Mentor - An Experienced Advisor Can Help Your Career

Mentor - An Experienced Advisor Can Help Your CareerMentor - An Experienced Advisor Can Help Your CareerA mentor is an experienced colleague who can provide invaluable guidance as you begin your career and advance in it. He or she may work for the saatkorn organization or anotzu sich one. It is often better to choose a mentor who is also a coworker because he or she will have an insight into your organization that someone else wont. When you are just starting out, a mentor can help you avoid the mistakes that come with inexperience. He or she can make sure you dont miss out on any career-advancing opportunities to which newbies may not be privy. A mentor can make you the beneficiary of his or her experience. What Can Your Mentor Do for You? When you encounter an unfamiliar situation at work and dont know how to deal with it- for example, a workplace bullyor a boss that doesnt seem to like you- a mentor can give you advice to successfully overcome it. There is a good chance he or she has either been through a similar situation or knows someone who has.Because he or sheis on a higher rung on the career ladder, your mentorhas access to opportunities you do not yet have. His or her status can open up some of these opportunities to you. For example, he or she can score coveted invitations to industry events and provide introductions to influential people in your field. Your mentorcan alert you to job opportunities within your organization or elsewhere.Your mentor can point you in the right direction when it comes to investing in your continued education and training. If you both work in the same occupational field, he or she will know what additional skills and certifications are valuable.Ifyou have to decide whether toaccept a job offer, he or shecan look it over to see if it is a fair deal.When it comes time to ask your boss for a raise, your mentor can give you tips on how to negotiate a higher salary. How to Find a Mentor After learning about the numero us benefits, you probably want to find a mentor as soon as possible. Some companies have formal mentoring programs. They either match new employees with mentors or respond to requests for them. Contact your employers human resources department to learn more. If your employer doesnt have a formal mentoring program, it will be up to you to find someone. Your professional network is the best place to start. abflug putting out feelers to see if anyone is willing to help. Remember this person does not have to work for the same employer but, ideally, should be in the same field.For this relationship to be as useful as possible, your mentor should have several more years of experience. Another good way to find a mentor is through a professional association. Many can match new members with seasoned ones. If you dont already belong to one, this would be a good reason to join. College alumni associations are also a good source for mentors. They can match recent graduates with older alumni. Tips for Having a Successful Relationship Choose a mentor whose goals are similar to yours. He or she must be much further along on the same or a similar career path.It is advantageous if your mentors training is the same as yours. Someone in the samecareer fieldis in a better position to advise you.Ask your mentor if he or she can commit to the relationship. You will have to meet regularly, and he or she will have to be able to respond to your requests for advice in a timely fashion. If this isnt possible, find someone else with whom to work. Accommodate your mentors busy schedule. For example, if he or she wants to meet with you before or after work, dont make excuses about being too busy or tired.Dont wait for someone to offer to be your mentor. If you think someone will make a good advisor, ask that person for his or her help.

How to Explain Work History Gaps in the Interview

How to Explain Work History Gaps in the InterviewHow to Explain Work History Gaps in the InterviewHow to Explain Work History Gaps in the InterviewNobody follows a seamless, unbroken career path. Just doesnt happen. Logically, it follows that everyone will eventually have an employment gap to explain at a job interview. And theres a simple, three-step method to explain this to your potential employer acknowledge, reassure, and redirect.Heres how it worksACKNOWLEDGE Describe the situation very briefly and factually, and acknowledge that it is a valid concern. Keep your emotions out of it. Dont be detailed, defensive, or apologetic. Just stick to the facts.ExampleBetween 1999 and 2003, I was _____. I can understand that the situation might concern you, Mr. Smith. REASSURE Explain what steps you took to resolve the problem that caused the gap. The employers main concern is that you will turn out to be a badeanstalt hire, so reassure them that there is no risk of similar problems in the future.ExampleDuring that time, I am proud to say that I ____. In retrospect, it was an extraordinary experience that taught me many positive lessons. And now, with that chapter closed, Im ready to take on my next challenge.REDIRECT Finish your explanation with a question about the job, or a statement about your more recent accomplishments to steer the conversation back to your positive qualifications for the job at hand.ExampleMy ____ experience seems like excellent preparation for the challenges of this position. What are the most important goals youd like the person who fills this role to accomplish in the first three to six months?This method is useful whether your issue is a voluntary or involuntary employment gap, a past medical crisis, a criminal record, or anything in between. Basically, any sort of potentially negative news can be addressed in this manner. And remember, youre not alone. No matter what caused that gap in your resume, lots of other people have been in the sam e situation and gone back to gainful employment. You will, too.

