10 Great Ways to Increase LinkedIn Productivity

10 Great Ways to Increase LinkedIn Productivity As a machine is only as clever as its user, a LinkedIn account is only as productive as the person in the profile picture.   Although most users know by now that simply inputting your name and occupation into the allotted spaces won’t bring in a deluge of opportunities, many don’t know enough about the benefits to go the extra step.  It takes courage to press a button sometimes.  Here are 10 reasons to increase your account’s productivity. 1. Increase credibility: Forgive me, but I’ll begin with a no-brainer: the more connections you have, the more credible or at least engrossed in your career you appear. This is good. People like hard workers and are more likely to hire someone who’s earnest and has a strong network presence than someone who doesn’t appear to want to get to know people they already don’t know. Remember that who you know can hold the keys to who you want to know. See more at How to Connect with New People on LinkedIn. 2. Increase visibility. The number of connections also increases (or decreases) the likelihood that people searching for someone will find you first.  Moreover, LinkedIn profiles get pretty high PageRanks on Google.  If you want to take it a step further, customize your public profile’s URL to be your brand or name. 3. Be selective with your contacts. Not to contradict myself, but s/he with the most friends does not win.  Sometimes, it’s better not to connect with someone you know or don’t know on LinkedIn.  As with our physical lives, excess entities in our virtual lives can create distracting clutter.  On the other hand, it doesn’t really pay to be a snob, either.  A good start for any new LinkedIn user is to allow LinkedIn to access your email contacts. Check out 3 Ways to Network on LinkedIn  for further reading. 4. Believe in karma. LinkedIn, while perhaps not as flashy as Facebook or Twitter, is a network like any other: karma exists here.  Someone pats your back, pat them back by promoting them, linking to them, connecting with them, and the like.  You can begin with good karma by teaching someone the benefits of LinkedIn and showing them the ropes.  You can even look up an individual and get an idea for what they need to perform better.  You never know when someone from the past will drop a gold mine on your lap. 5. Break the ice: Go into a job interview more confidently by looking up your potential employer’s LinkedIn profile. Maybe you two both worked at a Starbucks once upon a time? Maybe you went to the same high school? You get the picture. READ MORE:  How to Prepare for Your Job Interview. 6. Evaluate your evaluator: This is your chance to decide whether or not you want to work for said potential employer.  You can even look up individuals who have previously held the position for which you’re being interviewed and see what they have to say about the job and its future.  Uncheck the “current titles only” box when doing so. More on this at How Professional is Your Recruiter? LinkedIn Will Tell You!. 7. Effortlessly make announcements. When your business has overcome a hurdle, launched a new venture, or undergone some manner of change, update your LinkedIn profile to notify your contacts.  This is more seamless and casual than email notifications, which can seem spammy. Further reading at 10 Tips to Using Your LinkedIn Status Update. 8. Know your competition. Sneak around the network to get an idea for what the competition is up to, who they’re targeting, and what you can do to one-up them.  Less maliciously, you can gauge the status of an industry in which you’re thinking about investing by checking in with succeeding companies from time to time.  On the other hand, you can check in with companies who have failed.  They can offer you just as much wisdom as those who’ve succeeded. See more at How to Conduct Employer Research on LinkedIn. 9. Narrow your search. Searching through LinkedIn can help open-source vendors understand who’s already worked with their software and how.  As an employer, you can hire someone whom you already know is familiar with your code.  You also get to find out what people find practical about your product and what you can improve about it. See 3 Great Ways to Finding People to Connect with on LinkedIn for more. 10. Ask and you shall receive. Not only can you request advice from experts by using LinkedIn’s Answers feature rather than a mere open forum, you can look forward to becoming (and becoming known as) an expert, yourself.  This adds to your credibility.  As an inquirer and not an expert, you might make a new contact or two, or even a job.  If someone is answering your question, obviously you two have somethingâ€"at least an occupational interestâ€"in common.  You might be able to fix each other’s problems; you never know who you’ll stumble across in such a vast network. LinkedIn has been touted for years as not only a useful tool but also a satisfying experience. It turns your résumé into a living, breathing entity that has, like you, undergone evolution for potential employers and employees across the globe to see.  Perhaps least observed is its use in giving ourselves perspective about where we excel, where could use improvement, where we’ve been, and where we’re going. Author: Alexis Bonari is currently a resident blogger at College Scholarships, where recently shes been researching medical school loans as well as calculates student loan costs. Whenever this WAHM gets some free time she enjoys doing yoga, cooking with the freshest organic in-season fare, and practicing the art of coupon clipping.

