Rain Rain, Go Away 6 Ways to Make Bad Weather Work

Rain Rain, Go Away 6 Ways to Make Bad Weather Work Theres nothing worse than being woken up by your alarm on a Monday morning, only to be faced with a dark sky and rain clouds. To make matters worse,  the rain starts just as you leave the house. To top this off, you dont have an umbrella or appropriate shoes, to put an even bigger dampener on your day (literally). So before you walk into your office, miserable, cold and wet, there are some things you can do to boost your motivation and improve a rainy day, and (metaphorically) bring the sun into your office. 1. Perk up the office Picture this: a rainy day, grey skies and soggy shoesand then you walk into an office thats equally as bland, grey and soggy. The trick to boosting motivation when the weathers horrid is to brighten up your office any way you can yourself! Decorate your office with bright flowers, giant bean bags, fairy lights, funky wall decals and posters. Inject some colour and fun into the space as best as you can. If you didnt come prepared, maybe you can print out some pictures for the walls! https://twitter.com/Sarcobash/status/743361571179630592 2. The sun will come out tomorrow Rain and bad weather can make you feel low. But remember the sun will come out tomorrow (singing optional). Its always best to try to think positively, and remind yourself that tomorrow is a new day and a chance to improve,  weather included. If youre struggling to stay positive, maybe even host a little office Annie sing-a-long to brighten the mood. 3. Invest in an umbrella Before this year,  I never seemed to have an umbrella that wasnt broken. Rainy  mornings meant a very wet walk to the train station, and by the time Id arrived at work my shoes would be squelching and my hair would have taken on a mop-like texture. But then I did something that changed my life; I bought an umbrella. After years of buying cheap, throwaway umbrellas, leaving them at parties/on the train/under my bed, I vowed to myself that I would guard this umbrella with my life. Since that day, Ive always got a strong, sturdy umbrella in my bag, just in case. Umbrellas can change commuters life. Luwint 36 Diameter Fishing Gardening Folding Umbrella Hat Headwear, Silver https://t.co/TAH1sJVrc1 pic.twitter.com/eHJfgS8ACs Bridger Guide (@BridgerGuide) June 7, 2016 4. Bust a move Do you know what rainy days call for? Spontaneous dance parties. If your team is feeling down in the dumps with a lack of motivation, pep them up bringing some beers into the office and turning the tunes up just before close of business. A social like this can assist in developing peer relationships and in bringing the team closer together. Fire-fighting demonstration or spontaneous line dance party? We’ll let you decide. #TBT #BurkeScavengerHunt2015 pic.twitter.com/7dPulr7RLB Burke, Inc. (@BurkeInc) June 16, 2016 5. Leave earlier in the morning dont rush Something that makes a large difference to my commute on a rainy day is leaving myself enough time so I can have a relaxed and not rushed journey into work. Public transport and roads are generally congested and dangerous  on rainy days as those who would usually walk/cycle use public transport to avoid the horrible weather. Feeling rushed and unorganised is a pain in itself, and being soaked with rain is the cherry on the top. Make sure youre prepared for anything by giving yourself enough time. https://twitter.com/zettedalumpines/status/737578754906558466 6. Music makes all the difference Its been proven that certain types of music can improve motivation and productivity in an office environment. Thats why you should create a Spotify playlist and blast some tunes out in the office on rainy days. Having summer tunes playing will help you forget about the sorry state of the weather outside, and get you hyped up for work. https://twitter.com/jxzzi/status/740526007816486913 What helps you motivate yourself on rainy days? Let us know in the comments below. Image credit: Shutterstock.

