10 Career lessons from Buddy the Elf University of Manchester Careers Blog

10 Career lessons from Buddy the Elf University of Manchester Careers Blog For me Christmas movies fall into 3 categories â€" the classics (A Christmas Carol, It’s a Wonderful Life Miracle on 34th Street), family faves (Elf, Home Alone The Grinch) and the Channel 5s (I can’t think of any off the top of my head which says a lot).   However I also feel that one film and in particular one character could fall into the genre of careers advice. The film is Elf and the character the one and only Buddy! Perhaps not he most down to earth person to listen to but Buddy really has some useful tips for any recent graduates……  â€˜I thought maybe we could make gingerbread houses, and eat cookie dough, and go ice skating and maybe even hold hands’ Buddy had a detailed (fun filled) plan for the day spent with his father.   When job hunting it’s a good idea to do the same. It might not sound as fun but having a plan for the week can help keep you on track.   What applications are you planning on working on? What closing dates are coming up? Prioritise what’s most urgent but also allow yourself some down time. ‘Santa! I know him!’ Met employers at any of our events or career fairs this semester? When making applications don’t forget to mention your conversation and who you spoke to. It might not be as big a name drop as Santa but will make you application more memorable. Not attended events this semester? Don’t panic find out about our events for 2nd semester on CareersLink.  â€˜Who the heck are you?’ Even Buddy realises the importance of tailoring. Firstly employers want to know who the heck you are and why you are right for the job.  The job description provided tells you what they are looking for in a candidate â€" In your CV you must outline how you meet their criteria by talking about the relevant skills/ experiences that you have. Similarly in your Covering Letter you need to demonstrate you know who they heck the employer is. Remember generic letters not work, mistakes can happen and EY really won’t be impressed to hear why you’re so interested in working for PwC (Believe it or not I’ve seen examples like this in the past!) ‘You did it! Congratulations! World’s best cup of coffee! Great job everybody â€" It’s great to be here.’ Everyone likes a compliment â€" even employers!  In your Covering Letter you need to explain what first attracted you to apply to this employer â€" Why do you want to work for them? What makes them different? Why this organisation and not another in the sector? ‘It’s just nice to meet another human who shares my affinity for elf culture’ If you are still struggling to explaining you motivation for applying I suggest trying to get a feel for the culture of the organisation. To do this search employer websites to find out about the ethos and values they holdâ€" Do they align with your own? Why are these things important to you? ‘You sit on a throne of lies’   This one is pretty straightforward and I’m sure I don’t have to tell you You need to be truthful in any application you make / interview you attend. Just as the ‘fake’ Santa in the film was eventually found out by Buddy employers will eventually find out the truth â€" it’s not worth it!  â€˜I just like to smile. Smiling is my favorite’ Demonstrating the right body language in an interview is just as important as the answers you give to questions.   Keep a neutral / friendly facial expression (no furrowed brows!), maintain eye contact when appropriate (but don’t state), avoid unnecessary hand gestures (same goes for folded arms) and speak at a natural pace (unlike me who tends to forget to breathe when nervous). Our presentation skills guide has some useful tips on how to do these things. Having a telephone interview? You need to get your enthusiasm and passion for the role across through voice production alone â€" Some people find that walking whilst on the phone instead of just sitting can help with this. ‘Buddy the Elf… What’s your favorite colour?’ At the end of an interview employers will usually ask if you have any questions so have some prepared in advance. Try to be more original than Buddy though ask questions not answered on recruitment websites and that demonstrate your interest in the organisation/ job role. Do you want to know more about the team that you might be working in? About possible training development opportunities? What about longer term career opportunities with them?  â€˜I passed through the 7 levels of the Candy Cane Forest, through the Sea of Swirly- Twirly Gumdrops then I walked through the Lincoln Tunnel’ Searching for a graduate job is never straightforward but just as Buddy did on his trip to New York you need to stick it out and keep going â€" it’ll get easier and eventually you’ll get there! Merry Christmas a Happy New Year from everyone here at the Careers Service Remember the best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear! All Careers advice Graduate