How to Answer the Dreaded Salary Question - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

How to Answer the Dreaded Salary Question - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career It’s a question that you can expect to be asked sooner rather than later during a job interview. It’s a question that seems to be a “loaded” one in every sense of the word, and usually that’s in fact what it is. It’s a “trick” question too. It’s designed to quickly and efficiently eliminate as many candidates as possible from a hiring manager’s “candidate pool.” It’s also a question that, if you’re like many job candidates today, you absolutely dread having to answer. The question can be phrased in a variety of ways, but it’s usually  phrased something like this: “What salary are you expecting?” Why do most job candidates so dread this seemingly innocent, apparently quite appropriate question? Primarily it’s because they simply aren’t quite sure how to answer it without putting themselves in a “lose-lose” situation: If the salary they cite is too high, they fear (not without some justification!) that they will be quickly and automatically out of the running. If   they cite a low salary figure, they fear (again, not without some justification) that they risk significantly undervaluing their personal brand and “worth” in the current job market and, as a consequence, will end up “painting themselves into a corner,” if they are the candidate ultimately selected for the position. In this blog I am going to show you how to diplomatically deflect this question and postpone answering it, at least until salary negotiations reach a serious stage, if at all possible. How should you answer the ‘salary question’? As is so often the case when it comes to competing in today’s highly competitive job market, there is no one, all-encompassing, fail-safe answer to the “salary question.” However, here is how my recruiting firm coaches our candidates to initially respond to the salary question, and we have found it to be quite effective: Hiring Manager: What salary are you expecting? You: “If I am your candidate of choice and, in turn, if this is the right opportunity for me, then I know the offer will be more than fair.” The psychology behind this answer is three fold: First, by using the words, “If I am your candidate of choice” you are demonstrating that you know you have to prove yourself and earn the right to be their candidate of choice, i.e., you know nothing is simply going to be handed to you. Second, by stating “in turn, if this is the right opportunity for me” you are demonstrating back to the company that you have choices and that, if they like you, they also need to sell themselves to you. Finally, the phrase “then I know the offer will be more than fair” is suggesting that you indeed want not only a fair wage but one that is “more than fair,” i.e., on the higher side. Will this answer satisfy every hiring manager every time? Of course not. But it works often enough to use it, in order to avoid being derailed early on in a job interview. But let’s suppose, just for the sake of illustration, that you encounter a hiring manager who remains insistent and will not be “put off” by this answer. Here is how you can deal with that situation. Hiring Manager: “Well, how much are you earning in your current job?” You: “Mr. Hiring Manager, I appreciate your interest in knowing what I am earning in my current position. I really do. More importantly, at this point in the process, how do you see me bringing value to you based upon our conversation thus far?” The object here is to get the hiring manager’s attention redirected on other issues and off the salary issue, at least for the time being. Keep in mind that salary negotiation is a game. If you’re dealing with a seasoned hiring manager, he or she will know that as well, and perhaps even respect you for holding your “cards” close to your chest. Obviously, at some pointâ€"perhaps during the initial interview, perhaps at a later interview, if there is oneâ€"you are going to have to declare your salary expectations. Otherwise you risk alienating the hiring manager by being branded as someone who is simply contrary or evasive. That means, of course, that you will have had to have done your homework” regarding what represents a current competitive salary range for the position. Here are two great resources for accomplishing that: www.salary.com www.indeed.com/salary The tools featured in these two sites enable you to determine appropriate salary ranges for various jobs, at differing levels of experience, and among various