7 Tips for Finding Time to Build Personal Brand - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

7 Tips for Finding Time to Build Personal Brand - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Time management is an often-overlooked key to personal branding success;  here are 7 strategies tips for finding the time to build your personal brand. A lack of time is no excuse for failing to invest in your future by building your personal brand. These days, everyone faces the universal challenge of too much to do and not enough time to do it! Nevertheless, in spite of the universal time crunch, more and more people are managing to build lasting personal brands and assuming an expert, go to reputation in their field.   This leads to the question, What are they doing different? Common strategies for personal branding success Examine the habits of those who are successfully building their personal brands, and youll find common strategies based on the following planning and action habits. Use them as a guide to crafting your own action plan for personal branding success:  Commit. The first step is to commit yourself to doing whatever it takes to build your personal brandstarting with finding the time. No matter how good or bad a writer or marketer you are, if you dont make finding the time a priority, your ambitions and dreams are unlikely to come true. Time management is what separates brands from intentions.  Evaluate. The next step is to evaluate how youre currently spending your time each day, both at the office and at home. Your goal is to identify under-utilized chunks of time that you can reallocate to your personal branding activities. Do this by identifying the times of the day or evening when you are most alert and productive. Evaluation also involves learning how much time it actually takes you to perform personal branding activities, like researching and writing articles or blog posts or preparing comments and guest posts for other blogs.  Schedule. Goals without schedules are likely to remain wishes. Success comes from making appointments with yourself, at specific times throughout the week, to address personal branding chores. Consistency is the key; your goal is to build the habit of working on personal branding every weekday from 11:30 AM to 12:00 noonor, whatever other time works for you, your co-workers, and your family. (The more theyre involved, the more they will support your efforts.)  Review. A little timeas few as 3 to 5 minutesspent reviewing your goals and progress every night before bed, and every morning upon rising, can multiply your productivity during your scheduled personal branding time. At night, review your accomplishments during the day and your goals for the next day. Upon rising, review your personal branding writing goals for the day. You may be surprised at the difference this makes.  Act. Failure to follow-up on commitments dooms your plans to failure. As many business planning experts have written, Plan your work, and work your plan! Success requires the discipline to take a long-range view of your personal brand building, even if it means occasionally writing when you dont feel like writing or putting aside an occasional outing. When you follow through on your commitment, youre not only moving forward on your current project, youre also building the habit of consistent actionwhich makes future actions easier and more productive.  Track. There are several ways you can track your personal branding success. The first metric involves a simple YES or NO, i.e., Did you take action on your personal brand during your scheduled time each day? A large calendar hanging on the walls of your office can play a big role in motivating you to take action during each scheduled session. Other metrics to pay attention to involve tracking how much you got done during each session. Finally, youll want to gauge the success of each article or blog post using appropriate metrics like page visits, comments, downloads, ReTweets, or e-mail sign-ups.  Improve. Personal branding success is a journey, a process that never ends. As a result, its important to track your progress even when theres no progress, because you missed a scheduled session or didnt accomplish what you wanted. By noting your setbacks as well as your successes, youll be able to take corrective action. As a result, over time, your success rate goes up! What are you waiting for? A strong personal brand isnt going to happen by itself. Youre the only one that can make it happen. (There are no fairy godmothers!) If youre going to build a strong personal brand, its going to happen through your actions. More important, the sooner you start, the greater your success will be. Success builds on success! Action builds on action, competence emerges through learning and practicingi.e., consistency and constantly improving the skills you pick up on the way. Take a few moments to reflect on what youre doing today to build your personal brand. Ask yourself, What else could I be doing, or should I be doing, to build my personal brand? Share your concerns, experiences, and questions about time management and building your personal brand as comments, below. Author: Roger C. Parker is an author, book coach, designer, consultant who works with authors, marketers, business professionals to achieve success with brand-building books practical marketing strategy. Visit Roger’s blog for more writing time management tips or to ask a question.

