Skills Archives - Page 4 of 5 - The Voice of Job Seekers

3 Skills to Showcase When a Resume Lacks Experience

You may be surprised to hear your resume lacks experience, but changing it is not as difficult a task as you may have initially thought.

The truth of the matter is that you can do various things to, in a way, pad out a rather empty resume and how it may very well increase your chances of getting that all important job.

Add experience by volunteering
One of the first things that you can do is to volunteer at various places for a short period of time and include it your resume. The idea is to let them see that you have kept yourself busy even if it was not in paid employment and can see you can deal with people, respond positively to instruction, and work in a team environment. This can help boost your resume and make more attractive to potential employers.

Get quality references for everything
When you lack career experience give a potential employer the chance to talk to people worked for or volunteered. Talk to people that know you personally. These references can be extremely useful in helping you state your case for working there. When you lack experience potential employers will contact them. Make sure that the people that are listed will tell people how wonderful you are to help you get that job.

Write a gushing report about yourself and your strengths
Finally, it will always be a good idea to showcase your various strengths and make sure that you sell yourself on your resume. This could potentially overlook your lack of experience when they see how confident you can handle the job. If you are applying for various positions in different industries, then be clever and rewrite this part for each resume you forward. Make sure that different strengths are mentioned for the industry you hope to work. By doing this, you can make yourself appear to be more attractive to a potential employer.

Hopefully you will now see that getting around the lack of experience in your resume really is not as difficult as you may have initially feared and as long as you take the advice that has been given here seriously, then there will be no need for you to fear handing over your resume when going for that job.

All that is required from you is to play to your other strengths and let them see why they should hire you in the first place thanks to being a fantastic person and not because you have so much experience that they simply cannot ignore you.

What volunteer work can you add to your resume? Please share in the comments section below?

About author: Miles Wiseman is a writer and blogger from Brisbane who takes particular interest in finance, business and employment. He writes about all the interesting things related to job search, career progress, etc.

About Mark Anthony Dyson

I am the "The Voice of Job Seekers!" I offer compassionate career and job search advice as I hack and re-imagine the job search process. You need to be "the prescription to an employer's job description." You must be solution-oriented and work in positions in companies where you are the remedy. Your job search must be a lifestyle, and your career must be in front of you constantly. You can no longer shed your aspirations at the change seasons. There are strengths you have that need constant use and development. Be sure you sign up to download my E-Book, "421 Modern Job Search Tips 2021!" You can find my career advice and work in media outlets such as Forbes, Inc., Fast Company, Harvard Business Review, Glassdoor, and many other outlets.

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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About Mark Anthony Dyson

by SandraTedford

Do You Know What Skills Employers Are Looking For?

Do you know someone who is currently unemployed? Whether you’ve been unemployed yourself or you know someone who’s been affected by the economic turbulence over the past four years, it can be quite frustrating. Having experienced unemployment before, I can tell you it’s terribly frustrating. Do you know what skills employers are looking for?

One reason among others, why unemployment is so frustrating, is the fact that the number of unemployed workers outnumbers the number of unfilled jobs 4 to 1.

Seems rather strange wouldn’t you agree?

There’s a gap in the skills employers require and workers possess.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics they’re currently 12.1 million unemployed persons in the United States.

Approximately 50 percent of the 1,361 U.S.based companies surveyed indicated in a recent survey by Manpower, U.S.companies are having difficulty filling open positions . Positions include high skilled jobs requiring advanced training. Additionally, the study showed American companies are less likely to invest in training than their foreign counterparts.

Similarly, a USA Today article cited 58% of high skilled Manufacturing and Engineering jobs go unfilled for at least three to six months.

Why?

Well one reason is training. Job Training is a major issue in the U.S. If employers want to fill high skilled jobs, they’ll need find the right talent.

Similarly if potential hires are pursuing careers in one of these sectors, they’ll need to find out what skills employers are looking for.

Furthermore, what does this mean for job seekers?

It means job seekers will have to shift their thinking and how they view work in the new economy.

In order to fill highly skilled jobs, candidates should consider adopting an entrepreneurial mindset. This includes exploring three ideas in how they approach their job search:

Find the need and fill it.

Find out what specific skills employers are looking for. Then find out how to acquire those skills.

Do you have to obtain formal training from a university or community college?

Are workshops and seminars available?

Google is a great research tool to find free and paid events in and around your city related to your industry.

What skills are hot right now?

Try attending industry workshops and seminars to find out what direction the industry headed.

Who are the leaders in the industry?

Using LinkedIn can be a valuable resource to research companies and leaders within those organizations.

Answering the questions above is the first step to help you develop a plan to narrow your professional skills gap. It will also help you determine how you can differentiate yourself from other job seekers.

Finding Work Is Your Business

Potential hires have to look at finding work as their business and not the headhunter or corporate recruiter. Every interview is like a new lead that could lead to a new job.

How many leads do you have in the pipeline? Look at this way. The more people you meet, the more leads you’ll be able to generate.

Additionally, treat the employer like a first class business would treat a customer. Think of the company hiring as a client.

3. Find a Network that’s Working

In a previous post, I posed the question “Is Your Social Network Working?” and the importance of utilizing your online network to find work. Basically, if you’re not on LinkedIn, join.

Start developing you’re online portfolio by building your online network. Creating a LinkedIn profile will help you build your online portfolio.

As I mentioned before, I highly recommend creating a profile on LinkedIn if you’re looking for work or a career change. Join groups and find people on LinkedIn that are working in your specific industry. LinkedIn also recognizes the “Top Influencer of the Week” for members who share information that others either like or post a comment. Begin networking people who are proven leaders in your industry.

Don’t be intimidated. Remember, they were once job seekers themselves and sat in the same seat you are currently seated.

What about you? What are your plans to acquire skills to improve your job search and career?

About Sandra Tedford

WETALKtoday stands for "Web Entrepreneurs Talk" and provides a platform for business and tech savvy entrepreneurs with information and resources to grow their business in the new economy.