3 Great Places to Volunteer and Build Your Experience Building Your Future Now

3 Great Places to Volunteer and Build Your Experience Building Your Future Now Volunteering is an awesome way to meet people, strengthen your ties with the community, learn humility and gain invaluable knowledge. It is also a great way to build your experience when you are young (and lack job experience) or you just want to volunteer your time to worth while causes! Here a few places to consider when you want to volunteer: Retirement Homes Spending time with the elderly can give you insight to people who lived during a different time. You can share what you know or like to do: play guitar, do crafts, or even bake! Its an amazing experience especially if you are young! Additionally take a proactive approach: see if you can create any workshops or events that the residents can be a part of. Art related Events/Organisations Art is essential in every local community. It represents history, customs and people. Being a volunteer at an art event or at an organization can give you a deeper prospective of your community. Church-based Initiatives Even if you dont belong to a church, they often have many initiatives in the community including fundraisers, shelter programs, or help for the disadvantagedthe list goes on. Even you arent the religious type finding more about how you can help out can open a door to endless possibilities in your career and your life! Image: RawPixel

Writing a Comprehensive Opening to Resume

Writing a Comprehensive Opening to ResumeWriting a compelling opening statement to resume is crucial in a number of situations. The main reason for this is that it will provide a general outline of your resume, but then you will use that opening as the basis for your actual content and how it is going to be presented.Remember, you want to make sure that you do not plagiarize the content of another person's resume, because that will just get you into legal trouble. The reason you want to put your own ideas into your resume is so that it stands out as being unique. You want to be very careful about what you write when it comes to writing an opening.For instance, you are able to really take advantage of your resume when you take certain things into consideration. One example is using certain fonts. A lot of times people will write their resume on their computer, and they use what is known as a 14-point font.In this case, you can take advantage of this and just make the font a little bit smaller. It is actually quite easy to do. What you do is, you simply open up the font in the font suite and make it larger or smaller.It is important that you do not just take the final font size and stick with it, because that is why you created the first one. You wanted it to be a little bit smaller so that it would not be so noticeable that it was just a generic template. When you start looking at your resume in the computer, you will see that it has the original 14-point font.If you take that exact same resume that you had to write in the earlier example and you open it up in the computer and make it a little bit bigger, it will look like it came from a different person. That is what happens when you use a different font.That is why you need to consider what is popular in the current time. That is also why you will find it so nice to take pictures when you are creating your resume. This will allow you to actually make it more personal.Writing a compelling opening to resume is v ery important, because that is the foundation for how you are going to present yourself in the most professional way possible. Just remember, there is not going to be any copying and pasting. Instead, you are going to have to be creative with it.

What Makes a Great Candidate Experience

What Makes a Great Candidate Experience Why is the candidate experience so important? Well if you want to attract and hire the best employees, then youre going to have to do something to impress them in the hiring process! The individuals experience throughout this phase will be reflective of what it is like to work for the organisation, so its as essential for you to make a positive impression as an employer, as it is for the candidate to sell themselves as the best person for the job. If a candidate has a bad  experience with a particular company; for example poor communication, or a lack or organisation, then it is likely they will look elsewhere.  So if you want to hire superstars, youre going to have to wow them from the very start! So what can companies do to make the candidate experience as good as possible? We asked the Undercover Recruiter community what their thoughts are on the topic and heres what they had to say: Kelsey Sorensen Healthcare Recruiter at Pride Health Listening to the candidate and having the candidate feel like you really understand them and what they are looking for and wanting in a position. Nothing is worse than pushing a candidate in the wrong direction for the sake of money or because you dont have an opportunity that meets what they are looking for! Robin Renée Blanc I was flown in for an interview and when I checked in at the hotel, I was given a small gift bag. It came with a note from the department where I was interviewing, and had a bottle of water, some mints and hard candies, a few snacks (granola bar, etc.), a pen with the school mascot, and a couple more school logo trinkets. It was a great surprise and made me feel welcomed. Elza dos Santos Senior Recruiter at  MasterWord Services Hospitality, because if you cant treat people well when putting your best foot forward, how will you after hiring them? East Side Staffing New York based HR Recruitment Firm Its going above and beyond to make a candidate feel welcome at each step of the interviewing process. Kindness. Generosity.  Think of this way: Without treating candidates exceptionally well in the process, theyll go elsewhere. Its THAT important! Helen Blaszczyk Head of Client Solutions at  t-PHI Use techniques that are fair, transparent more specific to the role they’ll be doing. Dont be boring. Be immersive! e-Volving There are many but we think feedback is very important. Keeping candidates in the loop at all times. Yellow Monkey Marketing agency for corporate non profit organisations They have to have a spark, some raw grit to get stuck in and be a success!

