How to Engineer the Perfect Office

How to Engineer the Perfect Office When at work, its important that youve got the right surroundings to allow you to do the best work you can. When youve got the perfect office, youll have employee productivity or well-being at a high. Science and design have come together to tailor what makes up a good office find out below (courtesy of The Huffington Post). Takeaways: A few green plants will help increase happiness amongst workers. Workers in offices with windows get better sleep. Put some blue into the surroundings and it could be intellectually stimulating. RELATED: 13 Personalities You’ll Find In Every Office

Things to Include When Writing a Resume

Things to Include When Writing a ResumeThings to include when writing a resume should be as clear and straightforward as possible. You need to set the right mood, in order to keep your prospects interested and make them want to go through each section of your resume.The first thing you need to do is include as much relevant and important information as possible. This will give your resume a professional appearance that will help convey the impression you are trying to create.While some people may think this sounds too wordy, it is actually very straightforward and simple. It is also essential that your resume be short and concise. Don't forget to include the dates you attended school and the most important information on your resume is the job title.This is not just for formalities sake, but it is also one of the first things your prospective employer will take notice of when considering your application for a position, or interview. Not only should your resume be professional in app earance, but you also need to have it updated.Keep your resume current by keeping the up-to-date skill sets and updated employment history. If you have been with your company for a long time, it will be easier for your company to see your current skills and the best way to update them is to revise your resume.Next, you need to include relevant work experience on your resume. While it is OK to list some internships or volunteer work, you need to highlight the part of your previous work that was most valuable and help demonstrate how you would fit into a new position.Make sure you list all of your previous employers and include all of the relevant contact information. This will make it easy for a potential employer to contact you and get an idea of what kind of work you have done for other companies in the past.It's important that these are the first and last few things you list in your resume. By doing this, you will be able to stay away from things that might have left impressions i n the minds of your previous employers and will make your resume stand out and be noticed.

Contrast Success - Dark Free Resume Template

Contrast Success - Dark Free Resume Template Contrast Success Dark Free Resume Template Black on white resumes â€" thats the golden standard. Or is it? Your job application should not be the same as everyone else, especially if you are pursuing a position where creativity is in high regard.This creative resume template features dark background and contrast font. Just imagine how unique it will look in the pile of regular white resumes. Color isnt the only thing that makes this template special. It also comes with a distinctive font (that is pleasant to read), a good area for adding a personal statement less formal bio with links to your portfolio and/or social media accounts. Yes, this is a bold template. But you are an assertive and decisive candidate too, right? Give your application that extra strength by downloading this design. Or else, go on an explore other creative resume templates we have here. File size: 78 KB Format: .docx Downloaded 2,234 times License: Free, personal use only. Please read the license terms for resources. Download previous article Why Should We Hire You? How to Answer This Tricky Interview Question next article Federal Resume Example For Those Pursuing Government Jobs you might also likeThe Freelancers Resume Creative Resume Template for Independent Workers