How to look after your mental health when job hunting

How to look after your mental health when job hunting With huge amounts of student debt, an increasingly competitive job market and the pressures of a 24/7 social media world, it’s no surprise that mental health issues among students and young people are on the rise. A 2015 NUS survey revealed that 78 per cent of students had experienced mental health problems in the past year, and the amount of students claiming special circumstances on exams for mental health reasons has also soared. For those already dealing with mental health issues, the prospect of finding that graduate job can seem daunting. Selling yourself on a job application, attending interviews and dealing with rejection is hard enough anyway, never mind when you’re tackling your own problems. But there are ways you can make it easier on yourself. If youre worried about your mental health and think its holding you back from making that big move into the job market, then read on: Switch off your phone Well, not literally, you’re still allowed to call mum. But one of the worst things you can do when hunting for a graduate job is compare yourself to others. Spending too much time on social media and obsessing over your friends’ Instagram-perfect lives has been proven to worsen mental health issues such as depression, so as hard as it is, avoid Facebook stalking as much as possible. And while LinkedIn may be a great tool for attracting potential employers, make sure you tailor the notifications to suit you the last thing you need is an email telling you to ‘Congratulate Hannah on her new job’ when you’re preparing for a nerve wracking interview. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if you don’t find employment straight away. Take a deep breath, don’t panic and remember to always go at your own pace. Find the right environment for you There’s no point in rushing into any old job if it isn’t right for you at worse, it could even increase your mental health issues if it leaves you feeling stressed, lonely and isolated. Spend some time researching jobs, companies and their employees to find an environment which is going to suit you. Glassdoor allows employees to leave reviews of their previous jobs and workplaces, helping you to get a good idea of how it will feel to work there. It’s not always possible, but try and find a workplace environment that is friendly, supportive and understanding, and don’t be afraid to say no to companies that don’t feel right for you no matter how much of a ‘big name’ they are. Focus on the positives If you’re not feeling the best about yourself, it can be hard to sit down and write about how amazing you are for a CV or cover letter. One thing you can try is writing down one positive thing about yourself every single day whether it’s your resilience, your compassion, or just the fact that you successfully made dinner without burning the house down. Collect them in a notepad or jar, and when you’re feeling down have a read through them all and remember just how brilliant and unique you are. Then try and channel that positive energy into a CV. Your employer isn’t going to care if you had to take six months out of university for health problems, they’re going to care about all the things you have done, so emphasise the good stuff and you’ll always impress. Try and calm those interview nerves Everyone gets nervous about interviews, and don’t ever think otherwise. Even the most confident and outgoing of people will get the pre-interview jitters, so remember that it’s completely normal to feel anxious. Everyone is different, so there’s no guaranteed solution for calming nerves, but try and not think of it as an interview but just as a conversation, because that’s really all it is. If you do your research beforehand and go in there feeling prepared, you’ve done as much as you can, so there’s no point stressing if you’re not able to answer every single question perfectly. The chances are, if you don’t get the job afterwards, then it wasn’t the right role for you anyway. How to tell your employer Firstly, whether you choose to tell your employer about your mental health problems is completely your choice, and you should never feel pressured either way. If you think telling your boss will be a positive thing, and will help them provide the support and understanding you need to fulfil your potential in the role, then by all means go for it. Unfortunately, stigma around mental health does still exist, but the situation has improved drastically in recent years, and research has shown that many employers are comfortable discussing mental health with an applicant. Just look at this boss’ brilliant response to his employee taking a ‘mental health day off’. Campaigns to make mental health support more accessible in the workplace are raising more awareness, so whatever you feel most comfortable with, know that there are growing support networks out there to help you with your decision. Know when you’re ready At the end of the day, only you will know when you’re ready to start work, or to take that big leap into a grad scheme. There can seem like a big post-graduation exodus as your fellow course mates quickly land their ‘dream roles’ but just know that whenever you’re ready, there will be plenty of opportunities waiting for you. No job should ever come before your health, so always remember to look after yourself first and foremost. Connect with Debut on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn for more careers insights.

How to succeed with way less stress - Putting abundance to work - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

