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Six Reasons Your Job Networking Efforts Fail

One of the hardest parts of searching for jobs is finding the who, what, when, how and why. For successful job networking, you need to have conversations. that will move you closer to a job. What? You haven’t networked? Then you may have one of these problems:

1. You don’t go out to meet new people. Your list of 10 people you know is not enough. Not only do you not call them, but you haven’t talked to them in ages. Use that list of 10 to lead you to at least one person they know, and so on. It doesn’t hurt to attend an event that allows you to have productive conversations. Consider that “everywhere is networking and networking is everywhere!” Running errands at the store, movies, dry cleaning, barber shop, beauty salons, Panera Bread, The Corner Bakery, walking the dog and the playground with the kids are networking spots. It’s a lifestyle…and an adventure.

2. You vehemently oppose social networking. There are enough stories on the web about people connecting to get jobs, business opportunities and information now for you to throw caution to the wind…well, kind of. Yes, be shrewd about who you connect and give information to. As a whole, DO NOT fear using social sites as a tool to meet people. You can be old school all you want, but the lack of use of social networking tools will leave you irrelevant and unemployed. Why not use every possible means of communication to meet new people.

3. Gimme, gimme, lemme, gimme. In case you haven’t figured it out, the reason people may be apprehensive about helping you is that you don’t reciprocate. Sometimes this means giving first and not receiving at first. What value is it to network with you if you don’t give. If you desire effectiveness, take this approach: It’s hardly about you and more about everyone else. Trust me, people will notice and will offer before you ask. It just takes a little time.

Read about the other three reasons at BET.com!

by Mark Anthony Dyson

How to Plan Wise Career Changes

Editor’s note: Steve Armstrong is the contributor today. His bio is at the end of the article.

New Career?

Tired of being misunderstood, ridiculed, or feel exploited at work? Or do you just think that your skills should be developed further, and that you have already reached the point where the joy of work transforms itself into everyday routine?

It is time to change your career path, or simply find another job, unless you want to work hard without being respected or appreciated.

Career Planning

You need to make a decision about your desire for career changes. If you change your career path, it means doing something completely different. For example, you are a journalist, and now want to work in the field of engineering. Otherwise, you could take your chance to find such a job similar to the previous one (switching from journalism to teaching English Literature). Everyone has his own career path.

Career path may be defined as the way to develop yourself professionally, based on your current personal skills, professional competencies, education and work experience. In order to plan your career wisely, you should analyze your skills well (e.g. responsibility, punctuality, ability to work in dynamic environment, etc.) and to use them for enhancing your professional competencies (for a teacher they could be: knowledge in the specific field of teaching, pedagogy, work with specific documentation, etc.).

Most people do not realize their career plans or do not feel free to choose career paths. It leads to frustration and low self-esteem. Therefore, if you want to change your career path, first you should know more about it. Analyze yourself, ask friends and relatives, ask career counselors. They will help you. After that, start planning your career: its goals, actions you should take to achieve them, expected results.

More specific steps that a person can consider while thinking about changing his or her career include:

Think of whether you are satisfied with your current job or not
Decide if you need to change your career
Try to assess yourself: interests, skills and values
Brainstorm on the list of alternative occupations and explore them carefully
Set your goals
Prepare a career action plan
Train yourself for a career you want to pursue

When to Change Your Career

Now, it is time to reflect on the question: are you satisfied with your current job? If no, why? In what respect do your expectations differ from the reality? Maybe you have planned your career in a wrong way?

Look at your skills, competencies and (especially!) work experience. What kind of job could give you the pleasant feeling of working hard, being respected and well-paid?

Remember: If you are a thesis writer, working as an accountant could put you in trouble (providing you don’t have education or experience in accounting). Thus, look for a job that would be easy for you to adapt to. It’s never late to do it.

Plan and Educate

In conclusion, it must be said that in order to change your career wisely, it requires a lot of critical reflections and self-analysis. Plan your career as precisely as possible, formulate your expectations and work on developing your skills and competencies, to be sure that you will find the right job for you in the easiest way.

Author Bio: Steve Armstrong works part-time for a college paper writing service at http://www.solidessay.com/our-services/thesis-writer, where he consults students on how to format and structure their research papers and dissertations. Read more here.

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by Mark Anthony Dyson

Succeeding in the Job Search Today [INFOGRAPHIC]

At some point or another, most of us will go through the long-winded process that is the job search. It’s a tough business to be in, especially if you’re not getting the results you want. However, when you’ve done your research and have the proper information on your side, the outcome of your job search will likely come out in your favor.

This infographic, compiled by Interview Success Formula, a program that helps job seekers to deliver powerful interview answers, illustrates how job seekers can navigate through the job search today and how to do well in the process. Some takeaways to note include:

80 percent of available jobs are never advertised
20 percent of job applicants get interviews
The average length of an interview is approximately 40 minutes
The most important characteristics in a job applicant are multitasking, initiative, and creative thinking

Some other takeaway points that you should implement in your job search strategy:

Find out what are the job search tools you need to be the most competitive. If you need to have a portfolio find out what is the content that would differentiate you and other candidates.
Understand the brand differentiation for you to stand out in the field. Interviewers will compare and contrast your value versus candidates.
Be prepared to tell and show. Take the guess work from potential employers and demonstrate how your skills would translate to the open position he or she is hiring for.
Your preparedness is as good as your research and industry knowledge. Interviewing requires some anticipation of what questions will be asked to exploit weaknesses. Be ready to show that your weaknesses became strengths and were non-factors to your tremendous successes.

Check out the full infographic below and let us know your thoughts in the comments!

What do you think? What are some other ways to succeed in the job search?