Saturday 18 June 2011

Tips on Preparing Your Cover Letter

Barbara McDonagh

Sharing the great resume that you've written is just one part of the package. Adding to the package, however to provide insurance for that resume is the cover letter that you will add to your resume. Writing the proper resume cover letter is an important part of the package that you will give over to your resume recipient.
Writing the proper cover letter takes a little time and some skill. Finding the right way to write your cover letter means reviewing proper formatting for this part of your resume and then using it to your best advantage. What's the right format for a resume cover letter?

What are some of the things you will want to include in your cover letter? What will you want to leave out? How long is the best cover letter?Getting it right means making a good impression on whoever will be receiving your resume.
An amazing cover letter to add to that review will net you an interview nearly every time. Here is how to write the cover letter that will get you seen by the prospective employer.

Highlight very specific portions of your resume. Add small doses of the things that you do best. This will enable the interviewer or the personnel department to scan your information. One fast review of the cover letter will tell them that they are interested in reading your resume and bringing you in to their business office to hear more.

Research the company thoroughly and know something about them when you write your resume. This way you can offer small bits of information there that let the company know that you've cared enough about the new job to learn more about it.
Knowing more about the company will assist you in writing the letter as well as how to handle the interview.

Send your package as well as your cover letter to the real person. Research who is the head of the personnel department, or the department that you're going to be working in. Send it out in care of an actual person and take the time to send it in a format that will require a signature.

Proof your letter thoroughly. Don't leave a single extra space of any spelling or punctuation issues. Make the letter as close to perfection as you can make it.

Keep your cover letter to pertinent information and stay as close to just one page as you can. Most cover letters who are more than one page will end up being sent directly to the trash. One page cover letters give pertinent information about you in a way that makes them easy to read and easy to take in. Don't overwhelm your readers.

How to Increase Your Skills To find A Better Job

By Kalpendra Singh

The online job search is necessary and important in these robust times. Additional and additional folks these days are relying to the net to seek out jobs as a result of additional and additional employers are scouring the net for workers. There are plenty of benefits of job search, not solely has job looking out become easier however it's currently quick and extremely intensive. Today, there are varied dedicated sites to assist job hunters seek for jobs worldwide.In recent years, thanks to upswing of Indian economy, one will notice huge number of jobs in India.

In India, every year, several students are graduated and creating a protracted line to urge employment. There was a time, when a recent school graduate will hardly get employment however in of late; one will get several opportunities in wide selection of industries in India. Within the current state of affairs, one will notice a protracted list of jobs in India in numerous sectors. In India, firms are often recruiting for numerous posts of each fresher and experienced candidate.

part time jobs wherever in India provide a nice benefit to individuals who aren't ready to give their total calendar day for work or eager to be paid a number of additional ready money. There are largely learners or college students, wife’s who are willing to work and many of that kind are engaged with such jobs. Half time or part time occupations in Delhi permit job searchers to require work that suit their lifestyle and knowledge. There are numerous jobs associated with part time work in Delhi where you'll work simply. A person gets data regarding part time work from native newspapers, TV signals, personal ad and employ organization etc. Before selecting the task, one ought to perceive that job is best suited when it come to caliber. Mainly, half time jobs don't need abundant time of the day. It entails solely a couple of hours of the day. In step with your suitability, you'll match it together with your routine work.

Plentiful half time jobs are on the market within the market that you'll select in step with your capabilities and skills. There are several places within which you'll notice half time jobs like hotels, restaurant, laptop jobs, etc. Some jobs may be drained home also as several firms give home primarily based work in order that person will simply do the work. Knowledge entry jobs are the simplest example of home primarily based jobs.

In this present work marketplace scenario you wish a unique move in the direction of work for fresher and your expectation in the direction of your first job. As there is less jobs for fresher’s in huge firms which frequently use to rent truthful variety of fresher’s, they are ought to look in to different avenue like small companies, pop out and different new layer who give you new work that difficult job roles and numerous job liability to begin out your occupation and ultimately the expertise that you simply grow in that work can facilitate to urge a dream job within the future.

How to Use Action Research to Improve Your Career

E. Alana James

People not involved in the world of research might find the suggestion to use a standard research practice to improve your career slightly peculiar. However, this is exactly what this article is going to do. Because action research has proven itself “a tool for complex times”, it can also be implemented in the persona area of our lives with great success. After all, our lives are also complex. I will introduce the three steps that are involved in action research and will also give you examples of their importance in each of the three main time periods within any career: 1) as you get started, 2) making strategic plans midway, and 3) transitioning to new accomplishments.