How to succeed with way less stress - Putting abundance to work - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog In 2003, we decided to arrange our first business conference about Happines At Work. There were six of us working on it and none of us had ever arranged any conferences before. And we sure had our work cut out for us; we needed to find speakers, arrange a venue, get press attention, get a website, arrange catering, setup 15 workshops at the conference and, not least, sell a lot of tickets. This was in the early days of the company and the question was: Could a group of people with no experience working on a shoestring budget put together a great, successful, innovative conference on an untested theme for a critical business audience? Our basic approach to the whole project was ?Sure it?s impossible. Let?s do it anyway.??? We totally believed that we could do it. And here?s the fantastic thing: Everything just fell into place. We couldn?t believe our luck. We needed a website I ran into Niels Hartvig who makes the excellent web platform Umbraco, and he offered to host it for free. We needed a great design and Niels knew an amazingly talented designer who did it for free. We needed some press attention and just when I was about to call some journalists a woman walked up to my desk and said ?Hi, I?m a journalist, and I?d really like to do a story about you???. It went on and on like that everything we needed fell into place so easily, it almost got scary at one point. And this happened at least in part because we believed that it would be easy. Oh and when we had the conference it was a huge hit. People called it the best conference theyd ever been to! In this post, I want to talk about one of the most fundamental ways to happiness, which is to cultivate an abundance mentality. Some people argue, that businesses are only interested in those resources that are scarce. An abundant resource has no built-in economy it cant be bought or sold because its freely available to anyone. Air is a good example. Since business is at heart an economic venture, this means that business thinking is skewed towards scarcity from the outset and that which is abundant is ignored or downplayed. But this scarcity mentality has a serious drawback. If your world view is that all the things you need to grow and prosper are scarce, hard to come by and something you must fight for, then the world becomes a very hard place to live in. This world view means that we tend to meet others as enemies (or at the very least competitors). It means living in a constant state of worry that you might lose what you have, and not be able to get it back. It also means that every new project becomes a battle against the forces out there that want the same resources that you need to succeed. But maybe the world isnt like that. What if everything you need to succeed is abundantly available to you? What if you lived in a world that is more like a greenhouse with a nurturing environment for growth and less like an arid desert? What if people around you were actively trying to help you, not fighting you every step of the way? That is abundance mentality, and its a key to both peace of mind and a great tool for getting great results in the business world. Here are some examples of the difference between abundance and scarcity mindsets: Scarcity Abundance Its every man for himself We can work together I never have time I take time for the things that matter Mistakes are disasters I can recover and learn from mistakes Ideas are hard to come by and must be kept secret I can always have a great idea Our company is lacking Our company has everything it needs to succeed Look at all the resources we need Look at all the resources we have The market is full of threats The market is full of opportunities People are out to get me People are out to help me So which is it? Is the world a nice, soft, inviting, cuddly place, ready to boost you to success in whatever venture you choose? Or is it a cold, hard, dog-eat-dog competitive place, in which only the strongest and the toughest survive? Heres the truth: It is whatever you think it is. Your approach determines the truth. If you treat everyone around you like theyre out to get you, they most likely will be. If you go into a project treating it like a never-ending struggle for scarce resources that you must fight everyone else for, well guess what it probably will turn out that way. But if you trust people to be nice and help. If you yourself are nice and help others. If you trust that there is enough success to go around. If you believe that others dont need to fail in order for you to succeed. Then you will make that the truth. Theres nothing mystical or strange in this. Its simply a matter of other people reacting to your choices and actions. When you believe that the world is a nice place, youre open and relaxed which means youre more likely to notice and take advantage of any new contacts, lucky breaks or serendipitous events that come along. Youre also more fun to be around, which means that you meet more nice people and that people want to help you. Think about the things you truly need to succeed and be happy at work. Good relationships. Good ideas. Motivation. Support. Learning. Curiosity. A great network of cool people. None of these need to be scarce resources. Treat them as abundant, and they will be. Will it work every time and make everything you need magically appear? Of course not once in a while you will get burned, but so will the people who use scarcity as their mental model. And when you believe in abundance, at the very least you are more open, more positive, more relaxed and happier. And that aint too bad, is it? Whats your take? What do you believe about the business world? How have you applied an abundance mentality in your work? Write a comment, Id really like to know! Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related

Career Corner For College Grads How to Set Up an Informational Interview Step 2 - Hallie Crawford

Career Corner For College Grads How to Set Up an Informational Interview Step 2 Thinking that youd like to set up an informational interview in your chosen field? Good for you. An informational interview is not like a typical interview; in this case, there is no want ad to answer and no open position to fill. Its simply a way to make contact with someone who works at a company that interests you. Its a method of getting your name out there while learning more about careers in your industry. On Tuesday, we discussed Step 1 (How to get the informational interview ball rolling). Today were talking about Step 2. Step 2 Prepare in advance. The very first thing you should do before this or any type of interview is update your resume. Include all of those resume basics, like your career objective, college degree, computer proficiencies, and especially any experience you may already have, including unpaid internships, temp jobs and so forth. If you need extra help with this, I suggest hiring a professional resume writer. Leave it to the pros to brush up your resume for you. You can find resume writers I recommend here: https://www.halliecrawford.com/resources.html. Career Seeker Tips