locales. Based upon  the current economic realities, you will then know what a reasonably fair range is for a position. Then you can answer the “salary question” in one of two ways: If your current/previous salary is/was in the range that your research suggests, simply say, politely and professionally, “My current/previous salary is/was X dollars. But, Jim, the most important thing here for me is the opportunity. Again, I truly believe that, if I can bring value to you, and XYZ is the right company for me, salary certainly can be worked out.” -Or- If your salary is/was out of range for this position but the opportunity is truly of interest to you, then answer in this manner: “I am looking for a salary in the range of X to Y. But, Jim, the most important thing here for me is the opportunity. Again, I truly believe that, if I can bring value to you, and XYZ is the right company for me, salary certainly can be worked out.” The objective of course is to stay in the game, to ensure the company has gotten to know you and that you have gotten to know the company. Most importantly, though, is that you will have demonstrated your worth to the hiring company. Other salary considerations Clearly, all of us want a job that pays us a fair and reasonable salary  and one that provides competitive benefits. But, in my professional experience, I have found that rarely does the typical job candidate have any legitimate or reasonable idea about what any particular position is actually “worth” in the current job marketplace or within a particular company or industry. Rather, what the candidate usually has is a strong belief regarding what he or she thinks the position is worth. There can beâ€"and quite often is!â€"a vast chasm between these two extremes, particularly in a down economy and in a highly competitive job market. It is therefore crucial that you keep this fundamental, virtually irrevocable salary principle firmly in mind: The salary that is offered for any position is determined solely by what the hiring company has determined the position is worth to the companyâ€"not by what you the job candidate think the position is worth or “ought to be worth.” And this fundamental principle is particularly relevant in today’s post-recessionary economy and tough job market. Moreover, understand that it matters little to the hiring company what salary you currently are earning or the salary you may have earned from your most recent employer. It’s also important to realize that, as a general rule, the larger the hiring company, the more “set in stone” are the salary ranges for virtually any position within that company. So, no matter what you may have been earning at XYZ company, that doesn’t mean you can necessarily expect to be offered either the same amount of salary or a higher salary at a new company. Ironically, the smaller the company, generally the more flexibility they have, within reason of course. And finally, while it  should go without saying that there are certain responses to the “salary question” that you should avoid like the plague, I know from experience that a cautionary warning is nonetheless in order. Under no circumstances should you respond to the “salary question” in this fashion: “I just need a job; I’ll take whatever the job pays.” -Or- “This position reports to you so you should know what the pay range is. I’d be interested in knowing what that figure is.” (I just finished reading a book that actually recommended this kind of flippant, self-defeating answer!) Any answers along these linesâ€"and I have known too many job seekers who actually said things like this in job interviews!â€"will brand you as a candidate to assiduously avoid and put you immediately out of the running. Remember this: The best position to take when it comes to any facet of new job negotiations, including salary negotiations, is to clearly and quickly  brand yourself as a person who can make the company money and/or save the company money. Once you have convinced a hiring manager, and the company he or she represents, that you can do either (or both) of these things, the “salary question” tends to become far less of a pressing issue. Author: Skip Freeman is the author of “Headhunter” Hiring Secrets: The Rules of the Hiring Game Have Changed . . . Forever! and is the President and Chief Executive Officer of The HTW Group (Hire to Win), an Atlanta, GA, Metropolitan Area Executive Search Firm. Specializing in the placement of sales, engineering, manufacturing and RD professionals, he has developed powerful techniques that help companies hire the best and help the best get hired.

