Career Advancement | Journey

The Express Application Process

By leidson on Friday, December 6, 2013

If you need assistance finding a job, we can help! Applying at Express Employment Professionals is quick and easy. You can apply in person or online at ExpressPros.com.

What We Do

Express offers a variety of work assignments from part-time to full-time in a variety of industries.

All Express offices are individually owned and serve businesses in their local communities. With a network of more than 650 locally owned offices, Express will help discover jobs in your area that fit your skills and qualifications as well as your availability. Whether you apply online or in person, your information is only seen by the office that you submit it to.

Don’t fall through the cracks. It’s important to follow up with an Express representative once you’ve submitted your application to make sure it was received and to find out if they have any initial questions.

It’s Free and Easy

During the past few years, Express Employment Professionals has put more than a million people to work. And we’re on a mission to help a million more.

Want to know if Express has a job that’s right for you? Contact your local Express office today. It’s free and easy.

Check out this video to learn more.

Career Advancement The Job Search Uncategorized Work/Life Balance

Facebook and the Job Search

By leidson on Monday, November 18, 2013

A recent CareerBuilder study shows three out of five companies use social media to screen potential candidates during the hiring process. Of those companies, 43 percent said they have found information that factored into their decision not to hire a candidate. This information shows just how important your social media profile is in the job searching process. From the moment you start looking for a job and throughout your career, your social media profiles can be important in finding and keeping a job.

Secure Your Facebook

With 1.2 billion active monthly Facebook users who can easily use the new Graph Search tool to see every picture you’ve posted or learn about you, it’s smart to make sure that what you post is seen only by who you want to see it, not by the world. If you click the privacy button in the top right corner of your Facebook home page you can customize your security and privacy settings, which lets you share your life and all your information with friends and everyone else, or keep it all private.

Clean Up Your Facebook

View the updates you’ve recently shared and remove anything that could be controversial or questionable if viewed by a potential future employer. If you have inappropriate content, remove it, because it can affect whether or not you’re considered for a job.

Keep it Professional

Maybe this whole concept of using Facebook and social media in the job search is foreign to you, or maybe you’ve been using social media for a while for personal use, staying in touch with friends, or to further your career. For whatever reason, it is in your best interest to keep your social media sites as professional as possible, because you never know when an interested employer could be researching you.

Has Facebook helped you land a job, or has it hurt your job search or worse, got you fired? Share with us in the comments section below.

At Work Career Advancement The Daily Grind

3 Helpful Articles to Prepare you for Employee Reviews

By leidson on Friday, November 15, 2013

Annual employee reviews are starting to take place and we’re ready to help you prepare. With all the excitement and expectation of the holidays, it’s easy to get carried away and forget to prepare for your review. So here are a few helpful articles to assist in your employee review preparation.

1. Transform the Dreaded Employee Review
What emotions do you associate with your employee review? Fear? Anxiety? Stress? Anticipation? The thought of an annual performance evaluation can trigger a wide-range of negative responses, but it doesn’t have to. In Transform the Dreaded Employee Review, you will learn how to see things differently as you become a more productive employee.

2. It’s Time to Check your Progress – Self Evaluations
Most companies typically hold performance reviews or annual reviews at the end of the calendar year, but at that point there isn’t much you can do to improve your scorecard for the year. In It’s Time to Check your Progress – Self Evaluation, you will learn key elements for conducting a self-review.

3. Understand “the Numbers” in Your Job Search
Whether you’re crafting a résumé, preparing for a performance review, or reporting in the weekly staff meeting, knowing the key metrics used to measure the performance of your company and your job is critical. In this article on Understanding “the numbers” in the Workplace, we’ll talk about how to make sense of the numbers that relate to success in your career.

If you have any helpful tips that you use to prepare for an employee review, share with us in the comment section below.

Career Advancement Job Interviews The Daily Grind The Job Search Uncategorized

3 Tips for Your LinkedIn Photo

By leidson on Wednesday, November 13, 2013

LinkedIn encourages its users to provide a highly professional look to their profile and one way to do that is through your profile photo. In fact, some believe it’s one of the most important parts of a profile, because it helps people identify you and can immediately present a professional image.

If you’re looking for a new job or trying to improve your online presence, LinkedIn is a great place to start. This social network is built to help you find a job and help employers find you. Here are three important tips to remember when updating your LinkedIn photo.

1. Keep it Current
Don’t use an old photo. When you meet someone for the first time after making a connection with them on LinkedIn, it’s important for them to be able to recognize you. If your photo does not depict how you currently look, then it needs to be changed.

2. Convey Your Role
If a picture is worth 1,000 words, what is your LinkedIn photo saying about you? If you can show yourself in action, do it. If you have a speaking engagement or event and someone snapped a photo of you, use it. A photo can convey passion, energy, charisma, and show that you’re approachable. Make sure your photo conveys your role in your industry. Get a headshot of yourself with your desk in the background or have someone take your picture in front of your workplace. It doesn’t have to be a professional photo, but make sure it is of good quality.

