Alexandra Levits Water Cooler Wisdom Things I Wish I Knew about Business and Careers When I Was 22

Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom Things I Wish I Knew about Business and Careers When I Was 22 This year, I released the 10th Anniversary edition of my first book, the bestselling They Don’t Teach Corporate in College. I wrote the book when I was 26, and ever since then, I’ve learned a ton about what works and what doesn’t in the business world. Today, I’m sharing some of my recent insights. No one cares as much about your career as you While your organization and your manager probably do have your best interests at heart, no one will ever put as much time and energy into your professional development as you will because no one benefits from it as much as you. So don’t be passive. Advocate for the best learning opportunities and experiences, and be proactive about keeping your skills fresh. Careers are peaks and valleys Even if you were to stay on one career path, which is highly unusual these days, there’s no such thing as getting to the top of the ladder and staying there. Careers are very long, so you have to figure out a way to remain relevant and engaged over time. Occasional momentum loss is normal, but you need to be able to recover. Plan now for what you want later When choosing a career, it’s important to think through what you want for your life over the next several years. For instance, if you’re a married 25 year-old in law school and you know you want to be a hands-on mom or dad soon, it’s not the best idea to become an associate at a huge firm. A flexible career doesn’t happen overnight: the right steps must be taken early. For more, please see the full post at Intuits Fast Track blog.

How Can Recruiters Create Compelling Content

How Can Recruiters Create Compelling Content When did you last do an internet search of your company to find out what content is out there for your future  employees to read? Have you ever adjusted your content strategy so that you can share the right information about your company?  Compelling content is probably one of the most important elements of  employer branding. Our panel of 10 recruiting experts share their knowledge on how you can create compelling content to draw the top talent in. Leela Srinivasan Compelling content combines creativity and personalization, relevance and resonance. For one-to-one communication, take the time to research your candidate. What can you uncover that feels distinct about them, and how can you weave that insight naturally into your reach-out? Is every word in your email working hard for you? What more impactful word choices could you make? Compare notes with the rest of your team so you can learn what specific phrases are piquing people’s interest. For one-to-many communication, befriend your marketing team so you have co-conspirators on your employee blog, employer branding videos and more. Leela Srinivasan, Chief Marketing Officer at Lever. Amy Volas If you’re new to the world of creating content, partner with your marketing team or a friend that is already doing it well and gain insight into ways your valuable insights can be shared in a meaningful way. It starts with picking a topic that you care about and sharing valuable information via your network. What’s your favorite social network, pick 1 and take baby steps.   Then listen to feedback, ask for it and tweak along the way while expanding where you share your content.   If you get bitten by the “content bug”, consider publishing articles on sites like Undercover Recruiter. Amy Volas is  Chieftain of Avenue Talent Partners. Lars Schmidt Compelling content starts with understanding your target audience, and then tailoring your content to their needs. What excites them? What makes them happy? Where do they go to learn things? How do they want to be communicated to? The biggest mistake recruiters make is to shotgun generic content with the hopes it will stick. Theres too much noise for that to work. Once you start personalizing, you start breaking through. Lars Schmidt  is the Founder of Amplify. Chad MacRae It’s always about knowing your audience. “Compelling” to an accountant is different than “compelling” to a web developer. Know your audience, know what they care about, know what they worry about, know what keeps them up at night â€" then you’ll know what content to create. Chad MacRae is the Founder of Recruiting Social. Erin Wilson Recruiters sit on the front lines. They are the face of the organization. They are also the first person the candidate generally trusts. I have always found the most effective content comes from an authentic place. Jobseekers are facing an opaque, combative, process riddled with information asymmetry. Create content that levels the playing field. Erin Wilson  is Founder and Talent Engineer at Hirepool.io Stacy Zapar Recruiters should speak about the things that are interesting and relevant to both them and their audience. Great content makes people feel something, learn something or do something. What are you passionate about? What are you knowledgeable about? What does your audience (candidates) want to hear or learn more about? Stick to those topics and you cant go wrong! Stacy is the Founder of Tenfold The Talent Agency. John Feldmann Recruiter-generated content is one of the most important and under-utilized marketing tools for talent acquisition. Anyone who has recruiting experience has knowledge to share, whether or not it’s in the form of best practices, new tools and tricks, or personal stories and experiences. It’s up to management to emphasize to recruiters the importance of creating and sharing content for the benefit of their personal brand, as well as the company’s. An integral part of recruiting is marketing to potential clients and candidates. An integral part of marketing is demonstrating industry expertise, and an integral part of demonstrating expertise is creating relevant content! John Feldmann  is a writer for Insperity Recruiting Services. Maren Hogan The best way to capture talent that matters to your company’s values is by creating job descriptions that don’t suck. At Red Branch, we outline all the honest structures that make us impactful. Yes, we wear yoga pants and drink wine on Fridays, but we’re an extremely hard-working team. We accept challenges, tackle crises with a brave face and don’t settle for average. Job candidates are told this from the start, not because I want to scare people away, but because I want to be honest about what they can expect from my company. Compelling content for us means being honest and funny, so people get what they’re getting into. Maren Hogan is CEO and Founder of Red Branch Media. Craig Fisher When creating content, always ask yourself, so what?.   Its great that your company won an award, for instance.   But how does this knowledge benefit the reader?   The same goes any story you write, video you make, podcast you record.   Put yourself in the average viewers shoes and ask yourself how that content benefits you.   If it is just entertainment, then it better be very entertaining. Craig Fisher is  Head of Employer Brand, CA Technologies, and Allegis Global Solutions. Will Staney The most compelling content that recruiters can create is content that benefits their stakeholders, current and future candidates. While lots of recruiters out there blog about the current state of the recruiting industry, the smart recruiters are writing content that’ll help candidates, i.e. what not to do in interviews, how to build the perfect resume, what companies are looking for in candidates during interviews, etc. Content that will help them do better in front of hiring managers, etc. They can also focus on helping tell the real human stories of the people behind the companies they work for to help humanize the brand and attract employees who will have a personal connection to the mission. Will is the  Founder Principal Consultant at Proactive Talent Strategies.

