Job Searching – Find A Job By Building Your Personal Brand

Technology is changing, the workforce is changing, traditional career paths are changing, and you need to be constantly changing if you want to succeed in today’s job market. Today is a rough time to be looking for looking for a job or starting a new business. The unemployment rate is over 7%, banks aren’t lending money for small business loans, and employers are tightening up their guidelines for hiring new employees.

To stand out from the crowd and make it easier to find your next job you can start building your personal brand. The goal of personal branding is to communicate your experience and build trust in your abilities and expertise so that when a hiring manager has to make a decision of which candidate to choose, you’re the obvious choice.

Begin with the Interview in Mind

Think about every manager that’s interviewed you for a position on their team or in their company.  They only had 30–60 minutes to find out everything they needed to know about you and why you’d be the one to meet their needs.  They pick the person who they think would be the best fit based on their limited knowledge of the candidates abilities.

If you’ve done a good job building your personal brand then chances are the manager will know alot more about what you can do and will be more likely to choose you over the other “unknown” candidates.  How will they know more about you?  Well a strong personal brand tends to lead to referrals so chances are you may have been recommend by someone the hiring manager knows or trusts.

As part of your brand you’ll also have built a portfolio and have examples of projects and successes you can share.  Concrete examples of problems you’ve faced and overcome can go a long way in building someone’s confidence in your abilities.

You will also have some type of website the manager either already has visited or will visit after the interview that will answer any unanswered questions, clear up any confusion they may have, and give them the chance to learn more about what you know and how you interact with other people.

How to Build a Personal Brand

This all sounds great but how do you go about building a personal brand?  The truth is that building a solid brand is actually a lot of work and it won’t necessarily pay immediate dividends. It takes time to put all the pieces together and create a profile that represents all you have to offer.  Basically, you’re doing all the work ahead of time, before you actually need your next job.

The good news is that it will make the process of finding that job much easier. However, sometimes it’s hard to look ahead to the long term so it’s easy to put off or avoid doing work now, even though it will pay off down the road.  So the simple answer of “how to build a personal brand” is – one day at a time : )

Tools for Building Your Brand

Tomorrow we’ll take a look at the technology and tools you can use to demontrate your abilities and spread the word about your talents.

---

Preparing for a Layoff – Job Tips for Staying Employed in a Recession

Are you worried about losing your job?  With more mass layoffs being announced weekly in a cost cutting trend that started last fall, I know a lot of people that either lost their job or are in fear of getting a pink slip.

Fear of the Layoff

One of the stressful things about layoffs like these for employees is the fear of what lays around the corner; the anxiety of worrying about the day your boss calls you into their office with bad news.  While there’s nothing we as employees can do about the economy, there are some proactive things we can do to help us find another position in the event we lose our current job.

Rather than cowering in fear, we can distract our mind from the foreboding economic situation by setting the stage for our next job search, should it be necessary.

Job Tips to Prepare for a Layoff

Over the next few days, we’re going to take a look at some job tips that you can begin working on now that can help prepare you for a job search in an extremely tough job market.  A common saying claims, “it’s not what you know, but rather who you know” that helps you get a job.

I think it’s a combination of what you know (your expertise), who you know (who you’ve built relationships with), who knows you (your personal brand), and how well you can spread the word about your skills and availability (using technology to market yourself). So over the coming days we’ll talk about topics such as:

• Building a Personal Brand
• Social Networking & Job Searching
• Getting a Degree & New Career
• Getting Your Resume Online
• Finding Freelance Work

As I mentioned above, if you’re worried about being laid off you can start working on these things right now to help you be better prepared if you lose your job.  Stay tuned – subscribe for updates

---

Valentine’s Day Flowers a Rip Off?

“Roses on Valentine’s day are such a scam”, said the guy behind me into his cell phone as we waited in line to buy flowers the day before Valentines day. 

“1800flowers, ProFlowers, FTD, Teleflora, they all rip you off.. I couldn’t find cheap flowers for Valentines day anywhere.  Whether its flowers online or in a flower store like this, they all just gouge me because they know my girlfriend expects me to buy flowers for Valentine’s Day.  I’m not asking to have flowers delivered or a fancy flower bouquet, I just want a dozen roses and here I am in line about to spend $35 on some flowers that will just die in a few days.”

