General Careers Articles

Cheat Sheet / Updated 12-11-2024

Sooner or later in your professional life, you'll have to give an important presentation. Before the presentation, rehearse and ask someone to evaluate your performance. Discover the common project management pitfalls to avoid in the ever-growing array of huge, complex, and technically challenging projects in today's world. Finally, before you call it a day at work, take a few steps to prepare for tomorrow so you can start your day off on the right foot.

Cheat Sheet / Updated 08-14-2024

Whether you’re exploring a new career path, are a language enthusiast seeking to turn your passion into a profession, or an experienced translator looking to refine your skills, you need a few essential tools to confidently navigate the world of translation. This Cheat Sheet covers key steps for successfully launching or advancing your career as a translator.

Step by Step / Updated 06-26-2024

Whether you’re working from home or working in an office, there comes a time when you tend to sit for way too long. Sitting too long on a regular basis can, over time, shorten your hip flexors and the muscles in your hamstrings, chest, and back, resulting in uncomfortable muscle tension. Experts recommend getting up out of your chair a couple of times an hour or, more specifically, taking 3- to 5-minute breaks every 20 to 40 minutes. Whenever you get up from your desk in your home workspace, choose from the following selections of stretching exercises to help lengthen your muscles, reduce stress and tension, and get your blood pumping again — and, in turn, sitting still will feel a lot less like hard work.

Article / Updated 03-06-2024

In finding a career, many people take career “tests,” struggle to get informational interviews, and even take career workshops. And despite all that, they end up far from sure they’ve made a wise choice of career. These steps can help you pick a career wisely: What career type are you? Which one or two of these are you: a word person, people person, Science-Technology-Engineering-Math (STEM) person, hands-on person, or entrepreneurial? Scan the options. Most people consider only a small fraction of worthy careers. A fast way to broaden your options is to scan books that profile lots of careers. Careers for Dummies provides a scoop on 340 good careers plus self-employment ideas. Also, the federal government publishes the Occupational Outlook Handbook, which offers more detailed (if drier) introductions to 250 careers. Embrace Google Search. Because Google Search is free, it’s easy to underestimate its potency. But it’s a remarkable curator of incomprehensibly large amounts of information. So do use Google Search to find articles and video introductions to careers that pique your interest. Particularly look for those that focus on a day in the life. These articles and videos are often more valid than an informational interview or three because each article or video may distill the experiences of multiple people in the field. Use a pros-and-cons list with a twist. Make pros- and-cons lists of two or three careers you’re now considering. Pick the one that feels best. How are you feeling about that? Now imagine that you picked the other career. Feeling better or worse? Now pick. Even if your top-choice career doesn’t feel perfect, it’s usually wiser to start preparing for that career. Most people who end up happy in their career feel that way after only they’ve become competent at it and have tailored and accessorized it to fit their preferences and strengths. If you wait on the sidelines for the perfect career to hit you upside your head, you may be waiting a long time. It’s wiser to pick a career sooner than later and then tweak as you go. Of course, the devil is the details. Careers for Dummies gives you all the details you need to wisely choose your career.

Cheat Sheet / Updated 01-18-2024

This cheat sheet offers tips on how personality tests can help you find your career path and includes a worksheet to track your plan to pursue your passion.