How Branded Vehicles Can Boost Business - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

How Branded Vehicles Can Boost Business - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Any business, no matter how big or small depends on its marketing ability and advertising. You can have the greatest product, but it’s worthless if people do not know how to find your business. The necessity of brand recognition and expansion plays a major role in successful advertising. The most successful marketing plans and strategies involve two methods: The creation or re-invention of a brand, or the further development of a pre-existing brand. The Necessity of Branding in Business As a business owner, it’s important to understand the specific importance of branding and its place within your company’s marketing effort. Your professional brand should serve as a recognizable expression of your organization, product or service, which pulls consumer attention to your business. A well-established brand supports the sales and marketing activities you choose to implement, reinforcing the presence of your business, its products and its services with as much simplicity and ease as possible. In short: Branding = Strategic Marketing Marketing = Tactical Business Connecting Business Brands With Mobile Advertising Understanding the importance of branding within your businesses marketing strategy underlines the increasing use of mobile advertising in metropolitan areas. Mobile billboards are not new â€" any casual movie fan remembers the scene in Al Pacino’s “Scarface” when Tony Montana looks up into the night sky and sees “The World Is Yours” scroll across the side of a blimp. As time marches on, technology continues to advance and the sale of commercial vans grows, the aesthetic of exterior ads have surpassed blimp advertisements and billboards and now includes branded personal vehicles. The Best Tactics and Strategies Vehicle signage comes in many different forms, including magnetic signage and vinyl wrapping. A vinyl wrap can cover a specific portion of your vehicle or the entire thing. Either way, a single wrap can generate anywhere from 30,000 to 80,000 views per day, per vehicle, depending on where it’s driven. This means in terms of reach, value, ROI and other benefits previously reported, vehicle wraps can be a cost-efficient and long-lasting part of an integrated marketing strategy. Meanwhile, the magnetic marketing sign may serve certain businesses better. More economically affordable, the magnetic sign serves small business branding tactics well. These signs can be added, removed or maneuvered from one position to another in seconds while being just as visibly attractive and impressionable as their vinyl counterparts. The Value of Mobile Advertising and Vehicle Branding The mobile billboard goes on the side of a truck or trailer, or it can be an attachment for a motorcycle or bicycle. Branded vehicles are an extension of this advertising form â€" your business’ brand, logo or company slogan is added to a company car or vehicle for visual advertising purposes. While a mobile billboard can attract attention, a branded vehicle serves as a steadier device for brand recognition. In fact, the technique of vehicle wrapping makes it possible to turn any car or transport vehicle into a mobile branding device. A branded vehicle announces the presence of your business as well as its services or products wherever the driver goes, extending the marketing of your company into the activity of daily life. Also, the locations where your branded vehicle frequents can create immediate awareness of your business, connecting it to your community and the populous. The addition of a company brand onto a vehicle increases its return on investment â€" ROI â€" value toward your business. The average driver spends 30 days of every year behind the wheel, meaning that inside a heavy commutable area a branded vehicle will be seen by at least 3,000 people per hour. On the highway, 91% of drivers notice the advertising plastered on the side of commercial trucks, while 35% take the time to study the ad closely. With the advent of self-driving technology, the advantage of car brand decals and mobile advertising will only increase. Cars will essentially become mobile devices like smartphones and business tablets. Whether you are thinking of adding your business brand onto a standard car, commercial van or truck, this is a form of advertising that’s worth investing in.