5 Shortcuts to make yourself more valuable

5 Shortcuts to make yourself more valuable You hear all this talk aobut how you have to march to your own drummer, think out of the box, blah blah. The truth is, you cant change anything until you know all the rules. Advice admonishing you to break rules is so shallow. How can you break rules without learning them first? People who understand all the rules know intuitively how to break them because they know the rules that really are not working. People who do not know rules are not breaking rules. They are annoying people. Because for the most part, rules are there to make peoples lives easier. There are lots of us in society, in the workplace, driving through intersections. If we dont have rules there is chaos. Some rules need changing, but you cant tell that until you know the rules and how they work together. So instead of giving you advice on how to break the rules, Im going to give you advice on how to learn them fast. 1. Learn multiple sets of rules at the same time. The more types of rules you learn, the faster you get at learning them. This is, basically, what a liberal arts education is learning systems in disparate categories. Im fascinated by the yarn bombers. Heres a photo of some of their work: What makes the yarn bombers so fascinating to me is the practitioners have learned two sets of rules that dont usually go together: How to do yarn work at a high enough level to do it on the street, fast and furtively. And how to create street art in a way that has social impact, defies arrest, and leverages networking tools to pass along knowledge. 2. Learn rules you think youll have no use for. Revolutionaries never know where they will land. Because revolutionaries seldom set out to make huge change they just want to meet their goals, which, at the onset seem completely reasonable too reasonable to require revolution. The American Revolution is a good example of this. So is the invention of the web browser. The fact that most revolutionaries are people who have reasonable, thought-out goals, means that most have a whole catalogue of rules in their heads that they have collected as a way to meet their goals. Marc Andressen, for example, went to school for years to learn to code before he developed a graphical web browser. Anthony Weiner is my favorite example of having learned a cataloge of rules. He is a Congressional representative from New York, and is renown for colorful antics on the House Floor. In general, he is simply passionate about pushing the very liberal agenda of his NYC constituents. But he is so fun to watch that if Congress would give him more time at the microphone, C-Span might be interesting enough to go mainstream. Here is a video of Weiner leveraging his encyclopediac knowledge of Parliamentary Procedure to yell over a fellow legislator. 3. You need to know whats expected to do whats unexpected. Great ideas challenge expectations. Which means you cant create anything innovative without understanding what has already been done. My favorite example of this is the freshman writing course I taught at Boston University. Most of the students had never read literature beyond the Western canon. So they wrote tales of sex and drugs as if they were breaking new ground. In fact, it had all been done, since the time of Chaucer. Its just that my class was filled with writers who dont read. You cant do that. You cant disrupt ways of thinking, or ways of doing, without understanding those ways. Mary Flanagan is a professor of film and new media at Dartmouth college. She creates video games where there is no traditional game hierarchy. Instead of going from one level to the next, a player completes a task and then loops around to do it again like catching groceries with a paper bag, or laying off a slew of workers and replacing them. During an interview with ArtNews, Flanagan summarizes her approach as playing with conventions and expectations. Which is, of course, the approach of most artistic revolutionaries, which is why you need to know the rules that have created a set of audience expectations. 4. Leverage the rules you already know. The young, groundbreaking entrepreneurs establish companies in a field where they are already an expert. Mark Zuckerberg, for example, started writing code in junior high school, and he started not getting dates in junior high. So by the time he got to Harvard he was ready to break the rules in those categories. Tavi Gevinson had been studying fashion at home and writing in school for years and years. So that, although her life is relatively short (shes a freshman in high school) she knows enough on these topics to infuse her Generation Z sensibilities to fashion blogging in a refreshing way to rise to the top in the fashion world. 5. Dont snub your nose at corporate life. I spent a lot of time in corporate America learning the rules. I realized that no one cared about my ideas, so I did my own stuff on the side, while I spent my days at Ingram Micro learning how corporate hierarchies function. I asked lots of questions about office politics, and salaries, and promotions. I did very little work but, at that time, other people knew very little about the Internet so they could imagine that I was doing more work than I was doing. I learned how to do only work that people notice. I learned how to make people like me whether or not they liked the work I do. I learned what is important in corporate life (dress code) and what is unimportant (good grammar). The safety and structure of corporate life is a great place to learn the rules, so its no surprise that many of the rule breakers spend a good part of their early career navigating the Fortune 500. The point I want to drive home here is that you cant think of ways to disrupt the status quo at its core until you understand the status quo at its core. You dont need to pay your dues, but you do need to understand the field youre playing in. The corporate ladder was a slow way to learn rules by allowing someone else to set your timetable and your career goals. Learning the rules is still something you have to do, but you can make your own path for learning that is fast and lethal and makes learning the rules look more exciting than ever before.