Article / Updated 10-19-2023

Personal branding is about deciding to take an active role in the direction of your life. You benefit from creating a personal brand because it allows you to self-manage your life and stop depending on others to do it for you. Your personal brand helps you make the most of what you’ve got to offer. Permission to be yourself The personal branding process assures you that it’s okay to be yourself. If you’ve built your life on pretenses — on attempts to be someone you are not — this assurance is a huge relief. Personal branding is about expressing your authentic self by allowing you to be the person you are meant to be. The strategic process of personal branding makes you an active partner in creating the direction of your life. You get to decide what your unique promise of value is and who you want to share it with. Gains in confidence You develop confidence as you develop your personal brand. That confidence comes from looking at your strengths and knowing that you have many positive qualities to share. When you know that you have something of value to offer, your self-esteem soars. Your personal brand done well highlights your strengths and gives you a direction in which to use them. As an added bonus, personal branding also minimizes your weaknesses. It’s human nature to want to improve your weaknesses, but by crafting your brand, you can determine whether you really need to use your weakest skills at all. Building credibility Your target audience wants to know that you can do what you say you’re going to do. You build credibility not through your words but through your actions. If you live your personal brand and keep your brand promise to your target market, you are automatically on the path to credibility. Your actions, which align with your brand, validate that you can be trusted and show that you are credible. Showcasing your specialty You need to specialize and have an area of expertise. When asked what you do best, your answer can’t be “everything.” No one knows what that means. To develop a specialty, the best place to start is with what you know. What can you do that few others know how to do? What segment of the population do you understand better than most people in your field do? You have a unique combination of work experience, life experience, and personal characteristics that create the foundation for determining your niche. To be known in a certain niche, you are wise to choose an area of expertise or market segment that you know well and that you enjoy. Leaving your mark Part of the branding process is becoming known for something. Your first step is to identify your best characteristics so that you know what to build on. In a way, developing a personal brand is a means of ensuring that you leave a legacy. People will remember you through your actions, your expertise, and the emotional connections that you make. But keep in mind that strong brands often repel as much as they attract; not everyone belongs in your target audience. Defining who you are means that you need to be brave enough to let your true self be visible. Connection to your target audience Personal branding success requires communicating your message to the right people — not necessarily to the entire world. And it requires communicating in a way that creates emotional connections with your target audience. You simply cannot build a solid brand without building relationships, which are based on emotional connections. Building a strong personal brand helps you interact with your target audience in a clear, consistent way that quickly becomes familiar. That consistency builds trust in your target audience, which allows those emotional connections to form. Distinguishing yourself from the competition You are hardwired to notice what is different. You notice the person dressed in red in a sea of black clothing. Differentiation is crucial to your personal branding success. If you are like everyone else in the market, you are a commodity, and you look the same to the customer as all the other options. If your target market discerns nothing special about you, it’s easy for the customer to pass you by. The support you need People genuinely want to help you. The problem is that if you are vague about what you need, no one is going to jump in and try to figure your life out for you (except perhaps your mother). You need to be clear about who you are and what you need so that you can ask for support with clarity. If you know what you need, you know what to ask for. Defining your personal brand helps you determine your needs and identify who is most likely able to fulfill them. Focusing your energy You are probably as crazy busy as everyone else is. A benefit of having a personal brand is that when you have a clear understanding of who you are, what you do best, who you want to work with, and how you want to use your talents, you also know what you don’t want in your life. Using your personal brand like a filter allows you to more easily say yes to the right opportunities and say no to the wrong opportunities. You know what is “on brand” and what is “off brand” for you. Branding gives you clarity so that you can focus your energy on what’s truly important to you. Letting yourself be lazy A personal brand helps you avoid the need to reinvent yourself and the tools you use in your professional life. After you pinpoint your expertise, your goal is to use it over and over so that you reap maximum benefits from it. (Perhaps you write an article that is then broken down into blog posts and later becomes the subject of a presentation to a professional association.) The beauty of personal branding is that while it’s never static (you always want to learn and grow), it thrives on consistency. And consistency requires you to use key pieces of your branding puzzle again and again even as your personal brand evolves. So do your tough work up front and reap the rewards down the road. And remind yourself that it’s sometimes good to be lazy!

Article / Updated 10-19-2023

To reach the right target market, you need to identify who its members are. Visualize yourself working with your ideal client, company, service, or scenario. For example, here are possible characteristics of an ideal client: Appreciates the work that I do Pays me well and pays in advance Loves the service that I provide Trusts my expertise and lets me serve him or her using my best judgment Refers other dream clients to me Promotes my work to everyone he or she talks to Dreaming about the perfect situation gets you thinking about who would actually be the right target audience for you to put your time, energy, and effort into pursuing. You then conduct thorough research to locate the people you've envisioned. Developing a positioning statement A positioning statement is a tool used in business to identify how a brand will be positioned in the market. It puts into words what makes a brand important and differentiated so that it is noticed by those who need to know about it. Here's how to develop your own statement: Define your target audience. Who do you want to serve? Figure out your frame of reference. What is your point of view? What category do you want to participate in? Identify points of difference. What distinctive benefits do you bring to your target audience? How do you stand out from the competition? Offer support. Support is the evidence that your positioning statement is true. You need credible proof that you are what you say you are. State your promise or core benefit. Here, you pull the four previous pieces together to let your target audience know what the net benefit is to them.

