Memorial Day 2016

Find a job fast

Is your job search seeming to take far too long? If so maybe you are aware that you have problems such as having been out of work and on a limited income for so long you are out of the loop and have lost or not been able to make new contacts. Well, whenever you have a problem, one of the best ways to see it more clearly and start to solve it is to write things down.

Right from our school days we are taught to write things down when trying to solve them, such as a maths equation, and pretty much every great invention or discovery started off as ideas on paper.

Writing things down can help your job search too. Begin by asking yourself questions, but positive ones, because actually most questions jobseekers ask themselves and others such as family and friends, are pretty depressing such as Why can’t I get a job!!!?  So, ask questions that encourage and motivate you such as How can I encourage people to contact me if they know of any jobs?

• ·         How do people I know get jobs?

• ·         What did I do that worked when I was last looking for a job?

A useful tip is to ask yourself only questions that you can solve, do not have to depend on the Job centre, your family or anybody or anything else because this takes away the power that will give you confidence when you find the answers. …. Now write down some empowering questions about your hunt for a job, and think of some answers.

Don’t stop until you have as many answers to each question as you can possibly think of. Then after this, take action the very same day on at least one answer. Maybe it is to produce a new resume /CV and you have replied that you do not have one, so need to get help to write one, and to get help, you are going to look online at the available resources.

Maybe you feel that you hear so much about the benefits of networking, but you no longer have any useful contacts, short of money with no job you have been out of the loop for some time and lost contact with many people that you used to know who may have helped you get a job? Then make a list of those you do still know and tell them your situation …don’t be embarrassed even look up some old friends ….

Making a plan, using a method and working through it gets results.

Valerie Hedges

Writing your resume or CV ...there is help out there

For many today, the urgency to get a job weighs very heavily indeed. While there is still a big jobs market and opportunities through the hidden job market, i.e. jobs that are not advertised and that you can get via someone you know or other contacts, more and more the route to a job has involved looking online and submitting a resume/CV with a covering letter. Quite often the job site will show how many applicants there have been for that job and over 400 is not at all unusual …you need to do all that you can to be sure that yours is seen and marked for consideration for interview. However, does it feel for you as if you apply for job after job and get no response?

While we are being told, certainly in the UK by our government, that there are more jobs than ever before and more people in work , the reality is a different matter with far too many people chasing too few jobs, especially for the many sick and disabled who have had their welfare benefits removed and are having to chase the all too few jobs that they just may physically be able to do if that is , even being forced to look for a job does not kill them first , while many in this position have died from heart attacks and strokes , we have even those in comas being declared fit for work ….

The economy does make it more difficult to get jobs with too many people chasing too few opportunities but your resume /CV is the first and maybe the only chance you get to appeal to a hiring manager or to pass screening software  used by many companies looking for key words relevant to the job being advertised , so make sure yours is a good one

It is important that you put together a resume /CV that will stand out , and there are many online resources to assist you in doing so . These range from examples and templates for a basic generic resume /CV to versions that are job title specific. There is no need to dread having to produce a resume or CV and sit brooding over the computer screen and wasting time.

While the internet is full of resume /CV examples, your own edition is when submitted for a job, very often the first impression you will give and if it is not a good one then you will not get another chance. It says who you are and what you can offer so do not let it be obviously something copied from the internet, but there is a lot of help out there on the web and from organisations such as job clubs that often operate from libraries, job centres and work programmes and community centres.

Your resume /CV needs to be crafted to show your experience, skills and suitability for the job that you are applying for. Start with a generic basic version which will be the one that you upload and store on job boards such as Monster, Total Jobs and Indeed, this resume /CV may even get you seen and invited to apply for jobs that you otherwise may not have done, but can also be adapted for specific job roles.

Job seekers have been known to pay a lot of money to get resumes/CV’s written for them but this is not necessary with the excellent resources that are available free on the web. These include templates preventing the need for trying to format and set out the document correctly, all you have to do is fill in your relevant details in the sections provided. There are also many online resources to help with writing covering letters…make use of what is out there to help with job applications and make yours stand out. 

Valerie Hedges

How to run your home business on 2 hours a day

Many of us often have a very optimistic view of what we will get done in the day when we wake up, and indeed some tasks may never even get started, like a pile of ironing.

A way to at least make some progress on several different tasks, even if you do not have lots of time to give to one, is to give at least some time to each task on different days, or every day, e.g., 15 minutes a day to reading your emails, 30 minutes to making phone calls, with longer of course on any call that requires it to be longer.

What is encouraging is to be able to see some progress each day but not to have any one task take up so much time that you get little else done

A good way to get something done at least , is to make a plan . Some time back I did a time management course and was taught a method of allotting a code to every job to be done, and labelling them A, B or C, according to priority. A of course being urgent, B needed to be done but not so urgent and C also needs to be done but no hurry. It also helps to have a routine for what time of the day you do the tasks as this helps to organise you.

This system and approach works well to even if you are not running a home business but are applying for jobs. Set aside some allotted time each day to looking for jobs, applying for them, checking your resume to see if it can be improved and working on any courses of study that you are doing.

You will feel much happier and less stressed when you see that even if you are not doing all of a task in one day, you are achieving a breakthrough into it and doing something, so stop thinking and start doing, so that at least you are doing something and you will see that you are getting closer to achieving those goals.

Valerie Hedges