Starting A Career In Another Country
Filed Under Career Change, Developing Your Career | Leave a Comment
There are few things in the world quite as exciting as moving overseas and trying to get a job. Starting a new career overseas can be difficult but if you follow some key steps it is not half as hard as some would have you believe. The very first thing that you need to do is find out the rules of hiring in this other country. Each country had it own distinct set of regulations, some of these can even vary within a country by state or province. Find out everything before you even start to apply for jobs.
You will find that international resumes are often referred to as a CV. So if you get this word thrown at you, don’t worry, it is just a fancy word for resumes
The next thing that you need to do is create your international resume. This is vital to your career success overseas. Without a good international resume you will not stand a chance of getting hired anywhere no matter what your qualifications happen to be. This resume too will depend on to county in which you are searching for a job.
Before you send out your CV make sure that this is really what you want to do. Moving to another country and getting work is a huge step and it is one that is going to cost you a fair bit of money. Do you have the money for all of the moving expenses and the travel expenses? If not then your CV, no matter how good it is will not get you very far. Think about what you are doing and see if it is really what you need to do in order to further your career. There are many ways to make life better and this may or may not be the right choice for you, just make sure that you have thought it through well before you make any big changes.
Embracing Caregiving As A Career
Filed Under Career Change, Developing Your Career | Leave a Comment
Experts say if you are a person who is caring and compassionate, a good conversationalist and enjoy helping others, you might consider a career as a caregiver.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates there are more than 700,000 professional companions or caregivers, making this one of the fastest-growing occupations in the nation. The Bureau projects more than a 27 percent growth in this career category over the next 10 years.
According to Home Instead Senior Care CEO and founder Paul Hogan, an aging population and longer life spans are indicators of an increasing demand for not only health care, but also in-home assistance. “The help and companionship afforded by a caregiver can keep seniors in their own homes longer and enhance their quality of life,” says Hogan.
Seniors are not the only ones to benefit. For example, after relocating to a new city with her husband, a woman named Muriel Phelps decided she wanted to meet new people and take on new challenges. She had managed an office for 20 years and wasn’t necessarily looking for a job when she discovered a hidden talent for caring for seniors. “In this day and age, people can have several careers,” says Phelps of her newfound caregiving vocation. “It is one of the most fascinating periods of my life.”
She has now been a professional caregiver for Home Instead Senior Care for three years and says the satisfaction of caregiving is being able to reach out and give other seniors the care they need. She and her seniors share many interests-a love of gardening, music, food-and they even shop together.
“I have been so blessed in my life,” she says. “If I can share and make someone’s life more interesting and fun, right until their last breath, I’ve accomplished something and made my life worthwhile.”
Most people do not prepare properly for an interview. A lot of time, energy and money are spent in preparation for the chance to have an interview meeting with a prospective employer. However, little to no preparation is done for the interview itself. Most professionals spend an incredible amount of time preparing their resume, and even make a considerable investment to have their resumes prepared by skilled professionals so as to increase their chances of getting the interview. Ironically, many of these same professionals will then spend minimal time or investment in making certain that their interview skills are fine tuned.
Dear job seeker here is 25 years of collective business experience and wisdom boiled down into this piece of advice. Don’t prepare for the interview, IF you don’t want the JOB!
Having an employer ask you to interview is not the ultimate goal; it’s the second to last step in the overall job search process. The candidate interview is only one of several steps along the way. Being the very best candidate during the interview will typically result in the candidate landing that dream job offer. Many professionals make the same mistakes during the job search process. Amazingly, these well educated, highly skilled and experienced professionals keep repeating the same mistake and yet, expect different results or outcomes from candidate interviews. Often professionals treat the interview as something that is a forgone conclusion. Somehow the confusion develops from thinking that the interview is the same as the job offer, let me reassure everyone taking a few minutes to read this article, in a word WRONG! So, if your goal is not landing the job of your dreams, then all you have to do is make the same critical errors outlined for you below. I promise you that if you consistently make all of the common mistakes listed the only job you land is the one you don’t want; an eternity of searching for your next job.