Tips For Writing A Resume For Teacher Recommendations

Tips For Writing A Resume For Teacher RecommendationsWhen it comes to writing a resume for teacher recommendations, there are a number of tips you should follow. These tips should go hand in hand when creating your resume and when reviewing the recommendation letters you have received. Your resume should be able to capture the information that the resume writer has and also be very positive in tone. The best way to create a great resume for teacher recommendations is to follow these easy steps.Teachers are hard to come by. It is hard to find someone who is willing to give you a recommendation. After all, they are hard to find. There are many reasons why this may be the case. First, most people will not submit a resume if they do not receive any response from a potential employer.Next, many teachers do not like to talk about themselves or their talents on a resume. For many teachers, their resume is all about them, their teaching skills, and how much they love teaching. If the resume is all about them, you will receive nothing but negative responses from potential employers.If you are in this situation, you can submit a sample resume and get the job offer. The resume is the first thing that will be seen by the hiring manager. If your resume is well written and detailed, it will land you a good job and a recommendation.Of course, when writing a resume for teacher recommendations, you need to be very brief. No more than a page or two of information should be included. Your resume is the first thing that an employer will see so you do not want to spend a lot of time and money writing it. Even though your resume will probably be read by many, you do not want to spend too much time and effort putting it together.When reviewing a resume, you want to get the writer's information across in the resume. However, you also want to get a sense of the writer's personality. This personality will be reflected in the way the writer uses words when writing a resume for teacher re commendations.Writing a resume for teacher recommendations is much different than writing a resume for employment. Employers will want to know about your specific teaching style, your experience with a certain subject matter, and the things that make you stand out from the other applicants. By following the tips above, you will be able to write a very positive letter that will impress the hiring manager.Writing a resume for teacher recommendations is different than writing a resume for employment. It is important to have a personal touch to your resume. By incorporating personal details, such as hobbies, goals, etc., you will be able to create a resume that will impress both the hiring manager and potential employers. The best tip for writing a resume for teacher recommendations is to follow the steps above to ensure that you have written a resume that is positive in tone and very impressive.

My boss is evil (and 10 other career excuses)

My boss is evil (and 10 other career excuses) My Boss is Evil and 10 Other Career Excuses Why do so many hard-working employees suddenly turn evil â€" horns, pitchfork and all â€" the day they become a manager? Oh, I know: Because calling the boss evil is the go-to explanation for your career dissatisfaction. You and I know that it’s way easier to bash the boss than to take personal accountability for your career. Plenty of employees hate their jobs, but instead of acting they pout. To make the situation even more toxic, they whine about it with their co-workers, blaming others and projecting their disengagement. The boss becomes evil when he or she sees your negative behavior or hears about it from others. The boss starts pressuring you for more engagement and productivity, and you retreat further. Here come the horns (from your perspective). Pop Quiz: Have you used any of these excuses lately? (Okay, if you haven’t, maybe you’ve heard a friend use them?) I work hard and my boss doesn’t recognize my effort. I have no work-life balance thanks to this company (and my boss). Other people are getting promoted, and I’m always passed up. I don’t have any time to work on my career because I’m working so hard in the office. If I network, job search, or look at other opportunities, my boss will think I’m disloyal. I should be promoted since I’ve been around forever. My company is not giving me challenging opportunities to grow. My company has me pigeon-holed in one type of job and I’ll never get out. Management is a bunch of yahoos â€" they don’t know what they’re doing. I don’t believe in (or understand) the company’s strategic direction. I’ve been there, done that â€" I’ve uttered every excuse in the book. During my 30-year sales and marketing career, I’ve been extremely lucky â€" except for one brief year, when I was completely miserable. Even when I had a great boss, when I wasn’t feeling good about my career, I slipped into boss-blaming or company-blaming. Realistically: It was easier than facing the harsh reality that I needed to do something. The options? Plan A: Choose to do something to moderate my work style in order to alter the perceptions holding me back from career change and growth. Plan B: Develop a plan to move on with my career, mitigate my risks, and avoid jumping into another “stuck” role. Plan C: There is no plan C, because remaining miserable isn’t an option. The good news is that both options A and B can be very rewarding. However, whether you’re changing your work style or your entire career path, both take time, both can be frustrating, and there are no shortcuts. For option A to work, you need to embrace any negative feedback and make difficult course-corrections. On the other hand, option B requires careful planning, a desire to compete for a new position, and the willingness to learn the latest job search techniques. Either one can pack a blow to the ego. Catch yourself the next time you abdicate your career growth to anybody else â€" nobody cares about your career more than you do. What choice will you make? Option A or Option B?