The Story of Pitney Bowes Bringing Skill Sets Together and the Problems That Can Arise

The Story of Pitney Bowes Bringing Skill Sets Together and the Problems That Can Arise Even a company that is over a century old has start-up lessons that are relevant in the modern day. Take Pitney Bowes for example. Today it is a multi-billion dollar company with a brand that is synonymous with their product: the franking machine. The postal product that the company invented back in the early 20th Century is now an everyday item for many businesses. So it might surprise you to know that the story of the founders, Arthur Pitney and Walter Bowes, is an exceptional example of the pros â€" and potential problems â€" that blossom from collaboration within business. 1902: Arthur Pitney Patents His Postage Meter Device Arthur Pitney is an example of a serious hobbyist creating a business when he discovered a gap in the market. He worked as a clerk and noticed that affixing stamps within a professional environment was surprisingly time consuming when hundreds of envelopes would need to be dealt with. Stamps were misplaced or stolen, leading Mr Pitney to begin tinkering with a replacement. The result was the postage meter device, which he successfully patented and began to promote amongst his peers. However traction for his invention was slow and by 1919 Arthur was selling insurance. His belief that the machine he’d created could help people was undiminished but had failed to produce any monetary value for its creator, he needed help to make his dream a reality. 1919: Arthur Pitney and Walter Bowes Meet Walter Bowes was also a salesman, but a salesman who had successfully created ties within the postal industry. By the time he met Mr Pitney he was already selling postal permit and stamp cancelling machines internationally. Just like Mr Pitney 20 years previously, he felt that stamps were inefficient for business use and were easy to misplace or steal. He believed that the stamp would become redundant altogether and sought a new way to automate the postal service. A friend recommended Mr Pitney as a potential business partner. Complementary Strengths Brought To Their Business The duo of Arthur Pitney and Walter Bowes can be seen for its strengths and these are still relevant today. Arthur Pitney had a product that he had invested $90,000 in over the last two decades, created to fill a niche that he had recognised as an employee. Walter Bowes was an industry insider who knew the underlying reasons why his business chose certain postal equipment. He was also a brilliant salesman with a knack for marketing. Their strengths working together would help catapult the Pitney Bowes company into the public mind-set. Upon the businesses conception, Walter Bowes aimed straight for Washington with the intention of getting the postage meter officially accepted by supportive legislation. In 1920, a bill was passed to allow use of mechanical stamps on First Class Mail and the US Post Office approved of the meter. With the protection of being an official postal method (as well as all the free press that was attributed to the new bill being passed), Pitney Bowes was in a much stronger position as a postal business. Using his contacts within the field, Bowes and Pitney sold more than 400 machines within a year. Struggles to Work Together Tear Their Partnership Asunder Just as the Pitney Bowes story shows how two different entrepreneurs with different skillsets can achieve incredible things, this is also a cautionary tale regarding business co-operation. Though his original idea was being used officially and with increasing popularity, Arthur Pitney opted to leave the company in 1924, a mere four years after its inception. Many agree that the problem was an inability to work together with his partner Walter Bowes, despite the fact that both men had created such complimentary machines that served so well together. These two men, working together for a very brief time, created an entirely new method of sending packages and post for business. Pitney Bowes is still a thriving company, valued today at $6.1 billion. Lessons for Modern Day Co-operation? From the beginnings of Pitney Bowes it’s easy to see that finding someone with talents different from your own but in a similar field can offer a great foundation for any business. It also demonstrates that some partnerships offer short bouts of brilliance but are unsustainable over time due to personality conflicts. Most likely the friction between Mr Pitney and Mr Bowes was due to an untenable business relationship but just think of what else they might have brought us if they had been able to reconcile their differences. So if marketing, technology or even the engineering behind your brainchild are outside your abilities, be open to the possibility of teamwork. Just ensure that you’re also realistic about when to compromise and when to stand your ground or you may have the same headaches as the founders of Pitney Bowes. For more information about Pitney Bowes and the mailing supplies that are still sold today visit http://www.pbmailingsupplies.co.uk/