Article / Updated 10-19-2023

The first step in the personal branding process is to spend time figuring out who you really are and what you want from your life. Often, this self-analysis is the hardest part. Here are the building blocks of your brand that you need to identify: Needs: Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is a helpful tool that shows layers of needs from the most basic (physiological needs, such as food) all the way up to self-actualization — becoming everything that you are capable of becoming. Values: These are core principles that give meaning to your life — a set of standards that determine your attitudes, choices, and actions. Interests/passions: The things that intrigue and motivate you determine how you want to spend your time. Mission: Everyone should have a mission statement — an expression that clarifies what you are all about and what you want to do in life. Vision: Your ideal version of how you will use your mission is your vision. Strengths: Certain abilities and patterns of interest consistently produce a positive outcome in your life, and these are your strengths. Freak factor: This term refers to a unique quality that makes you different and unusual. Personality attributes: Describing the face that you show to the world helps you define your personality. Education and work experience: These attributes are easy to identify because they're based on fact. 360º feedback: The people who know you best (such as friends and coworkers) can provide key information about your character. Goals: Getting specific about what you want to achieve greatly increases your chances of success. Target market positioning statement: This tool identifies how your brand will be positioned in your target market. It puts into words what makes your brand important and unique so that the people who need to know about you can clearly understand what you represent.

Article / Updated 10-19-2023

Personal branding is about making connections, and the logo you choose should connect with your audience. A logo creates awareness. It can be a symbol, text, a graphic, or a combination of these things. (Keep in mind that people recognize images more often than they remember text.) It symbolizes your brand and provides an image that gives you a memorable identity. Many people associate logos only with company brands, but you can have a logo made just for you as an individual. You want to keep your logo simple and clean. Here are some other tips for creating a great logo: Shape or symbol: Symbols are powerful. Create your logo so that it’s easy to understand and see without glasses. Color: Use the color(s) that you consistently employ to represent your personal brand. Use colors that attract the people you want to attract. Most logos use vibrant colors in order to have the greatest impact. Size: When you place your logo into your materials, it should be large enough to see clearly and small enough that it doesn’t dominate. (Make sure that you have your logo in a file format that allows you to resize it for various projects.) Brand connection: Think about how you want people to emotionally connect with you. Find a symbol that you care about and use it to connect with others. If you love your logo and feel good about it, you’ll feel great about putting it on display, so take your time and design something wonderful. And don’t be a copycat; you want your logo to be unique. If you struggle to create a logo yourself, spend the money to get professional help. A great logo pays dividends by attracting business, and (ideally) you want a logo that you can use for years. If you don’t know any designers, you can find one online at a design sites like Upwork, Deluxe Logo Design, or ZillionDesigns.

Article / Updated 10-19-2023

You don't just communicate your personal brand in person; you should communicate your brand online as well. A profile hub can serve as a central point for all your online activity (your blog or website, Twitter account, photo gallery, and so on). Content for your profile may include A brief bio about who you are Links to your social media sites (such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and business fan pages) The name, products, and/or services of your business If appropriate, your key clients Your education Special features that enhance your personal brand, such as a favorite quote or testimonial Videos highlighting who you are and what you do Your photo Links to — or PDF versions of — articles you've written, slides, or other visuals you've produced Popular profile hubs include: LinkedIn: This site helps you build effective business relationships based on nurturing the "know, like, and trust" factor. If you are just beginning to think about using online tools to showcase your personal brand to your business and social networks, begin with LinkedIn. Facebook: Facebook helps you tell your story in ways that connect, inform, and entertain. This allows you to navigate the gentle balance of being social while also sharing enough of your personal brand to offer a satisfying taste of what others experience when they meet you in person. But, as your mother always told you, be careful who you hang out with! Your community of choice makes an impression. About.me: Create a personal home page that's free and easy to set up. There's no need to create a website when you can use About.me as your hub. Visitors can view your site without logging on, and you can use it as your central point of contact.