Four more weeks until Jan 2. What are you doing to prepare

Four more weeks until Jan 2. What are you doing to prepare Ive run JibberJobber since 2006 and have found that January through March or April is the time when most people are (finally!) really serious about their own career management. December feels like a month when you cant really do anything people complain that its a horrible month for the job search.  Employees are out of the office, on vacation, and hiring decisions are left until the new year so why try? When I was in my job search I didnt care what holiday it might have been, or whether it was a weekend or 3 am.  I had anxiety, and I felt a great sense of urgency to do something to end my unemployment!  I wasnt doing the right things, but I certainly wasnt going to celebrate anything (like a national holiday) simply because everyone else was.  Its hard to feel festive when you feel like an incompetent. Whats more, many job search coaches say the holidays are definitely a time to do job search stuff, even if you employ different tactics.  But lets say you doing believe any of that stuff what COULD/SHOULD you do between now and January 2nd? Whether in a job search or not, smart, astute, self-driven professionals are going do something.  It might be as baby-step simple as listing 10 20 people they need to talk to, or 10 20 companies they want to network into come January. It might be something as in-depth and time-consuming as writing a book (even if it is a small ebook) with the purpose of establishing and enhancing their personal brand. That something might be seriously considering, or starting, a side business, to create an alternative/multiple revenue stream and maybe even start down the path of 100% self-employment. Depending on what your year (or last quarter) looked like, you might simply take this month off to do nothing like read some books or articles youve been meaning to catch up on, take a real vacation and mentally, spiritually and physically recharge, to be ready for the next year. Whatever you do, please dont give up on December.  Whether it is a strategic and very tactical job search to hopefully get some interviews or offers lined up in January, or a more long-term career management strategy, take the time to do something on purpose to finish out this year. I cant tell you what it should be so you tell me what will it be? Four more weeks until Jan 2. What are you doing to prepare Ive run JibberJobber since 2006 and have found that January through March or April is the time when most people are (finally!) really serious about their own career management. December feels like a month when you cant really do anything people complain that its a horrible month for the job search.  Employees are out of the office, on vacation, and hiring decisions are left until the new year so why try? When I was in my job search I didnt care what holiday it might have been, or whether it was a weekend or 3 am.  I had anxiety, and I felt a great sense of urgency to do something to end my unemployment!  I wasnt doing the right things, but I certainly wasnt going to celebrate anything (like a national holiday) simply because everyone else was.  Its hard to feel festive when you feel like an incompetent. Whats more, many job search coaches say the holidays are definitely a time to do job search stuff, even if you employ different tactics.  But lets say you doing believe any of that stuff what COULD/SHOULD you do between now and January 2nd? Whether in a job search or not, smart, astute, self-driven professionals are going do something.  It might be as baby-step simple as listing 10 20 people they need to talk to, or 10 20 companies they want to network into come January. It might be something as in-depth and time-consuming as writing a book (even if it is a small ebook) with the purpose of establishing and enhancing their personal brand. That something might be seriously considering, or starting, a side business, to create an alternative/multiple revenue stream and maybe even start down the path of 100% self-employment. Depending on what your year (or last quarter) looked like, you might simply take this month off to do nothing like read some books or articles youve been meaning to catch up on, take a real vacation and mentally, spiritually and physically recharge, to be ready for the next year. Whatever you do, please dont give up on December.  Whether it is a strategic and very tactical job search to hopefully get some interviews or offers lined up in January, or a more long-term career management strategy, take the time to do something on purpose to finish out this year. I cant tell you what it should be so you tell me what will it be? Four more weeks until Jan 2. What are you doing to prepare Ive run JibberJobber since 2006 and have found that January through March or April is the time when most people are (finally!) really serious about their own career management. December feels like a month when you cant really do anything people complain that its a horrible month for the job search.  Employees are out of the office, on vacation, and hiring decisions are left until the new year so why try? When I was in my job search I didnt care what holiday it might have been, or whether it was a weekend or 3 am.  I had anxiety, and I felt a great sense of urgency to do something to end my unemployment!  I wasnt doing the right things, but I certainly wasnt going to celebrate anything (like a national holiday) simply because everyone else was.  Its hard to feel festive when you feel like an incompetent. Whats more, many job search coaches say the holidays are definitely a time to do job search stuff, even if you employ different tactics.  But lets say you doing believe any of that stuff what COULD/SHOULD you do between now and January 2nd? Whether in a job search or not, smart, astute, self-driven professionals are going do something.  It might be as baby-step simple as listing 10 20 people they need to talk to, or 10 20 companies they want to network into come January. It might be something as in-depth and time-consuming as writing a book (even if it is a small ebook) with the purpose of establishing and enhancing their personal brand. That something might be seriously considering, or starting, a side business, to create an alternative/multiple revenue stream and maybe even start down the path of 100% self-employment. Depending on what your year (or last quarter) looked like, you might simply take this month off to do nothing like read some books or articles youve been meaning to catch up on, take a real vacation and mentally, spiritually and physically recharge, to be ready for the next year. Whatever you do, please dont give up on December.  Whether it is a strategic and very tactical job search to hopefully get some interviews or offers lined up in January, or a more long-term career management strategy, take the time to do something on purpose to finish out this year. I cant tell you what it should be so you tell me what will it be?

