How to Develop in Your Career by Working with a Mentor

How to Develop in Your Career by Working with a Mentor A good mentor should be supportive but also prepared to challenge your thinking and perspective. Ideally, your mentor can suspend judgment and encourage you to reflect on a range of options. Rapport is essential in establishing a relationship that is open and honest so you will experience maximum benefit from the mentoring. It should work something like this: A  partnership; Offers ongoing support and development; Places  focus on learning and development; To explore work-related issues and solutions to problems. When it works well a mentoring relationship is invaluable as an effective learning and development tool. What does a mentor look like? Find someone with a commitment to developing others, with a mindset that encourages those being mentored to take responsibility for themselves and to realize their potential. This is not about words of wisdom, or sage advice based dropped from above. A mentor is someone with the experience to help you formulate questions and assess the pros and cons of a variety of approaches and solutions. The idea is that mentoring helps you to learn and grow with a view to becoming a more independent and experienced manager rather than being reliant on your mentor. So you see that good questioning skills and the ability to envisage alternatives and explore innovative solutions is more important than a directive approach. Challenge to improve Your mentor is someone whose integrity you trust so that their input, whether positive or negative, is credible and effective; Your mentor raises issues you may not want to discuss but gives you room to explore and focus; Your mentor works with you so you grow and develop as an employee and a manager; Your mentor makes you feel secure enough to take risks, to conquer your doubts and fears and to reach for your aspirations with both hands; A mentor challenges you to set stretch goals for yourself doesn’t let you settle for the status quo or put up with second-best and helps you to reach for goals you might not have set on your own. Essentially a mentor is not there to tell you what to do but to help you work out for yourself what is right for you and what will help you achieve your goals and fulfill your potential. Mentoring is supposed to be collaborative, with both parties having input on topics for discussion. Making mentoring work Take your time in finding the right mentor, it’s a personal relationship and you need real, hands-on feedback from a professional who has a genuine interest in you and your career. It’s probably  better to choose someone other than your line manager, but do avoid too much of a hierarchy gap or experience gap in the relationship. When you approach someone you trust and respect to ask them to mentor you it is to be hoped that they will see it as an honor and a pleasure to work with you, but it has to be voluntary and you have to nurture the process and establish a level of mutual respect. You may need to work with a specific person for a while, but mentoring is not necessarily a long-term option and you may find that some other mentor will help you with different aspects of your career. Try not to think in terms of promotion but of developing as a person and a professional.

Hiring the Best Professional Resume Writing Service in Houston

Hiring the Best Professional Resume Writing Service in HoustonIt is possible to hire the best professional resume writing services in Houston. For those who are looking for professional resume writing, they will find that hiring the right one will be easier when they know what to look for. They should be able to use that to their advantage and make the process a little easier.The best resume writing services in Houston have the best writers on staff. The jobs are plentiful and you will find that most of them pay well. When you are working with the best professionals, it is very easy to find the right writer for the job. You will be able to have it done and submit it to a number of places.It is important that you hire a writer with a great amount of experience when you are trying to hire a professional resume writing service. They should be able to help you when you need help as well. You want someone who can give you advice when it comes to the content of your resume and the way you present yourself.You should be able to find a writer who has worked with many different people and used many different things when it comes to writing a resume. They should be able to be creative with your document. Make sure you are able to tell if they have or not when you are trying to hire the best one.Many people think that there is a lot to learn when it comes to professional resume writing. They think that this is something that need to be learned in school, but that is not the case. You should be able to learn as much as you need to be able to do this well.There are different parts of a resume that need to be organized properly. This is important when you are trying to get a good one. The best professionals will be able to help you with this and will be able to help you organize your own documents so that you will be able to present yourself in the best light possible.Hiring the best professional resume writing service in Houston is easy when you hire someone who can help yo u with this. Make sure that you take the time to ask someone who has used them before. Ask for recommendations and see what they have to say about them.Hiring the best professional resume writing service in Houston is not hard to do if you take the time to do it. You just need to know where to look and how to go about it. Once you learn the ins and outs of this, you can easily find someone to hire for the job.