Ta-dah! Behold the Talent Funnel

Ta-dah! Behold the Talent Funnel In the world of recruitment today, many organisations are looking much deeper into their recruitment strategy and asking is this fit for the future? Many of the partner functions like marketing, sales and customer success, have learned that their  clients go through a complex set of decisions in the lead up to buying a product or service. Customer success has realised that throughout the life cycle of them being a customer, there are more complex decisions on whether to continue using the same or moving to another provider. Is it time for recruitment functions to realise  the same? Thanks to Google, information is much more readily available today than ever before. Customers have become empowered by this information and can make informed decisions. Along with this, competitors are becoming smarter and smarter in acquiring your customers through marketing and sales. The same is happening to talent attraction. Organisations have realised that changing career is often a complex decision. By looking at talent attraction as a funnel, you can ensure a potential employee receives all the information they need to make a complex decision. To be able to deliver the correct information, or content to people at the right time we need  consider the funnel and what content people need at each stage of the funnel. The funnel A talent attraction funnel has four key stages: Awareness Becoming aware of your brand and the jobs available Education Learning about your business and the mutual value that can be added Consideration Considering the facts of the job and whether their desires are met by the opportunity Decision Apply / Accept offer…or not! Content for each stage Now we know the different stages of the funnel we need to deliver content to people to help the progress to the decision stage. Providing the right content will help them learn much more about your company and will help them answer some of the below questions: What is the company culture? Will I add value to the company? What value will the company add to my career or personal life? Do I believe in the value of the services offered by the company? Do they look after their people? Will I fit in with the team? Awareness stage During the awareness stage, you can take a total addressable market view. Hence, your plan should be to present your brand and opportunities to everyone of interest. For example, if you were a local accountancy firm,  you would want everyone working in the accountancy sector to  see your brand and to be offered the opportunity to engage with it. This is the top of the funnel and you can approach the market in various ways: Social media Direct email Blog Newsletter Digital or offline Sector specific events And the list goes on Education The education phase is where you have the opportunity to educate your audience in the different facets of your organisation and how you would add value to their career. Two of the most effective and engaging ways of doing this are storytelling and person to person engagement: Day in the life of stories Employee success stories Career progress stories Graduate stories Apprenticeship stories Stories about social responsibility Opportunities to engage with your employees at events, by phone or on social media Consideration As a person is considering employment with your company, they will be asking themselves lots of questions like the ones at the start of this section. Our job as recruitment marketers is to answer these questions truthfully through engaging content. As a result, we attract the right decision from the right people and, if the answers we provide through content are  not what the candidate wants to hear, then they are not likely to be right for your business. Decision The is the easiest part, you have influenced the right decisions from the right people by engaging them with honest content. Now you need to continue the engagement as they progress through your recruitment and onboarding processes so that you retain the integrity of the stories you have told. Funnel  Intelligence For the funnel to be truly successful, you want to understand where each person is in the funnel so that you can deliver relevant content. You can do some of this manually through link tracking with services like Mail Chimp and Bit.ly. And, if you would like to know the methods I use, then connect with me on LinkedIn.