How to Write a Resume With Healthcare Certifications

How to Write a Resume With Healthcare CertificationsIf you have a medical degree, an undergraduate degree or a graduate degree, then you can go for a post-graduate degree in the healthcare field and fill your resume with certifications obtained in the basic healthcare disciplines. Healthcare certifications include clinical and patient care, nursing, chiropractic, naturopathy, podiatry, physio-therapy, occupational therapy, speech and language pathology, psychologist, physician assistant, physical therapist, radiology technician, physician, doctor of pharmacy, physician assistant, etc. These credentials are important to prospective employers, especially if you are employed as a nurse.Some healthcare certifications are granted by the State, while others are issued by Professional Certification Organizations (PCOs). These are separate bodies from the Board of Registered Nursing (BRN) that issue the nurse's license. The healthcare certifications are divided into different groups accordin g to the specific discipline. The types of certification in which nursing students can choose to include advanced practice registered nurse (APRN), board certified registered nurse (BCRN), certified nursing assistant (CNA), technician (ST), physician assistant (PA), health aide (HA), physician assistant (PA) (including ERP) and aural specialist (AST).One of the most common healthcare certifications in which nurses can be licensed is that of the Medical Transcriptionist. With the help of medical transcription, the doctors or the nurses can record patient medical procedures into a medical journal. The medical transcriptionist then transcribes these recorded words in a written format such as medical journal, medical billing or medical record. This type of job involves technical skills such as medical shorthand, document maintenance, medical transcription, medical collation, medical transcriptionist, medical factoring, computer organization, medical proofreading, medical coding, medical typist, medical data entry, medical stenography, medical phraseology, medical transcriptionists and medical transcription.The healthcare specialists also need to follow all the regulations that are issued by the states to operate in the field. The duties that they have to include but not limited to: booking appointments, performing vital statistics, scheduling and analyzing medical case reports, updating patient records, managing and scheduling the appointments, collecting patient charges, managing patient insurance claims, preparing billings, tracking patients' records, maintaining patient charts, preparing bills, applying for financial aid, filling out patient records, presenting patients' information, registering patients' information, maintaining patient health files, creating patient records, and preparing referrals.Another notable healthcare certification is that of Health Care Management, which is made available by the American Health Systems Association (AHS). It is also kn own as Certified Health Counselor or Certified Mental Health Therapist. Most nurses seeking to fill the post of Health Care Practitioner must be able to maintain an active practice of mental health counseling and psychotherapy, while those seeking to fill the post of Certified Professional Clinical Nurse Specialist must undergo three years of graduate study in this line of work.The next major certification is that of the Registered Nurse (RN), which is a person who has a license to practice as a nurse and who has completed eight years of education and training as a Registered Nurse. These nurses are called Licensed Vocational Nurses (LVN), Licensed Vocational Physician's Assistants (LVPPA) and Registered Nurse Associates (RN/LNA). They have to meet certain clinical requirements that pertain to the specialties they are pursuing.The majority of nurses are required to complete a Registered Nurse degree that is known as Registered Nurse Associate (RN-RN) to be considered as a qualified nurse. A qualified RN-RN is required to practice as a registered nurse, and is an appointed person to the board of nursing appointed by the state. The main task of a qualified RN-RN is to attend school and become an apprentice to an LPN (Licensed Practical Nurse) who is an authorized to practice under his/her supervision.Other health care professionals need to have their certification from the National Registry of Healthcare Organization (NRHO) to be taken as a part of the licensing process. There are certain healthcare professionals who are certified by NRHO, while the others are not. All the healthcare professionals can be found in NRHO website.