Tap into Your Confidence and Ace the Job Interview

Tap into Your Confidence and Ace the Job Interview In past blog posts, I have written about ways to prepare for job interviews. My advice included researching the company, asking the right questions, and practicing your replies. Mental preparation is just as important, particularly, preparing your confidence level. There are 3 important areas to focus on building your confidence ahead of and during a job interview: You Earned the Job Interview Be confident in yourself and your abilities to do well in this job. You have made it to the interview stage. Your experiences on your resume got you to the phone screen. Your answers in the phone screen were solid and landed you to this first face-to-face interview. Clearly, the recruiter/hiring manager believes that your past experiences and achievements have prepared you for this position. You need to believe it too! Be confident in your ability to excel at this job. How to  Have a Great Interview Be confident in your ability to do well in the job interview. You have researched the company, you have prepared for many of the questions and you have practiced. Believe in your ability to answer any question asked. You know your stuff. You are ready. You are Ready for Anything Be confident that you can handle challenges in the interview. For example, what if you were told you would have a series of 1-on-1 interviews and, instead, you walk into a conference room with 7 people staring at you? This isn’t what you expected, but take a deep breath and be ready to handle this challenge. Remember, in your past work experiences, you have been presented with challenges that you were able to handle with flying colors. In fact, when your confidence in your ability to handle challenges is low, think back to the challenges you have overcome in life. This is just another one of those challenges you need to overcome. When preparing my clients for an interview, the words I say most often are, “an interview is a conversation not an interrogation.” Be confident in your ability to have a conversation with the hiring manager, your peers, the vice president â€" whomever is in the room. Yes, this is easier said than done, but you have worked so hard for this moment. Remember all your hard work, muster up your confidence and walk into that room and let the best you shine! How do you prepare mentally for an interview? When does your confidence need a boost during an interview? Feel free to share in the comments section below. To learn more about our services and how we can help you to be prepared for your interview contact our career coaches.

How to Cultivate Executive Presence on LinkedIn - Hallie Crawford

How to Cultivate Executive Presence on LinkedIn You know you need to care about LinkedIn (LI). The stats are too compelling to ignore and the power of potential results is undeniable. So now you want to be a LinkedIn player and cultivate executive presence (EP)…but how? To achieve executive presence, you need to be perceived as a leader, project gravitas, and influence others with a charisma that commands respect and achieves collaborative results in an ever-changing environment. Since much of your EP success depends on communication, let’s look at six ways to convey EP in your profile. 1.          Compelling and Custom-Fit Communication The opposite of this would be a brief statement either from your resume summary or a vague description of what you do using boring, seen-everywhere-before language. Your profile must be dynamic, convey energy, and demonstrate your passion in a way that shows you understand your big picture and the value you want to bring to the professional world. Don’t do what everyone else does. Write in a way that reveals you are highly self-aware and emotionally intelligent. Write authentically in your own voice. 2.          Expertise in Subject Matter Are you really good at what you do? Are you a master in your field able to demonstrate deep knowledge? Tell us about it on LI. A great way to do this is to write a first person narrative description for each job in the experience section that illustrates what you enjoy, your motivated skills, and your best results. Remember, LI is not your resume. I strongly encourage you to go beyond a static copy and paste of the typical list of job responsibilities. 3.            Ability to Get Results Proof you can get the job done beyond expectations is critical. This is a big part of what separates you from Joey Professional in a similar job. Use quantitative measures whenever possible to market your skills. Think action â€" skill applied â€" result. 4.          Credibility First, be sure you have a complete profile. Seriously. Then, boost your credibility through recommendations (strive for 5-8 current recommendations), well-documented education, training, and development, and work samples when possible. 5.          Confidence One of the biggest barriers my clients have in creating a rock star profile is their inhibition to writing confidently about themselves. This is your chance to advocate for yourself. No one else is begging to do it for you. There is a difference between confident, authentic communication and arrogance. I’m confident you can stay between the lines of the former and still rock your profile! 6.          Polished Professional Style This includes your picture which is your first digital impression and arguably equal to the weight of your impression during the first few seconds of an in-person interview. Use a focused, well-lit headshot with a crushed (slightly blurred) outdoor or indoor office background in which you are dressed professionally. This also includes your language. Proof read. Have impeccable grammar. Errors will only undermine your efforts to cultivate EP. In conclusion, follow these guidelines to maximize your LI profile for executive presence, networking, and career opportunities. Know that achieving the above can be difficult and feel time consuming to do on your own. I welcome you to reach out for revision help anytime. Best wishes! We hope this is helpful to you! Stacy Smyk-Santiago, Career Coach at HallieCrawford.com. Schedule a free consult with HallieCrawford.com today

