Category: careers

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It’s the Time to Overcome the Top 4 Barriers to Work Abroad

No one wants any obstacles in the path of their career progression.

When it comes to working abroad, several common barriers might slow down your speed. When planning to work in a foreign country, particularly Gulf countries where you can get a perfect blend of tax-free income and a great experience to explore a new world like Saudi Arabia, Oman and Qatar, no obstacles should stop you in your career progression!  

Job search

Here we will discuss some of the common barriers people face to move abroad- Understanding the Language, Cultural Difference, Safety Issues, and Home Sickness

Language Barrier

The understanding and knowledge of the country’s language you are relocating to, is extremely important. However, when you fail to understand the foreign language, it becomes a barrier for you to live and work abroad.

Solution: Learning a language is not something that you can’t do! For instance, if you are moving and looking for a job in Oman or any other Arab country, learning Arabic becomes the first step to break the language barrier. There are several ways to learn a new language- join classes, online learning, books, conversation groups, CDs/DVDs, etc.

Cultural Barrier

Understanding and adapting to a different culture is the next common hurdle you face in your plan to work abroad. Particularly moving to a location where religious beliefs are strictly followed, such as Gulf countries, it becomes vital to be aware about the cultural and religious norms.

Solution: Try to gain general understanding of the country’s traditions, beliefs, and moral values of its natives. For instance, business etiquettes in Muslim nations include handshake with men,

but approaching a female employee for it is not considered good. Similarly, you will find different culture while working in the European nations. Hence, prior knowledge of the culture, lifestyle, and its people is important for your relocation. You can join various groups online and chat with fellow expats.

Safety Issues

Moving abroad sometimes might cause you to face safety issues due to unfamiliarity with the location. Safety issues become a more serious concern particularly for women working abroad. No one expects that anything bad will happen to him/her in an overseas location, but it is always advisable to be prepared about any bad situation.

Solution: When living alone in a new country, avoid hiring any unlicensed private taxi. For women, it is recommended not to walk alone at night or be friend with any stranger without knowing him/her. You can also keep a map of the new places you will be required to travel on daily basis in the initial few days to avoid any confusion. Remember, you will gradually come to know about the new place and the new people. Until then, be cautious!

Experiencing Homesickness

Nostalgia is a common feeling people face when living abroad without friends and family. A new job, a new place and new people- these are together sufficient to make you feel alone at times. However, it is a challenge that you should overcome as soon as possible as it can affect your mental peace and health.

Solution: The best way to fight homesickness is to find positive reasons of your stay away from your home. A high paying job, global work exposure, or career opportunities; are these not the motivating factors for you? Yes, of course! Moreover, in today’s Internet age, it is not difficult to stay connected with people in other countries. Hence, it is possible to avoid a sad feeling and connect with your friends and family on social networking sites, video chats, and talk to them at reduced call-rates. Above all, it’s the time to find new friends in your new “home”-your new work country.

So, if working abroad has always been your dream, it is the time to say “Good Bye” to all these barriers.

Good luck!

BIO

Swati Srivastava is an avid writer who loves to pen down her opinion on economic issues, career advice, and global issues. To contact her, send her a message on LinkedIn  

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Thinking outside the Box: Graphic Design Career in Digital Signage

When you graduate as a graphic designer, the inclination is to apply for jobs in website design companies, game development companies or branch out on your own as a consultant. While these are all good options, there is one market that is so obvious yet so easily ignored.

Look around you

Have you noticed the evolution of outdoor and indoor advertising? Think about your favorite place to eat. Have you seen a change in how they display their menus and advertisements within the establishment? No? Well, you must have seen some interesting modes of advertising along the road in the recent past.

All these are forms of digital signage and it is taking over the world quite literally. The move from static signs to digital ones is a global trend with every region of the world getting in on it. As with most things, Europe and North America are leading but Asia-Pacific, Africa and the Arab world are poised to take the lead in digital signage.

What exactly is it?

Digital signage entails playing back digital content such as advertisements, menus, alerts and all kinds of information through a network of several screens called displays that are remotely controlled. The intention is to increase interaction between a business and its target demographic and is the latest and most preferred method of marketing.

What’s the link to graphic design?

Digital signage is actually a part of modern graphic design. Think of it as a larger and more dynamic version of a website. As a graphic designer for a website, you would be concerned with creating a graphic style that will be both appealing to the client and consistent throughout the entire website.