Resume Writing Management Tips

Resume Writing Management TipsIn resume writing, the resume writer is a manager. They are the person who looks over your resume and tries to improve it. That makes a great manager but it doesn't mean that they can just do whatever they want.It takes time to write an excellent resume. If the manager is going to do their job right they must do it well.The manager may want to look at your resume and say 'that is a great resume, I like it, but I don't think it is very good enough.' Do you really want to be looking over this resume? Are you going to allow someone else to put your resume together and then complain because it is not up to their standards?Resume writing managers have their own preferences for resumes. The managers will be able to tell you what type of resume they want to see. What could be the reason that is being given by the management? The reason could be that the applicant has made mistakes, they can't finish the sentence or they need to be improved upon.After all, the m anager has to have a list of qualified applicants to choose from and one of the ways that they can get rid of someone they don't want is to simply reject them. Job hunting is a full time job and there's only so much time in the day that will be spent filling out paper applications.The manager is going to reject someone for not completing the resume correctly or they are going to hire someone who is good enough but with a different job. Then they are going to say, 'yes, that would be great, but I don't know how to do that now.'Then the manager will do a search for someone who does resume writing for money and let's face it, most of the people who will accept the writing job for a low price, aren't going to give you a resume that is up to date or contain the best resume writing for them. You can see how a bad review could lead to disappointment when the manager realizes that the resume was written incorrectly.There are times when the manager will let it slide but is it really worth it ? If you don't feel good about what has happened to you are afraid that the employee won't be very happy with the job that you are offering them then you need to think about taking matters into your own hands. There are many people who are going to go out of their way to find someone who can write your resume for you.

5 Facts About Becoming a Nurse Educator - CareerAlley

5 Facts About Becoming a Nurse Educator - CareerAlley We may receive compensation when you click on links to products from our partners. As the job market becomes increasingly competitive, even experienced nurses and health care professionals are looking for ways to increase their marketability and career prospects. One way many nurses are doing that is by earning an advanced degree, such as a Master of Science in Nursing (MSN). While many nurses enter online msn programs with the intent of becoming a nurse manager, or opening the doors to greater responsibility, earning the MSN degree can also lead to opportunities to become a nurse educator. Like many other fields, nursing requires students to complete hands-on learning and training before they can work independently with patients. Nurse educators are the instructors both in the classroom and the clinical environment who provide that training. They might teach a formal course at a university, for example, or provide supervision and training at the bedside, guiding new or inexperienced nurses in proper procedure. There are plenty of nursing schools in Pennsylvania and around the rest of the country for aspiring nurses to choose from. With more people looking at nursing as a potential career and the need for nurses growing every year, the need for nurse educators is growing every year as well. If this is a field you havent explored, consider these five facts about becoming a nurse educator. 1. Nurse Educators Are Experienced and Well-Educated In order to become a nurse educator, you must hold a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) and be a registered nurse before you can enroll in a training program. After gaining clinical experience, you can enroll in a graduate program; in some cases, you can earn your MSN and nurse educator credential simultaneously. If you already hold an MSN degree, you may receive credit for that education when you apply to a nurse educator program. These programs focus on teaching you the skills you need to teach nursing principles to others, including curriculum design and educational theory. 2. Certification Is Optional but Encouraged Although nurse educators do not have to be certified by law, many universities and teaching hospitals prefer that their nurse educators hold the C-NE credential granted by the National League for Nursing. You can earn this designation with a masters or doctorate in Nursing and at least two years of teaching experience. 3. Nurse Educators Can Specialize Nurse educators can work with students ranging from recent high school graduates who are in their first year of nursing school, to experienced clinical nurses in a hospital setting. Beyond choosing the age or experience level of their students, though, nurse educators can also specialize in the type of nursing they teach. For example, nurse educators might teach classes in pediatric nursing, OB/GYN nursing or cardiac nursing. 4. Demand for Nurse Educators Is High According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the demand for nurses is expected to grow more than 25 percent between 2010 and 2020 and accordingly, the need for people to educate those nurses will grow as well. Earning potential in this field is also high. A full-time nurse educator working at a major university as a tenure-track professor or administrator can earn over six figures; more commonly, though, nurse educators at health care facilities, small colleges or universities working full time earn an average of $60,000 per year, well above the national-average salary. 5. Nurse Educators Have Flexible Schedules Depending on her employer, a nurse educator generally works a 35- to 40-hour week but not always from nine to five. Some nurse educators work the night shift, teaching nurses during the evening hours, or they might work on the weekends running workshops and training sessions. Those who work in college settings might only teach a few courses each semester and have several days off each week. Not all of the work is done in the classroom though, as there are significant administration and planning responsibilities in this field, but they can often make their own schedules. Working as a nurse educator is rewarding, especially when you see the nurses you have trained succeeding and growing in their own careers. As you plan your nursing career, explore the option of becoming a nurse educator yourself you might just find an ideal career. About the Author: Marnie Raymond is a registered nurse with more than 15 years of experience working in pediatrics. She recently earned her MSN from OLLU online and is pursuing a career in nursing education. We are always eager to hear from our readers. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or suggestions regarding CareerAlley content. Good luck in your search,Joey Google+ Job Search job title, keywords, company, location jobs by