Why Your Harvard Law School Resume is Important

Why Your Harvard Law School Resume is ImportantA Harvard Law School Resume is basically a business tool. You will need to be the best lawyer that you can be, with a resume that is impressive. Harvard is a prestigious institution and as such is extremely serious about being one of the most popular universities in the country. For this reason they are going to scrutinize your resume very carefully before hiring you.Your resume for Harvard is going to be more about yourself than your education. Your education is very important but it's not the only thing they are going to look at. The fact that you have a bachelor's degree and have worked in a law firm will definitely help. They are more interested in getting the most qualified candidate for the job.Be honest about how long you have been working in the legal field. Most law firms want a highly trained lawyer who is dedicated to their work. They want someone who is serious about their work. They won't hire you if you say you are busy.It is important that you have a letter of recommendation from someone at Harvard. That means your school's contact person. They may be able to talk to your instructors and people who had worked for you in the past. Make sure that the letter is from a person who has recommended you to others before. You don't want to have to write a personal letter when writing an employer for the first time. Make sure that they approve your letter and your references.Harvard is a highly selective institution and so you may want to consider writing an essay about why you deserve to work at Harvard. They look for people who have excellent academic credentials and academic excellence. If you excel at one or both of these areas, you will stand out. Don't exaggerate any of the things that you have done in the past. Use your real accomplishments to make yourself more impressive.You will also want to send in a cover letter to Harvard. This will cover how you fit into the work environment, your interest in the school, and why you would like to get involved in the study of law. Make sure that it comes from you, not from a school. Remember, the best candidates for jobs with the Ivy League will actually be those who are not students. They know what they want and are trying to get the job done. A cover letter will keep them from being sent back to their institutions to get another job offer.Harvard hires for a reason and they look for the best qualified applicants. Once you have submitted your application, you should receive a reply shortly. You should always wait at least three weeks before you email back. As long as you have done everything correctly, you should be on your way to getting your first job offer.

The Entry Level Engineering Resume Game

The Entry Level Engineering Resume Game The Debate Over Entry Level Engineering Resume Nearly every junior engineering position demands relevant education. An engineering resume is a document containing the professional information regarding a candidate who'd love to immerse himself or herself in Engineering. Furthermore, you can find out more about engineering careers on Monster. Industrial engineers are needed to have a bachelor's degree, and a few programs consist of cooperative work experiences to provide hands-on practice often preferred by employers. Hiring managers are seeking engineers with a history of offering out-of-the-box solutions that could profit the business. Sales engineers sell products and services to various businesses, using technical understanding of the functions and portions of the products that they're selling. Filtering out resumes for mechanical engineers is simple when you start with the ones which look strange. Entry Level Engineering Resume for Dummies The engineering profession has among the greatest median wage rates in the international job industry. If you're on the hunt for an engineering job online then you're first recommended to have a look at a web-based engineering recruitment agency. Strong work ethic willing to do what it requires to find the task done. In that situation, it's far better tailor your resume for a mechanical engineering job to coincide with the language of the work offer. Indicate relevant abilities, including computer, language and professional skills which may be important for a specific job. Additional tailoring your resume will allow you to list job-specific important words and abilities, further adding to your appeal for a candidate. In the opinion of employers, tech skills are something you may learn while working. Soft skills are the important people skills required that you work well. The New Fuss About Entry Level Engineering Resume Uploading to our resume database require s you to make an account. Your engineering Resume Templates is a powerful advertising tool, so make the the majority of it. Utilizing generic resume content is likely to make your resume boring, invaluable, and, actually, generic, the same as any other normal engineering resume. Specific programs and applications are frequently used as keywords in the event of a technical resume. The Hidden Treasure of Entry Level Engineering Resume Nothing, if you would like your engineering resume to look like all of the rest. If you've got a decrease GPA, it isn't the conclusion of earth. Depending upon the duration of your career, you may have many vital projects that you need to include in your resume. Employers usually want a high school diploma and train employees at work. As business is now global, the amount of competition has also risen. Resumes usually have a tendency to be longer than the essential standard. Opportunely, engineering resumes have an extremely straightforward f ormat. A degree might be required in many instances. You could possibly be attracted to engineering due to its creative element. Do you understand what things to put in your entry level civil engineer resume. You're able to look at generic resumes, but engineering resume samples will be the absolute most useful due to their specificity to your area. Ok, I Think I Understand Entry Level Engineering Resume, Now Tell Me About Entry Level Engineering Resume! To put it differently, format matters for an expert engineering resume. If your resume go over that recommended length, there isn't any way it is possible to fool anyone by utilizing a 10-point font. No matter your degree of work practical understanding, your resume structure is vital to making your program stick out. Whatever your level of job knowledge, it is critical to making your application stand out.