The same applies to digital signage, only at a larger scale. You will have to work with appropriate colors, fonts and shapes to bring to the fore the brand and the company behind it in a clear and appealing manner to the target audience. Further, you will be required to create a design and content that increases interaction between the company and its clientele with the intention in getting more conversions.

Get in right now

The greatest advantage of having your set of skills right now is that the digital signage market is growing rapidly and is poised to grow even further on a global scale. Everyone is going digital – from the large global corporations to the smaller local businesses. Digital signage is the future and everyone wants to be part of it.

As a result, there is an increased and constant need for the skills of a graphic designer to develop graphics and contents for digital signage. Constant because with digital signage, the content needs to be dynamic to keep the target demographic interested. This means that others may often seek you after to bring to life some new concept for a business’ digital signage.

Stick with the basics

So, as it stands, it is a good thing to be a graphic designer today. Just remember that with digital signage, the same basic design rules apply. You will have a great future as a graphic designer in the digital signage world.

Author Bio:

John Rex is a renowned expert in the world of digital signage. He has helped many companies, big and small, with digital solutions that meet their needs. Also, he knows where to get the best free digital signage.

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Becoming an Asset for Your Organization

The greatest of companies were formed by hardworking and dedicated team members. An organization is nothing without its people.

The treatment and the attitude of the employees speak volumes about the culture and ethics of the company.

These things are usually established by the company founders and year and year, the same ethics are passed down to each department and each team member. Once a certain set of rules and regulations are established and the organization has been around for a while, it can be quite difficult to make big changes.

Also, the company code of conduct cannot be implemented on other levels without it being followed religiously at the top.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree; an organization that doesn’t have its policies in place, will probably not do a great job at creating future leaders and great managers.

And great team leaders are not born; they are created. With the right amount of discipline, gratification, motivation, hand holding and discipline, the freshers of today can turn into highly successful department heads at chief executive officers of tomorrow. It is not as easy as simply doing courses in MBA; though a degree or diploma from the right institute can definitely speed up the process.

However, great organizations will not be able to sustain testing times unless they have the full commitment and dedication of their employees.

Young professionals, who only think about how they will benefit from the stint in a particular company, will probably not get too ahead in the race. Take the example of a FMCG giant.

Everyone from the research and development team to the product team to the marketing team to the branding team has to put in loads and loads of hard work for a particular product range to succeed.

It could be coming up with an anti aging cream – it takes understanding everything from the target audience’s point of view – the price point, the packaging, the application, the availability, etc. It cannot be executed by a self-centred brand manager, only concerned with his targets.

Any good company has to function smoothly like a well-oiled machine. It is a proven fact that employees that are looked after, respected and motivated perform better than the ones that are under constant stress of displeasing the superiors. On the other hand, it is also true that companies that have tried to run their operations like a family have failed miserably. The key here is obviously finding the right balance.

Team leaders and managers need to define the processes and deadlines better and the employees need to put in more of an effort in the task instead of simply getting involved at a periphery level.

A lot of new age companies are adopting the horizontal structure and choosing offices without walls and cabins.

While this type of management may suit some employees, in some cases it may just fall flat on its face. There are people who perform best in a group – they love to brainstorm and work till the wee hours with their team members and giant pizza slices.

However, some people may simply detest the idea of sitting with a bunch of people and a white board. They may be great when it comes to interacting with teams, but as far as their work goes, they may prefer to work in solitude.

When it comes to becoming indispensable to an organization, there is no one formula that makes sense across the board. Showing your enthusiasm and commitment may mean different things to different people. But hard work, dignity and the right attitude are common ingredients involved in the making of a successful person.

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An Introduction to Career Guidance Theory

An Introduction to the theory and models used in IAG sessions

Career Guidance Theory

Careers’ guidance theory is based often on research and provides practitioners a framework from which they can work from. Careers guidance theory is developed through best practice and allows practitioners to measure the impact of their intervention.

Without career guidance theories and research, practitioners may use dated models of IAG (information, advice and guidance) which were often relevant to their time but have now become dated.

Career guidance theory is developed and improved to be more relevant to the changes in the government policy, economy and advances in new technology. Without a framework or theory, career advisors may find it a difficult task to evaluate their practice and a lack of evaluation can lead to a lack of identification for areas of improvement, impact or good practice.