5 Ways to Uncover Your Career Strengths

5 Ways to Uncover Your Career Strengths Personal branding is all about leveraging your strengths to stand out and differentiate yourself. Our strengths are what makes us unique, authentic, and real. Yet we tend to fall into the trap of trying to fix our weaknesses. We invest time, money, and effort trying to be better at something that we may never get better at doing even after training, studying, or practicing. This really comes as no surprise as the focus on weakness in society is hard to ignore. Almost every job interview asks about our weaknesses in light of our strengths! Why do recruiters and hiring managers waste time on such a question? John Falchetto recently wrote a great post about the importance of knowing our strengths and how to use them. He points out that we are experts at defining how much we suck at something. We are quick to say things like I cant do, Im not good at.., or I suck at. So this got me thinking. Maybe it is just easier for us to talk about our weaknesses rather then pointing out the strengths that set us apart. Here in Japan I see this all the time. Ask someone what they are good at and they immediately turn the answer into what they are NOT good at. This is certainly not unique to Japan and John says that this mind-set is the result of being conditioned that humans are naturally bad. When reading Johns post I immediately recalled a powerful commercial for Saucony running shoes called What is Strong?.  I simply love the message in this commercial that maybe strong is just what we have left when weve used up all our weak. How can you use-up your weak and use your strong? Try the following 5 activities. 1. StrengthsFinder 2.0 Are you an achiever, relator, maximizer? First introduced in 2001, the StrengthsFinder assessment was designed with the simple purpose of helping you to discover your top five strengths and how each of these plays out in your life. By doing the assessment you have more clarity in understanding how to do what you naturally do best every day, and how to identify the opportunities that will enable you to use your strengths. Access to the assessment does require a code that comes with the purchase of the book, but it is worth it. 2. Dont SWOT, SOAR! We are all familiar with the SWOT analysis. It continues to be one of the most widely used strategic planning tools. When it comes to personal branding, swat away SWOT and let your brand SOAR! SOAR retains the strengths and opportunities from the traditional SWOT, but adds a critical process of appreciative intent by including aspirations and results. Appreciative Intent (AI) really goes hand-in-hand with personal branding as its function is to build plans around what works, rather then trying to fix what doesnt. This empowers us to focus on the positives that we can imagine and actually achieve in the future. 3. ‘Headline News’ How do you want the world to see you? What do you want to be known for? If someone picks up the newspaper and there is a front page article about you, what would the headline read? Identify a list of people who know you well including friends, family, colleagues, etc. Ask them to write a front page headline about you. Remind them to be genuine and real here. You dont want them to fantasize. Their headline should be something they feel is absolutely achievable and realistic for you. What you get back will be amazing collection of headlines. Look for themes across these headlines and pay attention to all the verbs used as they will say a lot about how they see your strengths. 4. ‘Seven Stories’ Seven Stories is a comprehensive introspective activity where you first make a list of 25 enjoyable accomplishments in your life from childhood to present time. Things you not only enjoyed, but also did well. From this list you narrow it down to the seven that are the most important to you and write a short paragraph about each accomplishment. With these seven stories you will find some common threads and uncover strengths that perhaps you never realized. 5. ‘My Retirement Party’ This is a great forward visioning activity that combines aspects of Headline News and Seven Stories. Imagine you are sitting on the porch of your home and old friends, family members, and colleagues are showing up. People are coming to celebrate your retirement. As everyone gathers they are gradually breaking into smaller groups, talking, laughing, and having a great time. They are talking about you and how you have impacted their lives. You get up from the porch and walk around. As you pass by each group you can overhear what they are saying. Write down what you hear. How have you made an impact? What did you do to help them? Using any of these activities will help you to find your strong! How about you? Do you have any other ways to maximize your strong? Please share. Related: 3 Smart Ways to Brand Yourself in the Job Search Process.