3 Ways To Use Your Blog to Climb the Career Ladder

3 Ways To Use Your Blog to Climb the Career Ladder Today’s post is written by Emmelie De La Cruz, personal branding professional and founder of The Branding Muse. Emmelie is a labor communicator in the education sector in Washington, DC.   I get numerous requests each week from young women and college students asking about the benefits of developing a personal website. The short answer is: if you want to stand out from your peers, fellow employees and other job applicants, get yourself a blog or personal website. Being motivated to create and maintain a personal website in addition to your job and managing your career, speaks to your time management skills and work ethic. Below are just a few concrete career-boosting reasons to have  use your blog or personal website to grow your career. 1) Celebrate Document Your Accomplishments We all know that nice girls don’t get the corner office and that you won’t be recognized for the accomplishments you do not claim. In order to get that job, promotion or negotiate a raise, you must be able to prove your impact on the bottom line and communicate your value to the company. How have you gone above and beyond the job description? What have you accomplished individually and as part of a team? What integral role did you play in the planning, development or implementation of a new strategy, initiative or process? You should be very clear on the answers to these questions and communicate them via your blog. Sharing what you have learned and how you have achieved certain milestones not only helps others but also serves as a way of owning and promoting your accomplishments. When it is time for your performance review or job interview, you can look back at your blog and point to key experiences that highlight your unique skills. 2) Position Yourself as a Thought Leader By creating a robust online presence, you take control of how you are introduced on the Internet. A blog with your name in the domain allows for you to be found quickly and presents you in a professional manner. A blog and website are excellent supplements to your resume and LinkedIn profile, because they allow for you to demonstrate your expertise on topics of your choice. By illustrating your passions and your knowledge, you become the go-to person on specific topics in your community and company. This credibility attracts new opportunities and builds your professional reputation. 3) Improve Your Communications Skills Being a good communicator is a transferable skill that is necessary for almost every career. The more that you practice writing and sharing your thoughts creatively and concisely, the better communicator you become. How you populate your site is your choice, but it should always be a tool to showcase your skills and interests. Start  Your Blog Checklist If you have been convinced that starting a blog or website is critical for your career, here are some tips to get started. 1. Own your domain by purchasing [Your First Name and Last Name].com. 2. Choose articles and topics you will write about. 3. Commit to a consistent schedule. Decide if you are going to write once a week, bi-monthly etc. 4. Share and promote through other channels including social media, your email signature and resume. Do you have a blog that is helping (or you hope will help you one day) climb the career ladder? If so, please share it in the comments so we can all go visit you!

Resume Writing Problem Solution

Resume Writing Problem SolutionResume writing is not an easy task. It requires a lot of thinking, planning and the skill to do it right. A lot of time is needed for the entire process. For this reason, finding the right resume writing problem solution can be helpful.Resume writing can be very challenging and confusing for a lot of job seekers. If you are applying for the same job on more than one occasion, your resume writing problem solution can be a little different from that of a resume writing solution for those who do not have resume writing jobs. Some of the tips below will help you with resume writing problems.The first tip for solving resume writing problems is to make sure that the writer is having enough time to produce a good and professional resume. Sometimes a person may be too busy and this is what leads to errors in resume writing. Try to schedule the writing session at least two or three times per week so that there is adequate time for all the elements of the resume. The second tip for making the writer write a better resume is to plan out all the writing aspects before they get started. Write out each section of the resume thoroughly and then make sure that the writer follows up. If they don't, it will show on the resume.The third tip is to make sure that the job seeker is organized. Take notes and make a list of the needs and wants of the job seeker before they start writing. This can help them in writing their resume.The fourth tip is to have a separate table for resume writing. All the information should be included here. This table should be updated when needed so that the writer can access it easily. They should also use this table for making a professional resume.The fifth tip is to remember that the resume should be short and not too long. This is because the resume has to be submitted soon so that it can be delivered for the employer's review and approval.The sixth tip is to follow the correct method of resume writing. The best way to l earn how to write a resume is by following a good writing guide. The steps are easy to follow and will allow the writer to put the most important points on the resume and avoid all possible mistakes.

10 Essential CV Writing Verbs

10 Essential CV Writing Verbs When it comes to the wording you use within your CV/resume, nothing is more important than the verbs you include.Verbs are commonly known as “doing words” and describe the actions you take to complete a task. Therefore it’s understandable that employers rely heavily on verbs to comprehend your input into your previous employers’ success.So professional CV writing service StandOut CV have collated the top 13 most effective verbs to have on your CV if you want to make a big impression on recruiters.Some important verbs include:PlannedevalPlanning is the backbone of success and shows that you can methodically work towards a goal.ResolvedBusinesses face challenged and problems on a daily basis, so if you have the ability to resolve issues and rectify problems, employers will want to hire you.ImprovedBusinesses are always looking to make improvements, so if you can drive positive change within an organisation then include it on your CVFor more verbs see the Infographic below.Repri nted with permission from Standout-cv.com