Career Guidance Research

Good theory is always based on research. But guidance practitioners have to be aware of how the researcher’s voice that the practitioner is well-read on will dominate the career guidance session, even though there is a general commonality in all career guidance models of ‘moving the client forward.’

An advisor using one model or theory, as an example “Differentialist theory” will identify the client’s interests and needs, and match these to opportunities,. A second advisor using “developmental theory” will take into account how the client will develop and change over time, and how the client will learn new knowledge and skills.

These two theories, designed to support the advisor to move the client forward, may have different outcomes. A practitioner using Egans model will presume the practitioner has a rapport with the client, whereas the later developed Hambly model, which was built on Egan, doesn’t assume anything.

Without evidence-based research, practitioners will not know, apart from through their own experiences, what the best framework for providing IAG  (information, advice and guidance) is.

In addition, as we have addressed, models and theories need to develop to meet the needs of the current time.

Practitioners of IAG, as part of their personal development, will keep up to date with new theories and models through a number of ways, one being a shift in agenda by government policies.

Theories of career choice and decision making

Theories of career choice and decision making have developed over the years building on good practice and research, starting from:

1950’s – Differentialism

1960’s – Developmentalism

1970’s – Stucturalism

1990’s – Social learning

1990-2000’s – Constructivism, planned happenstance and community interaction theory.

The Constructivist Approach

The constructivist approach (Savikas Young and Collin (1992), works on the client’s level, allowing individuals to make their own choices in the context of their own interpretation of the world, which has been referred to as the ‘narrative approach.’

The constructive approach takes into account that we all perceive the world differently through our own personal filters which generally include the client’s past experiences, their generalisations, deletions and distortions and the state the client is in.

As an example, two people thinking about a parachute jump will have two completely different internal representations, one person may feel excited while the other may become highly nervous. This is the same for when a client thinks of a certain career choice, the client may ‘excited,’ ‘bored,’ ‘fearful,’ or any number of emotional reactions.

interview prediction grid

In this way, the advisor has to be aware that they and the client will be representing the session differently and will need to ask ‘clean language’ questions to continue to build rapport and to help the client move forward.

To understand the client’s world in more detail, the advisor can ask the client what they know about a certain topic, while at the same time not imposing their own constructs onto the client.

Constructivism highlights that the teacher, which may be an IAG advisor, will need to provide sensory input so the client will construct meaning from it.

With each experience, the client will learn and their view of the world may be re-enforced or changed. By suggesting situations without adding your own perspective the client will make their own construct from this, which adds to their learning.

This learning is then internally and most likely subconsciously rather than consciously remembered, affecting future perspectives as this situation may be generalised, deleted or part deleted and distorted.

This theory is highly client-led, but can take time as the advisor cannot suggest ways forward and can only offer situations for the client to digest and then perceive in their own way, learning which each new perceived situation.

Clients can easily build up limiting beliefs that may need challenging in a constructive way, by asking clients questions on their situations and past experiences while the advisor asking situation questions do not add their own interpretation onto the client which may break rapport.

Planned Happenstance

Planned Happenstance (Mitchell 1999, Krumboltz and Lewin 2004) theory allows clients to make career choices by keeping an open mind, taking hold of new opportunities and engaging in networking.

Planned Happenstance affects all people in all areas of their lives and affects people’s interpretation of their world (constructivism.) when planning a career, clients and advisors cannot predict how politics, new advances in technology and world economics will affect their planned future career opportunities.

These unplanned events can create opportunities for people, which when grasped can open new exciting opportunities that were never predicted. Pathways are often unfolded, rather than planned, if clients keep an open mind rather than sticking to a well thought out plan, that can in some instances become a barrier rather than a support mechanism, the client may receive “once in a lifetime opportunities.”

Planned happenstance is highly effective as clients cannot know all the possibilities available to them. The advisor, to give the client the best opportunity should endeavor to build up the client’s networking skills to increase new planned happenstance opportunities.

Advisors should use opportunities to help them client reframe situations which is the opposite of the constructivism theory where advisors recognize the client’s perceived view of the world.

By increasing the client’s activities, networking opportunities and opportunities they are more likely to naturally find planned happenstance situations.

In some cases, a client may choose planned happenstance rather than sticking to a planned career path, believing that this new opportunity will suit them well or that they may miss out on a good opportunity while waiting for their ideal career.