A 9-Step Formula For Wellness at Work - Classy Career Girl

A 9-Step Formula For Wellness at Work Studies have shown that unhappy employees outnumber happier employees by two to one. That means that out of every 30 employees, over 15 of them are unhappy at work and don’t enjoy their time in the office. That’s a depressing statistic, especially as we spend the majority of our week at work. The problem is that for a lot of workers being unhappy at work has become a way of life. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way. There are plenty of ways you can improve your workplace wellness. ‘Wellness’ is a term that a lot of people are confused about. All it really means is taking care of yourself and having a mind and body that is in good shape. When we say ‘workplace wellness’ we’re talking about the impact that your workplace can have on your physical and mental health. Many employers are aware that the workplace has an impact on your personal wellness and do what they can to ensure you have a nice environment to work in. Many employers also see the value of providing access to health facilities such as an on-site gym, a medical center, and even psychologists. However, it’s not just the role of your employer to make your work environment more enjoyable. You are responsible for your own wellness. Far too many people just accept that while they’re at work, they will just be miserable. However, it doesn’t have to be the case. By taking steps to boost your happiness and health, you can make your time at the office a lot more enjoyable. Trust us on this, by taking the below steps and implementing them, you will find that you enjoy your time at work a whole lot more. A 9-Step Formula For Wellness at Work 1. Give Your Office a Mini-makeover Most of us spend at least eight hours a day at work which equates to at least 40 hours a week. Since we spend a lot of time at work, an easy way to give our happiness a boost is by making our workspace our own. Whether you work in a shared office or have a private one, there are plenty of ways you can give your workspace a mini makeover. By making over your area and making it as comfortable and welcoming as possible, you’ll feel a lot more at home. Simple changes like investing in new stationery or investing in a new mug, a cute pot plant, and a couple of photos that you love can make a difference in your overall motivation and work output. Studies have shown that if you like the space that you work in, youll be happier at work. 2. Make Friends Friends just make everything better, dont they? Research has shown that having a work best friend can boost your overall happiness and make work more bearable. Having someone to chat with, share jokes with and eat lunch with can make your time in the office a lot more enjoyable. It can also boost your workplace productivity and help your career advance even further by sharing each networking contacts. If you don’t already have work besties, it’s time to find one. Make an effort to chat with your co-workers and attend social events together. If you do, you’ll soon find a group of great friends to spend your time with that you already have a lot in common with. Look for work friends in different floors and departments in your company. They dont just have to be on your current team. 3. Smile You’ve probably heard the saying ‘a smile goes a long way, well it’s true. Research has shown that when we smile, we instantly feel happier. The same is true when someone else smiles at us because someone is happy to see us. Similar to when we exercise and our brain releases endorphins that boost our mood, when we smile our brain releases neuropeptides that also boosts our mood. These endorphins increase our happiness and also help to reduce our stress levels. Smiling not only makes us feel happier at work, but it also helps decrease stress. 4. Thank Your Co-workers When a colleague, or even your boss, does something nice for you, thank them. When we hear someone thank us, we instantly feel a sense of self-worth. This improves our mood and makes us feel happier to help others. When you thank your co-workers, your co-workers will be more likely to help you out when you need it. Studies have shown that in office environments, one person’s mood pretty easily rubs off onto other people too. This means that the happier your co-workers are, the happier and more content you will be too. If the mood in your office is a negative one, the chances are much higher that you’ll be negative too. By thanking your co-workers, you can quickly boost the mood of your workspace. 5. Get Organized It’s no secret that being organized is crucial when it comes to doing your job properly. A messy desk is not a nice space to work so keeping your workspace neat and tidy is a must. Keeping your paperwork, pens, and other items on your desk tidy will give your mood a significant boost. You’ll feel much happier in a well-organized space. The other major benefit of having an organized workspace is that it will reduce your stress levels. Getting rid of the messy desk thats a struggle to find anything can instantly boost your stress levels, making your time at work a lot less enjoyable. Your mental health plays a big role in how content you are when at work so it’s important to do all you can to keep your stress levels low. 6. Learn to Cope With Stress With that in mind, it’s time to focus on stress. Having an organized desk can help to prevent stress from occurring, but that’s not all it takes. It’s not just about preventing stress; it’s also about coping with it. Every job comes with stress, and that’s fine because our bodies and minds are made to cope with it. However, too much stress can cause depression, anxiety, and a range of other mental health conditions. That’s why it’s so important that you learn to cope effectively with workplace stress. The best methods of management differ from person to person. What works for your friend may not necessarily work for you. However, the most popular ways to manage stress while at work include deep breathing, taking breaks, and exercising. That’s why so many companies have gym facilities attached to them. 7. Eat  Healthy Various studies have shown that by eating healthy while at work, you can boost your wellness as well as your health. It’s no secret that healthy eating is crucial for a healthy body, but how does it impact your mindset? Research has shown that when we eat unhealthy food, we tend to feel bad about ourselves. We also tend to have a less positive attitude, which has an impact on our mindset. If for example, you snack on foods high in trans fats, like crisps and chocolate bars, your blood sugar will go up and down. This can cause fatigue, headaches and a range of other health problems, making your work day that little bit less enjoyable. However, if you stick to whole foods like fruit and vegetables, nuts and seeds, your blood sugar will stay within a normal range. 8. Stay Hydrated Unless you want to feel exhausted and suffer from nasty headaches, it’s essential to stay hydrated. If you don’t drink enough, your mind and body will suffer. You know that two o’clock slump you hit each day? Chances are that it’s the result of allowing your body to become dehydrated. If you want to be happier at work, you need to be drinking a lot throughout the day. (Unfortunately, coffee doesn’t count as a hydrating drink). To be well hydrated, your body needs a lot of water and other healthy drinks. Coffee is packed full of caffeine which is addictive and can cause painful headaches. Instead, switch to drinking green tea. It’s boosts general health, aids weight loss, and is a great hydrator. You can buy high-quality green tea at this page from Kiss Me Organics, or from your local supermarket. If you’re not a green tea fan, try another herbal tea. 9. Celebrate Small Achievements Last but not least, make an effort to celebrate your achievements. When you spend weeks working on a project at work, once it’s completed you need to celebrate. It may just be another project, but it deserves a celebration. By taking the time to mark the small achievements, you’ll feel happier and less stressed out. Whether you choose to celebrate with drinks with your co-workers, a meal with your friends, or a new gadget, make sure to treat yourself. After working hard on something, you deserve a little treat when it’s completed. You’ll find that rewarding yourself for your successes will make your job a much more enjoyable one. For ideas for celebrating your achievements, check out this advice at Inc. online. The truth is if you know how, boosting your workplace wellness is much easier than you would think. Take the above advice and you can make your time at work happier and more enjoyable.