How to Use Social Media the Right Way For More Brand Sales - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

How to Use Social Media the Right Way For More Brand Sales - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career When it comes to sales for your personal brand from social media it takes a personal approach that build relationships. There are several ways to attract loyal buyers to your niche without a direct sales pitch. Social media marketing is still one of the prime ways to generate leads for your brand to nurture. It’s important to seek out and engage with your fans and followers in order to build a trusted community through meaningful interactions and trusted content. In order to gain the attention of your personal brand’s prospects you need to know their pain points and have the answers to their most pressing questions. Its important to know how to effectively execute the right marketing strategy. How to find and attract sales through social media To stand out in your target market you need to understand the latest methods and trends. Here are some ways your brand can reach your community: Create more awareness Bring more eyes to your business by sharing an interesting story or an exciting event. Draw people in through personalized content that speaks directly to them. Take advantage of the latest trending topics in order to gain visibility on social media. Make it valuable Once you have established a good connection with your audience on social media, the next step for your personal brand is to offer incentives and information that provide high value. People are always on the look out for new and credible information that can help improve their lives. Turn prospects into sales After generating an interest in your brand its now time to focus on your ROI. This can be done through strategies like contests, advertising, email messaging, webinars, and live video. Be patient with the process as it takes time to establish trust in your community before they are ready to make a purchase decision. When your brand is active and interested with its audience what you have to offer will soon get noticed. Leave the sales pitch for your website or a dedicated sales page, and provide something of value such as helpful tips, a free report, how-to videos, ect. As you put people first in your social media strategy the sales will follow.

The Modern Administrative Assistant

The Modern Administrative Assistant (This post appeared originally in my Jacksonville Business Journal column in 2018.) Administrative Professionals Week fell this year on April 24. The modern admin assistant is tasked with a variety of important tasks, including data management, supervision, budget responsibilities, even hiring and training. Good riddance to the days when as Peggy Olsen, in Season One of   Mad Men, said, “He may act like he wants a secretary, but most of the time they’re looking for something between a mother and a waitress.” In 1950, secretary was the number one occupation for women outside the home. The Department of Labor offered secretarial and clerical training programs in cities across the nation. Archived documents from the training program still exist, and they provide a fascinating glimpse into what was required of career women in the 1950s and 60s. Here are some of the criteria for secretarial work from a questionnaire. Do you smile readily and naturally? Do you have a well-modulated voice? When people bore you, do you avoid showing it? Do you avoid showing off what you know? And my personal favorite:  Do you avoid “bossing” other people? There are 25 questions, and you score 4 points for each “yes” answer. Score 50 points, and you demonstrate an aptitude for what it took to succeed in business. The gold standard for secretarial training was New York City’s iconic Katherine Gibbs secretarial school. Katherine Gibbs was a Providence, Rhode Island wife and mother whose husband died without a will, leaving her to earn her own living and support her two sons and unmarried sister. She opened her first secretarial school in Providence in 1911, buying an existing school for $1,000. In addition to typing and other essential skills, she taught deportment, English, and manners and insisted on a strict dress code (white gloves and hats.)  â€œKatie Gibbs” graduates were highly employable; they were held accountable for zero typing errors and grammar mistakes, and their punctuality and work ethic were legendary. Katherine Gibbs died in 1934, but the school lived on to 1968, when it was sold after training thousands of women for careers in business. In 1964, Manpower introduced “White Glove Girls” to compete with Kelly Girls. Manpower and Kelly recruited white, middle class and attractive young women as temporary office help, investing in business training and “guaranteeing” their competence. The women were given written guarantees of their expertise and copies of certificates of training, which they handed to employers wearing trademark white gloves. One of their many virtues, according to ad campaigns, was that they didn’t need to work. In 1957, a Kelly executive described the typical Kelly Girl: “She doesn’t want full time work, but she’s bored with strictly keeping house. Or maybe she just wants to take a job until she can pay for a davenport or a new fur coat.” Temporary workers were the prefect combination of subservience and accuracy, presenting no threat to male authority or breadwinners’ jobs. Much has changed since Katie Gibbs opened her school, but it appears that some things never will. According to a New York Times story, making coffee is still a requirement of a good administrative assistant. The story cited the case of clerk and receptionist who sent an email to her bosses about making coffee. “I don’t have a problem getting coffee and/or water for our guests,” she wrote in 2007. But she wasn’t willing to “serve and wait on you by making and serving you coffee.”  She was fired nine minutes after hitting send.

