you in to participate in testing, offer to come in anyway. This is your chance to meet one of the placement agents and make a connection. They’ll be more likely to keep you in mind as openings come across their desk and it shows you care enough about getting a gig that you’re willing to do what it takes. And they want to place people who are assertive and who will represent their agency well. While you are there, ask them the best way to stay in touch with them. Can you call them once a week, or is email better? Or do they have a website where they post positions that you could contact them about to stay on top of your efforts. Design the relationship with them so you know what would be most effective, don’t just send in your resume and expect to hear back. Be assertive! If they don’t want you to come in and are adamant about it, still ask these questions. Do as much as possible to establish a relationship with one of their agents, however you can. When I worked at a temp agency in their back office in Chicago, I remember hearing some of the agents speaking with employees they really liked and when they got off the phone they said they wanted to place them as soon as possible because they were impressed with them. These candidates called the agents once a week just to touch base to keep them top of mind. And there were people they heard from as well they didn’t want to because they weren’t impressed with them. So job seekers be the one they want to place! And stay in touch with them in a way that you have pre-designed with them. It will increase your chances of getting that next gig. We hope this is helpful to you! The career coaches at HallieCrawford.com.