Tips for Writing an Undergraduate Resume and Cover Letter

Tips for Writing an Undergraduate Resume and Cover LetterWriting an undergraduate resume for your next job hunt can be confusing. What does it all mean? How will it help you land the job you want? And, if you're applying for a post-graduate position, what kind of information are you going to need?Your first step in writing an undergraduate resume is to talk to a career advisor at your college's career services department. These people are there to help students find the jobs they want. They can help you figure out what information you should put on your resume and how to format your paper.A good adviser will know which job openings you're looking for and will help you find out about the job postings. So, ask them to recommend a job, for example, that would be the perfect fit for you. As part of this conversation, they'll probably point you in the direction of an employment agency that can help you find the job you want. Most people these days use the Internet to do their searches for work.Once you have some basic college information on hand, go online and search for job openings on job sites like Monster.com. This can help you quickly narrow down the types of jobs you're interested in. You may want to post your resume on other job search sites, too. This helps you get noticed by employers who may be unable to find you through other means.If you have additional experience or education you think might be relevant to the job you're applying for, send a cover letter and curriculum vitae to your career counselor. Tell your adviser the specific experience or education you have gained while working on a current job that would make it stand out from similar positions. Keep in mind that your adviser may not have a good idea about your career plans and may be better able to guide you. Still, it's a good idea to share your experience if you think it will help you get the job you want.If you're applying for a post-graduate position, then a resume is not as important as it used to be because the needs of employers are different than they were in the past. However, you will still need to write a resume. It may even be necessary to have it professionally written to help ensure that it's easy to read and to meet the needs of a future employer.Writing a resume and cover letter for each job search can be overwhelming. Some jobs you know about, and some jobs you just need to know about. Either way, you need to start early and make sure your letters and resumes are in place before you start looking for work. Many employers start sending resumes for open positions several weeks or months before you get to apply. In some cases, even in cases where you find a job after submitting your application, the company may not offer you the job yet.That said, when you start searching for a job, you may find several vacancies available immediately. Keep in mind that while it's sometimes important to have a resume and cover letter in place ahead of time, it's also often mo re important to have all the necessary paperwork in place to successfully complete the job search. Follow the tips above and soon you'll be on your way to landing the job you want.

