Feeling stuck?

Need a professional resume?  Help with your job search?  Advice about changing careers?  Workopolis career expert & author of Get the Right Job Right Now!  will help you to take control of your career in this highly competitive job market.  With the support of our trained team, unique tools and proven process you can take control over your career and your life!

Your career is the greatest investment you can make in yourself.  Enjoying the work you do brings wealth to all areas of life – financial, health, relationships, you name it.  And yet, amazingly, research from Harvard Business School shows that a full 58 per cent of people are unhappy in their jobs.

Why stay stuck in a career that doesn’t excite you?  There are many reasons.  While some people feel selfish for wanting more, others fear the uncertainty of change.  Still others are just plain confused about why they feel unfulfilled.

The fact is, every one of us is faced with important career decisions we must make to get ahead in this highly competitive job market.

To get help to achieve your career dreams go check out Alan Kearns site careerjoy.com

You can also follow Alan Kearns on twitter by clicking on this avatar

 

Edward Jones came in as the number 2 best company to work for in the United States of America. Please read below what makes them so amazing to work for.

You might think that Edward Jones is just like every other large investment firm. They, however, like to believe that everything from their client-focused guiding principles,  their business philosophy,  business model and the awards they have achieved makes them unique.

Since their inception back in 1922, Edward Jones has taken a personal, long-term approach to investing. Then in 1955, we put forth a visionary new strategy of how investments should be delivered.

What is their culture? & What is it like to work for them?

At Edward Jones, your thoughts, opinions and ideas are welcome. You’ll experience world-class training opportunities and a strong network of support, helping you to achieve both your personal and professional goals. At Edward Jones, you’ll also find that your work can make a real difference in people’s lives. Every position ultimately supports their mission of providing the investments, services and advice individuals need to work toward their long-term financial goals.

When you join Edward Jones, you are joining an organization of devoted, enthusiastic, diverse and highly driven individuals. They understand fully that each and every associate contributes uniquely to our organization through solid values, a desire to make a difference and a strong client focus.

If you are interested in a career with Edward Jones click here.

The below articles are one of my earliest works on this site…I thought it would be a good Idea to rerun it as now is a great time to add to our existing skills to help make us more knowledgeable, educated and marketable. Please enjoy!

Ever wanted to take a course to learn something that may enhance your ability to get a really really good jobs? But you didn’t have the time or the money to go to school. Ever dream of going to an ivy league school…hmm I don’t know like MIT but didn’t have the marks, money or even knew what the application process was.
Well thanks to the open source era you can now get online courses for free from a miriad of great universities including MIT.
How you may ask? Well MIT developed an OpenCourseWare site. You have access 1800 courses ranging from Engineering to health sciences, they even have cources for Humanities and the arts.
Take a look at thisYou know what the best part of this is…they aren’t the only ones who are doing this. There are a whole bunch of them and they are part of the OpenCourseWare Consortium. Their MOTO is “Universities working together to advance education and empower people worldwide through opencourseware.” How do they make money to subsidize this great initiative…by donations and corporate sponsorship. I encourage all of you to take a look at this amazing resource. Whats the catch…no catch execept that these courses you take cannot go toward a degree, certificate and does not count for any credits. But on the upside it isn’t all reading, the courses have audio and video content as well. There are many educational instituations from around the world that are a part of this program. In the United States alone there are 12 prestigious instituations that are engaged in this very web 2.0 wikinomics program.

The full list of American institutions are as follows:

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Michigan State University
Tufts University
University of California, Irvine
University of Massachusetts Boston
University of Michigan School of Information
University of Notre Dame
Utah State University
Utah Valley State College
Wheelock College
University of California, Berkeley

Now you can tell your friends that you went to MIT (wink wink nudge nudge) and at the same time you would of learned some amazing things to help improve your abilities at your current job or and getting into that really amazing job you’ve always dreamed.

Check these links out: http://ocw.mit.edu/ and http://www.ocwconsortium.org/

• What was your favorite work environment? And why?

• What was your least favorite work environment? And why?

• What are your greatest strengths?

• If you were to call your manager what who he/she say are your greatest strengths and your greatest challenges are?

• What are your weaknesses (and what are you doing about them)?

• Where do you want to be in five years? In ten?

• When was the last time you demonstrated leadership skills?

• How do you feel about teamwork?

• What activities do you get involved in?

• What is your ideal job and why?

“Know thyself” is a famous quote from the ancient philosopher Socrates. More than 2,000 years later it’s still sound advice. Self-assessment is a great way to prepare for beginning a job search, for interviews, and for negotiations. Not only does self-assessment help others get to know you; self-assessment helps you get to know you!

For more on self evaluation please click on this link to perform an online exam.

In this article we will only go over the task list for finding a job.