Knowing good grammar is a social skill

Knowing good grammar is a social skill My friend is staying at my apartment while he job hunts in Boston. My job hunts were always done in pajamas with a jeans-and-T-shirt interview finale. Micah is in sales and his hunt starts with a trip to a clothing store. While he hops in and out of dressing rooms becoming friends with everyone, I settle into a spot with the mannequins. Then I say, Micah! Hey! Did you know the most reliable way to speed up a job hunt is to have a professional rewrite your resume? Micah stops and looks at me. Sales guys are always attentive, even if you annoy them. So, not that I dont love living with you, but Im rewriting your resume. A lot of times when I rewrite a resume its so much better than the original that the person has to learn to talk about themselves differently. We underestimate ourselves because were in the thick of things when its our own career. A good resume rewrite makes you feel like a different, much more successful person. Most people take a week or two to get used to talking about themselves at a higher level. Salespeople can adjust right away, which Micah did. Then he started making little changes for each job. And ruining the resume. Micah! Are you a total numbskull?! You cant have a bulleted list with one bullet! Its not a list if theres only one thing! I told him he has a huge indentation where there shouldnt be any. He thought I was crazy. He thought no one would notice. This reminds me of when I was doing a lot of public speaking. I wore jeans. Even when I was getting paid $15K per speech, I wore jeans. Even when I was speaking to a coat-and-tie audience, I wore jeans. My agent told me to stop wearing jeans. I told my agent my content is so good that no one notices what I wear. So he stopped booking me. The problem is blind spots. And part of the art of making it through adult life is to learn our blind spots before they completely undermine us. This is a good time to complain about tests we administer to ourselves. I have already published a tirade about personality tests   why nearly 50% of people get inaccurate results when they test themselves. But another example is that the are you a sociopath  tests dont work because the ENTPs and ESTPs are always excited to test as a sociopath. They think its funny. So they inadvertently skew the results. Also, when you have someone test to see if they have Aspergers, most of the time they will say their social skills are fine. Thats because people with Aspergers dont know what counts as a social skill. For example, meeting deadlines, sticking with the group, saying Im sorry. These are all social skills that people with poor social skills dont count. I see the phrase appropriate attire a lot. Well, maybe not a lot now, but I did a lot when I was 13 in the 70s and I was receiving tons of formal bat mitzvah invitations. But anyway, that phrase doesnt mean you have to knock it out of the park with an outfit straight from the runway. It means just look like you fit in. The same is true with appropriate grammar. People just need to know basics. As a former copyeditor, I know that one should not capitalize a job title unless the job title comes directly before a persons name who is doing that job. The number of people who violate this rule is so large that breaking that rule is like wearing white after Labor Day: Whatever. But those mistakes on Micahs resume are on the list of must-be-fixed. And, heres a list off the top of my head of common grammar errors I see on resumes from very smart people: Do not use jargon as a way to abbreviate because you need everyone at the prospective company to be able to read your resume. Always abbreviate state names unless youre a calligrapher getting paid per letter. Dont write Inc. on your resume unless you worked at Inc. Magazine. No one cares about the incorporation papers of the companies you worked for. Recognize rules are flexible, but no rules are random.Put periods at the end of non-sentences. Or not. Capitalize long prepositions in a headline. Or not. Abbreviate months. Or not. But be consistent; whatever you choose, do it every time. Maintain past tense even for a job that you are still doing. If you are writing a good resume, you are writing about a moment in time when you were great. If you are writing about something you do every day, meaning you are still doing it, then stop writing that. A resume is about accomplishments and the second you accomplish something it becomes past tense. Give your verb an object  as a way to make sure you look great. Consider the difference between Emma ate. And Emma ate something. The latter is a specific time with a specific outcome. People get hired for making a specific impact at the places they work. Dont use quotation marks unless you literally refer to a person who you then quote verbatim. But if you are quoting someone verbatim on your resume, delete it. What are you thinking? The only acceptable quote would be from someone who is so famous that they can just make a phone call and get you the job without you sending a resume at all.