The Answer to Which of These Is Not a Standard Rule For Writing a Good Resume?

The Answer to Which of These Is Not a Standard Rule For Writing a Good Resume?The question 'Which of these is not a standard rule for writing a good resume?' is asked so often that it is beginning to seem like an actual rule. This is unfortunate because a resume is only one of the things that can land a job and should be seen as such.A good resume should stand out from all of the other thousands of resumes that are floating around. It should look different from the others and it should have the ability to really grab the attention of the hiring manager and convince them that you are a person who is worth their time. However, it is only through what the resume does that a potential employer can really see this.However, this doesn't mean that you need to go through the trouble of pulling up a PDF version of all of the standard resume formats, look at them for a minute, then copy paste the answers from there into the body of your cover letter. This seems to be more common sense than any thing.So, if you want to know 'Which of these is not a standard rule for writing a good resume?' then the answer is obvious. It's not. However, the next question you should ask yourself is why not?If this is common sense to you then there is little reason for you to continue reading. If, on the other hand, you need to learn the answer you should know that there are quite a few companies in particular that specialize in creating exceptional resumes for a variety of job requirements. These types of companies have tools that allow you to customize your resume and are constantly striving to make sure that the resume that they create really stands out from the rest.When it comes to resume formats it's all common sense but there are some questions that need to be asked about them as well. It is natural for someone who has been working for several years at a local company to leave the main reason for that in the letter of the bio itself but this isn't always the case. There are many people who have been laid off from their job or who have had to take a pay cut that continue to keep their skills and experience relevant and valuable to the company that they currently work for.Of course, you need to know the answer to 'Which of these is not a standard rule for writing a good resume?' because even though the general idea of a resume is to show that you have what it takes to do the job you are applying for, there are still instances where the cover letter will show more than the resume. The same way that a personal statement shows more than the resume does this same mentality is needed for cover letters.There is really no common sense answer to 'Which of these is not a standard rule for writing a good resume?' but there are lots of companies out there that have made the job easier than ever. Now that you know how to custom tailor your resume to fit the job, you can find out how to create that personal style that will wow your future employer.