Once in this ‘good opportunity’, clients may fall into the routine of this new position and miss out on the ideal position they could have held out for.

This means clients should way up each opportunity against their criteria making a more informed discussion rather than taking any opportunity, in this way planned happenstance is a conscious, purposeful, and on-going process that will help the client to build a more satisfying and fulfilling career.

Community Interaction Theory

Community interaction theory (Law 1981) suggests that some of the most influential factors in career choice relate to events that occur in the context of ‘community interaction’ between the individual and their social groups.

Law identified 5 components that affect people and their career choices;

  • Expectations – this can be pressure from family members to follow a certain career.
  • Feedback — ongoing positive and negative feedback and re-enforced messages from peers, family and professionals.
  • Support — reinforcement of aspirations and assistance in developing appropriate skills and strategies.
  • Modeling — can be conscious and unconscious and can be positive or negative, clients may model peers, family and professionals and can also feed into the expectations criteria.
  • Information — opportunities to find out about options that can feed into the planned happenstance theory.

The amount of information a person receives around career opportunities, LMI (labor market information) and career advice and the quality of this advice affects how the client will perceive the world (constructivism)

These 5 components can come from many sources including family, professionals, peers and friends and by exploring these 5 components the advisor can understand how external factors affect the client and can work with the client to overcome these difficulties and to help them deal with any barriers to moving the client forward.

If needed advisors can support the clients to gain more positive community interactions in all 5 components.

For an advisor working with ethnic groups, advisors need to be aware of cultural differences and cultural history and how these affect the clients. Without this knowledge, advisors may break rapport or at the worst build up new barriers.

Egans Model

Egans model of career guidance is a well known and used career guidance model. This is a 3 stage model used to help people solve problems and to develop opportunities.

The Egan model addresses 3 main questions:

“What is going on?”

“What do I want instead?”

“How might I get what I want?”

These questions can be asked and answered in one session, but will often be discussed over several sessions.

The 3 steps make it easy for both the advisor and client to know where they are what stage they will be moving onto next. Egan is easy to use and is client-focused while continuing to develop the client throughout the 3 stages.

The model is forward moving which has a positive motivation behind it, but with some clients, you may need to return to an earlier stage especially after large breaks between appointments and the Egan model does not allow this.

Unlike Hambly’s integrative model, Egan presumes the advisor already has rapport where in many cases advisors may need to build rapport up over several sessions to deal with any deep issues the client has to face.

Egans model is highly solution focus, asking in part 2 futuristic questions and also covers blind spots, feelings and potential barriers while keeping a focus on moving forward.

The Egan model uses leverage, commitment and action planning to keep the client on track and motivated with what had been agreed in the session, the action plan also allows the client to see the distance traveled.

The action plan stage often uses SMART actions and allows the client to time-bound actions asking “what will you do first?” Egan is found to be client-focused with emphasis on future action and client involvement designed to empower.

Once the endpoint has been reached, the experience of trying out can be the starting point for mentoring sessions allowing the Egan model to start again.

The Integrative Model

The Integrative model was built on Egan with a focus on career advice and unlike Egan who assumes rapport and contracting, Hambly uses stage one of three stages to address and establish these foundations.

Hamblys model, unlike Egan, allows a flow through the model allowing if needed for advisors to return to any stage throughout the model. Like Egan, Hamblys model is client-led – looking at the client’s story, has a focus on moving forward, looks for blind spots and agrees on commitment and actions for the client to move forward.

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10 Facts about Care Sector Jobs

10 Facts about Care Sector Jobs

1.       Due to medical and technological advancements, we have an aging population – we are all living longer. For the care sector, this means they need to train and recruit more staff then ever before to meet the demands of this sector.

2.       The recent baby boom has predicted that this sector is set to grow. Currently there aren’t enough trained carers to meet this potential demand.

3.       Care jobs vary depending on the support required by your clients. Support required for some elderly clients is low; you may be tasked with befriending a large number of old age pensioners who lack of support network. In this role you may take the OAP on trips, shopping, to doctor appointments or just to have a cup of tea and a chat. The middle includes the same duties, but you may offer additional support, such as making tea, checking they have took their medication and even some small DIY task. The final stage may include offering specialist support or even delivering personal care to the elderly.

