How job seekers market themselves wrongly

1.) → Your LinkedIn heading says ACTIVELY SEEKING CAREER OPPORTUNITIES  and perhaps even lists a year.

• Why Not? – your LinkedIn heading is part of what is searched when either an employer or a recruiter is seeking someone. If you don’t brand it with specific skills and key words, it  has no value.
• The fix? Capitalize on using LinkedIn by learning successful marketing strategies.
• The top 5 mistakes LinkedIn users often make
• Do you watch who’s watching you on LinkedIn?
• 3 easy LinkedIn tips to make you look like a pro

2.) → You post whiny things on Facebook or Twitter  (or worse, you rant about politics, religion or something else)

• Why Not? – Employers are reading what you say. If you want to make sure that you get cut from the fold early, make sure you are ranting against corporate injustice when you are seeking a job as an Executive Assistant, middle manager, or even entry level employee. Who makes hiring decisions for those targets? Corporate people. It never fails to astonish me how the same person whining about no jobs can position themselves so badly.
• The fix? Make sure your online presence is positive.
• Could your politics be sabotaging your job search?
• Are you sure you are presenting the best impression?
• Don’t Cry Wolf on Facebook or Social Media!

3.) → You think if you say it over and over people will hear you. Like reposting the same thing all the time with the caption, “you can’t miss this!”

• Why Not? – If people see a steady stream of anything, they will ignore you. If you are trying to network, you can’t do it by blasting anything.
• The fix? Create a conversational presence about interesting topics.
• What’s in it for me? versus How can I help you?
• The secret to getting calls and offers from employers

If you plan to use any social media marketing for job search, make sure you project the right image, offer a positive presence, and don’t sound like a repetitive stream of the same message.

Stuck in your job search or existing position? Don’t know how to get unstuck? Hire an expert to do it for you. You will hit your target much more quickly and be doing what you do best instead of trying to figure your way through the job search maze. To find out how, Click here!

Photo Credit

Facing a challenge

You expect some difficulties just in every day life so you could be thinking, “Sailing along” what is she talking about? It never happens!

You’re right, but you know how it is, sometimes you just think things are going pretty smoothly. A little bump here and there but nothing major. Then all of the sudden, everything hits you at once.

When Sailing Along doesn’t fit your life

Here’s my latest trio of troubles:

Tax Surprise: Recently, my accountant’s office called with instructions to come in to sign the tax forms. Ever curious, I asked the staff person to let me know what to expect. The number she told me was way over my budgeted plan and it was also the month for 1/3 of my property taxes.  But I regrouped, figured out a plan, and moved forward.

Oops, sidelined by sniffles: Then, I was thinking the other day as I listened to many people complaining of being sick, “Hey, I have been blessed with no major colds or anything for awhile.” Boom! I just caught this tenacious cold. It started with an ear ache which was uncomfortably similar to the one I had in 2010 that took 2 months to cure. I still had ear drops left so I took them and it stopped the ear infection. But then my chronic sinus problems went into full blown cold symptoms by Thursday night. No fun for anyone and hard to keep the business running.

I gave myself Friday off, cancelling the only appointment of the day which would have been in my office. For once, I spent the day on the couch, watching TV, taking cold remedies, and napping. Yesterday, I kept the three appointments but two were in Florida and one was in southern Wisconsin. All were via Skype and since they were scheduled to leave the afternoon open, I returned to my trusty couch for the afternoon.

Blog breakdown: As I was home bound, I started getting ready to write another blog post yesterday. Both my sharing tools were acting up and I thought I could quick fix them. Digg-Digg was not giving the right message when I shared to Google+. Every post had a double everything. And it annoyed me. I uninstalled and reinstalled. No improvement.

ShareThis had developed check marks that opened a gray window but didn’t share anything. Apparently that was fast share but it wasn’t working. I uninstalled that too and reinstalled. Finally, yesterday morning, I gave up in disgust! In the middle of the night, I realized I thought I knew the solution to Digg-Digg. I did. I reset settings this morning. I was doubling commands to the plug-in by using both the normal and floating options at once. I figured out the ShareThis problem too thanks to the right Google query.