Mind Your Social Netiquette

Mind Your Social NetiquetteMind Your Social NetiquetteYour manners and etiquette matter online in social networks.Social networking Web sites are becoming an indispensable part of the job search.As your relationships move online, its easy to track and manage your contacts and connections. Unfortunately, its also easy to forget your social skills. Ignoring a contacts hello feels less harsh when its done from 3,000 miles away. Sharing a racy joke with the group binnenseems harmless when its done on your mobile phone between interviews. But snubs still sting, and tawdry remains tactless.According to social networking experts, everything you need to succeed in the medium, you learned in kindergarten.Theyre the same social rules as anywhere else, said Lindsay Olson, a partner and recruiter at Paradigm Staffing, who uses social networking to identify potential recruits and vet candidates once their names have come up. Theres a very thin line between keeping in touch and blatant self promot ion. Stepping over that line will really turn people off.Make Friends and Earn FavorsThe key is to keep the other person in mind and go out of your way to be both polite and helpful - before you need help yourself, said Paul Gillin, a social networking consultant at Paul Gillin Communications and author of The New Influencers and Secrets of Social Media Marketing.The etiquette is that you help people out and then when you need it, they help you out in return, Gillin said.The social networking site LinkedIn provides built-in ways for people to contribute. Members can submit questions to the group, plead for jobs, deutsche bundespost openings at their company and recommend a friend or colleague. Providing answers, resources or tips passing along a resume or making an introduction can build social equity, Gillin said.Be Useful, Not PleadingTwitter is a microblogging site that allows users to post brief (140-character) messages that can be read by members in their network, called follo wers. Some use Twitter messages, called Tweets, to broadcast their location or status on a project, or just to say hello to a friend. Resourceful job seekers have made Twitter part of their self-promotion engine. But be sure not to inundate followers with a constant stream of boasts, Olson said. Blatant self promotion or begging for work will turn off your audienceIf youre using a site like Twitter or Facebook to promote yourself, make sure you slip your sales pitch in between useful information like articles from trade publications, white papers on your industry and helpful advice.Dont Be Shy Dont Be PushyDont hesitate to ask for introductions to anothers contact or circle and expect to do the same, said Gillin. It feels like trading, but its networking, he said.(Theres nothing) wrong with asking people to write a recommendation its a normal business request, he said. Its a give-to-get situation. Often when you write a recommendation, even unsolicited, youll get one in return. But dont shake down your contacts, said Isabel Walcott Hilborn, owner of Strategic Internet Consulting and founder of SmartGirl.com, a 200,000-member social network for teenage girls. People are nice. They usually are happy to help if its a genuine request and not just spam or self promotion.Dont be a CreepConsider the creep factor when calling someone youve researched online or through social networks, Gillin said.If someone contacted you out of thin air and had all this information about you that you didnt know welches out there, that might creep you out, Gillin said. The way to get around that is to be open with who you are and where you got the information. Say, ZoomInfo said you used to work at this company while I was there too, and I was hoping to make a connection.Adopt a professional manner its a business contact, and youre reaching out in a business sense, he said. Dont make it overly personal. That eliminates a lot of the creep factor.Be ActiveA public profile can put you on someones radar or keep you there, Olson said. Whether you submitted your resume cold or you were in for an interview, a connection on a social network and frequent activity can keep your name in a recruiters or contacts ear. People arent going to remember me because I made one recruiting call to them five years ago, Olson said, but if they see me posting things all the time, theyre going to know who I am when I call.BehaveAs any number of college students and one Miss America contestant can tell you, its bad form to record your indiscretions and post the evidence on a public Web site. Embarrassing photos or remarks can surface during your job search. Recruiters and hiring managers routinely search social networking sites for background information, and many will hold photos of youthful hijinks against you.Get Googled Get FoundA Web developer doesnt rely on luck to drive readers to his Web site. He uses search engine optimization (SEO) to increase the likelihood search engines will s howcase his Web pages. Your profiles on LinkedIn and other social networks should be no different. Make sure recruiters can find you.SEO relies on the concept that the mora prominently a Web page appears in search results, the more searchers will visit the page. Optimizing your profile pushes it toward the top.SEO marketers (a budding job classification) add keywords, which are the terms that are most likely to be queried by a Web searcher interested in the topic you are trying to promote - in this case, your career. If you want to be noticed by anyone who needs a Database Administrator with MySQL experience, your profile should include those specific terms, instead of more generic or less descriptive terms like DBA or database admin and any specific languages or skills the recruiter might search for.Choosing the right network for your profile can also help. While Facebook might be a larger, more useful network for your profession, LinkedIn is particularly well positioned for Googl e searches.Promote Your Ambitions, Not Your PastNow that youve finished optimizing your profile for search, make sure it matches what you want to do, not just what youve done, Olson said. Choose words that match your aspirations, not just your history.If I were a digital-marketing person and I wanted to move into an SEO job, Id put it in as an area of interest or whatever, she said, as long as I got those keywords into the text so I could be found on those searches.Dont Just Use One NetworkLinkedIn may be the most widely known and used social network purely for business contacts. However it isnt right for everyone or every situation. You may run into situations where you identify a company or individual you need to contact and use other searches to find mail addresses, phone numbers or other information to get you closer to that contact. ZoomInfo, Spock and other business-information aggregation sites are great places to gather information about your target companies or hiring manag ers.Finish the JobThe biggest mistake most people make using LinkedIn, Facebook and social networks is that they dont complete their profiles with all the content about their experience, skills and miscellaneous information that could be relevant. Whats more, they dont pursue contacts, said Shally Steckerl, a recruiting consultant and founder of Jobmachine.com. Omitting information makes it difficult for recruiters to find your profile and hard for your network to connect you to new opportunities through mutual contacts.Follow ThroughYour network doesnt build itself. You have to take advantage of the opportunities to expand your reach. When you meet someone at an event or on the phone, ask if she minds if you link to her, then do it.Its exactly like real life, like a virtual water cooler where you talk to your friends or co-workers, Hilborn said. If youre the kind of person who never needs anything a job or a plumber or advice on how to raise your baby go ahead and skip the whole social networking thing. But if you ever need anything from anyone else, social networks can help you.