The Looming Healthcare and Insurance Catastrophe for Baby Boomers - Career Pivot

The Looming Healthcare and Insurance Catastrophe for Baby Boomers - Career Pivot The Looming Healthcare and Insurance Catastrophe Copyright: nexusplexus / 123RF Stock Photo Healthcare and health insurance are the driving forces for my wife and me to leave the country. I have been chronicling our progress on this blog and the Repurpose Your Career podcast. You can find the entire series of blog posts and podcasts here. 2019 looks like the year when those of us who are between 55-64 and are self-employed, or retired, will be left with few options when it comes to healthcare and health insurance: Find a corporate gig with benefits. Stay self-employed, insured and pay exorbitant health insurance rates. Go uninsured and take the risk. Get healthcare outside of the US. My wife and I have chosen the last option. How Did We Get Here Ever since World War II, health insurance has largely been tied to your employer. You might want to check out the post,Fought for in War Lost in the Peace â€" Health Insurance and Employment [Guest Post], on why this is so. If you wanted health insurance, you received it as a benefit from your employer. If you were self-employed, you could purchase it on the open market with many stipulations, like no coverage for pre-existing conditions. This has been a boat anchor around many of our ankles that deterred us from entrepreneurial endeavors. When the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was enacted, it gave my wife and me incrediblefreedom. I had wanted to start my own business, in this case, CareerPivot, for years but I was never able to purchase health insurance on the open market for my wife. My wife has medical issues that are quite affordably treated, but not one insurance company would consider issuing a policy no matter the price. Therefore, I stay employed with a traditional employer just so I would have access to health insurance. The ACA, which I might say is horribly flawed but fixable, allowed many baby boomers who were under the age of 65, to retire or pursue entrepreneurial endeavors and still be able to buy health insurance. Then Came the AHCA 2017 was the year that the political forces in power in Washington D.C. planned on repealing the ACA and replace it. The problem was …. they had not a clue what they were going to replace it with. ACA took over a year to create and it was horribly flawed. The current administration thought they would do something to replace it in a few months. In 2017, theAmerican Health Care Act, AHCA, was created and voted on by the House of Representatives in Congress. The AHCA passed the house by just a small margin, but it failed by a small margin in the Senate. It would have allowed insurance companies selling through the exchanges, to double or triple rates for those over 60 years of age. It would have created a greater crisis for baby boomers than what is currently happening. Since the failure of Congress to repeal ACA and replace it with AHCA, the current presidential administration has been working to strip away funding for the act. Over time, this will kill the ACA but there will be a lot of pain inflicted in the meantime. That pain will primarily be felt by baby boomers who are self-employed, or retired, and not old enough to be eligible for Medicare. I personally know of a number of self-employed baby boomers who decided to go uninsured in 2018 and pay the IRS tax penalty. The individual mandate was eliminated for 2019, therefore, there is no penalty for going uninsured next year. More people will take the risk and not purchase health insurance. 2017 Was the Breaking Point Healthcare and health insurance cost our household over $25,000 in 2017 and we did not reach our insurance deductible. Think about that for a second. That would have sent many families into financial ruins. We are blessed that our budget could absorb that cost, but … it was not pleasant and we do not want to do that again. My wife and I made the decision to start exploring our options soon after the 2016 presidential election. We knew that there would be a fight over health insurance legislation, and neither side had a viable solution. Every sign said it was going to get ugly â€" and it has! We made ourfirst trip to explore overseas options in March of 2017, and we are now on our 5th test drive in becoming an expat. After trips to San Miguel de Allende Mexico, and Cuenca Ecuador,Ajijic Mexico was chosen as our first semi-permanent stop. What Are Our Options? I fully expect there will be an October surprise right before the mid-term elections, but it will not be what you think. It will be letters sent to ACA subscribers with their rate increases. Who will feel the worst pain? Baby boomers between 55 and 64 years of age. I am already receiving frantic inquiries from my self-employed friends who desperately need health coverage and know that they will not be able to afford the rate increases. For these people, they really have only a few choices: Seek full-time employment with benefits. Enroll as a part-time student at our local community college and enroll in the school’s health insurance plan. Decrease your taxable income to be eligible for ACA tax credits. Health Insurance Options As I wrote in a previous post, Full Employment is Here Except For Baby Boomers, finding full-time employment, much less with benefits for baby boomers, is not as easy as it appears. The economists and our federal officials love to tell us we are at full employment and anyone who wants a job can have a job, but that is simply not true. I have a good friend who runs a bed and breakfast with his wife. He has a number of health issues that make it difficult for him to return to the corporate world. His wife is enrolled at the local community college and registers for one course per semester. As long as she stays enrolled and passes the class, they can cover the entire family, which includes 2 children, in the student group health insurance program. It is not cheap (over $1000/month) and has a high deductible, but they are insured. I am working to keep my taxable income, notice I said taxable income, for 2018 under $61,000. This is being accomplished by having my wife quit working, deferring income from 2018 to 2019, bringing in business expenses into this year, living in Mexico for 4 months and playing accounting games. If I am successful, I will get tax credits that will pay 95% of 2018 health insurance premiums which will exceed $17,000 for 2018. If we go one dollar over the limit, I get nothing. Isn’t that a pathetic game to play? Are there other options? Yes, a good example is Christian Medical Sharing programs, but they are most suitable for families that have few or no medical issues. This is not a viable option for my family. Healthcare Options Over the last few years, my wife has been required to give up seeing doctors she has been seeing for years. Our current policy requires her to see only doctors in a single group practice. Now it is a BIG group, and all in all, she has been pleased with the care. Nonetheless, this caused a lot of stress for both her and myself as she is a former RN. She is picky about who she sees when it comes to medical care. When she gets stressed, I get stressed. When we started to discuss leaving the country and doing our research, we got 2 completely different reactions from people when we told them about our plans: “Aren’t you concerned that you will get inferior healthcare outside of the US?” “I go out of the country for all of my healthcare needs.” The more research I did, the more I realized that healthcare outside of the US could be better and less expensive. Well, not just less expensive, but way less expensive, while at the same time offering exemplary service. Current Experience A couple of weeks before our return to Mexico, my wife called to make an appointment with an endocrinologist. She dialed the number given to her when we visited the clinic on our last trip. What was surprising was the doctor herself answered the phone. It was her personal cell phone. The doctor did not know the number of the clinic to make an appointment but told my wife to give her 5 minutes and she would get it. My wife called back in 5 minutes and the doctor gave her the clinic telephone number. The endocrinologist comes to Ajijic from Guadalajara, which is less than an hour drive away, every other Saturday. My wife had an appointment last Saturday morning. The appointment lasted 2 hours and the doctor completely reviewed my wife’s medical history. Remember, my wife is a former RN! She was thrilled with the attention to detail and care that she received. The cost was 700 Mexican Pesos or 35 US dollars. WHAT?? That is not a co-pay, but the total cost of the visit. They agreed that my wife should also see the hematologist and they immediately made an appointment for the following Monday. Notice it was not 2 weeks or 2 months in the future, but 2 days in the future. She ended up spending 1 hour with the hematologist and she was once again thrilled with the doctor. The cost was the same. Consequences I am not going to get into the politics on whether what the current administration is doing is right or wrong. What I am going to say is, there will be some extreme pain from what baby boomers will pay in the meantime. This means if you are currently employed, you had better stay employed until you are Medicare eligible. Even if you are covered by a spouse’s group health plan, you cannot guarantee that will be affordable. If you become unemployed, you will want to get creative. The US healthcare system is not the envy of the world anymore. There are other options that will make some of you uneasy, like becoming an expat. You might need to learn a new language or adopt new customs but at the same time, that may well extend your life and health. The number of expats is growing at an incredible rate that there are already over 1 million US citizens living in Mexico. Many have been leaving because they can no longer afford to live in the US. Now, more and more people are leaving for healthcare and health insurance reasons. We will purchase an international health insurance plan from one of the major insurance companies for 2019. It will be a third, to half, of what our current insurance costs and will have a deductible that is a fraction of our current deductible. It will not cover pre-existing conditions, but that is okay because we can pay our healthcare expenses out of petty cash. It is there just in case. Late next year, my wife will be Medicare eligible and we will sign her up, even though Medicare does not cover expenses outside of the US. This is another complicated topic that I am still researching. It willbe there just in case. I am multiple years away from being Medicare eligible. We are making preparations for 2019, when we may very well have a healthcare and insurance catastrophe for baby boomers. Are you ready for what is coming? What are you going to do to prepare? Marc Miller Like what you just read? 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Do You Have What It Takes To Be A Counselor - CareerAlley

