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Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom For Greater Productivity, Try 52/17 Over five years ago, I wrote one of my first posts for the Fast Track blog. The article was about how I was able to hold down four paid jobs in addition to raising a toddler. Fast forward to today, when I am working on at least a dozen paid jobs and am responsible for an additional child. I’m still using the same system, and it’s still working. One of the things I mentioned in the article is how I leave two hours per day for last minute tasks, essentially only scheduling enough productive work for six hours. During the remaining time, I manage administrative tasks, networking calls and gatherings, media interviews, research, and yes â€" downtime. Introducing 52/17 Julia Gifford is a self-proclaimed Canadian born tech-enthusiast who currently works for the Draugiem Group. Gifford published an article on TheMuse.com detailing her company’s research study on employee work flow. Using time-tracking and productivity appDeskTime, Draugiem looked at the habits of the most productive employees and pinpointed the work style leading to an incredible ability to get things done. What’s the strategy? It turns out I wasn’t so far off in my approach to six hours of productive work and two hours of non-productive work or breaks. Draugiem found that the most productive 10 percent of DeskTime users work for 52 minutes without stopping, break for 17 minutes, and then get back to the task at hand. They repeat this technique every hour. If this sounds familiar, you might have heard of a similar approach called the Pomodoro Method. Cited by Gifford, the Pomodoro Techniqueis a time management method that uses a timer to break down work into intervals of focus and rest.These intervals are called “pomodoros” (or “tomatoes” in Italian), after those tomato-shaped kitchen timers. Pomodoros are separated by short breaks for distractions, daydreaming, snacking, etc. It works by choosing a task to work on exclusively for 25 minutes, setting a timer, working on the task until the timer rings, and then taking a five minute break. After going through this cycle four times, you take a longer (about 15 minutes) break. The Magic of the Creative Sprint Why do methods like 52/17 and Pomodoro work so well? How can people who don’t even work a full day accomplish so much more than those who clock way more hours? Gifford wrote that the reason the top 10 percent of productive employees are able to get the most done during a comparatively short period of time is that every interval of working time is treated as a sprint. During the 52 minutes, they work with intense purpose, and then during the 17 minutes, they remove themselves completely from the task so that they can be fully focused and ready for the next sprint. Human beings, apparently, are actually built to sprint. The body is not meant to sit for eight hours straight, so breaks on-the-hourimprove both productivity and health. The brain doesn’t love focusing for long periods either, and according to Gifford, concentration is like a muscle that needs to rest. Even if you’re a conscientious employee and love your work, doing it for hours on end will inevitably result in boredom and flagging attention. Psychologically and physically, being overworked is worse than being underworked. For the rest of the piece, check out QuickBases Fast Track blog.

How Insurance Giant Aon Uses Social Media to Recruit

How Insurance Giant Aon Uses Social Media to Recruit Heres an interview Jorgen Sundberg  of Link Humans did with Bryan Chaney, who is the global social media strategy manager at the global re-insurance company Aon. We discussed the recruitment challenges they are facing and how social media is increasingly helping the company acquire the best talent. From which social networks Bryan finds useful for recruitment and sourcing to his recent results, find out in the video below the top tips he has given in terms of strategy. Takeaways from the Aon social recruiting experience: Convey a consistent message through all your platforms (both internally and externally) Define your target audience: who are the people you want to attract and where they are Google Plus is a great place for sourcing and contains very fresh profiles Aon uses Facebook primarily for campus recruitment The company is testing out Pinterest and have listed all their recruiters on a specific board If youre looking for a job, always apply for specific jobs at Aon, you can also join the career community and chat with recruiters and current employees Check out Aons Career Community, Facebook Page and Pinterest Boards for more. You can connect with Bryan on Twitter and LinkedIn and please share your thoughts with us in the comment section below! Related: How NPR Use Social Media to Recruit.

