Begin with the Familiar

Sources say that it’s best to begin with those who you know, and who are fairly close to you. That takes a great deal of pressure off, and helps you begin your networking on familiar ground. Also, close acquaintances and friends can be honest with you about your approach.

Informational Interviews

Networking is intended to be a learning experience. Conducting informational interviews is one way to learn a great deal without pressuring the other person. When you do an informational interview, you are just speaking with someone who is successful in a field that you would like to enter. If you want a career in restaurant management, for instance, you can conduct informational interviews with restaurant managers to get their take on things. Make it clear that you are not searching for a job at that time; you are just gathering information.

In this kind of interchange, you will be asking the questions for the most part. As you meet with the professional in your chosen field, bring along a notebook and take notes on what the person tells you. And him or her questions about hours, work level, first steps he or she took to get started, and other pertinent questions.

Make Them Comfortable

It’s important to make the networking partner feel at ease and comfortable. Keep the talk at a casual, friendly chat level, as if you are just having lunch with a friend (which you are!).

Be Memorable

…in a good way. The point to successful networking is to have professionals remember your name and have your contact information handy if they hear of a position or job in the field, or if they want to take on an apprentice or a trainee. So make sure you leave them with your phone number, email, and website address (because you will have a website – see below).

An Online Presence

To network in today’s world, you need an online presence. It’s a good idea to join social networking sites and to set up a blog or website. This makes you accessible to anyone who might want to look into what you do a bit further. It’s an easy reference to tell people your site’s address, too.

Research the Company

Prospective employers are more impressed by candidates who know something about their company. Find out everything you can about their business, including a little history. If you can find out the bios of the company’s leaders, all the better. Find out their mission statement, their goals, and other relevant information. Try to connect this knowledge with interview questions, too.

Practice

You may feel silly doing this, but it’s important. Look for possible interview questions, and really think about ways you’ve handled situations in the past. Interviewers are taking a more “behavioral” approach to job interviews these days, which means they are looking for examples of your ability to engage in certain behaviors (such as quick decision making) that would benefit the company. They tend to ask you for examples and present scenarios rather than just asking you to describe what you’re good at.

Honest Answers

Sources say that you really shouldn’t try to fudge your way through an interview. You may get caught in the middle of your tall tale, which can be embarrassing (and may lose your chances at the job). After all, you really don’t know just what the interviewer is looking for with his or her questions, so pulling out a textbook-style answer that you think he or she wants to hear may not be the best answer at all.

Timeliness

It’s very important to be on time for a job interview. Make sure you leave your house early enough to arrive on time and get yourself settled and “centered” before you’re called back to interview. Some prospective employers will not even go through with the interview if you’re late.

Be Prepared

You’ll want to bring a calendar, electronic or otherwise, and a pen and paper to take notes. This not only shows preparedness; it prevents the awkward situation of having to ask your interviewer for a pen and paper.

Turn It Off

Make sure your cell phone or other electronic device(s) is/are turned off. You don’t want your phone going off in the middle of an interview.

What Makes You Unique?

Think of this as your “selling point.” What is it about you that makes you stand out? While you don’t want to appear to be self-centered, it’s good to recognize your strengths in general as well as the particular strength(s) that qualify you for this specific job. Make sure you think this through before the interview.

How do you do that? Let’s take a look at how to identify your goals, and how to specify them.

Putting Goals in the Driver’s Seat

First, try getting into the goal mindset. It’s been said that your goals should direct your job search, not the other way around. Sometimes, we take what we can get and then find ourselves building up a career we never really wanted and may not be qualified for ultimately. So put your goals in the driver’s seat and let them steer your job search.

Proactive, Not Reactive

Another component of the goal-setting mindset is to be proactive. If you wait for an employer to advertise his or her need for help, you may be waiting a while. Some sources suggest that the majority of job openings are not ever advertised to the public.

So a proactive approach is to search out the company or employer for whom you want to work rather than waiting for them to search for you. Get your mind in a proactive stance and get ready to search for employers that fit your criteria and will help you further your career goals, and contact them.

Now that you have the proper mindset, let’s look at some specific goals to help you on your way.

What Are Your Skills?

Take an honest look at your skills. Let this be an exercise that is not influenced by what you think an employer would want; you’re not filling out an application or writing a resume yet. This is intended for you to really see what you’re good at – write down anything you are able to do, from childcare to cooking, writing to data entry. There are no “right” skills here. You may even surprise yourself!

What’s Your Experience?

Now you can take a look at what experience you have. It doesn’t have to be job-related; raising a family, helping with community service, or organizing a church event are all relevant experiences. Write down a list of these experiences.