Do You Have What It Takes To Be A Counselor - CareerAlley We may receive compensation when you click on links to products from our partners. It doesnt matter whether you are taking a relevant degree at an Ivy League college or whether you have been in industry for a decade or more, you could be ready to take the plunge and become a counselor. Many people choose to switch careers once they feel they have reached the pinnacle of their current role. Others choose to swap careers because they have a sudden pang of wanting to help people, they desire greater job satisfaction, or they want to get out from behind the desk and experience new things every day. It doesnt matter whether you are taking a relevant degree at an Ivy League college or whether you have been in industry for a decade or more, you could be ready to take the plunge and become a counselor. Tweet This Counseling is seen as the natural progression for those who are keen to help people work through their problems. While you may not have direct experience or subject-specific qualifications, you might have a wealth of life experiences that you can bring to your practice. You may have worked through your own mental health problems, you may have succeeded in your career and surpassed the competition or you might have overcome many barriers to your personal relationships. However, just because you have the yearning to become a counselor, you need to think about whether you have the skills needed to make your practice a success. Image by Communication Before you consider setting up your own counseling practice, its vital that you hone your communication skills. In the world of work, you will have communicated with a range of different human beings in different job roles. The difference here, however, is that you were all working towards a common goal and eager to exceed targets. All you had to consider was a business relationship. Within a counseling role, you will be conversing with a much wider demographic of society. One hour you may be helping a woman feeling particularly vulnerable while going through a divorce. The next, you might be trying to solve an issue with a gentleman who lacks self-confidence. And the next, you might be listening to somebody who is dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder. As a listener, you need to make sure that you are able to hear everything that your patients are telling you. This is why you should consider the possibility of wear hearing devices to increase your earning power. The better listener you are, the better counselor you will end up being. The variety of people that you meet as a counselor is vast and as such you will need to communicate on many different levels. Some may appreciate a less formal tone, while others will want to maintain an air of professionalism. It can be difficult to gauge how to converse and communicate, but this is something that you will have to learn in order to build an effective working relationship with those individuals that you are counseling. Tolerance Its more important to be tolerant and accepting as a counselor than in any other role. Many people who come to see you will be nervous and anxious. They might worry that they have an embarrassing problem or that you might be judgemental because they have done something deemed unconventional or morally suspect. Its not up to you to judge. You need to listen and accept everything that they are telling you. By showing them that you are tolerant, you can create a more honest atmosphere that will help them work through their issues in a more worthwhile way. Image by Arek Socha from Pixabay Problem Solving As you listen to your patients talk about their issues, you need to be working out potential solutions to their problems. These cannot be you telling them how to improve their lives, start feeling better or enhance their confidence, self-esteem, or ability to control their anger. You need to be armed with a whole host of solutions that you can talk through together. Problem-solving is a highly personal thing, so you must present your patient with a variety of suggestions to help them see that their problem isnt hopeless and that there is a solution. They need to identify their own negative thought patterns with a little prompting by you. If anything, you are a facilitator rather than a provider of solutions. Empathy You might not have suffered mental abuse, had to combat drug addiction or been subject to the tragedy of child bereavement. However, that doesnt mean that you cant help individuals who are going through the trauma of these issues. You need to have bucketfuls of empathy to help you see life through other peoples eyes. You need to put yourself in your patients shoes and try to imagine how they must be feeling, what their thought processes might be, and how they might solve their problems. Some of the experiences that you listen to will not be easy to sit through. However, because you want to help people, you can help them see beyond the tragedy and live a more fulfilling life once again. Its up to you to develop strategies to help them clarify their thoughts and begin to see light at the end of the tunnel. Image by Sensitive You will have to be sensitive to people from all different walks of life. Depending on their religion or ethnicity, they may be reserved, unwilling to talk openly, or they may struggle to show their feelings honestly. Its up to you to make them feel confident enough to open up to you, while at the same time respecting that their circumstances may make it tricky for them to do so. You will need to show patience and work at a slower pace to develop a great bond of trust. Being a counselor is one of the best jobs in the world. Every day you venture into work knowing that you are helping people become better and feel brighter about themselves and their lives. As a counselor, you will be a listener, a problem solver, and a facilitator. Your professional life will be more worthwhile, you will feel more satisfied and every work day will be different. Forget your desk job and consider switching to a more fulfilling career. What's next? Ready to take action? Choose the right tools to help you build your career. Looking for related topics? Find out how to find the opportunities that help you grow your best career. Subscribe and make meaningful progress on your career. It’s about time you focused on your career. Get Educated Contact Us Advertise Copyright 2020 CareerAlley. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy + Disclosure home popular resources subscribe search