Far more interviews are lost than won. There are things that will work to your advantage in an interview, and then again there are things that will absolutely kill your chances. Here are some of the biggest mistakes to avoid, if you want that job. Your chances for success vastly improve by not doing what others do.
1. Don’t Conduct Any “Pre-Flight” Planning!
This is the single biggest mistake you can make. There is a direct correlation to preparation and performance. Many professionals are walking into their interviews ill-equipped and unprepared and expecting to make the right impression. These professional are not walking away from the interview with job offer and unfortunately become doomed to repeat the process until the lesson is learned.
Good preparation means doing intensive research so that you know what you need to know about the hiring authority, knowing your capabilities and what you specifically can offer the hiring authority in the position they seek to fill. You must prepare and then practice so as to be able to respond to nearly any question thrown in your direction.
2. Don’t Be Dynamic, Be Passive During The Interview!
You do not need to conduct the interview. However, this is your time to shine. You are in the spotlight. It’s your opportunity to prove that you are the best candidate. It is not the interviewer’s job to pull the information from you. Many people mistakenly believe that it’s up to the hiring authority’s interviewer to figure out if you’re the best candidate. As the candidate, it is your responsibility to make the interviewer aware of your capabilities and why you are the best candidate to fill the open position.
Your goal is to make certain as you complete the interview, the interviewer knows all of your qualifications and how you will make positive and powerful contributions in your new position. By taking responsibility for your actions and accepting that you must convey your skills, experience, talent and persona in the most positive manner, it changes the way you prepare and how you conduct yourself during the interview. It separates your candidacy from the competition.
Often professionals “wing it” during the interview process. The problem is, if you do that you are leaving your career to chance and letting someone else take control of your destiny. If you want to succeed in an interview, you have to be proactive and think on your feet. An interview is the starting gate of a competitive race - there’s only one winner. You should be thinking about what you need to say and do during the interview to be recognized as the best candidate to fill the position. What does the interview seek to find in a candidate? What do they want to hear from me? How can I be the candidate they select? Don’t get caught up in the mindset of not preparing for the interview, think it through and plan for all possibilities so that you can beat the competition.
3. Why Make A Good First Impression? I Can Always Make A Second One, Right?
Wrong! Here’s the fact - it only takes a few minutes for the interviewer to assess his/her first impression of you. You only get one chance to make a first impression. If you make a great first impression, the interviewer will automatically look for more positive contributions throughout the remainder of the interview to justify their first impression. The reverse is true. If you make a bad first impression, the interviewer will look for bad things to justify their first impression. It is either a Win-Win or Lose-Lose proposition with no middle ground. Your first impression must be good. You must start out strong and maintain the strength.
Starting strong means greeting the interviewer with confidence, being personable, and conducting yourself professionally at all times. No matter how formal or informal the interviewer may appear during the interview process, you must exude confidence and professional demeanor.
Maintaining strength means nailing the first couple questions and all the subsequent questions thrown out at you. One of the most difficult questions can also be one of the easiest to answer. Most interviewers want to hear a strong answer to these four words, “tell me about yourself”. Often these four words may be the most important question asked during an interview. Consequently, the question becomes the most important one you need to know how to answer.
4. Value? Value? We Don’t Know Our Stinkin Value!
Knowing your specific value relative to the hiring authority is a big part of your preparation. More important is the ability to articulate your value in a concise, professional and intelligent manner. It boils down to good verbal and non-verbal communication skills. A couple of different ways to improve your communication skills in an interview: 1) prepare yourself - know your value, memorialize it through documentation and then practice. 2) ask for help -a professional sounding board being either a qualified (recruiter) friend or career professional, i.e., search recruiter or career coach, and 3) reflect on your self figuratively and also in the mirror (remember to smile and relax your words will flow smoothly) and then practice some more.
You will leap ahead of other the other competing candidates as they will most likely stumble their way through the interview process. You will be the coherent, articulate, intelligent candidate clearly expressing why you are the best choice. You’ll be remembered for all the right reasons unlike your competition.
5. Fake It Until You Make It?
Everyone going through a job search and interview process experiences a time when there may be at least one qualification that you don’t have - maybe its lack of industry experience, lack of a degree or a specific accreditation they’ve asked to see from you, it could be anything. If you do lack something they want or need, you need to be ready to address it and do so with confidence. Whatever you do always be direct and honest.