How to Build Your Audience (PODCAST) - Classy Career Girl

How to Build Your Audience (PODCAST) Ever wanted to build your audience online? Thats what todays episode is all about!! Today we are kicking off a Build Your Tribe Challenge in the Classy Career Girl Network Facebook group and I thought it would be fun to release a podcast all about building your audience. How to Build Your Audience Building an audience is how I started 8 years ago. I spent a year building my audience before I ever even sold anything just by blogging back in 2011. By the time I created a product, I had an audience to sell to. Same with the podcast that I now do twice a week, this is just to build an audience and I put so much effort into it because I know how important it was to have built up that audience with my blog posts. Now I know how important audio and podcasts are to growing an audience these days. You can really start with written content, audio content or video content. Start with whatever is most comfortable for you. There’s no right or wrong thing to start with when building your audience. The key is to just do it.   I‘m going to teach you a lot today about how you can get started or grow your current audience. Subscribe  on  your favorite platform below: iTunes Google Play Music Stitcher Radio TuneIn iHeartRadio Sound Cloud Topics Covered So if you don’t know where to start with your business, building your audience is a great place to start! I’m going to teach you about the things I have learned about building an audience today. There’s a lot! The Tribe Building Secret The Best Way to Grow an Audience Right Now How to Grow a Community of Awesome People How to Grow Your Social Media Following Episode Resources Tribe Workshop You may also like these episodes My Secret Weapon For Growing Two Membership Sites My 5 Biggest Failures Growing My Membership Sites If you want to learn exactly how I have grown my business, you must learn from my mentor Stu McLaren. He just released a video workshop thats completely free with so much good information on how to turn your knowledge, influence, or passion into a low-stress, high-profit business. You can register and get started today watching his videos at https://www.classycareergirl.com/tribeworkshop. This workshop absolutely changed everything for my life and business when I watched it in 2016. It turned my life around and thats why I am a huge fan of what his workshops. So I will be taking the workshop and I hope you join me! https://www.classycareergirl.com/tribeworkshop See you there!

1 easy (but very useful) thing you could do today to prepare for life after graduation University of Manchester Careers Blog

1 easy (but very useful) thing you could do today to prepare for life after graduation University of Manchester Careers Blog Reflecting from scratch can be a daunting task. Just you and blank sheet of paper. Where do you start? With work? University? Extra-curricular activities? What’s important? What’s not? What’s useful for sorting out your career? Or valuable to tell potential employers? How much detail is enough? How do you take action on your reflections to recognise your strengths, make improvements, make decisions about your future? Grossman (2009) sheds some light on the process of reflection, the characteristics of ineffective reflection and discusses some of the ways we can become more skilled and effective reflectors. One of these ways us through the process of scaffolding (if you are a GTA, you may well have come across this concept). Scaffolding is an important strategy we use to help learners develop from novices to experts in skills, knowledge and understanding in your subject area we use techniques and activities to bridge gaps in knowledge and ability.   There are career management tools which can scaffold career development and help us become experts in ourselves. Using these tools can help us make the most effective use of a blank sheet of paper by giving us some parameters for our thinking and a bit of guidance. Self-reflection without support can be a bit like wandering in a wilderness without a map. Photo: Cairngorm plateau in winter. D Gillie We should be experts on ourselves already, shouldn’t we? After all, who knows us better? Grossman found that students asked to reflect on their development most often wrote inferences without providing any supporting evidence or insight into the intellectual and practical processes that enabled the student to do or understand something. From the point of view of careers consultants, something similar often happens when we begin to explore career possibilities with students by asking opening questions such as ‘What are you good at?’, ‘What do you enjoy?. Students may not be sure what they are good at or what they enjoy. If they can state what they enjoy or what they are good at, some may struggle to provide the evidence to uphold those statements. We can make reflection more productive and accurate by providing structure scaffolding â€" in the form of some very simple to use tools that are available on the Careers Service website: Assess your personality styles and preferred working styles using The Type Dynamics Indicator. The Career Interests Inventory provides ideas and suggestions of preferred careers based on the pattern of interests (your personality or identity) suggested by your answers. These are not predictive tools â€" their value does not lie in telling you what your career will be. Their value lies in providing an opportunity to think in a focused and constructive way about who you are and what you might like your future to be like and then take the steps to get there. You could also complete one of these assessments as preparation for meeting with a careers consultant â€" the results may give you specific topics you would like to focus on. Reading Grossman,R . (2009) Structures for facilitating student learning. College Teaching, 57(1), 15-22. http://dx.doi.org/10.3200/CTCH.57.1.15-22 Although this paper is written from the point of view of faculty member who is training teachers, the insight into the reflective process is valuable and, significantly, accessible to a non-expert in pedagogy or cognitive psychology. Morin, A. (2004) A neurocognitive and sociological model of self-awareness. Genetic, Social General Psychology Monographs,130(3), 97-224. http://dx.doi.org/10.3200/MONO.130.3.197-224 A more technical paper, but Dr Morin’s work on the nuts and bolts of reflection and self-awareness is insightful and thought provoking. Figure 1. in the paper,   a diagrammatic representation of Morin’s model of self-awareness,   is particularly interesting. How often do we recognise that some of our self-awareness arises as a result of books we read, programmes or films we watch, seeing ourselves in mirrors or through interacting with people? All Postgraduate career planning postgraduate