Effective Soft Skills Resume Writing Software

Effective Soft Skills Resume Writing SoftwareThe soft skills resume writing software is proving to be a popular way of creating a powerful resume. This is the software which has developed to cater for a certain demographic of potential job seekers. This demographic consists of many youngsters who find it very difficult to compete with older competitors in the market.The soft skills resume writing is the easiest and fastest way to climb the online job world. In fact, those who are unemployed often struggle to create the perfect resume. By following the tips given below, they have been able to create the resume in just a matter of few minutes.* The job seeker must have an active web access and must have an online form. This helps the job seeker get an immediate idea of the length of the job and the start date of the job.* Make sure that the resume is formatted in a beautiful manner. All the information must be available on the resume. The soft skills resume must match the description g iven by the job seeker. Make sure that the color and font used are most appropriate and match the color of the resume.* People with a professional connection are more apt to be invited by the recruiter. Job seekers must keep in mind that they must use words in a professional way.* Job seekers must avoid filling up the available opportunities which are not really relevant to the job seeker. After the task is completed, the person who has carried out the task should try to get in touch with the recruiter. The recruiter will contact the job seeker. Job seekers must be very careful with the details they provide in the resume.* Job seekers must have the ability to talk on some technical issues. Such job seekers must try to understand the use of the Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel. The soft skills resume writing software works with all the popular software in the market. To fill up the right profile, job seekers must try hard to use the computer skills.

Details of Resume Writing Dates Reddit

Details of Resume Writing Dates Reddit Life, Death, and Resume Writing Dates Reddit In today's engineering business, employers want candidates who think beyond their very own education and experiences. Our Career is to help you in acquiring employed in an oil field that is an incredibly terrific determination. Business Development Executives are responsible for implementing marketing plans in order to make the most of business performance and increase sales. Resume templates, generally, are a product of the prevailing trends in regard to design. Also make certain that you tailor the document to the job you're applying for. A superb system to make certain your job application is perfect is to enlist the aid of a professional resume writer. Attempt to keep the resume no longer than 1 page, especially if you're asking for an entry-level job. Resume Writing Dates Reddit - Dead or Alive? It's quite easy to apply careers online with very simple steps as there are a range of site s, which delivers the jobs that you might want to submit an application for. When some folks can do the job by themselves, once you're trying hard to get interviews, choosing a professional resume writer like Executive Drafts may be one of the greatest investments you'll make as you continue your work search. It's rather rare that you find your perfect job, the exact same is true for businesses looking for their ideal candidate. There are an assortment of reasons to discover a work as fast as possible. Show employers that you're current and produce a fantastic first impression by selecting the proper template. A basic resume is also less difficult to read. All you need to do is simply edit the document to include your own personal details. You also receive a feeling of what information you don't have to include. Top Resume Writing Dates Reddit Choices Many recruiters publish career openings on the internet on their internet websites and let you to submit an application for career openings with just a few of clicks of a mouse, which makes it uncomplicated to come across the occupation that you're looking for. The standard Campfire weekly video is centered on 5 minutes long. There are many websites which provides a Resume builder facility. There are a lot of such on-line sites which help you make a customized resume according to your liking. The Benefits of Resume Writing Dates Reddit Additionally, the built-in methods and expert advice can help you compose the perfect resume. For example, as a waitress you're guaranteed to produce skills in customer support, sales, and multi-tasking, all which may be very valuable to a prospective employer. Resumes are very expected in features and info, but many choices have to be made.