Recover from an Injury the Healthy Way with These Techniques

Recover from an Injury the Healthy Way with These Techniques Sustaining an injury can be hard to handle. It can have an impact on your life, sometimes preventing you from living as you usually do. Recovering might take a long time, and you can be in pain until the injury has healed or even after. You can feel upset and frustrated, and sometimes the emotional impact is harder to deal with than the physical injury. If you want to recover in a healthy manner, you need to take some necessary steps. Whatever the cause of your injury was, heres how to overcome it and get back to your life. Allow Yourself Time to Recover With any injury, its important to give yourself time to recover. You dont want to spend your time doing things that could exacerbate it. So if, for example, you have sprained your ankle, you should make sure youre not putting too much weight on it for too long. If its difficult for you to do your job or other daily activities, you should try to take some time to recover. However, it can be difficult if you cant afford to take time off work or stop looking after your kids. In these cases, it can help to find other ways to give yourself a break. For example, using crutches will help you get around if youre not able to sit down all day. Follow a Treatment Plan Listening to your doctor is always a good idea when youre recovering from an injury. Of course, they arent perfect, so you dont always have to follow their advice. But if youre unsure, you should get a second opinion rather than just ignore them. There could be several things you can do to take care of your injury. You might have medication to use, whether its pills or a topical cream or lotion. Your doctor might tell you to have follow-up appointments to check on you. Many people can find that they need physical therapy after an injury. You can find your nearest physical therapy center for treatment. If you ask them to give you some exercises, you can do a lot of your therapy at home. Talk About Your Feelings Injuring yourself can have emotional effects, as well as physical ones. If you were in an accident or someone assaulted you, it can be traumatic. Its essential to address these feelings, as well as focusing on your physical recovery. Try to find someone you can talk to about how youre feeling. In some cases, you might benefit from going to see a therapist. There are also support groups that can help. Get Back to Your Life Although you need time to recover, you also need to ease back into your everyday life. With some injuries, this might involve finding a new normal. If youve been left with a disability, you might have to work at changing some things. Make sure you balance taking care of your injury and getting back to your life. For example, if youre waiting for your ankle to heal you need to start walking on it again at some point. Recovering from an injury can take a while, but you have to be patient. Work with your doctor to come up with a plan. Image Source; Image Source; Image Source

Writing Good Objective For Resume

Writing Good Objective For ResumeWriting good objective for resume is not as difficult as many would like you to believe. An objective can be a very powerful tool to help you land the job of your dreams. You don't want to overdo it though. A good objective will do more for you than you can ever imagine.Writing a good objective for resume is not hard, but it is important to follow some basic rules. One of the most important of these rules is to make sure that you write your objective as if you were speaking to a close friend. No one ever hires a stranger to speak in their head. Write in a way that will make them think you are a professional. Don't put any emotion into it.You should also be aware that you can use your personal bias to help you. You know what you know and what you think about a situation. You should really be as objective as possible when writing a resume objective.Remember, there are many different backgrounds in the world. Each of these backgrounds has their own set o f skills that may not be applicable to the other. Always make sure that you're hiring someone who can be truly helpful to your company.Another thing you should always make sure of is that you focus on the major skill sets of the position. You should never list everything that you think you have the qualifications for in the career summary. This will show that you aren't trying too hard to be a doormat. And sometimes it's nice to let people know that you are the best person for the job.Most doormats say things like, 'I'm not trying to sell anything to anyone.' That's not true. You should always strive to be clear about what you mean when you write. People often don't get this at first, so keep it simple.Writing a good objective for resume is a skill that most people don't learn until they're in a job for quite a while. It's very hard to get out of your comfort zone and learn how to write a good resume. By the time you're doing it, you'll wish you had learned earlier.So remember, writ ing a good objective for resume is not as hard as you may think. Just follow these tips and you'll find that you can give yourself a clear path to success. Good luck!

Executive Job Search Targeting the Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 - Executive Career Brandâ„¢

Executive Job Search Targeting the Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 Surely you know that successful job search campaigns start with identifying a target list of companies where your expertise and ROI value will be a good mutual fit? Good. You have a list. No List? Check out my post, Executive Job Search: Research Your Target Employers. If Fortune 1000 companies are on your list, head over to online job search expert Susan P. Joyce’s article at her Job-Hunt.org site, Fortune 1000 Employers: Research, Jobs, Internships. The article includes links to 10 pages listing the Fortune 500 and 1000 with critical information about your potential future employers: Rank within the Fortune 1,000. Links to the Fortune Profile (Snapshot) of the employer, when available. Links to the company home page. Links to the job postings. Links to the internship postings, if any. State where the corporate headquarters is located. Another set of valuable resources among the very many on Job-Hunt is the Employer Directory, with links to more than 8,000 employers by state. Related posts: A compilation of my best posts: Executive Branding and the New Rules of C-level Job Search 00 0

