Sunday 7 June 2009

Tips on Writing a Professional Resume

What is a resume and why is it so important?

A resume is a one- to two-page document summarizing your career objectives, professional experiences and achievements, and educational background. The heading of the resume should contain your name, address and contact information. The body of the resume should be broken into the following sections: career objective, profile/summary, professional experience, achievements, scholastics, and references. Your career objective should be brief, up to two sentences; it should give your potential employers an idea of how you wish to move forward in your professional life. A concise profile or a summary should discuss who you are and how your skills and experience best apply to the job you are interested in. The summary, as well as other parts of your resume, should not contain personal information that discloses ethnicity, sexual orientation, marital status, age, living situations, or any other personal information that is not directly related to your career. Personal profile/summary should only contain a few well-written sentences that convey what you can bring to the table in terms of the specific job. Use this section to attract the employer’s attention, but don’t go overboard in trying to be creative – stay professional. Your experience listing should include information on one to five jobs you’ve held, starting with your current or last job, and listing previous positions in chronological order.
The listing should include the date range of your employment, name of the companies or person(s) you have worked for, and the city and state where the place of employment is located (full address of employment is not necessary). List your title and your main responsibilities, with emphasis on duties that are applicable to the type of work you are seeking. Your education should include college, graduate and post-graduate work, as well as any courses or professional certifications that are relevant to your career development. Achievements, volunteer positions, publications and interests should only be listed if they apply to your professional work experience References should be listed if requested; best practices suggest not to list generic statements about references being available upon request as this is understood.

In the competitive, internet-driven world of job searches, your resume represents you to potential employers. It serves as your tool to attract attention, get the interview and/or get a job. A great resume will make you stand out from other candidates by showcasing your aptitudes. Think of your resume as your sales pitch – you need to sell yourself in the best possible way. Invest some time and research into developing your resume. You will want to make sure that your resume is error free – double check your grammar and spelling, make sure that all company and school names and cities are spelled properly. A resume containing errors, no matter how minimal, will give your potential employer an impression that you do not have attention to detail, that you don’t take time to double check your work, and that you are a poor communicator. Additionally, make sure that your resume is formatted well. Stick to basic fonts, like Arial and Times New Roman. Keep the font size and color standard; don’t use large fonts or multi-colors in your resume. Don’t go overboard with bold, italicized, or large-cap text. Keep your format consistent and make sure that the resume looks great when viewed online as well as when printed out. Keep your resume to one or two pages – any additional pages give an impression that you either don’t know how to concisely summarize your education and experience, or that you are listing unnecessary information for the sake of taking up space. If you’ve never written a resume before, reference books, Internet resources or seek assistance from a professional resume writing service. A well-written resume can make a difference between being stuck at your current job and getting an interview to land the job of your dreams.

How to write a professional summary for your resume

In today’s competitive job market, employers relay on well-written resumes to screen potential candidates. In many instances, employers look through job search web sites, such as HotJobs.com or Monster.com, to find professionals with skills, education and experience that fit their needs. These employment search web sites, along with many companies’ own online applications, require candidates to upload their resume in order to express interest in a specific opportunity. Without an opportunity to send a personal email, or a cover letter, you have to make sure that your resume expresses your personality in addition to listing your professional and educational experiences and achievements. To do so, you can include a professional profile or summary at the beginning of your resume that allows you to market yourself through a narrative. This section allows your potential employers to learn something unique about you and your career, as well as get a good feel of your communication skills.

To write an effective summary, you should first understand what information should not be communicated in your resume. While a summary provides an insight into what is unique and competitive about you, it is not a place for you to indicate any personal information that does not relate to your career. Information such as ethnicity, marital status, sexual orientation, religious beliefs and affiliations, etc. should be left out of your resume. While descriptive of who you are, this information is not relevant to your potential employer in order to pre-screen your qualifications for their opportunity. Additionally, the summary should not contain your previous professional experience, unless you can clearly demonstrate how such background can be of value in your future career development. Beware of generic statements, such as “I am well organized and detail oriented.” Employers want to hear your unique voice and get a sense of your communication skills while reading the summary portion of your resume. Using generalizations about your abilities will make the employers believe that you are either a poor communicator or are using such statements to fill up space on your resume.