• perform an honest self assessment so you are clear

• write a list of contacts you have that you could possibly network with to find a job

• write a list of the type of job you are looking for

• write a list of the companies you would love to look for

• create customized resumes for the different job types

• create customized cover letters for the different job types

• search for a job on the internet, government job bank and employment centers in your area

In the coming series of articles we will be going in depth on each of the above points.

Our hope is that you will share and use this site as your source for career searching and advice.

Stay tuned for more articles to help you reach your desired goal of finding a great job. It’s your fate!

the work book can be found on Amazon : What Color Is Your Parachute Workbook: How to Create a Picture of Your Ideal Job or Next Career (Paperback)

A cover letter can say a lot about a person that a traditional resume cannot. A person’s professionalism, tone, and people skills are just a few examples of characteristics that resumes have a hard time conveying. This doesn’t mean that any old cover letter will do. The following tips will help insure that your cover letter will make your resume stand-out in the eyes of your future employer!

1. Take it Seriously.

Everyone knows how important a first impression is. Even then, many people put all their time in perfecting their resume and throw together anything for the cover letter. This practice might mean that their cover letter might not ever even be read. Take it seriously and make sure that you come out being as professional as your resume.

2. Keep it Short

The shorter the better. No more than one page. Since you want to be as brief as possible, make sure you put your best foot forward and emphasize points that are not made in your resume.

3. Get Personal

This might sound like a contradiction but your cover letter should be both personal and professional. Your tone should be friendly throughout. A little-bit of humor is good. You should make the reader want to meet you. However, don’t take it too far by speaking about personal matters that have no relation or impact on the position you’re seeking. This balance is the key.

4. Name the Reader

If you know the name of the person who will be interviewing you, address them directly in your letter. This can break the ice and show that you know how to communicate with people. And remember, you’re addressing Mr Smith, not John.

5. Focus on the Employer

Don’t ask what the company can do for you in your cover letter, there will be other times for that. Instead, do some research and tell the reader how you can help their business grow!

6. Proofread

Many people overlook the importance of this step. Make sure you don’t have any grammatical or spelling mistakes in your cover letter or resume before you submit them. Have someone else proofread them if you have to.

There you have it. Follow these tips and you should be on your way to a new, better career.

Well, for one thing, it’s not easy being a full time parent and full time employee. I feel the demands of our society on us as human beings can sometimes be too much … and I’m a guy. For mothers who manage a household and work, it must be a lot to say the least. One of the goals of fatekeep is to help people find a career they love and one that pays them well. I hope this article brings us one step closer to this goal … but before we bridge the gap in careers for mothers and others lets get back to the meeting I mentioned earlier.

In our discussions about mothers and motherhood we listed some basics skills and abilities that all mothers share that can be applied to the workforce. Skills and abilities that you as a momma already have (yo momma shake what your momma gave ya):

patience

empathy

task oriented

perseverance

attention to detail

time management

dynamic personality

ability to teach and train

positive and encouraging

excellent communicator – great tone

able to work in a fast paced environment

WOW Momma! It looks like you got some amazing skill. It might take a company many face-to-face training sessions and lots of computer based training classes to get one of their employees to acquire a list of abilities like the one you’ve already got. Momma you got what it takes! You got what it takes to make an award winning career that pays you what you need and deserve. Lets get you headed in that direction.

Here are some steps that anyone must follow in their quest for a job:

1. Find your calling - Truly to understand that you are the master of your destiny, ask yourself what it is you want to do and then ask yourself what it is you can do

2. Resume time – start prepping your resume, please get others to look at it to make sure it is good. You can use the word processing templates to get an idea of how to structure your resume. But if you want a winning resume go see a job councilor or some sort of employment professional who can help you. Job placement agencies are a good resource as are unemployment offices.

3. Post it – begin applying online to the jobs you like, you can post your resume to career sites like workopolis.com, monster.com, hotjobs.com and careerbuilder.com . You can also go directly to companies that you like and apply to their jobs directly. Please take a look at THE LISTS page for a list of the 100 best companies to work for in 2008.

4. Seek the opportunities – go to job fairs and employment agencies, ask your friends and family to keep an eye out for you and ask them to put in a good word for you.

5. Interview thyself – always be ready for an interview here is a link INTERVIEW PREP to a document that will prepare for the interview. Also please take note that when you are being interviewed you can also ask the HR person questions about the company or job that are of importance to you. You will satisfy any curiosities you have about the job or the company and you will appear like a person who is serious and eager to work.

6. Vigilance – keep applying to jobs, keep looking for the job opportunities, keep working on improving your skill – never give up and never give in

You know something that I find funny about this article is that while I am typing it, my wife is applying to a company that allows for you to work from home. She is applying to be a home based customer service phone agent…check it out the website is contractxchange.com.

The job sounds and looks cool…take a look at it…because…Momma you got what it takes…