I’ll rebound and my budget will get back on track and I will plan even better in the future. My blog is fixed and plug-ins working again. But I know there will be a bump when I am sailing along again. Some storm that I am not totally ready for will blow up.

You can let these storms in life, bumps in the road, troubled times derail you or sink you, or you can step back and think it through. The solutions may not be easy and they may not be cost-free but you will survive.

Everyday I hear from someone whose life got hit with problems far bigger than my current ones. You will struggle. It is a given. But don’t give up. Keep sailing along!

Stuck in your job search or existing position? Don’t know how to get unstuck? Hire an expert to do it for you. You will hit your target much more quickly and be doing what you do best instead of trying to figure your way through the job search maze. To find out how, Click here!

Photo Credit

He has always had a job but since the plan had been for him to move to the house he and his brother, Dan, have been remodeling, he stayed with us until his room was complete at the other house. Dan moved out in April of last year but he had still been coming back to shower and it made no sense for two of them to be there until the bathroom was complete.

Tim’s birthday is in March and with a new bed from his grandfather and his room painted and carpeted, he moved over to the other house.

The impact on me

Since my husband’s job is to be the caregiver for his dad, he eats his meals with his dad except on Sundays leaving me to fend for myself most nights until my husband gets home around 7 or 8pm. Though Tim didn’t eat with me all the time, he was around after he was done with with work most days. Now it is me and Buddy most of the time.

The interesting thing that seems to have happened is that I have suddenly had a large number of clients whose best time to meet is in the evening. Now I find myself booking more appointments in the evenings with clients who are all over the United States and beyond. Any potential void that was there when Tim moved out is gone.

How do you adjust to change?

Since the beginning of time, there have been changes. As family structures change with children leaving the nest or people aging, there are changes. This economy has forced changes that perhaps were not so welcome on many people like job loss or corporate restructuring. The way you deal with change will affect many things in your life and is worth you spending some time planning ahead so that the impact isn’t more than you can handle.

Stuck in your job search or existing position? Don’t know how to get unstuck? Hire an expert to do it for you. You will hit your target much more quickly and be doing what you do best instead of trying to figure your way through the job search maze. To find out how, Click here!

Photo Credit

Sleeping in two stages

Then I caught this article posted by a few Facebook friends, The Myth of the 8 hour sleep. It gives a whole historical perspective to sleep but the essence is that you actually do better by sleeping in two stages:

But the majority of doctors still fail to acknowledge that a consolidated eight-hour sleep may be unnatural.

“Over 30% of the medical problems that doctors are faced with stem directly or indirectly from sleep. But sleep has been ignored in medical training and there are very few centres where sleep is studied,” he says.

I decided to give this a try. So last night, I made sure I had things to do if I woke up. I don’t want to wake everyone else. But I wrote my to-do list which is so hard to do at night when I am exhausted and then I read a worksheet for the first client this morning and made notes. I still wasn’t tired so I gave me permission to read a few pages in a book and found myself getting tired again.

Jacobs suggests that the waking period between sleeps, when people were forced into periods of rest and relaxation, could have played an important part in the human capacity to regulate stress naturally.

When stress interrupts our sleep, we can either be annoyed or try a different path. I woke up and have already completed multiple things on the to-do list and find I am more alert than the nights I fret about being awake.

I know I am not alone. I have had clients who complained that they were not sleeping and some that admitted it was taking a toll on them.

What do you think? Getting a good night’s sleep is critical to successful functioning whether we are an entrepreneur, employee, stay-at-home mom, job seeker, or student. Do you think giving yourself permission to try two stage sleep would help?

Stuck in your job search or just ready to move on or up from your existing position? Julie Walraven, a Wausau, Wisconsin-based professional resume writer and career marketing strategist, can help you get ready for your next role! To find out how, Click here!

Photo Credit