Resume Writing - Monster Vs College Student Or Home Maker

Resume Writing - Monster Vs College Student Or Home MakerAre you unsure about what role monster should play in your resume writing? Monster is not used all the time when you write a resume. In this article, I'll reveal a few tips on how to use it for resume writing. And, keep in mind that if you are an aspiring college student or even a home maker, I won't tell you that you don't use monster.Let's begin with the basics. The first thing you need to know is that a lot of companies use different types of writing software. Monster is not the most popular one. This article is not meant to tell you that monster is useless. It is just one of the many writers you can use for resume writing.Monster is commonly used by many companies to find their leads. They use it in order to generate leads for their own business and for other companies. You will probably encounter it most often when you are looking for a new job. And, there are times when you will need a resume writer to write a good one fo r you. You just have to search for these writers online.When you are searching for resume writers online, you will find that the number of writers available is huge. So, be sure that you will get the best writer for your resume. Some of the writers will charge you for their services. When you are searching for such writers, make sure that you will get the highest quality writer that you will ever have.Resume writing is not a very easy task. And, it is a bit stressful too. I mean, it is very important in order to achieve success in your life. You need to be on top of your career. When you will know the right resume writing techniques, you will know what to do every step of the way.But, it is a good idea to start by choosing the right resume writer for you. There are so many different kinds of writers in the market that you can choose from. It will be very helpful if you will choose a writer who is professional only. Never make the mistake of choosing the most amateur writers because most of them will give you poor quality work.One thing you must understand about certain resumes is that they are specific to a certain company. In case you will create a resume for another company, you will probably need to use their template instead of creating your own. In case your resume will be sent out to several employers, it is better to use a template.Resume writing can be quite hard if you will start without having the correct knowledge of what you are doing. If you use the tips and techniques I will reveal in this article, you will surely create an excellent resume.