Climbing the Ladder

Climbing the Ladder Successfully transitioning from an individual contributor role to a management role is straight forward and very intuitive for very few people! Yes, some people have natural instincts that make them good managers. For the rest of us, we need a paradigm shift to help us be successful as a manager. As an individual contributor, you had to implement plans and tactics that had specific outcomes. You were measured on how effectively you did those things and how much success those things brought your company. As a manager, you are still responsible for getting these tasks done and making sure they have a positive impact on the business. However, instead of working on implementing tactics you are now focused on: developing processes formulating strategy structuring your organization maximizing the success of your department communicating across the organization and up the management chain This is a big shift for anyone. We work with many individuals trying to make this transition. Heres an example. Our client was quite adept at using a particular piece of sales software. She devised creative solutions and solved many issues for the sales team. She was outstanding and given the chance to lead a group of 7 people. The goal of her team was to solve even larger problems and expand their ability to help the sales team. Through our engagement with this client, we developed the following tips for individual contributors to transition into managers. Communicate With Employees One thing that hasnt changed is that you still have a boss. It is your job to understand what communication your boss expects from you and your team on a weekly, monthly and quarterly basis. You will no longer be heads down in the software you are familiar with. You need to spend more time educating your boss on your progress towards your goals and educating the entire organization on your approach to accomplishing those goals. You may have gotten away with under-communicating when you were an individual contributor but that wont fly anymore. Find out the expectations and over-communicate! Maximize the Effectiveness of Your Team When you are given the title of manager you often receive something else a much larger workload! You will now be expected to get a lot more done. This list of things will undoubtedly include tasks you didnt work on before. You have a team now and they are the ones to execute the tasks. Your job is to: make sure your team executes tasks well and meets the success metrics your manager expects knock down any obstacles standing in the way of your teams ability to meet goals communicate your progress and raise any concerns about missing your goals early on look for procedural or organizational opportunities to improve efficiency or effectiveness Figure Out How To Get It Done As a manager, you wont sit down, log into the software and start taking care of tasks. If you think that is the answer then you arent focused on solving the problem that is blocking delivery of your teams tasks. You need to see the problems your team is having the early you see them the sooner you can communicate them and then solve them. If your boss expects 200 sales cases to be solved each day then you need to determine if that is possible and what it will take to solve that many. Do you need better trained team members? Do you need head count? Do you need system or workflow changes to improve efficiency? These are the questions you ask and then go about solving you dont sit down and try to do the work! Say No You cant do everything. Your team cant do everything. Sometimes, you just have to say no. Theres an art to saying no that you need to figure out. Dont say no to things that will impact your goal or companys goal and dont say no to something your boss would say yes to. Keep in mind the saying no is really saying not right now. Most initiatives at your company are important and should not be rejected. Saying not right now is about knowing your priorities and knowing your teams capacity. If you get push-back from saying no then you can always direct the requester to your boss. If your boss is the one asking you for something you can push back and ask him or her which existing priority should get pushed out to accommodate the new one. Focus on Your Job Goals On a daily basis you should ask, Is what Im about to work going to get me closer to my goals? If the answer is anything but yes then you shouldnt be doing the work. Your boss wont accept the excuses below if you dont accomplish your goals by their deadline: too many other requests came up we didnt have the capacity/expertise to accomplish this other people/departments caused us to miss this Focusing on your job goals day-in and day-out will help you see and address those potential problems before they cause you to miss your goal. Knowing how to get all of these things done wont come naturally. It will take discipline to force yourself to look for potential issues and it will take leadership to figure out how to solve them. This may be confusing or overwhelming and make you wish you were an individual contributor again! Remember, you arent alone and shouldnt keep your challenges to yourself. Help comes from a mentor, your boss or your fellow managers. If you are communicating effectively throughout the organization then use that to raise concerns and get others to help with the solution. Most importantly, communicate often and proactively with your boss that is the only thing that saves you when you miss one of your goals!

Dont lose the passion! - Hallie Crawford

Dont lose the passion! People often ask me, “if I have so many hobbies and interests, or so many things I enjoy doing, how do I know which one I should pursue as a career?” This is a common issue. I tell people it’s like being on spin cycle in the dryer. You’re so confused you don’t know which way to turn, and which interest or passion to pursue. Sometimes the path we want to take seems very clear though. For example, some passions will pay more than others. You have to be careful of choosing something just for the money. It might just leave you back at square one. I had a free teleclass this week and this issue came up with Tim, one of the participants (thanks Tim for sharing). He said one of his passions is sailing, and people have told him time and again that he should pursue this as a career because he loves it so much. But…the key point is, and this is what you need to pay attention to, that Tim realizes pursuing a career in sailing would take the fun out of it for him. Sailing right now is a hobby, an escape and if he were working on a sailboat for example, he would not longer truly enjoy sailing. Tim could think creatively about ideas and find something related to sailing or boating that he might enjoy, but that’s a decision he has to really think about and make based on what works for him. Here’s what you need to do: Make a list of your passions. Then imagine yourself doing those things every day, all day! Ask yourself: would it still be enjoyable for you? Don’t lose the passion guys… If you would like more information on our career services and what we offer, please  contact us for a complimentary consultation today! Career Help Coach P.S. Be sure to sign up for my next FREE Teleclass: 3 Keys to Transition into Your Dream Job. You will learn you how to transition into a your dream job with 3 simple keys.