4.       Many people get into caring roles due to their caring nature. You also have to remember that your patients may deteriorate and at some stage will pass away. As a carer you may be the person who discovers the decease or witnesses as an example hart attack.   You to ensure that you are capable (after training) to handle these situations, and to be able not to take grief situations home with you. For care roles you need to ensure your personality traits, work ethic and values to match the right care role.

5.       Entry route to these roles generally start at level 3 (college level). For specialist roles such as therapist and nurses you will be required to gain a degree. Course entry routes and duration can be found on university prospectuses.

6.       For applicants wanting to work in specialist fields including Physical Therapy, Alzheimer’s, Mental Health or Nurse you first have to qualify at university in this particular specialism.

7.       Surprisingly recent statistics have shown an increase in crimes committed by the elderly, which may see an increase in prison guards specifically trained to work with OAPs.   

8.       With many carer roles, you will work shift work.  Some care positions include “stay over’s” which may include sleeping at a patients house or care home. As part of the application process you need to ensure you highlight your willingness to do this.

9.       Entry level jobs are mainly as care assistants; supporting care workers in care homes. Care homes and hospitals also recruit cleaners, cooks and orderlies to help support their patients.  

10.   New regulations are predicted to come into practice to ensure the safety and care of OAPs in all sectors of this industry from care homes to specialist support. These regulations will include an increase in unplanned visits by the regulating authorities.

Check out care sector jobs here: Care sector jobs

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Being a Nanny Can Be More Rewarding than Merely a Paycheck

This months guest post comes from Jack Meyers a regular contributor for www.nannybackgroundcheck.com

There is more to being a nanny than just monitoring a child to make sure he or she doesn’t get into the cookie jar nor does something to get injured. A nanny needs to be a role-model for the child that can provide a positive influence in his or her life. The position requires a deeper level of caring than simply watching over the house. This level of expertise, caring, and interaction are reasons why nannies are paid far better than simple babysitters.

1. Adaptation – Obviously, a nanny loves to work with children. If you are unable to handle any situation that arises while caring for a child, then you should seek a different career. This isn’t saying that you need to know everything that is going to happen, but you need to be able to adapt to situations quickly. Anything can happen inside of 30 seconds with a child, good or bad.

2. Experience – Having previous experience caring for children in various settings is always a good thing to have on your resume. Educational, therapeutic, or pediatric experience could quickly hurl you into the front of the line. For those who lack experience and are looking to start their career as a nanny, jobs like babysitting or daycare can help.

3. Caring – You need to be able to care on a deeper level as a nanny than most other positions. Although you’re not taking the place of a parental figure, the child needs nurturing from you in order to develop into a positive role-model themselves in life. You’ll need to be able to care for the child in a fashion that you would care for your own.

4. Background Skills – Experience in first aid and CPR for children is one of the most important skills to have. Although we try to protect the children as best we can, accidents do eventually happen. Parenting classes of any kind is a great way to add knowledge to your experience and looks great on a resume. Many of these classes are provided by your local family care clinic for free. While it may be beneficial to take childhood development courses in college or obtain a degree, successful nannies have been able to accomplish their goals without. Basically, the more knowledge you gain for the care of a child, the better off you’ll be in a career as a nanny.

5. Flexibility – Although many stations have a set schedule that you’ll be needed, it doesn’t hurt to be flexible in your hours. Especially if a child forms a bond with you, extra hours or irregular times may be necessary. For instance, a family may be more comfortable with you watching the child if an emergency happens in the middle of the night.

6. Confidentiality – A family’s privacy needs to remain just that. In no manner of speaking is it ever OK to talk about your employer’s habits or lifestyle. The only time that confidentiality should take a back-seat is if there is illegal activity in the house or situations that put the child at risk. It’s no one’s business what goes on within the home you are stationed.

It takes a special kind of person to be a great nanny. It’s not some laid-back position that you can milk for a paycheck. It requires a greater interpersonal connection with a child in order to assist in his or her development. You have to work with the child, not because of them.

Author Bio:

 Jack Meyers is a regular contributor for www.nannybackgroundcheck.com. As a detective he wants to spread the knowledge of terrible things that can happen when people don’t fully verify the credentials of a caregiver or any employee. He also writes for various law enforcement blogs and sites.

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Two Key Rules to Passing Recruitment Interviews

The recruitment interview various from that of the standard job interview, which means you need to prepare differently. Recruitment agencies will either interview you for a specific position in which case you need to prepare and answer the interview questions as you would in any interview, as the recruitment agency will only put the best candidates forward as this is how they make there profit.