Valentine’s Flowers Worth the Money?

So what do you think?  Is the ranting cell phone guy on target or off-base?  Truth is, I used to feel the same way he does but now I realize that he’s actually looking at the whole situation from the wrong point of view.  You could say he should actually be thanking the lady behind the counter for only charging him $35 for the roses, here’s why.

Valentine’s Day Charm

The purpose of giving your wife or girlfriend roses on Valentines day is to show them that you care about them.  You don’t have to give them flowers but you do want to show your appreciation for their love and companionship in some way.  Women want to feel special and appreciated on Valentine’s Day but you don’t have to buy flowers to make that happen.

You could clean the whole house/apartment, cook her dinner, create a video collage, take her to her favorite show, buy her jewelry, take her on a trip… there’s an endless list of things you can do. 

Roses are Red… And Fast

Now I want to go back to the line of guys waiting to buy roses at the flower store for a minute.  One thing I didn’t mention is that we were all in a big hurry.  The store was full in an after work rush, the ladies behind the counter madly taking money and wrapping flowers as guys rushed in an out. I didn’t see a husband or boyfriend in there who spent more than 5 minutes picking up Valentine’s Day flowers.

Think about that for a minute, in only a 5 minute stop you can make your wife or girlfriend feel loved or appreciated on Valentines Day.  Compare that to all the things I mentioned earlier that either cost more money (take a trip, buy jewelry) or take significantly more time (cooking her dinner, making her a custom present, cleaning the house).

Valentines Flowers are Perfect

Now think about all the money and time the flower shops have to spend filling their stores full of roses so that guys can dash in and out with a fistful of instant Valentines day charm.  Sure flowers seem expensive at first glance, but what would we do without them?  Instead we’d spend a lot more time and/or money on other ways of making our ladies feel special. 

I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with being creative and making something special for your Valentine, just that we don’t always have, or make, time to create that perfect Valentine gift. For those occasions, flower shops perform a valuable service and I’d argue that those roses are money well spent.

---

Five Tips for Your Boss During a Recession

Dear Boss,

We know that the recession is making your work life miserable but please don’t forget that we’re just as distraught. Here are some tips from a worker bee’s perspective for how you can help keep things positive and constructive in these dark days.
 
Please don’t preach
Please do not preach to us that these are rough economic times and that we have to cut back or be more careful with our company’s funds. We spent all last year hearing this. And we know its gotten worse–we don’t need you to tell us. Like you, we listen to the news everyday. In fact, we live in fear (maybe more than you) that the next set of big layoffs we hear about on the news may be our own.

We know you are probably having a hard time too.  So, you don’t need to open every meeting or preface every new policy with “because of the recession” or “because of our reduced income.” Such preaching just escalates our blood pressure even more and it makes us feel like you think we are idiots. Just give it a rest and cut straight to explaining the new policy on how we can’t get office lunches anymore, or no more staff training, or travel for meetings.
 
Acknowledge what we are already doing to help cut expenses
Often when businesses find a way to do things more cheaply, it means that we–the employees–have to do more work. That doesn’t mean we are not more than willing to put in the effort to do things more cheaply (and keep you in business). In fact, we are already doing many things to cut expenses.

In our office, we used to send audio tapes from projects out to a small company that would transcribe the tapes for us. To save money, we now do them in house. This is an enormous amount of work and time for us. Instead of continually reminding us that we have to do this and keep very strict with this rule (nobody was breaking it!!)–graciously acknowledge the endless hours the staff is now spending doing mind-numbing transcription. 
 
Make consistent budgeting decisions
We watch what you spend your money on as our employers very closely. We know that you got a new desk or that the business re-upped and bought season tickets for client entertainment this year. And we know exactly how much these items cost. It not only kills morale when we see you spend big money on things that should not be the priority, it also makes you less credible when you really need to make tough cuts for economic reasons.
 
Don’t use the recession as a convienent excuse to make uncomfortable decisons
Blaming the recession for having to lay off the guy who did not do his job well or that we know you never liked to begin with hurts your credibility. Hey, we probably didn’t like that guy either, but when you explain it to the team, don’t say the position was cut for economic reasons.