Discovery:
The first step in any action research projects is to discover everything about the world you want to learn about. This usually involves work on the internet, visit libraries, and interview people, in general just asking questions in any format that comes your way. As you can tell, this would be a good way to get started on any project, because it grounds us in what is already knows, which makes is less likely that we will “reinvent the wheel”. For example, a person who is starting off on their career should first investigate what kind of lifestyle will be involved in the jobs they are applying for.

Often people do not understand just how much our work will reduce the quality of our lives, and people need to make conscious decisions about not only what they are right for the job, but what kind of impact on their lives work will be both short term and long term. For mid-career strategic planning, the discovery phase takes the professional into the literature of their work, ensuring that decisions are made with some broader understanding of what others are doing in similar situations but in other contexts.

An example of this might be a woman I worked with who wanted to lead virtual teams. She used her discovery phase to uncover the fact that communication would be the biggest area of concern and prepared herself with course work and other research to develop systems of communication prior to situations that would require them. At the end of our careers, as we are transitioning into a new kind of life, a discovery process also serves us well.

If, for example, we will soon be retired, a day or more searching the web about what retired people are doing will enlarge our view of the potential of our new life. I think one of the most exciting aspects of the discovery phase, no matter when we engage it, is that it opens us to potential and that enlivens our spirit. We are always better off moving into measurable action when we start from the potential of growth rather than in reacting to situations.

Measurable Action:
The second step in action research combines two of its major components - taking action to move things forward and measuring the outcome of those actions when we do. For example, going back to our person just entering their career, strategically sending out cover letters with resumes to organizations that have openings is a natural step. But this becomes exponentially stronger when the person opens a spreadsheet and tracks: the date, the person they contacted, when they called back, the results of those calls, whether they were introduced by someone or session application because of an advertisement, and what they learned subsequent to that application.

Over a period of time this spreadsheet helps them see what strategies were more successful. For instance, it would be likely the person would see that they got farther on the interview process through personal introduction.

Mid-career strategic plans have much in common with transition situations in the measurable action phase. They both involve mature decision-making and tracking results, perhaps over a period of time. The criteria for this phase is that no matter how small your action, you take it having predetermined your baseline.

This allows you to measure your results. For instance, people that I have worked with who have used action research will take measurable actions in the following laundry list of circumstances: 1) to develop professional training, 2) to work through risk management situations, 3) to understand the value of contractors within their industry, 4) to explore the efficacy of teaching classes using an online platform for delivery, 5) to narrowly define leadership options, and 6) to allow people to move into a multicultural settings easily. In all of these cases, mid-career or end of career professionals first investigated what needed to happen next to the discovery phase, and then took actions over a period of time tracking the outcome of each staff using the measurable action criteria.

Reflection:
I find that most mid - to end of career professionals consider themselves reflective practitioners. However when I ask them how they keep notes and what value they find from referring to them, this opinion breaks down. Reflection is more than looking back on what has happened and thinking about it. Quality reflection requires a protocol of regular use. It is like exercising the muscle, if you only do it once in while you don't have it's full range or strength available to you when you need it. So what does reflection involve and how might our three career professionals use it to their advantage?
The beginning career person could set up a weekly protocol of giving themselves on a Friday afternoon a half hour to review what they have done to find a job that week and how they are feeling. Writing the feelings down is important because it becomes data for later. I have found that men have more trouble with this then women can, so let me quote one of the bank personnel that I worked with, "My biggest take away was the functional benefit of using qualitative data from journals and meeting notes in a qualitative manner. Journaling was new to me and didn't come easy to a few of us (men).

Converting it into data demonstrated the functional value and has made a believer out of me". If our early career example had to apply for work over a period of time, their reflective data would record the differences in outcomes in the morning this week to week. Patterns would become clear, such as that on a Friday they feel better if they have applied for work on a Thursday than if it has been the beginning of the week and they have heard no answer. Since it likely makes little difference to the human resource professionals to whom they apply, they may conclude that for the quality of their own lives they will apply for work later in the week, giving themselves happier weekends.

Our mid-career professional uses reflective practice to track a myriad of ongoing strategic issues. Consider it data collection and assessment for ongoing projects you are managing. Again, it is useful to have irregular reflective practice on a Friday so that you can put your body of work for the week to rest knowing what to pick up and do when you come back in on Monday, also allowing your weekend to be free of straggling thoughts.

