Category — Work

There are plenty of available jobs in the market, and there also are a lot companies recruiting right now, but it is possible that those job openings are never advertised or published in newspapers or on the Internet. Further, important or high-rank job openings are rarely advertised. How to approach this hidden job market? Certainly, it’s not enough to investigate listings of job openings. The key is word-of-mouth or networking.

Networking means building a list of contacts. Contacts are people you’ve met during your business or social activities. More often than not, such friends and acquaintances will provide you information about job openings, companies and industry leads. Moreover, they’ll introduce you to other so that you can grow your network. Therefore, it is important not only to inform them about your job search, but also give them some résumés.

This list will provide some hints about the people and organizations we should include in our network:

• Relatives
• Friends
• Recruiters
• Former Employers
• Neighbors
• Professional Organizations
• Other Job Seekers
• Academic Contacts (School, University)
• Business Associations
• Merchants

Organizing your Network of Contacts

Please, organize your network. Save information about your contacts in a spreadsheet or a database. Include their names, titles, company, address, phone and fax numbers, and email. It’s also important to register a few notes about the way in which any of your contacts is valuable, for instance, what do they know?, who can they refer you to?, and so on. Further, organize their business cards.

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Typically, the first prerequisite for a shining job interview is a well-redacted and organized Résumé. A shining Résumé can move you to the first places of a list comprising perhaps hundreds of prospects. Therefore, your Résumé should list your best germane abilities for the job you are applying to… those abilities that would guarantee a star performance in the job. Remember that you are the ultimate responsible for highlighting your attributes to constitute a valid option to integrate the new team that the company is forming. In order to determine which of your abilities are the most suited for the job…

you have to research your potential employer beforehand

…that will give you a very important lead. Get as much information as you can about the business, and also about the potential interviewers (you should research their style and attitude… that’s very important). If you know someone who has previously taken an interview in that company, talk with them about their experiences in the interview. Try to extract pure information, i.e., don’t let them to influence you (specially about the job being impossible or, on the contrary, being too easy).

1. First Approach

Remember that you have to dress with a professional look, according to the nature of the job. You are a professional… thereby each and every aspect of you must communicate that fact. Now, during the interview, take into account that Interviewers will ask questions related to their company, for example, why would you like to work for us? They may ask you about your opinion on the company’s products or history. Typically, this information is available on the company’s website, and by knowing it you demonstrate a genuine interest for the job.

2. Virtues and Limitations

Talk about your virtues, but not excessively. In this regards apply balance and good sense. Answer this question presenting your virtues in the context of the requirements of the job you’re applying to, with a clear and concise language. However, other almost granted question they will do is about your defects, thereby you must also be prepared to answer that. Furthermore, the interviewer may ask about your abilities and limitations: prepare an answer beforehand in order to allow you to present your defects as a new opportunity for keep improving.

3. Expect the Unexpected

You have to be ready for anything… a group interview, a forum about some specific problem of the company, a written exam, and so on. Carry any material you think you may need: think of the interview as your first day of work.

When entering to the interview, greet to your interviewer with a smile. Visual contact must also be direct and firm (but not exceedingly). Remember that, no matter the circumstances, you have to act formally instead of dared or zany (refer to your interviewer using his title… Dr., Mr., Engineer, etc.), unless they demand you to treat them informally (but that’s relatively rare; read point 6. Be on the alert). Listen to your interviewer very carefully. Sometimes the applicants are so focused in the things they want to say that forget what they are really being asked about. No answer is good if it does not truly answer the matter asked about.

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Typically, the first prerequisite for a sound job application is a well-redacted and organized Résumé (a document closely related to the Curriculum Vitae, but the latter focuses more on education, publications, and other accomplishments). A shining résumé can move you to the first places of a list comprising perhaps hundreds of prospects. Therefore, your résumé should list your germane abilities according to the job you are applying to… remark those abilities that would guarantee a star performance in the job. Remember that you are the ultimate responsible for highlighting your attributes to constitute a valid option to integrate the new team that the company is forming. However, a good résumé is not a guarantee of success, but it indeed is our presentation letter, and it may be the deciding factor in the employer’s final decission. Often the résumé is processed by the employers in order to select a group of applicants for interviewing them. Thereby, our résumé has to grab the employer’s attention positively. Our résumé has to be professionally elaborated, and reflect clearly, concisely and attractively the information about our academic and professional achievements. A résumé is our marketing letter… and our first goal has to be that the recruiters or prospective employers can’t put down our résumé.

Let’s see how recruiters or prospective employers will not put down our résumé.

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Yummy… a pizza with onion, green pepper, mushrooms, olives, plenty of tofu and a bit of minced fresh garlic. Tasty! Oh, and I have to buy my new laptop. Well, for all these things and little pleasures there’s the credit card. I prefer to pay with my credit cards as I dislike the notion of acting like an ambulant cash dispenser However, using credit cards requires control and knowing well the “policies behind the card” (the rates, the limits, how the credit reporting system works, etc.) Managing and using credit cards is just a matter of applying good sense.