Your summary should be in form of a short paragraph or bulleted statements, containing only several sentences. There isn’t a sentence limit, but as a rule do not take up more than one quarter of the page. Your summary should begin by a headline that summarizes your professional title and/or your professional statement. Emphasize your title by featuring the headline in bold and larger font, as it allows your potential employer to grasp who you are quickly. For example:

Financial Planning Professional
Achieved Double-Digit Return for All Clients through Well-Balanced Financial Portfolios

It is important that this title is well crafted, as it is the first impression your potential employer will have of you.

There are three things a well-written summary should address:
- Your experiences and skills as they relate to your idea job
- What you can bring to the organization and the open position that no other candidate can
- Your professional goals.

Even though your resume summary is written by you, it should be composed in third person, in present tense. Think of it as a summary of what one of your best colleagues would say about your professional achievements. Reinforce your title, and sell only the experiences and skills that meet your career objective. If you have multiple career objectives, such as you wish to get a position in either marketing or public relations, develop separate resume summaries for each of the objectives. A summary can also contain a brief bulleted section highlighting only a few vital competitive skills that you bring to the table. An example of an effective summary would be as follows:

Successful financial planning professional with over 15 years of personal and retirement planning experience. Managed a small financial planning firm, achieving double-digit financial returns for all clients by developing personalized investment portfolios. Leader in development and professional growth of four other financial planners in the firm through effective and motivating mentoring strategies.

Key competencies include:
o Personalized portfolio development
o Financial forecasting
o Retirement portfolio management
o Development on-going professional growth strategies

Much like your overall resume, your summary should be well-written and error-free. Make sure to review your summary, and customize as necessary for the various opportunities of interest. An effective summary will help you “hook” your employer; it should sell you as a primary candidate for the job, leaving your employer with a great first impression of you.

Dot Cully
http://www.yourleaningcurve.blogware.com
http://www.dotstrustinyou.com
http://tinyurl.com/p39uzj

Thursday 4 June 2009

Better Sleep the Easy and Natural Way

Get better sleep the easy way

More often than not, how to get better sleep is among the common questions that working people think about. This is because they rarely experience it because of too much stress or being too busy in their work. If you are one of those who are having problems when it comes to sleeping, here are some of the ways that can help you get better easier:

1. Develop better sleeping habits. Like everything else, developing good habits helps a person accomplish a certain task at hand. For those who are prone to not sleeping well at night, it would be best to start developing good habits that would help him or her get better sleep. Good sleeping habits might include daytime routines such as eating the right foods, exercise, and enough napping in the afternoon. Experts say that eating the right foods would help a person be lulled into sleep without so much hustle. If one wants to get better sleep, he or she must avoid eating foods that contain ingredients that stimulate the nerves and the senses such as those with caffeine content. To help the body relax, enough physical activities such as exercise should also be done at day time so it will somehow exhaust the body and let it crave for rest at night time. Although napping is good to some people, it can be bad to those who are having sleeping problems because they have a tendency to "over nap" that which will eventually affect their sleeping at night.

2. Enough amount of daily exercise can help a person to get better sleep. Aside from health benefits, regular exercise also helps a person get better sleep especially at night. This is because it lets the body work just enough so it would want to rest at night. Strenuous activities such as workouts are not really necessary if one is not used to it. Simple exercises such as brisk walking or light yoga activities are enough to help to get better sleep at night.

3. Come up with you own personal sleeping plan. Above anybody else, you should be the one who knows your body. If you are having problems sleeping at night, you are the first person to identify what is the problem and try to address the issues properly. If you are having trouble sleeping, analyze what may be the problem. If it is something that you can handle, try to do the things that will help you overcome it. You can do this by coming up with a personal sleeping plan that will really work for you. You can plot the activities that you can do and try to implement them during nighttime. If the specific plan doesn’t work today, try another set of sleeping plans the next night and then another one for next, next night. By doing this, you can discover the techniques that would work for you.