Introvert Versus Extrovert Careers - Work It Daily

Introvert Versus Extrovert Careers - Work It Daily I recently saw an “Infographic” that opened with the words: “Some of us get energized by interacting with other people while others among us are drained by such interactions. And it’s likely a lot of people are out there in jobs that are unsuitable for their natural inclinations toward extroversion or introversion.” Related: 13 Interview Secrets For Introverts I am a major supporter of assessment as part of anyone’s self-awareness and continuing development. In the context of career search, I believe that everyone should be aware of their strengths, their interests, and their personality. However, there are two major issues that have the potential to seriously interfere with the value of the information generated by the assessments. The Validity Issues The first issue is related to the validity of the information. The concept of validity is fairly basic on one level: is the assessment logically or factually sound; does it measure what it’s supposed to measure? On another level, validity is actually a complex statistical measurement that requires professional skills to determine. On still another level, validity is too often assessed by only the “face validity.” This can translate to nothing more than an individual saying that he or she “likes” or “agrees” with the results. The second issue is a subset of the validity issue. For personality factors in particular, there have been a plethora of options available for decades. But in today’s world, it’s expanded to almost an infinite number of options. In addition to this overwhelming number of options for assessing some personality factors, some of them, like introversion versus extroversion, are frequently portrayed in movies, television, comic strips, and infographics. On the professional level, these personality factors â€" some of these factors like introversion and extroversion are often referred to as part of “personal style” â€" can be measured by more costly and supervised assessments. Consider the following options: On the internet, you can take a six-question “test,” for free that will tell you if you are an introvert or an extrovert. You can also get a determination of your “Introversion versus Extroversion” scores by taking a formal assessment, like the classic Myers-Briggs (MBTI). If you choose the formal assessment, it is likely (and should be) administered by a professional who had to qualify the purchase the assessment for you and is bound by professional training and standards. From a validity standard, which option is more likely to provide real insights on this important factor of personality. The Misinterpretation Dilemma In my opinion, there’s an equally if not slightly more important issue. Too many people have the mistaken belief that they are either an introvert or an extrovert. Even with professional feedback reports I’ve found it critical to explain this critical factor. In addition, there’s a reality that many people can be primarily on style at work and an opposite style at work. There are numerous famous performers who are very extroverted on stage â€" and extremely introverted offstage. I am very good friends with an award-winning singer whom I guarantee would be scored as an extrovert by the thousands of fans who’ve seen him perform. I’ve traveled with him multiple times three-four day weekly tours. On the bus, at restaurants, during the “off-time,” he’s very much an introvert. I learned personally that my own mother, a very supportive, quiet woman at home was a very assertive, outgoing person in the work world as a property manager. My own personality, measured multiple times with multiple instruments, reveals an “introvert” preference â€" which would very much surprise 1000’s of students who completed my courses and training programs. A key word there is “preference” and it requires the real important clarification here. I recently did an assessment for a young man I’ve known for over a decade, from the young son of a friend to a student in a training program I facilitated, to a colleague on projects with me, and to a successful real estate agent in his hometown. I can verify, along with his test results, that he acts and scores as an introvert â€" yet I’ve seen him play guitar on stage with his father’s award-winning group, and I’ve personally assigned him to work with an audience of over 200 workshop participants that required very outgoing â€" extroverted â€" behavior. While he has a “preference” for introversion, a preference on the extroversion-introversion scale, a +7 out of a possible +30 â€" correctly interpreted as only a “slight preference.” Understanding this was a key development for this individual’s career decision-making at the time we explored this. I’ve recently begun experimenting with a variation in presenting and discussing results with individuals and teams. In addition to presenting the standard results, which too frequently results in a “I’m an INTJ” type categorization, I’ve created a “word cloud” based on the actual scores. It appears to be increasing the understanding of the results, particularly when comparing results with team members. Conclusion I place a high value on the concept of how personality factors impact career decision-making and career success. I support the general idea that there are introvert and extrovert careers â€" but it’s not just a simple dichotomy. It requires thoughtful consideration and professional applications of some very important personality concepts. Disclosure: This post is sponsored by a Work It Daily-approved expert. You can learn more about expert posts here. Photo Credit: Bigstock Have you joined our career growth club?Join Us Today!