If You Dont Believe Gender Bias Exists, Read This (and If Youve Faced Gender Bias, This Will Help) - Kathy Caprino

If You Dont Believe Gender Bias Exists, Read This (and If Youve Faced Gender Bias, This Will Help) Part of Kathys series “Women, Leadership and Vision” originally posted here. A new study by New York Times bestselling authors, Joseph Grenny and David Maxfield revealed that gender bias in the workplace is real, finding that   women’s perceived competency drops by 35% and their perceived worth falls by $15,088 when they are judged as being “forceful” or “assertive.” Compare this with the drops in competency and worth that men experience when being judged as forceful: their competency drops by 22% and their worth falls by $6,547. This significant difference reveals a true gender bias that prohibits women from succeeding fully in leadership and management roles where assertiveness is, of course, a crucial behavior. As part of the study, Grenny and Maxfield conducted an experiment to see if using a brief, framing statement (that allowed the speakers to explain their intent before sharing their content) could reduce social and emotional backlash. This experiment showed that these brief statements could reduce the backlash by as much as 27% â€" enabling both women and men to more consciously speak their minds to minimize backlash in the workplace. Here’s a brief video on the experiment: I caught up with Joseph and David to learn more about their study, and to understand the implicit gender bias it revealed, and what we can do about it: Kathy Caprino: Does everyone have implicit biases? Does that mean we’re all Donald Trump? David Maxfield and Joseph Grenny: Everyone has beliefs and associations that are relatively unconscious and automatic. Think of them as cognitive shortcuts that save us time and brainpower. They are helpful most of the time. For example, we may automatically associate wine with cheese and cheese with crackers, and these associations make shopping easy. Some of these associations come from our experience, and reflect a bit of truth about our world. But many come from TV shows, sensational news reports, and cultural stereotypes that have little to do with reality. These automatic associations lead to trouble when they are based on stereotypes and prejudices. They undermine our attempts to be fair. We’re able to be fair when we’re thinking about fairness, but we slide into stereotyping as soon as we let our guard down. These implicit biases are embedded deeply in our culture. Children as young as 4 and 5 show racial and gender bias. In tests of adults, eighty percent of Americans show implicit bias against the elderly, and seventy-five percent of self-identified Whites and Asians show implicit bias against Blacks. While nearly all of us suffer from implicit biases, some have more explicit biases. Overt racism, sexism, and other â€"isms are still alive and well in our culture. We still have a lot of work to do to eliminate both explicit and implicit bias. Caprino: What is it about emotion that makes it a trigger for sexism, racism, and other bigotry? Maxfield and Grenny:   Humans have two modes of interacting with the world: hot and cold. Most of the time we’re in our cold system, where our thinking is slow, deliberate, and thoughtful. This is when our prefrontal cortex, the logical reasoning part of our brain, is in charge. We are relatively good decision makers, and we hold ourselves to moral standards. However, when our emotions kick in, our thinking becomes fast, intuitive, and relatively automatic. Now it’s our amygdala, the emotional part of our brain, that takes charge. The amygdala doesn’t make careful decisions or weigh moral standards; it creates strong emotions and immediate action. Unfortunately, these actions are often based on automatic thoughts and implicit biases, rather than facts. So, here’s the situation: When the stakes are high, and we need to be at our very best, our emotions kick in, and we move into our hot system, which causes us to behave at our very worst. Caprino: How did you decide on the framing statements that you studied? What made them work? Maxfield and Grenny: We’re not the first to study the backlash that people, especially women, experience when they speak up. Previous researchers, Victoria Brescoll at Yale and Eric Luis Uhlmann at Northwestern, discovered that this backlash is greatest when observers think the person has lost his/her temper and is out of control. And they found observers are quicker to think a woman has lost her temper. Our first study replicated their findings: the backlash came when observers thought the actor had lost his/her temper. And observers were much more likely to think the female actor had lost it. The goal of the 4-second framing statements was for the actor to signal to observers