4. Create a good sleeping environment for yourself. If one wants to get better sleep, the easiest way is to create a comfortable, nice, and cozy sleeping environment. If you are having trouble sleeping and you have tried all the techniques available but those did not work, why not try re-arranging your bedroom. Figure out is something inside your bedroom that hinders you from getting better sleep. Check if your bed still suits the needs of your body and if not, try replacing it. Check if there are some things that catch your attention and makes it hard for you to sleep, if there are, try removing them for a while until you are able to sleep better.

Get better sleep the natural way

Some people are really born to have a hard time to get better sleep. While there are those who were able to develop this problem because of unhealthy practice. Either way, the problem still lies that one is having a hard time lulling into that good slumber.

The best way to go about it is that first, one needs to address the problem of sleeping. These include knowing the reasons why that person is having a hard time sleeping. The focus areas should include the personal issues, status at work, health conditions, and sleeping environment.

1. Personal issues. The may include stress factors that affect the overall emotional state of a person. If one if stressed by personal issues, it will be harder for him or her to get better sleep because that person is thinking too much. If it's possible to address these problems and problems immediately, it would really help a person to get better sleep. If not, one should seek help from professionals so he or she can cope with the issues and will have better chance of getting sleep at night.

2. Status at work. Studies show that more and more people are having a hard time sleeping because of their status in work. With the overall global crisis that the world experiences now, it is only common for people to worry about their security. If you think that this is one factor that won't let you get better sleep at night, then now is the right time to face it and be prepared for the worse. If you are prepared that no matter what happens, you will still have your job or you are confident that you can easily find one, then you will have peace of mind and will lead you to sleep better at night.

3. Health conditions. Some people are able to develop sleeping disorders without them knowing. These sleeping disorders are usually caused and triggered by so many factors. If you are having hard time sleeping and you think that the reasons are something that you can no longer control, then it is best to seek professional help.

4. Sleeping environment. This is also among the things that affect the overall sleeping state of a person. If you have bad sleeping environment, then the tendency of your body is to resist sleeping.

The natural way
In the market today, there are so many products and even medication that promise to help one get better sleep. But, these artificial substitutes may have a side effect. To avoid further complications, it is best to try sleeping techniques the natural way. Some may include routines that will only help you get better sleep but help improve your overall health as well.

The first thing that you could do is to develop and practice good sleep hygiene. These include eating the right foods that can help you sleep better and avoid those that affect sleeping patterns. It also includes having regular exercise and avoiding napping in the afternoon so you will sleep well at night. You may also want to develop a routine that will help you sleep better such as doing relaxing activities before your bedtime such as taking a warm bath, reading, or writing in your personal journal.

To get better sleep, you can also try soundproofing your room to avoid unnecessary noises, adjusting the lights so you will be more comfortable, getting into a comfortable sleeping position and practicing deep breathing to relax your senses.

Dot Cully
http://www.dotstrustinyou.com
http://www.yourlearningcurve.blogware.com

Tuesday 2 June 2009

Personal Mastery - Career and Effective Communication

Personal Mastery And CareerPersonal mastery is not something that you can only to help you deal with stress and improve you confidence. Actually, it is possible to apply mastery into you career as well. There are numerous studies showing personal mastery to have impact on your everyday life as well as with working effectively.

Applying personal mastery in your career development is called career mastery. Career mastery is when you can integrate your personal development and growth to your professional growth and development.

There are different elements for career mastery.

• Being proactive. It is important to go after what you want. In the application of career mastery, you need to identify your goal and take necessary action towards it. With this element, you get to overcome barriers and limitations daily. You do not have to overcome everything at once, you just need to do consistent action everyday.
• Connect with others. To effectively connect with other people or network, you need to connect with yourself first. You get the power and the intelligence of connecting to other with how you understand and interact with the inner you.
• Getting informed. Being informed is not only concentrated on your existing job. There are people who are in search for other career options. When choosing other career options or job ideas, you need to know your options. And making the correct decision is all about gathering enough information.
• Being focused. When setting your goals, you need to make decisions on how you can attain them. The method for achieving your goal depends on your decisions. Which is why you need to keep your focus on making the decisions and directing your career.
• Know your potential. It is important to know your potential and your strengths and weaknesses. You get to take responsibility for your actions and would be able to figure what works for you when achieving your dream.