That said, I have some friends that abuse their credit cards usage. They charge a lot! They go nuts because they feel like they work pretty hard and should be able to do that sometimes. The problem is not that they cannot afford the payment or cannot pay it off. The problem is that most of their purchases are frivolous things they really don’t need. Surely, they work hard and they deserve to enjoy the fruits of their work. But they are not enjoying anything by acquiring a bunch of unneeded objects. On the contrary, they’re wasting their money. The only thing that such frantic credit card usage satisfies is the desire of material possession. Do we indeed work so hard only to crumble under such lame desire? When we are going to use our credit card we always should examine the actual reason behind the purchase. Review carefully your financial state… are you paying a house, a car, a small loan? Then try not to acquire more debt. Moreover, if we have a short or troubled credit histories we must try to do things right. Pressure of extreme debt is what leads to desperate and dangerous measures such as payday loans, for example. Really dangerous. Calm. Relax. Think. Good sense, remember? Life is beautiful.

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Recently, I’ve thinking of replacing my old and faithful Toshiba laptop with a new and more powerful machine. I will surely keep my Toshiba in use, mostly to write articles for Life, Money & Development. However, I work as a manager for a software development company, and frequently have to run several applications that are steadily exceeding my laptop’s computing capacity. Then, it’s time to update. The question raises… what machine I should purchase? Additionally, now that I’ll have to visit the Electronics store, I think it may be a good chance to bring home some gadgets. I’m totally opposed to squandering, and thereby I will focus only on those machines or items that could prove useful for blogging and for my job.

1 The Laptop

Albeit my experience with the Toshiba has been good, I think it’s time to go Apple. The problem with the Toshiba is that one is forcefully restricted to Windows environment; we may also install Linux but it would be too cumbersome for my needs. On the contrary, by using an Apple machine I have access to the powerful Mac OS X operating system, and besides I can compile and test some applications originally targeted at Linux, without doing separated installations. The Mac runs all the software I need. Someone may also add that the Mac is stylish, but that really is not my motivation as I prefer functionality over appearance. For example, it is evident that the relatively new Mac Air is very stylish, but it is also evident that it relinquishes an important quota of computing power. Therefore, I think I will choose the Apple MacBook Pro MB133LL/A, which boosts a display of 15.4″, 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, 2 GB RAM, 200 GB Hard Drive, and DVD SuperDrive. Just all I need. I’m aware about the direct relation between big displays and laptop weight (this MacBook weighs 5.4 pounds), but I prefer to reduce any strain on my eyes.

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Saving refers to the preservation of money for future use. Such future use might include capital and goods purchase (house, transport, vacations, etc.), emergencies, and miscellaneous expenses. Strictly speaking, saving is the difference between our income and our consumption expenditure. Besides, saving is our main tool to cope with mortgages, credit card debt, extraordinary bills, and other loans. Without savings, such debt and expenditures may sharply erode our personal finances. Saving also allows for harnessing sudden investment opportunities and to gain access to quality services. All in all, saving is a fundamental aspect of personal finance.

Money has to be tightly controlled. We must know where money comes from, and where it goes to. We must strive to know the way our money flows, the paths it travels, and the drains taking most of our income. By closely watching our money’s nature, we’ll learn to control it. Control is a keyword of personal finance. Control refers to checking the errors we are incurring with our money’s management, and to take the corrective action to rectify any deviation from our desired goals. Setting goals is other important requirement for saving, and it answers the question what are we saving for ?

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When I have to hire someone for any position in my company, I always pay close attention to the below discussed 7 attributes, because I always strive to hire people with leadership traits (even when the job is not a key managerial position.) I always want the best people, no matter the size, complexity or responsibility of the job. I know that, as time goes by, groups of workers with leadership traits perform and coordinate a lot better than simple people. And the today new assistant may hopefully become a very important director in a few years.

Furthermore, I prefer the democratic (also referred to as participative) leadership style: in this case, the leader offers guidance to the group, but also participates in the group, and promotes feedback from other members. Note that this style is not inconsistent with the view of everyone in a group acting as a leader! The democratic style is also suitable for the modern dynamic environments because it allows dealing with fast-changing circumstances. Other styles, such as authoritarian or delegative leaderships, are very harmful and obsolete.

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In the following, I’ll briefly expand on the key points for achieving success when you have to work in groups. As a result of the complex and dynamic nature of human interactions, you may find working in groups a challenging issue. In fact, the coordination and agreement required by groups is a research topic by itself. But the powerful rationale behind groups is the divide-and-conquer approach: a bigger workforce may lead to bigger results (but not always, and in some fields, such as software engineering, it may easily be the opposite.) In this respect, I’ll propose 10 aspects we should strive for when working with other people. You may find this discussion useful for the college, the office or life in general.
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