Instead, be honest, errrr as honest as you usually are about how “Dave is leaving to develop his karoke business, or move to be with his girlfriend.” Another example: I have a friend who was promised a move from his cubicle to an actual office, but the office he was promised lacked furniture. He was told the company could not afford to buy any furniture, and thus he could not move. When he found cheap furniture on craigslist and offered to pay for it himself–he was still refused the office. He suspected inner-office fighting over who wanted the office was the culprit. Now when they tell him they won’t pay for his professional recertification this year because of the “economcy”–what is he to believe?
 
Be as open as possible with us
As employees, we write the contracts and budgets for our projects, we send out the invoices, and we keep the books. We know what our numbers look like. We know you all must be strategizing and working on how we can stay afloat in the recession, but if you don’t tell us that we can’t be sure.

We are left to believe you are doing nothing while the ship is sinking or that you have already plotted out how long to keep us around before you fire us. We already don’t trust the banks or Wall Street, or our mortgages, and we are just starting to get used to maybe trusting the federal government.  Giving us some specifics on your emergency action plans will help us trust you while we watch everything else go to hell.

I know your instincts might be to keep things behind closed doors because you don’t want to stress us out or have us criticize you, but we will be far more stressed out if we have no any idea what is going on. And who knows, we might have good ideas to improve your strategies.

Special thanks for this contribution from my sister who shares the frustrations of the recession as it effecs the small company where she works!

---

Baby’s Room Pics – Boy or Girl?

So can you tell from the picture whether we’re having a boy or girl?  I imagine the pink pretty much gives it away?  Can you tell my wife’s excited to have a girl?

We spent most of the last few days working on the baby’s room, on Friday afternoon it was a plane Jane guest room and by Monday afternoon it was transformed into a baby girl’s room.  A big thanks to my mother and father in-law who came into town and spear headed the “total makeover”.  We’re also grateful to our friends who are letting us borrow the crib you see so we don’t have to go buy another one.

Watching my wife and her mom plan out the room setup, furniture, and decorations made me realize how much effort interior designers have to go through to put together a room, no wonder they charge so much : )  Luckily we didn’t have to spend a bunch of money on our room, our crack team of decorators did all the work and my wife got some great deals on the baby furniture that we bought.

I think one of the neatest things about the room is the bookshelf that my wife’s dad built.  You can see it in the picture below, my wife had a doll-house bookshelf like it when she was a kid and loved it so much that she wanted one for her daughter.

Our son was feeling a little left out with all the commotion for the baby’s room and the cool new bookshelf so my father in-law built him something as well. Can you tell what it is from the picture below?  It’s a marble run, you drop marble’s in the top left and watch them race down the ramps to the end.  He loves it and I think it helped make him feel a little less jealous. 

Anyhow, that’s what we’ve been up to the last few days and why posting has been a little sparse.  Now my wife can breathe easier, the baby has a place to sleep : )

---

Tax Forms, Tax Brackets, Tax Credits, Tax Softare, and More!

Tax season is approaching and most people are starting to think about filing their tax returns (except some politicians like Tom Daschle and Timothy Geithner).

Tax Tips and Resources

We’ve been putting together some tax tips to help make it easier for you to prepare and file your taxes this year and wanted to review what we’ve covered so far.

We started off talking about some useful tax credits and also came up with a list of common tax forms that you’ll want to be gathering in advance of doing your taxes.  Then we took a look at ways you might be able to use free eFile and also dug into the federal tax brackets.

Everyone’s tax preparation needs are different, we take a look at tax preparation services like H&R Block and Liberty Tax and whether they’re right for you.  For those that prefer to file thier taxes themselves, we reviewed some of the best tax software packages and had a Turbo Tax review.

Unfortunately, we don’t have the email address of the entrants in our TaxCut giveaway so if you’re one of them, send us your email through our contact form so we can announce a winner.

Have fun with those taxes : )

---

7 Things Your Insurance Company or Agent Won’t Tell You

Here’s a list of things your insurance company and agent may fail to explain to you unless you probe them for information.  

1) When they say everything is covered, everything isn’t covered.  What they mean is everything is covered unless specifically excluded or limited in the policy.

2) If you have any type of large claim loss or a frequency of claims in a short period of time, they may try and drop your policy. 

3) A lot of people think a claim only counts aginst your history if they have to pay you for it. However, filing a claim that ends with a value less than your deductible still gets counted as a claim against your claim history.  Remember that when considering #2. 