In many situations though, recruitment agencies will interview you to put you on their books, a great selling point to the employer “we have 5000 candidates ready to start work.” Recruiters will also question you about other positions you have applied for, which they then use as a lead to generate them, not you more business.

Rule One

As with any interview you need to sell yourself and the best way to sell yourself in the interview is by matching yourself to the job specification. In the recruitment interview use a little psychology and persuasive language, to uncover exactly what positions are available. This will need a little preparing beforehand.

At the interview start by taking control, “thank you for inviting me down today your agency has a great reputation (praise goes a long way), can I check what current positions are you looking to recruit for?” you may be given a general answer “oh, erm we have lots of finance positions available all over the northwest” when given general answers, chunk down for more detail “that’s wonderful, I have over 10 years experience in finance, what type of businesses are you recruiting on behalf for, banks? Small enterprises, government organisations?

Now they have to give you detail or look stupid, if they say “Hmm I don’t Know” they probably haven’t any vacancies and are looking for leads from you (yes this does happen..alot) with this I would say “OK, well if your not sure who you are recruiting for how do you know if I will be the correct candidate?” you can either leave at this point or use the interview as a practice interview, as it is unlikely that there is a real job.

If they answer with detail “we have several banks that we are currently recruiting for” you can use this to answer the following interview questions relating your experience to the skills required for the banking industry.

The idea is to get as much detail in your initial questions so you can target your answers, as the recruitment agency will then match you to the specific job, rather then having a general interview to check your skills.

Rule Two

The final part of the interview is to highlight to the recruitment agency how they can quickly make a profit out of you, which is their ultimate aim. Drop in to the interview at some point, how you always secure job offers at interviews, because employers recognise a key (skill, experience, qualification) of yours, you can even joke with the interviewer that this will be an easy sell for them. Remember some agencies don’t specialise in your industry they are recruited to shift the applicants, which means that they don’t always know the job role in-depth, only what is recorded on the employers job advert.

If they believe you will get the job at the employers interview, they will quickly let you pass there shifting interview, knowing that you will be recruited. Remember in many cases the recruitment agency is the gatekeeper to the real industry interview.

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Solo Jobs The Old and The New

3 Solo Careers

Teamwork is often a key skill on many job specifications, but for those employees who want to work in a job sector where you can work on your own initiative, you will need to pick a career where the key criterion is single working.

These 3 careers require people who can work on their own initiative

Time Management

The Man Scientist

you may think that this career is only available in cartoon or cheap comedy movies, but with the increase in STEM positions and a worldwide growth in green careers, innovators, designers and scientists are now in demand.  You could be paid thousands if you designed a car that could run on potato peelings or even millions for the innovator who designed and created a new way to capture energy from natural resources, such as the experiments in the North Sea where scientist have created technology to turn the power of waves into electricity.  

The sole working “mad scientist” has a vast opportunity to make a financially successful career turning their own ideas into working models that can be sold to industry leaders.

Cyber Security Officer

The internet has changed the world, and technology has developed quickly with millions of people using their internet phone to make payments, to pay bills and to access their bank statements. The growth of internet banking has been met by a growth in cybercrime. To combat this illegal activity which can potentially cost the financial sector billions of dollars, banks, financial companies and governments are recruiting cybersecurity officers to monitor and combat cybercrime. Companies will also commission hackers to try and hack their new systems before making them live. For the computer geek, well computer expert this role demands expertise, concentration and the ability to work alone  

Old MacDonald Had a Farm

150 years ago you would find whole villages working on a farm to produce a crop ready to sell across the world. This multi-skilled task took hundreds of people, but starting with the industrial revolution, the horticultural sector has developed using new technology and machines to produce faster and move profitable results. As the number of machines on farms increased the number of employees decreased, now in 2013 producing a crop is a person job an ideal job for the introverted employee, motivated to work alone.

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The Secret to Working With People You Don’t Like
	


	
	

		
First, you need to know why you don’t like that person, are they a “yes” person who never follow through, or a know it all – the person who always knows best, or is it a mannerism or value that rubs you up the wrong way?


Once you know why you don’t get on with someone that you can take action. Before taking action, ask yourself is it possible to just avoid this person? I don’t mean running away, but if you hot desk you could plan that you’re not sat next to this person.