My Boss is Evil And 10 Other Career Excuses

My Boss is Evil â€" And 10 Other Career Excuses My Boss is Evil and 10 Other Career Excuses How is it that so many hard-working employees suddenly turn evil the day they become a manager? Why do they abruptly grow horns, carry a pitchfork, and not care about anybody but themselves? Oh, I know how! Because calling the boss evil is the best crutch for your dissatisfaction with your current job. Yep. You and I know that it’s way easier to bash the boss than to take personal accountability for your career. Hundreds of thousands of employees hate their jobs and wish they could make a change, but they do absolutely nothing about it. To make the situation even more toxic, they are whining about it with their co-workers, blaming others, and showing their disengagement through their behavior. You see it everywhere: people closed up in their offices when they should be working with others, slumped in meetings, missing deadlines, and so much more. The boss becomes evil when he or she sees your negative behavior or hears about it from others. They start pressuring you for more engagement and productivity, and you retreat even more. Ah, yes, out with the horns from your perspective. Pop Quiz: Have you used any of these excuses lately? (Okay, if you haven’t, maybe you’ve heard a friend use them?) I work hard and they don’t recognize my effort. I have no work-life balance, thanks to this company (and my boss). Other people are getting promoted and I’m always passed up. I don’t have any time to work on my career because I’m working so hard in the office. If I network and look at other opportunities, my boss will think I’m disloyal. I should be promoted since I’ve been around a long time. My company is not giving me challenging opportunities to grow. My company has me pigeon-holed in one type of job and I’ll never get out. Management is a bunch of yahoos â€" they don’t know what they’re doing. I don’t believe in (or understand) the strategic direction of the company. I’ve been there, done that. Made up every excuse in the book. During my 30-year sales and marketing career, I’m happy to say that I have been extremely lucky. Except for one brief year and I was miserable. Even when I had a great boss, when I wasn’t feeling good about my career, I slipped into boss-blaming or company-blaming. Why not? It was easier than facing the harsh reality that I needed to make a choice and do something. The options? Become very self-aware and choose to do something to moderate my work style in order to alter the perceptions (mine and other people’s) holding me back from career growth. Develop a plan to move on with my career, mitigate my risks, and ensure I didn’t jump into another “stuck” role. There is no plan C â€" staying miserable and full of blame is not an option. The good news is that both options can be very rewarding. You will learn so much by going down either path and there is little downside risk. However, both take time, both can be frustrating, and there are no shortcuts. Option A can be painful because you will need to embrace any negative feedback and make hard personal course-corrections. Option B requires careful planning, a desire to compete for a new position, and the willingness to learn the latest job-search techniques. Either one can be maddening and a blow to the ego. Catch yourself the next time you abdicate your career growth to anybody else. Nobody cares about your career more than you do. What choice will you make? Option A or Option B? Now is the time â€" you can do it!