Seize your career power six tips to help you get a job -

Seize your career power six tips to help you get a job - When you are looking for a job, it is easy to fall into the trap of applying and waiting to hear from an employer to see if you won a chance to interview. Its not going to get you the job, though. Whats the problem with this apply only strategy (also known as spray and pray)? It puts too much power into other peoples hands. Job seekers who seize control of their searches have a much better chance of landing opportunities than those who spend all of their time looking for open opportunities and applying. Lisa Rangel is managing director of Chameleon Resumes, contributor to Michelle A. Riklan and David Riklans, 101 Great Ways to Enhance Your Career, and author of the ebook, The Do-It-Yourself Branded Resume Kit. As a search firm recruitment leader for over 13 years who partnered with Fortune 500 and boutique firms to source top talent, she sat on the proverbial other side of the desk, hiring people to fill clients positions. She advises job seekers to take steps to ensure it is easy to find them for the jobs they want. Posting an ad to recruit for an open position is one of the last tactics a recruiter wants to use, Rangel says. Once a position is available online, many recruiters receive a plethora of ill-qualified applicants. Rangel advises candidates to distinguish themselves from the rest of the applicant pool using these techniques: Update your LinkedIn headline. Stay active and update your status via social media sites. Think about search terms employers will use to find you. The more friends, the better. Go where people in your field are. Be generous; give to get. Read all the details and how to do its at my U.S. News World Report article. photo by Marie A.-C.