Career Advice - Intellectual Qualities of Successful Trial Lawyers - CareerAlley

Career Advice - Intellectual Qualities of Successful Trial Lawyers - CareerAlley We may receive compensation when you click on links to products from our partners. Not all lawyers are the same, at least intellectually. Although the bar exam administered in all fifty states and legal territories throughout the United States tests analytical and logic skills, it does not measure them in a lawyer. This is important to understand, because the lawyer, especially a trial or tort lawyer, must win cases in the courtroom. The possession of natural intellectual qualities is what separates good trial lawyers from great and successful ones. If you are looking to improve your odds of victory in the courtroom, you need to work with lawyers who possess certain intellectual qualities; this is especially the case when youre looking for a person who handles more complex litigation, such as an asbestos exposure lawyer. These qualities, which aid their approach to their work, include intellectual courage, deductive reasoning, integrity, intellectual humility, and empathy for you and your situation. Intellectual Courage This quality speaks to the ability of a person to take on issues that may be in opposition to their own thoughts, feelings, or perceptions. The role of an attorney is that of an advocate on behalf of the clients position. It is not uncommon for the views or position of a trial lawyers client to be in opposition to those of the attorney. There must be a careful balancing act struck between the attorneys view of the world and your world view as a client, which signals the presence of intellectual courage in the trial lawyer. Deductive Reasoning The process of deductive reasoning, important to all lawyers, involves the finding of solutions based on a stated question. The steps taken to reach the solution are based on a logical and analytical path designed to prove the logic in the resulting conclusion. It is being able to logically conclude that if 1 + 1 = 2 and 2 + 2 = 4 then 1 is half of 2 and 2 is half of 4. Being able to arrive at a conclusion in a logical manner based on the presentation of the evidence is an important intellectual quality that a trial lawyer must possess. Integrity Intelligence is built on a foundation of integrity. Integrity in an advocacy-type system like the law means maintaining an adherence to your standards and principles. The basis for this adherence to ones principles is the existence of proof and evidence to validate your standard. Integrity is also seen as upholding the same standards in oneself that you see in others and also the ability to recognize shortcomings and admit to them. Intellectual Humility In addition to courage and integrity, humility is another intellectual trait that a lawyer representing you at trial should possess. Their humility should come from a sense of confidence in their skills and knowledge of the law, as well as a downplaying of any arrogance or pretentiousness. A trial attorney that has humility possesses the proper perspective of themselves and their role in advocacy of your cause and the successful outcome of your case. Empathy The final intellectual trait every trial attorney should possess is empathy. A trial attorney should be able to display genuine empathy toward you and your plight, as demonstrated by their advocacy on your behalf and the effort they put forth to ensure a successful outcome. This trait allows the attorney to display passion and emotion and lay out arguments in a more acceptable, decisive, and logical way. Hubert Shelton is a freelance writer specializing in law politics. Finding a lawyer can be very difficult; if you have a mesothelioma or asbestos exposure claim, Hubert strongly recommends that you consider yourmesotheliomalawfirm.com. This is a Guest post. If you would like to submit a guest post to CareerAlley, please follow these guest post guidelines. Good luck in your search. Joey Trebif

Want To Know What A Company Is Really Like

Want To Know What A Company Is Really Like Want To Know What A Company Is Really Like? Every job seeker knows they need to sell themselves to the employer. That said, remember that interviews are not only about the employer; they are about whether or not you want to work for them. Preparing questions to ask the interviewer is as important as preparing responses to typical interview questions. Start with a few questions about the job. A good place to start is asking about things that were discussed during the interview, maybe things that you would like clarified or explained. Here are a few questions to learn what you’ll be stepping into if hired. = What are the biggest challenges of the job? = What are the expectations for my first 30,60,90days? = What are the biggest obstacles I’ll face in the first 30,60,90 days? Beyond learning about the job, an interview is a good time to learn about your future boss and the culture. To learn about your boss ask: = How long have you been in this position? = What attracted you to this job? = What do you enjoy the most about your job? What do you enjoy the least? To to get some insight into the culture keep your eyes open during the job interview. When you look around the office are people smiling, stopping to chat with coworkers, or do they look harried? And ask the interviewer: = Where does the staff go for lunch? Do they say that everyone on the team mainly eats at their desk or in the lunchroom? That may mean they are overworked or going out for lunch is frowned on. I worked at an office like that, I wouldn’t recommend it. Do they say that the team works through lunch when it’s busy, but they try to go out as a group at least once or twice a month? The worst job I ever had was a direct result of not asking the right questions during the job interview and not paying attention to the atmosphere in the office. Don’t make that mistake if you can help it.