Finally, our end up career transition professional uses reflective practice for dreaming. Remembering what our intentions were for our lives when we started them, gives us a lovely reflective backdrop against which to figure out what we want to do next. Some of those early dreams are worth picking up and pursuing now. Some of the things that gave us joy and as mid-career professionals can now become hobbies, or active volunteer work, or show us other ways we can contribute to our world without having to "work".

In this case I recommend a daily reflective practice during a consistent period of time, often just after we wake up in the morning, or after lunch on a full stomach, or at the end of the day. Reflection during those times makes use of the natural rhythms of when our mind and body are relaxed our subconscious and be more active in our dreams more fruitful.

Action Research in Total:
This article is too short to tease out all the various ways in which these three steps of discovery, measurable action, and reflection successfully underpin our careers and our lives as we grow. My own personal research has shown it to be vastly beneficial as professional development for people working in groups to solve very complex problems. But why not use the same tools that we use in our work lives to help solve the complexities in our personal life? I end this hoping that everyone reading it takes some small step today to discover something new, measure the actions they're taking towards their goals, and reflect upon: where they are where they wanted me and what will get them the results they are looking for.

Author's Bio:
E. Alana James has been working and writing about action research as it is used in education and business settings since 2005 when she completed her doctoral dissertation at Columbia focused on the use of action research for teachers as professional development serving high risk children who are experiencing homelessness. Having just finished her second book for Sage publications on best practices for action research, you can find more of her writing at www.ar4everything.com. Registration on that site will send you a free e-book on the three AR iterative steps as outlined in Action Research for Business, Nonprofits and Public Administration: A Tool for Complex Times. Dr James is currently engaged in international meta-analysis of the first 50 years of action research, is published in journals and speaks internationally on topics that develop from that analysis.

She also has an academic site, www.doctoralnet.com dedicated to helping students finish their doctoral disserations quickly and efficiently

Is Your Career Hitting a Plateau?

By Robert Boroff

is easy to get comfortable at a job and cease to stop pushing the boundaries. Often we get into a daily routine and allow ourselves to perform at the same the level each day. This can of course be a positive thing. It can allow you to maintain productivity and helps prove your reliability. But it can also stop you from moving forward on your path to success. So what can you do if your career seems to have hit a plateau? Craig Chappelow and Jean Brittain Leslie of the New York Times offer some advice.

First and foremost don’t be afraid to ask for instant feedback. If you can tell that you are under-performing ask a coworker or manager what you could have done to have better performed. Often they’ll be able to offer you helpful advice and will value the fact that you care enough to ask. Of course you need to have thick skin when listening to these responses but if you take their feedback as constructive criticism you are sure to improve.

Secondly, you should also provide yourself with some personal feedback. Engaging in self-analysis can help you to know who you are and what you have to offer. This will help you emit self-confidence and will allow you to sell yourself to your boss and clients. If you don’t know why somebody should do business with you than they won’t either.

Thirdly, gain an understanding of the company culture. Notice the way changes are made at your company and learn to adapt with your company, this will help you to guide the company through challenges and prevent your work style from becoming outdated.

Fourthly, learn to empathize with and listen to the people you work with. If you sympathize with your peers and managers you’re more likely to develop stronger personal relationships with them. Actively listen to what people have to say. Give them your full attention, take notes as they talk and respond accordingly. This can help you to more fully comprehend what they are saying and will likely result in improved work performance.

Fifthly, collaborate with coworkers. If you work with and communicate with others you are likely to be more effective. You’ll find that your efforts go further if you have a little help. This also helps you to establish transparency and will allow others to know just how much you contribute to your company. This includes delegation. Often we try and do everything ourselves which can be overwhelming and prevents other employees from showcasing their talents. Delegation is a key part to a successful leadership philosophy. This will also help you to focus on the task at hand which allows you to bring jobs to a close giving you quantifiable results.

Lastly, if you hit a rough patch adjust your behavior and learn from your mistakes. If you allow yourself to grow from your setbacks you’re likely to achieve greater successes and continue to advance in your career. A positive attitude goes a long way, so don’t loose enthusiasm and capitalize on your strengths. People are sure to notice.

Author's Bio:
Robert Boroff is the Managing Director of Reaction Search International Marketing Recruiters Sales Management Headhunters a leading sales and marketing Executive Search Firm that assists both U.S. and International firms recruit all levels of sales and marketing experts Globally.

The Best Day To Go For An Interview By Michael Donovin

First of all, to fully understand and appreciate the answer, a couple of givens must be taken into account. What I believe to be the most important item for dealing with an interview successfully is, your attitude. Your attitude determines the outcome of every interview. The core competencies must be there in order for you to get the interview in the first place but, your attitude during the interview will be what ultimately gets you accepted or rejected for the position. If it was as simple as, "I can do the job", there would be no need for an interview in the first place - the employer would just hire based upon the resume.