3. Fly Solo
The photo you choose should be of you by yourself. Family photos or crowd shots aren’t appropriate. Don’t ever keep it blank or use a logo. That’s not attractive to potential employers or connections; it’s also against LinkedIn rules. Besides, in an interview with Forbes magazine, LinkedIn career expert, Nicole Miller explained you are seven times more likely to be viewed if you have a photo on your profile. Also, your profile picture should not be cropped out of a larger picture.

For more insight on LinkedIn profile photo choices, take a look at the LinkedIn profiles of your co-workers and see what they have chosen. Lastly, don’t forget to smile, you want to look approachable.

Have you had any experiences on how a LinkedIn photo helped create a professional image? Share with us in the comment section below.

Career Advancement Career Options New Job Tips The Job Search

What You Should be Sharing on LinkedIn

By leidson on Friday, November 1, 2013

LinkedIn is a social media network that is focused on the networking of business professionals. As of June 2013, LinkedIn reported more than 225 million acquired users in over 200 countries. One purpose of the site is to allow users to maintain a list of contacts with whom they have some level of relationship, these are called Connections. With your LinkedIn connections, you can share thoughts, articles or other content-rich websites from several places. This is known as posting an update or sharing an update. You can use the share box, located on your profile, to share a wide variety of information also.

You can browse through LinkedIn’s job search page and find jobs from accounting to human resources to sales jobs. You can also search for jobs in specific locations.
If you’re looking for a job or just looking to network, LinkedIn is a great social media tool to help you. If you’re new to social media and LinkedIn, here is a tutorial to help you get started. It’s important to set up professional work-related social media profiles. This will help you build a professional image with future employers when they research your name. Check out this blog for more tips on job searching.

Your updates may be shared with your LinkedIn connections via email depending on their email settings. Learn more about adjusting your email settings.

Have you landed a job through LinkedIn? Share with us in the comment section below.

Career Advancement Career Options The Job Search

Holiday Jobs – Could Lead to Full-Time Work

By leidson on Thursday, October 17, 2013

Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com, is going on a hiring binge according to USAToday. The electronic-commerce pioneer is planning to add more than 70,000 full-time seasonal U.S. jobs. The positions will be located within Amazon’s fulfillment centers for the holidays and are intended to meet increased seasonal retail demand.
“So far this year, we have converted more than 7,000 temporary employees in the U.S. into full-time, regular roles and we’re looking forward to converting thousands more after this holiday season,” said Dave Clark, Amazon’s vice-president.

Helpful Holiday Job Hints
When looking for employment, some people favor waiting for a full-time job versus taking a temporary role. However, what many people don’t realize is that most temporary and seasonal positions offer a chance at full-time employment and much more.

Not only can temporary jobs provide you with extra money during the holiday season, they also give you the opportunity to quick start your career and the chance to make additional professional connections. Holiday jobs also have the potential to help with seasonal expenses. Is applying for a holiday job part of your plan to handle holiday expenses? Answer us in our poll: How Do You Plan To Handle Holiday Expenses?

At Work Career Advancement The Daily Grind Uncategorized

Transform the Dreaded Employee Review

By leidson on Friday, October 4, 2013

What emotions do you associate with your employee review? Fear? Anxiety? Stress? Anticipation? The thought of an annual performance evaluation can trigger a wide-range of negative responses, but it doesn’t have to.
You can transform this once-dreaded experience into a productive conversation between you and your boss. It’s really all about how you approach it. So, before your next evaluation, try these four tips to improve your employee review.

Check Your Attitude
The number one way to ensure you have a lousy review is to have a bad attitude about it. Instead, think about why you’re having an evaluation in the first place and all the positives that could come from it. This is your chance to meet one-on-one with your boss and talk about you, how you’re performing, and what you could improve on. These types of conversations are how you’re going to grow as a person and become more successful in your career.

Clarify Expectations
Before the day of your review, make sure you know exactly how your boss wants you to prepare. Some companies have paperwork that everyone is required to fill out, while managers may have their own specific forms for employees to use as well. Finding all of this out up front will help ensure you and your boss start off the review on the same page, and it can also help alleviate any anxiety about what will be discussed.

Reflect Back
As you prepare, take some time to think through the past year. If you keep a running to-do list or project sheet, scroll back through it and think about the major tasks you accomplished. Take note of the projects or tasks that you really enjoyed and disliked, the major things you did right and wrong, and anything you would change if you could. It’s also a good idea to review any paperwork or notes you have from your last performance review so you can highlight areas of improvement or goals that you met.

Think Ahead
You also want to reflect on the year ahead. Make a list of any professional, personal, or workplace goals you’d like to accomplish. If you want a promotion, make a note to ask what you need to do to get one. Consider ways you could increase your knowledge or expand your expertise. And think about any specific things you’d like to see change over the next 12 months. Also, as you prepare, consider how you can help make your review a dialogue instead of a monologue so you can get the most benefit out of it.
You don’t have to dread your next performance review. Take matters into your own hands and do your part to ensure it’s a positive experience for you and your boss. Plus, being prepared for your employee review will not only make you look good, it will also go a long way to building your manager’s trust in you.
What ways have you found to help make your employee review a more productive experience? Share your thoughts below.