Resume Writing - Tips For Writing a Resume in Akron

Resume Writing - Tips For Writing a Resume in AkronIf you are looking for ideas for resume writing Akron, there are plenty of resources available online. Most of these resources have hundreds of examples to show you how to write a resume that is perfect for the job you are applying for.Traditional formats can be confusing and make it harder to get your point across. You should avoid this as much as possible if you want to impress an employer. Instead, you should always use a format that will allow you to present yourself effectively.There are lots of smaller things that can affect the appearance of your resume, which makes it important to use only the programs that have a file size that is suitable for all forms of printing. The smaller the file size of a program, the better for your resume. Also, do not use programs that do not have resume generators. This is a feature that you should consider because it allows you to create custom resumes.Before you begin, write down the basic info rmation about the position you are applying for. Then, try to make sure that the information you have written is not too short or too long. When you are finished writing your resume, it should be tailored to the company.Many of the online programs that offer writing services also have a chat room. Here, you can discuss your resume with an experienced and qualified resume writer. An experienced person will be able to help you out with finding the best solution for your needs.There are several steps involved in resume writing, which includes choosing the format, arranging the information in a way that will make it easy to read, completing the letter, and then distributing the material. First of all, you need to choose the format you are going to use. You can either use Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, or even Reeder.You can also find an outline for the resume to work from if you are having trouble finding a new topic to write about. Use the outline to jumpstart your letter and do not hesit ate to add information as you go along.Your resume should include all the necessary information and start with a good quality font. Your resume should also be neatly organized and show your qualifications. Some professional writers in the field even help you with getting the format right and can even provide help in terms of sample resumes.

Why Did You Leave Your Job

Why Did You Leave Your Job This is a fairly common interview question and oh, by the way, it is also on every job application too.   Sometimes, the reason employers ask this question is to see how and what your response will be, not so much the words you use, but the emotions you connect with the experience. Sounds kind of heady I know, lets keep it simple. Candidate A Candidate A was part of a company-wide downsizing.   When asked in the interview why he left, Candidate A goes on and on. He blames bad corporate strategy and the history leading up to the companys decision to layoff employees.   But wait, Candidate A goes on further and talks about no matter how hard he worked, he could never please his immediate supervisor.   Wait, there is still more.   Candidate A confesses that some of his technical skills and industry knowledge might not have been up to date. Yikes.   Too much information. What the interviewer hears is all sorts of reasons NOT to bring Candidate A in for another interview.   There is emotional baggage not to mention a deficiency in skills. Candidate B Candidate B was part of a company wide downsizing too.   Her answer to the question went something like this. XYZ company had unfortunately lost some of their key accounts and as a result had to eliminate positions.   All but two people in my department were let go. Candidate B didnt shoot herself in the foot by providing too much information.   She stated the facts. Answering this question requires some rehearsing.   Your first attempt will most likely not be the best.   Try to craft your answer on paper.   Bullet point the key point(s) you want to make.   There is a fine line between sounding rote and sounding confident. Additionally, the answer you provide should sound null of emotion or perhaps empathetic.   Never, ever blame anyone during the interview.   Sure, companies make bad choices, but there is no value in pointing out flaws, errors, problems, or issues.   Negative, emotionally-charged answers will always work against the candidate. If you have emotional baggage connected to the unfair or unjust termination, then you might need to work on that first because it WILL come out during the interview.

Career Benefits of a Nursing Degree - CareerAlley

Career Benefits of a Nursing Degree - CareerAlley We may receive compensation when you click on links to products from our partners. If you are in search of a growing field that affords both a great rate of pay as well as enriching work, a career in nursing might just be right for you. Over the last few years the demand for nurses has been on a steady rise, with approximately 2.5 million registered nurses in the United States as of 2013. The accompanying infographic illustrates the many benefits provided by a career in nursing, from increased job security to the ability to help people when they need it most. There are many factors that have contributed to the continual growth of the nursing field. These range from the increasing medical demands of an aging population to a need for new nurses to replace those retiring from the profession. Accordingly, its projected that job growth for nurses will remain strong over the next 10 years, making it an ideal profession for anyone seeking career stability. Nurses play a vital role in modern healthcare and will continue to do so for some time. Earning your nursing degree is the first step towards a career you can be proud of for years to come. 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+ Visit Joeys profile on Pinterest. Job Search job title, keywords, company, location jobs by What's next? Ready to take action? Choose the right tools to help you build your career. Looking for related topics? Find out how to find the opportunities that help you grow your best career. Subscribe and make meaningful progress on your career. It’s about time you focused on your career. Get Educated Contact Us Advertise Copyright 2020 CareerAlley. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy + Disclosure home popular resources subscribe search