Now that we have determined that attitude will determine the success of the interview, lets more deeply understand the answer to the question. Unequivocally, without a doubt, the best day to interview is not Monday, it's not Friday, it's not Wednesday, like 95% of the people answer when I ask that question. The best day of the week to go on an interview is...drumroll please...the day after you get a job offer.

Again, understand that attitude determines your level of success on an interview and, when you have achieved success, that is, have obtained a job offer, your attitude generally is never higher. When you have already received a job offer, your confidence level is at it's highest. You are no longer worried about how you are going to pay your bills. You feel successful because others obviously believe in your abilities - otherwise you wouldn't have gotten the offer. Thus, you are "higher than a kite" at this time. This is the time to continue your search and just hammer away at as many interviews as you can possibly setup.

It is important at this stage in career development to take advantage of the synergy of the momentum or the incredibly good luck streak that you are currently on and, the way you do that is to continue to interview once you have gotten your first offer.

The positive momentum gained when you have a job offer in your back pocket is very strong. In fact, you can attack the remaining interviews with a can't lose mentality. This will allow you to see things clearly and to make the best possible decision for you and your family and for your career. There is no reason to stop interviewing after you get a job offer, and in fact, in "Hiring Secrets Revealed" this is one of the $10,000 secrets I'm sharing with you.

There is not a Human Resources Manager or Hiring Manager and especially not a Recruiter or a Recruiting Firm or Consulting Firm that will ever tell you the best time to interview is the day after you get a job offer - it's just not in their best interest to allow you to keep interviewing. Each and every one of the aforementioned decision makers wants to have a commitment immediately. They want to place you in a job now and collect their fee. They have no vested interest in helping you or advising you to continue with your interviewing process.

In subsequent articles I will show you how to maintain an open dialogue with your recruiter and how to time your interviewing so that all of these things come together so you can make decisions in a timely fashion. The point is, do not stretch out the interviews because that could go on forever. Your objective is to have choices. And you need to strike while the iron is hot.

By following this one simple secret, you will give yourself choices. The best part about interviewing after you have already gotten a job offer is - now you are confident. You have a job. You can ask for an negotiate the salary you truly wish to have and you have nothing to lose if they say no. What to you care if the second, or third, or fourth company says no to your salary requests, you already have a job.

However, since that is precisely what your attitude is… you most likely will be able to negotiate the salary you wish because the interviewers will feel your confidence and believe that you are worth the money. That's the power of being able to walk away from the negotiating table.

Everyone senses that you are ultimately the person in control of this situation - nothing has to be said to imply this - it is felt due to your high level of confidence. This one idea alone can be the one that gets you the $10,000.00 or $20,000.00 raise.

Look at each job offer carefully, and decide appropriately, but do it in a timely fashion. Your objective is to make this happen as quickly as possible. I have learned that no one will give you anything unless you ask for it. Heck, if an employer thinks they can hire you for $55,000.00, why in their right-mind would they offer you more? Get it? If, however, they believe that you are worth $65,000.00 or $75,000.00, and you ask for it, they are definitely going to be inclined to pay that to get you.

A friend of mine worked for a company that was bought-out by a bigger firm. The bigger firm actually bought 12 other smaller companies just like my friend's company. All the ex-owners of the smaller companies were paid a three month severance upon their exit from the larger company. My friend wanted to take the summer off and he thought he deserved more so, he called the President and asked him for six months of severance. It was given to him with barely the blink of an eye. Why? Because he asked for it. If you don't ask, you won't get it - guaranteed.

That's why you need to keep interviewing immediately upon getting your first job offer. Your confidence will be sky high and you will not be afraid to ask for more because you have nothing to lose.

Testimonials: Bob H.,Yardley, PA., "I've been in the telecom business for thirty years and have interviewed a lot during my career. What you're saying really makes good sense. Your succinct and straight-forward way of communicating is very refreshing and I eagerly recommend this important work for any and all job seekers. Thanks for getting this information onto your website and making it available to us.

Author's Bio:
Michael has over twenty-five years of Executive Search and Leadership Consulting service to United States organizations. Michael has also engaged in various human resources consultation activities including strategic planning, succession planning, organizational development and analysis, human resources research, prevailing wage analysis, and executive coaching services for individuals making career transitions. Michael has acted as an adviser to over 1500 professionals in their career development.
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