These elements are actually there to improve the individual’s behaviour and attitude. These basic elements can be applied whether you are working for an organization or self-employed. Even those who are facing career choices like college students and professionals who would like to change a career can apply career mastery to be able to develop. Executives and employees who would like to make some changes with their current organization also follow career mastery.

It is important to take charge with your career. You have to take the move yourself and not other people should discover or promote them for you. All throughout your career, the five elements of career mastery will keep on popping up. This is why it is essential for a successful person to be familiar with career mastery.

Basically, it goes down to the basic. Do something that you love. Successful people not only create and build their business just because for economic reasons, but because they love their business and their company.

But for some people, knowing what you want is not that easy. Sometimes what is logical and radical is confused with something that you want. According to Peter Senge, “ adults have little sense of real vision.” They may have goals and objectives in their lives but these are necessarily not their vision in life.

Achieving personal mastery with one skill and behaviour can produce remarkable results. Changing or shifting your career as a professional or an entrepreneur is not easy. You have to master yourself and your skills first before you start changing, otherwise changing careers would happen a lot or you would not be able to put your skill into maximum use.
Personal Mastery And Effective Communication

Success is not only dependent on your own skill, proper attitude and effective communication are also important contributing factors. Personal and career mastery are can help a person a lot in improving their growth and development and succeed in the chosen field. Effective communication is not determined how well we speak in front of many people or how well we write documents, effective and good communication relies on how well people have understood us and how we expressed ourselves.

They say that communication is the most important source of power. Many businesses and organizations almost collapsed because of many failures due of the poor communication between business executives and employers. Employees show high burn-out and stress levels, dissatisfied and disengaged employees.

To achieve effective communication, it is important to increase and attain personal mastery. To increase personal mastery would mean change in attitude and perspective. It is important for leaders and organizations to maintain openness to engage their colleagues, employees and customers.

Communication is an important part of relationship building. The most important relationship is our relationship with our inner self. Therefore, communication with the inner self should be maintained. How we communicate with our inner self determine how we communicate with others.

Positive thinking and reinforcement would help us deal with difficulties better. For example, if we believe something then those beliefs can either limit or be beneficial for us. A positive inner dialogue would project a more positive and supportive communication with others.

An example of maintaining effective communication is giving feedbacks or constructive criticisms. We should develop effective feedback. We should give and receive criticisms openly. Aside from that, when giving feedbacks we should take into consideration our emotions. Dealing and taking care of emotions is one of the methods that personal mastery can achieve. Aside from that, personal mastery also helps an individual to look at things objectively.

Effective communication with the help of personal mastery can assist with the following:

• Effective problem solving. Since you would be able to communicate to your employers and co-employees about the real issues and problems, this can lead to a deeper understanding of the problem. A deeper understanding could lead to quicker and more effective problem solving.
• Effective leadership. For a leader to set direction and influence the team and the organization, he or she should be able to develop better communication with them. Criticisms should be given as a form of suggestion and should be serve as support not as chastisement.
• Effective planning. Planning involves understanding the mission, vision, and the goal of an individual, department or organization. Planning should be guided by the guiding principles of the group. However people may have different approach to everything, it is important to properly communicate with each other to create and draw up an effective plan.
• Effective organizational development. Personal mastery is not only about personal and professional development and growth. An improvement in the personal and professional path of a person can have significant effects on the improvement of the group or organization.

Personal mastery helps a person develop themselves and be able to interact effectively with other people. It could actually help you become successful in life. The great thing about personal mastery is that helps an individual develop a healthy communication with their inner self and at the same reflect this changes on how they interact with others. The application of personal mastery in a person’s life can make dramatic and great changes.

Dot Cully
http://www.yourlearningcurve.blogware.com
http://tinyurl.com/p39uzj