If you have no choice but to work with the person you dislike, you will need to learn to laugh at the situation, otherwise, you become stressed in work. Think about how this situation benefits you, the yes person will soon be found out by managers, which in comparison will make you look good. If you have to work on a project together, ensure you are given different time-bound tasks, which means at review meetings your boss will see that you have achieved your task while the yes man hasn’t.


Whatever the issue is, you need to turn it to your advantage. Ask how can I benefit from this situation? If you let someone who rubs you up the wrong way continue with it, you will only become ill, stressed and extremely depressed.



	


	





		

		
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Turn Your Job into a Career
	


	
	

		
Turn Your Job into a Career


 


For many young people today, the biggest Career challenge seems to be getting onto the employment ladder in the first place.


 


We are often brought up with the limiting belief that the longer you stay in education the better employment prospects you will have. This is not always true, as many graduates who leave education and find it hard to secure employment, sometimes this is due to their grades or attitude and in many other cases because they picked the wrong subject!


 workplace 


The wrong subject


 


With university fee’s increasing, you don’t want to spend thousands of pounds on a course designed to secure you a career, which half way though you realise “it isn’t for me”


 


You can get good careers advice, but the key is to find your passion and then get paid for doing it – what is it that really gets your juices flowing? Helping people, complex sums, creating a masterpiece, performing to thousands? You need to ask yourself what will make me wake up every day and shout “yes I’m going to work”


 


We are all excited about different things, your passion is personal to you and I would add, Once you know your passion, it is easy to find the route to your career.


 


What if I get it wrong?


 


Einstein failed his exams and later became the figurehead of geniuses throughout history. Richard Branson was bankrupt and is now a successful billionaire. Elton John took a risk, walking out half way through a concert with his band as he knew that his real desire was to be a successful solo singer.


 


To have a successful career you first need to know what you are passionate about and then you can ask yourself “what is the best way for you to achieve your career goal?”


 


Apart from certain professions such as medicine and law, higher level education qualifications do not necessarily open the door to desirable employment opportunities.


 


I personally know several very successful business people, who quit university to pursue their dreams and they all had two things in common “passion” and the belief that they would “succeed”


 


Career Planning


 


Once you know your passion, you need to plan your career path, for some this will be through education, for others their path will be through apprenticeships and employment and for some they will do it by themselves.


 


It’s not about which career path you choose, it is about identifying each of the steps needed to be taken along the way and committing to your goal, as some days it will be harder to do this than others.


 


You need to plan the steps from the YOU now to the successful future YOU- How can you become successful? What do you need to learn? What experiences do you need? What resources will help you?


 


As an example someone choosing to work instead of attend college, may have a goal to own their own hairdressing business – for this they know they need learn about business, become a competent hairdresser and have financial backing.


 


To do this, they may first gain a hairdressing job, working at the bottom rung of the ladder cleaning up hair and making cups of tea. For some young people completing these “boring” task is an insult, thinking “this duty is beneath me- why should I do it?” Whereas the successful young person with a career plan, knows that one day they will have their own business, and everything they are doing, seeing and hearing is helping them to become a better future hairdresser and business professional and I would add, this is often seen by others as you having a “good attitude” which results in them offering you more responsibility and the chance to learn new hairdressing skills, further supporting your long term career goal.


 


What is a good attitude?


 


So what is a ‘Good attitude’?  The short answer is that it is a positive approach to the work situation. (As Jim Rohn says, the guy who whistles as he hauls out the trash is worth at least 10cents an hour more.) Show as a Pull quote. Employers say they are always looking for people who:


 


    

  • Are prepared to take that bit more responsibility
    • 

  • Look for better ways of doing their work
    • 

  • Look for extra work they can do a part of their existing job
    • 



 


While the official policy of most employers is to encourage talent and initiative to rise through the ranks, it usually doesn’t feel like that if you are working at the bottom of the hierarchy.


 


As the employee, you need to look at each task as a learning opportunity, asking “what am I learning from this experience?” “How can I use this experience to achieve my career goal?” “How can I make this task more exciting?” and “How can I be the best at this task?”


 


Once you start asking these questions to all task, you will be quickly become known as a good worker, with a good attitude and when the opportunity arises to move up the career ladder you can take it, often with the positive support of your previous employers.


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