that he/she was not out of control. Behavior Frame: The actor said, “I’m going to express my opinion very directly. I’ll be as specific as possible.” This statement tells the observer that the forcefulness is deliberate and purposeful, not a reaction to being out of control. It reduced the backlash by 10%. Value Frame: The actor said, “I see this as a matter of honesty and integrity, so it’s important for me to be clear about where I stand.” This statement shows control, but also turns the forcefulness into a virtue. Now the strong emotion demonstrates the actor’s commitment to honesty and integrity. This frame reduced the backlash by 16%. Inoculation Frame: The female actor said, “I know it’s a risk for a woman to speak this assertively, but I’m going to express my opinion very directly.” This statement warned observers that they might hold an unfair bias against her. The Inoculation frame reduced the backlash by 27%. We have a concern that the Inoculation Frame in the form we’ve tested could be seen as “playing the gender card,” and could reduce a woman’s credibility. We showed it to a group of 350 human resource and training professionals, and asked them if they would recommend it to a favorite niece. Nearly 75% of them said they would not. We tested a softer form of the Inoculation Frame, but only with our male actor. We had him say, “I know it’s a risk to speak this assertively, but I’m going to express my opinion very directly.” This frame worked just as well as the Value Frame. It may warn observers about the bias we have against negative emotions in general. We will be exploring it more in the future. Caprino: It doesn’t seem fair at all that women and other victims of implicit bias should have to change their behavior. What can organizations do to reduce implicit bias? Maxfield and Grenny: We need to work to change both explicit and implicit bias. It isn’t fair for women, minorities, and other victims of bias to have to bear the brunt of the solution. The challenge is that there’s no proven method for eliminating implicit bias. Facebook, Google, and other organizations are working on solutions. Some of the easiest and most robust solutions take the bias out by masking a person’s gender, race, age, and other identifying characteristics. A dramatic example comes from symphony orchestras. When they began using blind auditions, where the judges couldn’t see the performer, the percentage of women hired by orchestras jumped from 5% to 30%. This strategy can work in many areas, such as evaluating resumes, judging software-coding skills, evaluating sales results, etc. Other solutions aim at eliminating the bias itself. These approaches begin by getting people to recognize the problem in themselvesâ€"to realize that their automatic judgments don’t always match their personal values. Organizations are also working to make the topic more discussable. If we can’t talk about a problem, there is little we can do to solve it. Finally, organizations are encouraging leaders to warn people to look out for their biases, and to guard against them during crucial moments. People are quite skilled at avoiding bias or correcting for it, while they are attending to it. For example, they can guard against it during a specific period of time and during a specific task. As they practice during these brief periods, they are probably becoming more skilled at avoiding it in generalâ€"though the data aren’t in on this yet. Caprino: In general, observers liked the woman more than the man, and yet punished her more when she was being forceful. What do you think was going on? Maxfield and Grenny: Yes, observers rated our female actor higher than the male in nearly every condition. This preference was largest in the neutral condition, where she wasn’t disagreeing or stating a forceful position. In these kinds of studies, we researchers have to control for lots of factors that we know will influence observers. In this study we selected two actors who were both White, in their early thirties, and dressed in business casual. We also tried to select actors who were equally attractive, but we were only able to come close. Our judges rated the female actor one point more attractive than the male on a ten-point scale. This difference in attractiveness might explain her higher ratings overall. However, the key finding is what happened when the actors changed from being neutral to disagreeing in a forceful way. The observers loved the female actor as long as she was neutral and agreeable. But, as soon as she disagreed and defended her point of view in a forceful way, she was cast off her pedestal and punished far more than the male actor. For more information, visit www.vitalsmarts.com . To build a more successful and rewarding career, join my FREE webinar training this September Fast Track to Career Bliss.