Magnetic strategies to expedite your job search - Margaret Buj - Interview Coach

Magnetic strategies to expedite your job search You can do all the right things to get the attention of recruiters with a professionally written resume, bio, LinkedIn profile, online job boards, networking, the works! And all those things are important and do get noticed by hiring managers. Yet, there are still a few lesser-known strategies that seem to draw the recruiters to you like a magnet. Blog That’s right. Blog! I know you are an executive with little time on your hands to create a blog site, material, and be consistent in posting fresh material. If your blog is industry focused it can highlight your ideas, expertise, personal brand and showcase your unique value proposition to potential employers. The blog site can also act as a mini online resume in the information about you area. There are many ways to show-off your talent here. Quotes If starting your own blog just isn’t something that you are willing or able to engage in during your job search, consider how you can contribute to other published sources. These can be industry blogs, news-related journals or online magazines, books, radio shows, teleseminars, conferences, the list is almost endless. Being quoted or sought out for your expertise sets you apart from your competition. Your name keeps showing up in the industry magazine quoted as saying X and so on. It increases your credibility in a major way and piques the interest of recruiters. Informational Interviews Many executives resist conducting informational interviews and prefer to find out about the players in the industry through the internet or other resources. And that’s one way. However, informational interviews are powerful and effective for both job search and professional networking. Making stronger connections with someone new by taking a few minutes to find out about their career and experience gives you the opportunity to introduce yourself and your brand. Stick to the facts and don’t ask for a job. Keep the interview informational and relationship building only. Public Speaking Getting yourself in front of audiences (industry related or not) can have a powerful effect on your job search. Associations and business organizations are always looking for speakers for their events. Present on topics of interest, your expertise in a particular industry, or on subjects like marketing, sales, etc. These could be in-person seminars, or virtual webinars. The venue isn’t as important as the fact that you are reaching beyond your network to communicate to people about what you know. It shows you are a confident leader with true value to share with others. Try one of these magnet-attracting strategies to expedite your job search. The results will be worth it!

Career Inspiration from the Super Bowl

Career Inspiration from the Super Bowl Its Super Bowl Sunday and most of the pre-game talk is focusing on team match-ups, game strategy and whether the Steelers or Packers will win and why. While thats all well and good, Im taking a different approach to gearing up for the big game.Im attending the Broadway play Lombardi based on the life and teachings of legendary NFL coach and Hall of Famer Vince Lombardi for whom the Super Bowl trophy is named. To see behind the scenes at the life and dreams of this accomplished figure, and understand how he came to value and drive others to success, that is what Im excited about.You see careers and sports are not all that different. Both require us to be at our best, to find the right role and to work with others in achieving results. What it takes to motivate a player is what it also takes to motivate a worker. Take this quote from Lombardi If youre not fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm.Ive told my clients this same message when they fail to take steps and mov e on from jobs they dont like. This past Friday, I made this the featured quote of the week on my career advice radio show. It not only got a laugh in the studio but hit on the too-often missed point that we call the shots in our careers -either by taking action or by failing to. It has been said that Vince Lombardi inspired people to achieve what they never thought possible.So this afternoon, I plan to not only gain a deeper understanding of this inspired man but also learn from his approach and example. Encouraging people to go after their dream jobs is not just a tag line for me. Its my purpose and passion. Im ready to learn from the motivational master!Enjoy your Super Bowl Sunday and remember, Winning isnt everything but the will to win is everything.