Connect

Now connect your skills with your experiences. You might see career ideas opening up that you hadn’t thought of. Is one of your skills cooking? Do you have experience preparing food for a community event? Maybe you could be a meal coordinator for a facility like a hospital or nursing home, or maybe you want to open a restaurant. Make connections between your skills and experience, and you will be well on your way toward defining your career goals and job hunting accordingly.

Summary:
Skills refer to the things you do well. The key to finding the most appropriate jobs in the industry is recognizing your own skills and communicating the significance written and verbally to a probable employer.

Majority of the most viable skills are those that are used in a variety of work settings. What are these skills? Would matching your skills to find the right job be successful?

Skills refer to the things you do well. The key to finding the most appropriate jobs in the industry is recognizing your own skills and communicating the significance written and verbally to a probable employer.

Majority of the most viable skills are those that are used in a variety of work settings. What are these skills? Would matching your skills to find the right job be successful?

* Determine your skills. This would help you in becoming the lead candidate of landing the job. A skill does not necessarily mean it was adapted in a work environment. If this would be your first job hunt and you have no job experience to date, you still have a chance in the industry.

Majority of skills, including knowledge-based and transferable, could be absorbed and developed as a volunteer, a student, a homemaker, or in your other personal activities. The skills you have used for these activities can still be applied to your desired jobs.

Organizing and listing your personal skills could help you easily fill out job applications, provide useful information for job interviews, and prepare quality resumes.

First, you should categorize the skills by separating your interests and aptitudes from your work experience.

1) Aptitudes and interest. These include all of your hobbies, activities you have been involved in the past, and all the things that interest you. By listing all of these down, you could examine the skills it takes to achieve each item.

Skills from aptitude and interest may be homemaking, playing basketball, fixing cars and many more. All of these items could determine if you are capable of working with a team, able to handle multiple tasks, have viable knowledge of human development, knowledge of electronics and ability to diagnose mechanical and numerical problems. The list goes on, but make sure to consider the skills that would be beneficial for a working environment.

2) Work history. This includes volunteer, part-time, freelance, summer and full time jobs. Once you have listed all your past employment, examine the skills you do work each work duty.

* Ask for help. As soon as you have your list ready, you could now go to job services that could help you acquire your desired job. You could also search job yourself. However, always remember to match your skills and abilities in your list to the needed skills and abilities of various jobs.

In most cases, people who seek jobs are threatened with job titles. This should not be the case. As long as your skills and abilities could meet the requirements of the workload and job title, your possibility of acquiring your desired job increases.

As nice as it is to hear that you should examine starting your own business, you may be curious as to which points you should take the time to examine. If you are serious about starting your own business or at least learning if running your own business is something that you are capable of doing, you will want to continue reading on. A few important points that should be taken into consideration by those who are interested in leaving the traditional workplace to start a business are outlined below.

One of the many points that you will want to take into consideration, when looking to start your own business, is the startup costs associated with doing so. Whether you would like to open up a gift shop or if you would like to sell your professional writing services, it is likely that you will need to make some startup purchases. The startup costs associated with starting your own business will all depend on the opportunities that you choose. Although there is likely to be some variance, it is likely that you will need to purchase a computer, internet service, a business phone, business phone service, a fax machine, a copier, an office desk, and other office furniture. If you have an ideal credit score, you may be able to receive financial assistance to get your business up and running.

Another factor that you need to take into consideration, when looking to determine if you should leave your current job and start your own business is time. Should you be interested in starting your own business, it is important to remember that you will likely not see success right away. Many businesses, no matter what the type, take time to see profits and success. You have to market your business to the general public, set up your online website or your storefront location, and do so much more. That is why it is important that you not only have enough money to get your business up and running, but you will also want to make sure that you also have enough money to support yourself and your family until you are able to start making a profit with your own business.

Another one of the many factors that you will want to take into consideration, when trying to determine if you should start your own business, is insurance. At your current position, do you have health insurance? If you are married, would you be able to get health insurance through your spouse? If you would be unable to do so, health insurance is something that you will want to take into consideration. Even if your health is fine right now, you never know what could happen, especially if your health insurance is also used to help cover the rest of your family. Should you decide to start your own business, you should be able to purchase insurance for yourself or for the rest of your family. With that in mind, it is important to remember that insurance costs money, quite a bit of money to be exact.

What is nice about starting your own business is that you, literally, have an unlimited number of options. For example, did you know that you can sell a product or a service? Popular startup businesses include gift shops, cleaning services, accounting services, and so forth. In addition to the type of business that you would like to start, you also have a number of different options when it comes to operating a business. Many entrepreneurs run online businesses, storefront businesses, or even both. In all honesty, the decision is yours to make. With that in mind, the decisions that you do make can have a huge impact in determining whether or not your business, should you decide to start one, is a success.