Client Success Story Jenn Williams - Hallie Crawford

Client Success Story â€" Jenn Williams Jenn Williams was an individual client who was unhappy with her career path wanted to identify her ideal career. She has found something she loves and is on her way to making it a reality. Here’s her story. Thank you Jenn! How did you uncover your dream job and what that was?For a few years I felt as if I was just floating through life. I was working in theatre, a career I had worked hard for and thought I loved. But as much as I do love theatre, it felt like something was missing. Thats why I started working with Hallie, I wanted to find out what was missing. Through the exercises we did together, I discovered what my true values are, what really matters to me in a job and in life, and what would leave me feeling fulfilled and satisfied at the end of the day. Through research, a lot of soul searching and with Hallies help and insight, I found a career that Im very excited about. I am pursuing my degree in Holistic Health and Life Coaching. What steps have you taken to make this happen?Once I knew what I wanted to do, I had to find out what tools and education I needed in order to pursue the career. I started researching schools and found one I fell in love with. I kept talking myself out of it because I was living in Virginia and the school was in Arizona. I wasnt sure I wanted to make that big of a move. But then I got laid off from a job that I hated at the beginning of June. I realized this was the answer I had been asking for. I had no reason to hold myself back from what I wanted to pursue anymore. I called the school that day and enrolled. Ill be starting classes on September 23rd and I couldnt be more excited. What challenges have you encountered along the way, and how have you handled them?I think the biggest challenge Ive encountered along the way is myself. I tend to over-analyze situations until I talk myself out of something Im unsure of. I assumed that the people in my life would react badly to this new adventure because it was such a switch from what I had done for the past ten years. When in reality, they couldnt have been more excited for me and supportive. Its the little gremlins in your head that can trip you up at every turn and keep you from doing what you want to do. You just have to learn to listen to them, and then tell them to shut up. What has most helped you in this process?The tools that Hallie gave me through our coaching have been invaluable. Im much better at recognizing the gremlins when they pop up and stepping back to see what the issue really is. I still have my days when I freak out, but Im much better at evaluating if theres a real issue I should address or if Im just trying to trip myself up because Im scared. Have there been any naysayers? How have you managed to stay the course? Ive been very lucky that everyone in my life has been super supportive, more so then I thought they would be. I think thats a big part of what has helped me stay the course so well. I think the only naysayers Ive run into have been my parents but only from a financial concerns standpoint. Theyre so excited about what Im pursuing and theyre so happy that Im excited about a career again. What lessons have you learned? What surprises have you discovered?Ive learned you have to have faith that things will work out. If it feels right and you know youre on the right path, some times you have to let go of the worries and trust it will work itself out. Ive learned you get what you ask for. If you open your heart and ask for something, youll get it. It might not be in the way or form you were expecting, but you’ll get it. Ive learned you cant plan everything because its going to change in ways you cant even anticipate. Ive learned that people will surprise you in wonderful ways and that those who love you truly just want you to be happy. How has this experience changed you?For the first time in a long time I feel very at peace. It comes from feeling like Im heading in the right direction and that Ive found what Im supposed to be doing. Im more confident and stronger than I have been for a long time. I know myself better then I did when I started working with Hallie. I had been hiding some truths from myself because there were feelings I was scared to deal with. Now I realize that facing these gremlins and dealing with them allows me to move past them and truly be happy. Any words of wisdom to share with others who are taking steps to create their own paths?Listen to that little voice in you. We all have it and a lot of us choose to ignore it because we think we know what were supposed to be doing. But supposed to according to who? Do what you love, do what inspires you, do what makes you happy. When you are doing what youre good at and what makes you happy, you bring more in to the world and to others then you can imagine. And reallythats what were all supposed to be doing. Tips from Jenn’s Story Listen to your inner voice and wisdom, not what you think you “should” do or what you’re “supposed to do.” Learn to manage your fears and negative inner voices that hold you back. Don’t let them stand in your way! Do what you love. You will feel more fulfilled, and you will bring more to the world and to others. Share your gifts. Atlanta Certified Career Coach