4) Many claims adjusters look for ways to reduce the amount of the overall value of the claim.

5) Many insurance agents and their customer service representatives do not fully understand policy coverages.  I used to get many phone calls from agents asking me questions about policy coverage, because their client was in their office asking a question they couldn’t answer. 

6) You can file a claim directly with the insurance company instead of filing it through your agent. 

7) They will cancel your policy for things like trampolines, certain dog breeds, pool slides, and unrepaired damage on your home.  When you buy a new policy the insurance company’s inspector will come out and take a look around your house.  They won’t come inside, but they will take take exterior photos.  They are looking for things like vicious dogs, pool slides, trampolines, and tree branches touching or hanging over your roof line.

The Dark Side of Insurance

I am not trying to say that every claims adjuster and agent are out to get their customers.  There are definitely many agents and adjusters that truly help their customers and look out for their best interest, but I was once in the industry, and I know how some of the companies work. 

The insurance companies I worked for put a lot of pressure on you to save them money, and their company policies always favored the best interest of the company rather than the customer.  I was put in numerous positions where the coverage in the policy was a gray area and it could be interpreted either way.  But, the insurance company forced me to deny coverage. 

Many customers did not fight back.  They backed down and paid for the damages out of their pockets.  A lot of the time, insurance companies get it right, but I think their lack of commitment to putting their customer’s interests ahead of their own in the cases where they don’t is what gets them bad publicity in the media.  

Be an informed consumer; do research and ask questions to your agent and adjuster.  Do not let them call the shots.  You are the one paying for their salary and commission. 

If you have any questions about your policy or a current claim open, feel free to contact Erik or check out some of the other questions in the recent insurance series like insurance tips for filing an insurance claim, understanding insurance policies, lowering insurance rates, all about insurance policy riders.

---

Home & Auto Insurance Policy Endorsements for Extra Protection

A good insurance agent will recommend policy endorsements that will add value to your specific situation regarding your home or automobile. An endorsement is basically a separate policy coverage added on to the original policy form for an additional premium. They are also referred to as policy “riders”. There are many valuable endorsements that are cheap to buy and provide a valuable coverage to your two biggest assets, your home and car. Here are a few that are worth looking into.

Homeowner Endorsements

Personal Property Replacement Cost Coverage

Most policy forms for single family residences carry a personal property replacement cost endorsement, but make sure you ask your agent about it before you sign on the dotted line. This endorsement allows you to recoviter current market value replacement cost of your personal property if it is stolen or damaged.

Fungi, Wet, and Dry Rot Coverage

This is an essential endorsement to have no matter where you live. Many policies are excluding coverage for mold, and wet/dry rot damage. However, you can purchase an endorsement that adds a separate coverage for this type of damage if it is hidden in the walls, attic, basement, or floor boards. The smallest pipe leak in a wall or intermittent roof leak that is not noticeable will cause a world of trouble with wet rot and mold damage. It’s wise to get about $25k to $50k of coverage.

Personal Property Scheduled Endorsement

This is where insurance companies catch people off guard. They’ll give you x amount of dollars in coverage for your personal property, but then they limit certain categories of personal property to a certain dollar amount such as fine jewelry, furs, firearms, fine china, and cash.

If you have expensive pieces of personal property and fall under the categories, get an appraisal for their replacement value, take it into your agent, and ask them to “schedule” the piece onto your policy. You’ll pay extra in premium per year, but the cost is minimal for the assurance that you have full coverage on your most prized possessions.

When I was an adjuster, I saw thousands of customers get burned, because the policy covered only up to $1,000 for fine jewelry in the event of a theft. Don’t let that happen to you!

Identity Fraud Protection

There are separate policies out there, but I think it’s more economical to get a rider placed on your homeowner’s insurance instead. The rider will help you pay for expenses incurred to help you fight to get back your identity.

Home Business Coverage

Another thing insurance companies love to limit in their policy forms is home business liability and personal property coverage. Buy an endorsement that either adds or increases this coverage if you conduct any type of business out of your house.

Law and Ordinance Coverage

Policy forms typically offer some type of coverage, but it’s usually not enough to cover you fully in the event that you need to use it. L&O coverage kicks in when your home needs to be repaired because new building codes or ordinances call for mandatory upgrades. Instead of paying for these upgrades out of your pocket, make sure you have about 20 to 30% of your home’s value in this coverage.

