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Ted Talk– Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are

By leidson on Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Have you ever heard the saying “actions speak louder than words?” Amy Cuddy, a social scientist and associate professor in the Negotiation, Organizations, and Markets unit at Harvard Business School, firmly believes that saying to be true. Cuddy‘s research on non-verbal body language reveals that we have the ability to change other people’s perceptions and our own body chemistry simply by changing our body positions.

In fact Amy has pinned the saying, “Our bodies change our minds, our minds can change our behavior, and our behavior can change our outcomes.” Changing your body language can take time, but it is worth it. Amy believes as your posture and body language improves, your thoughts will soon change for the better as well. Our body language affects how others see us, but it can also change how we see ourselves.

Amy is well known for coining the term “power posing,” which means standing in a posture of confidence, even when you don’t feel very confident. This stance can affect testosterone and cortisol levels in the brain and can potentially have an impact on your chances for success.

“Don’t fake it till you make it. Fake it till you become it,” is a motto Amy lives by and it’s great advice for job seekers to live by as well. Whether you’re searching for a job or preparing for an interview, your body language can make or break you.

What are some mottos you live by? Share with us in the comments section below.

Career Advancement Job Interviews New Job Tips The Job Search Uncategorized

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 Options The Job Search Uncategorized

Poll Summary Results: Managing Millennials

By leidson on Monday, October 14, 2013

In our most recent poll, we asked how you think Millennial employees want to be managed. The results showed that Millennial employees are positively impacting the business world.

With more than 45% of the votes, the most popular answer was, “with the freedom and flexibility to do their work on their own terms – as long as deadlines are met and with high-quality results,” followed by “with a critical role in building the company’s innovative edge and the freedom to take full advantage of their tech-savvy and forward-thinking personality.”

Coming in at 18.3%, “through constant praise; this is the generation that grew up with trophies and awards for everything” placed third in the poll.

Another 4.92% of respondents believe, “Millennial employees need to be managed like all the other employees, because special treatment isn’t awarded to anyone else.”

For more insight on Millenials and other generations in the workforce, check out these articles:
•   It’s Awesome Being a Millennial Job Seeker
•   Baby Boomers – a Chance at a Second Career After Retirement
•   Generations and the Job Search: Who’s Having a Harder Time?
•   4 Reasons To Recruit, Hire and Retain Mature Employees

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.

Career Options New Job Tips The Job Search Uncategorized

Persistence in the Job Search

By leidson on Friday, September 27, 2013

Whether you’ve been searching for a job for just a few days or more than a year, it’s easy to become discouraged. The continual hunt for new openings, tweaking your resume over and over, rewriting your cover letter for the hundredth-time, and going through the roller coaster of emotions is enough to make anyone want to give up. But giving up isn’t how you land a job.

Unfortunately, millions of other Americans have stopped being persistent and have fallen into defeat. This current phenomenon is the focus of a recent Express Employment Professionals white paper. The Great Shift highlights the recent decline in America’s labor force participation rate, which describes the percentage of working-age adults that are either actively searching for a job or currently working. Today, the rate stands at 63.4%, a level not seen since the 1970s. As the white paper points out, that rate means “among the estimated 89.9 million Americans not in the labor force as of July 2013, at least 6.6 million still want a job.”

Those are some pretty bleak numbers. To get the full picture of the situation and learn why it’s happening, you can check out Express white paper.

It would be easy to let these facts dissuade you from continuing your hunt. However there is something that sets you apart from those millions of Americans, and that one thing is you. While you may not be able to give yourself a job, you do have the ability to NOT give up. Staying hopeful and remaining persistent is the name of the game, and there are some practical ways to keep yourself from losing momentum.

Set Goals
Searching for a job is practically a full-time job in its own rite, so treat it like one. Set daily and weekly goals for yourself, such as spending a certain amount of time each day looking through online job boards or applying for a specific number of positions per week. This will keep you moving forward and give you achievable short-term targets to hit along the way.

Review Your Skills
If you haven’t already, take an inventory of your skills. Consider both your hard skills, like education and work experiences, and your soft skills, such as time management and flexibility. Are there skills listed in the jobs you’ve been applying for that you lack? Do you have the top three hard skills employers want to see in a job candidate? If there are areas you need to work on, make a plan to grow those specific skills as you continue the hunt.

Check Your Expectations
No one wants to be in a job they’re over-qualified for, but turning down a job when you’re out of work just because it doesn’t meet your expectations isn’t the best move. In the argument between underemployed and unemployed, underemployed wins out. So don’t derail your job search by saying “no thank you” to a legitimate job and then buying into the idea that there is nothing out there. You can always take the job and still keep looking.

Don’t let yourself become another worker who’s given up and called it quits. Being persistent will pay off in the end. Share your ideas for staying positive and persistent during a job search in the comments section below.

At Work The Daily Grind Uncategorized Workplace Relationships Workplace Safety

Workplace Violence: Three Measures To Stay Safe

By leidson on Friday, September 20, 2013

Occupational violence is a scary subject. We spend a majority of our time at our job and being safe is something many take for granted. This isn’t to say that it is inevitable that a violent uprising will overtake your place of employment, but being prepared or aware of the potential is important.

According to OSHA, more than two million American workers are victims of some form of workplace violence ranging from verbal abuse, bullying, and more serious physical assaults. Workplace violence also doesn’t necessarily mean it has to occur at the workplace; conflicts between co-workers outside of the office also fall into the definition. So, how do we avoid or at least curb the potential threat? Below are three measures you can take to stave off the danger.

1. Read up on the policies and procedures.
Many employers have sections on workplace violence in their handbooks. These policies protect employees from liability and are almost always enforced without prejudice. If you are unsure of your company’s policy or procedures on handling occurrences, ask your supervisor or a representative of your HR department. Following these procedures can ensure your safety as well as that of your co-workers.

2. Be aware of your surroundings.
Look for signs of distress from your co-workers. If a co-worker seems to be struggling with their day-to-day life, makes threats or mentions getting back at their employer, or exhibits irregular behavior out of the ordinary, these could be signs of instability. If you are concerned for a co-worker, don’t attempt to console them, instead notify a supervisor in private of your concern.

3. Avoid danger.
If you’re placed in a situation with a hostile individual, don’t panic. Respect their personal space and don’t exhibit any body language or tone of voice that makes you seem like a threat. By placing obstacles between you and the person, and staying four to six feet away from a point of exit, you have the opportunity to flee if the circumstances require you to remove yourself from the situation. Never use physical force unless it is for defense against an assault. Once again, notify your supervisor if such an event occurs.

No one is immune to workplace violence, but a little bit of preparation and being aware of measures to prevent such occurrences just may protect you from harm in the event you are placed in an undesirable situation. Share your practices to avoid workplace violence in the comments section below.

Guest blog by: Mike Smith