5 Ways to Make Over Your Resume

5 Ways to Make Over Your Resume Writing an effective resume may require making some changes. It’s not enough to just have a standard resume. What is important is  writing an effective resume, one that is designed to get you into that all-important interview. If you are not getting the interviews and opportunities you want, it’s time to rethink your current resources. Here are five strategies for giving your resume a makeover. Strategy #1- Forget Your Objective It’s customary to state your job objective at the top of the resume. However, those offering  top resume writing services  suggest this is futile and meaningless to potential employers. An employer is not as interested in what you are looking for as what you can give them. When an employer first sees your resume, you have an average of six seconds to catch their eye so make it about them. Strategy #2 â€" Take a Marketing Stance When writing an effective resume, rather than viewing it as looking for a job, consider the process as an opportunity to market your skills and experience. Focus on offering potential employers what you have in order to increase their profitability rather than trying to earn a paycheck for yourself. Make it about delivering value to them. Strategy #3 â€" Highlight Your Professional Skills Your skills are what are going to get you the position you desire so make sure to clearly identify the skill set you bring to the position. Use your strong points to entice a business recruiter in a way that makes them feel like they need what you have to offer. Impress them with what you can do for them. Strategy #4 â€" Identify a Specific Job Title Don’t leave out this essential bit of information. The targeted job title should be listed along with your contact information on your resume. This is your chance to draw recruiters or interviewers in. Putting it with your contact information is the ideal spot since it makes it more apparent and eyes are naturally drawn toward this area. If you are uploading your professional paperwork, including a targeted job title makes it more visible in online databases and search results. Strategy #5 â€" Start off with a Performance Profile Resumes and cover letters should begin with your ability to do the job. This means you need to do your research to identify what the specific needs of the company are and market to those needs. To create a performance profile, look at the requirements for your desired position and rewrite them as skills you have to offer. This does not need to be a long paragraph; try to keep it to five lines maximum. It’s also acceptable to use a bulleted list for emphasis. This also adds some visual appeal and will attract the reader’s eyes.

Writing a Resume in Past Tense is a Better Option Than Present Tense

Writing a Resume in Past Tense is a Better Option Than Present TenseYou need to write a resume in past tense. At least, you should. If you have the time, you can write the resume in future tense. If you do not have the time, and you want to get a resume approved by your potential employer, you should write the resume in past tense.Writing a resume in past tense can help you get your future written into the future. First, ask yourself why you need a future resume. Maybe it's because you have a bad credit history or if you are self-employed. If this is the case, you can let it go past the past tense. Remember, every resume has its own perspective on what is considered the future.If you do not have a good history on your credit report, it is probably to your benefit to let it go past the past tense. This is a good thing for you, because you want to focus on the past instead of your future. If you have a negative credit history, it is easier to erase this from your resume. It is a benefi t to erase all of your negative information from your resume.However, if you are self-employed, and you plan to start another business, or you plan to start your own business, you need to find out what is in your future. Your future is in your hands. Whether you plan to take care of yourself and family or you want to start your own business, it is in your hands. You decide. You can go back in time or you can go forward. Either way, your future will always be up to you.Your future is a very important part of your resume. Some job seekers think that they need to include their future in their resumes. They include a future in their future, even though they know it isn't needed. They need to realize that they only have one chance to show your future to a prospective employer.By writing a resume in past tense, you can have the opportunity to get it past the first hurdle and make it much more likely that you can pass it with flying colors. The Internet can do a lot for you. If you can eli minate any error on your resume, you can make the process a lot easier.Just by being honest with yourself about what you have planned for your future, you can eliminate some of the stress that is involved with creating a future. If you know you have a big deal in your future, you should write it. Don't allow a mistake on your resume to get in the way of an interview. You want your future to come across clearly in your resume. Don't let your future slip through your fingers.