Resume Writing Resources for Faculty

Resume Writing Resources for FacultyIf you are a student of communication, a faculty member, or a college instructor, one of the most effective resume writing resources you can use is a text to speech system. Faculty members can create their own speakers and students can create their own text to speech systems. If you have a few minutes to spare, you may be able to improve your career potential by using this method.A college professor in a humanities department at the University of Michigan, one of the more prestigious universities in the United States, has developed a speech synthesizer that is very useful for communication training. The eminently resourceful website of this faculty member even gives tips on how to construct the speech synthesizer. This text to speech synthesizer is a speaker that can generate a presentation for one person to read aloud.There are many employment services that are available for a fee of $100. This will allow the faculty member to create an oral prese ntation that can be used to interview potential employers and get the job. The speech uses a printed text, which is just a short text, to help the reader see the information needed to see the full scope of the information presented. The speech helps to create a more meaningful narrative which can provide a better understanding of the person's background.A technology that has been around for quite some time now is the computer language. It has a computer language created with scripts written in a code language. It is the same language as a web page with the appropriate code inserted for each of the individual words or phrases.At times, the data for an e-mails may have to be designed in a signature block. Using a computer language will help to communicate the purpose of the message in much the same way that the printed text does. An additional benefit of the computer language for use with a computer or text to speech system is that it can easily be changed when the need arises.When a person is compiling a large amount of information into an envelope or file, it can be a good idea to take all of the data and put it in an envelope, which can be a job for a letter opener. An important tip to remember is that you do not want to jam up the document when opening the envelope. Since the envelope contains the letters and numbers, you will want to make sure that you do not accidentally place them all in the envelope in one fell swoop.Another option to consider is a career structure. This is a person who has an entire person at their disposal for creating a resume. He or she is able to go through and gather the relevant information that would make a candidate to be a perfect match for the employer.These are only a few of the effective ways to help you when you need to find a new job. With so many resumes out there, finding the right one can be a challenge.

Theres a Time and Place for Perfectionism - Sterling Career Concepts

Theres a Time and Place for Perfectionism Theres a Time and Place for Perfectionism Do you always hold yourself to high standards? If so, you’re not alone. Most gifted people strive for perfection. But what if inflexible standards are slowing you down and holding you back? There’s evidence that constant perfectionism can get in the way of happiness and productivity. It’s connected to procrastination, low productivity, and depression. More often than not, continual high standards aren’t needed for us to succeed.  The trick is to recognize when high standards are necessary and when they actually get in the way of innovation, efficiency and fulfillment. Getting to the place of good enough on most tasks and projects allows us to get more done without compromising quality. This open minded approach allows for creativity, innovation and fun. Freedom from perfection starts with flexibility, compassion and faith in self. Remember that you are good enough as you are. You are intrinsically valuable. The next time you notice that you’re driving yourself hard, procrastinating on projects or tasks, or feeling self critical about your accomplishments, ask yourself:  â€œAm I holding myself to standards that aren’t needed in these circumstances?” “What would good enough look and feel like?” Breathe.   Open up your heart and mind. Think flexibly about your project or task and let your standards relax. Try taking the “good enough approach” for your day-to-day tasks and reserve your high standards for   special circumstances. You’ll not only get more done, you’ll also feel motivated to do more!

Arts - politics, 1 - 0 - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Arts - politics, 1 - 0 - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog Theres an EU election on right now, and though its met mostly with apathy and boredom, someone has used the (butt ugly) election posters pasted all over Copenhagen for some good, and made weird little art projects out of them quite good ones too. Check out a few: EU Politics never made this much sense to me before. Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related