Unfortunately, during interviews we are often times screened out for something we lack rather than the other way around. So interviewers need to convinced that if you don’t have exactly what they seek, you can learn it quickly, or you’ll get it, or you have another skill that makes up for it. Don’t give them the opportunity to make a big deal out of something you lack…be poised and confident without showing any signs of being nervous. Find an answer that eliminates their concern and most likely they’ll select you based on what you can offer rather than eliminate you for something they deem important that you don’t possess.
Remember, a superior resume is valuable because it gets you the interview…but superior interviewing skills will get you the job! Improve your interviewing skills, learn the best practices and strategies to succeed, and you will consistently get the offers you want.
Wishing You All Job Search and Interviewing Success!
What do women want? When it comes to their careers, studies show, popular responses include options, opportunity, respect, geographical mobility and good pay.
Fortunately, for many women-and their families-that can describe many of the jobs available in the skilled trades. Trade occupations can include aviation technician, automotive painter, construction equipment operator, welder, carpenter, decorator, chef, horticulturist, IT support analyst, florist, electrician, tool and die maker and water-well driller, to name a few.
Why The Trades?
Careers in the trades can offer a chance to contribute to society and the opportunity to be your own boss. Skilled trades touch every part of Americans’ lives, from roads and homes to hospitals and schools. You can get hands-on training and a chance to “earn while you learn.”
What Does It Take?
Some jobs need modest physical strength and endurance but most do not. Virtually all require intelligence and creativity as well as good reading, math and analytical skills. Thanks to technology, skilled trades are not “dirty,” as they once may have been. Knowledge of computer software and mechanical systems is increasingly important.
Opportunities On The Rise
This nation faces a looming shortage of skilled tradespeople. As the baby boomers retire over the next few years, the construction industry alone will be short more than 1 million workers.
What About Pay?
The salary ranges vary by job, location and experience but a skilled electrician can easily earn $70,000 a year. Apprentices and others may get less and the work for some is seasonal, while union members are often paid more than nonunion workers, report the experts at the National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC).
The organization was founded in 1955 to create a support network and enhance the success of women in the construction industry. It now has thousands of members around the world and has advanced the causes of all women in construction, from trades-women to business owners. According to the group, educational and career resources play an integral role in facing the challenges of this evolving industry.
Your Job Is Not Necessarily For Life. Should You Switch Careers?
Filed Under Career Change, Developing Your Career | Leave a Comment
Executive search firms regularly come across people who have decided to switch careers. There was a time where you chose your profession and stuck with it until retirement and many people still follow that path. An increasing number of people, however, are deciding to give up their first choice and try something new. For many, it is a move to a new country, or an exploration of a new skill, but for others, it’s moving the skills they already have to a new sector.
If you’re taking the plunge and switching careers, can you convince an executive search agency that it’s all for the best? How do you demonstrate that you haven’t lost any of your abilities?
Switching careers is a brave thing to do. It can affect your income, your working hours and even where you live. It’s not a decision that people take lightly, and it’s one that’s viewed differently by everyone. If you take a career break to travel or to study, you should be prepared to turn that experience into positive ways you can contribute to your new company.
Executive search firms look for the right candidates for the job. If you have switched careers or taken a break and want to sign on with an executive search firm, then it’s a good idea to make an appointment to go and see them. This will allow you to sit face-to-face with the consultant and explain why you took a year out, or why you decided to change from medicine to law. Whatever your experience, you should be able to use elements of it to illustrate how you could be valuable to a company in a senior position.
For example, if you spent your time volunteering for a charity and working in Africa, you will have gained better communication and diplomacy skills than most people. If you were involved in a building project, you can illustrate how you managed to project, getting people to work together as a team to achieve a common goal. Whilst sorting out a problem business area isn’t the same as building a school, the things you learned from your project can be applied in any situation.
It’s not whether you have changed careers that interests an executive search firm; it’s why, and what you’ve learned that could benefit their clients. It could be that your career switch gives the client exactly what they’re looking for. It’s up to you to turn it into the positives that could win you your next job.