 

Auto Policy Endorsements

Road Service

It’s cheaper to tack this onto your auto policy than it is to pay for AAA’s service.

Death and Disability

An extra death benefit to help with funeral expenses for yourself or family member if the worst happens in a car accident.

Comprehensive Transportation Benefits

If something happens such as a tree falling on your car, this will cover your expenses to rent a car while the car is being repaired.

Collision Transportation Benefits

Same as above, but it kicks in if your car was in an accident.

These small additions to your insurance policy are extremely important, because they often add or increase coverages that insurance companies limit due to the frequency and likelihood of the particular claims. Many of these endorsements will add a small amount to your YEARLY premiums but will more than pay for themselves if you ever have to use them. Did I miss any?

---

How Hard Would You Work to Find Your Perfect Job?

Job searching can be a lot of work.  While putting together a career portfolio and coming up with ways to make your job better or finding a better job takes a lot of time and planning it’s well worth the reward.

But how about creating your own job?  Figuring out the things you enjoy the most about life and coming up with a way you can earn a living from it is a tricky thing to do.  Not only is it a seemingly elusive goal, it can also be a lot of work.

Jonathan Fields recently published a new book called “Career Renegade: How to Make a Great Living Doing What You Love” and talked a little yesterday about being a career renegade.  He offers up a sample of his first chapter where he goes into some detail about the effort required to create your own “perfect job”:

“It took a massive investment of both time and energy. And, a willingness to do a lot of things right, spend a lot of money testing different ideas and, admittedly, do a bunch of things wrong. Over a period of years, I began to discover certain processes, steps, resources and actions that could transform nearly any passion into a wellspring of money.”

So the question probably isn’t can we create the perfect job for ourselves, it’s more along the lines of, “Are we willing to put in the work and try a lot of different things in order to find our career nirvana”?

Fields talks about some of the challenges of being a “career renegade” and one of them is simply overcoming societal conditioning and believing in ourselves:

“The second challenge is really just decades of conditioning. We’ve spent so many years being told what we can’t do, sucking up to a job we hate and shelving what we really want to do, it’s become a deeply ingrained pattern.”

So what do you think?  How hard are you willing to work to find your perfect job?

---

My Simple Solution for Getting in Shape

Getting in shape isn’t just a matter of being healthy and feeling good, it can have a big impact on your wallet as well. I’ve been getting some big medical bills from the end of last year when I ran into some health issues, which could have been avoided had I been taking care of myself.

Skipping Exercise

As I mentioned in my new years action plan, my life has become substantially busier over the last two years.  Before our son and this site entered our world, I used to jog at least five times a week but that came to an end once our life got busy.  I did want to exercise I just didn’t have the time, sound familiar?

I kept telling myself things would slow down a little and I’d get back into exercising then.  Well, as life would have it, I found myself busier than ever at the end of 2008 and I made zero time for working out until I ran into some health issues.

Time off work, major pain, and medical bills reminded me that you can’t ignore your health forever.  So I sat down with my wife at the beginning of 2009 and made a plan for the year.

Simple Exercise Plan

Now I exercise about 30 minutes, 4 days a week.  Three days of the week I come home from work and head down into our basement with our son, where I hit the treadmill and he plays in the big open space in the middle of the room.  Then we fit in a session on Saturday or Sunday afternoon to make 4 days of exercise.  It’s been working out well, we’re still spending the time together and I get a workout at the same time.

It started off at the beginning of January where I was at the lowest setting for the entire session.  Each day I’ve increased the setting a little more and now that the first month of working is over, I’ve gotten to the point where I work my way up to the 4th setting by the end of the session.

Making it a Habit

I think the most important part of my plan is that it’s easy to follow.  I have a set time and I’m in and out so it’s not a big mental challenge.  Since it’s easy to do, it makes it easier to stick with the routine.

I’m taking a slow approach, not stressing out about how much weight I’ve lost at all.  In fact, I haven’t gotten on the scale since I’ve begun.  I just know if I keep up the exercising that eventually the weight will start to come off and if I incorporate it as a routine in my life the weight (and hopefully the medical bills) will stay away.

---

Page 105 of 190« First«...102030...103104105106107...110120130...»Last »