JibberJobber Apps iOS and Android Now Available

JibberJobber Apps iOS and Android Now Available Filed in its about time!, we are finally announcing the version 1 apps for Android and iOS.  Thats right, we now got our coveted app buttons (click either of these, they work): Please send us your feedback so we can improve the next few versions. Well be working on this the rest of this year (probably the rest of forever) to make these powerful tools for you and your career. Id also appreciate any honest ratings in the stores, but if you feel like you should give us a low rating, Id rather have you not do that and just message us to let us know why, so we can fix it.  Otherwise, people look at low ratings and think THEY SUCK! while its just stuff we need to improve on.  If you tell us, well work on it. JibberJobber Apps iOS and Android Now Available Filed in its about time!, we are finally announcing the version 1 apps for Android and iOS.  Thats right, we now got our coveted app buttons (click either of these, they work): Please send us your feedback so we can improve the next few versions. Well be working on this the rest of this year (probably the rest of forever) to make these powerful tools for you and your career. Id also appreciate any honest ratings in the stores, but if you feel like you should give us a low rating, Id rather have you not do that and just message us to let us know why, so we can fix it.  Otherwise, people look at low ratings and think THEY SUCK! while its just stuff we need to improve on.  If you tell us, well work on it.

Are Projects the New Job Interview - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Are ‘Projects’ the New Job Interview - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career In this week’s blog I want to share with you some of the content of a very interesting, thought-provoking article published on the online edition of Harvard Business Review (www.hbr.org): “Projects are the next job interviews,” by Michael Schrage, a research fellow at MIT Sloan School’s Center for Digital Business, and author of Serious Play. “Résumés are dead. Interviews are largely ineffectual. LinkedIn ® is good. Portfolios are useful.” That’s the opening statement of Schrage’s article. And, while this might ultimately prove to be the case, based upon what I know about today’s job market, Mark Twain’s famous “the rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated” quote comes to mind.   (This is what Twain, who was very much alive at the time, reportedly said after reading his “obituary” in the newspaper!) Still, Schrage gives us plenty to think about in his article and makes some interesting, compelling points to consider. Projects the Real Future of Hiring? “Projects are the real (emphasis mine) future of hiring,” he says, “especially knowledge working hiring.” No matter how good one’s references may be, or how much of a dynamite professional brand one may have created and maintained, or even how well one scores on “brain-teasers” such as those offered by Microsoft ® and Google ®, serious firms will increasingly ask serious candidates to do serious work in order to get a serious job offer, Schrage contends. (All emphasis is Schrage’s.) Some of today’s job seekers are already being asked by some companies to put their money where their mouths are before being seriously considered for certain jobs, and Schrage says many more will be asked to do so in the future, by completing projects for potential employers. For example, a candidate may be asked to redesign a social media campaign, or to edit a keynote speech for a company executive, or to document a tricky piece of software, ad infinitum. (The type and scope of the project would seem to be limited only by  the imagination of the hiring managers for any given company taking this approach.) Schrage says future job seekers can forget about interrogatory job interviews and the predictable questions that are part and parcel of such interviews, e.g., “What’s your greatest weakness?” (And similar questions, of course.) Introducing the Appliject “The real question will be how well candidates can rise to the ‘appliject’ [a contraction of “application” and “project”] challenge,” he says. Schrage acknowledges that, to some people (particlarly the candidates),  this practice may be, or at least seem to be, somewhat exploitative, but he adds, “Most organizations have learned the hard way that no amount of interviewing, reference checking and/or psychological testing is a substitute for actually working with a candidate on a real project.” Candidates who participate in screening projects must usually sign Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) and are sometimes even pitted against several other candidates vying for the same positions and assigned the same projects. “But theres nothing fake or artificial about the value theyre expected to offer,” Schrage adds. “These organizations treat hiring as part of their on-boarding process. Hiring becomes more holistic . . . (and) . . . everyone in the enterprise now ‘gets’ that people only get hired if and only if they deliver something above and beyond a decent track record. . . .” Both Candidates,  Companies Can Test Drive Each Other Not only can the hiring companies who employ the project approach to candidate screening get a “taste” of what the candidates canâ€"and cannot!â€"possibly do for them, what value the candidate may be able to bring to the company, the candidates themselves also get a “taste” of what it would be like to work with real people from the company in real work situations. “Its worth something to know what its like to really work with ones colleagues, on a real project, as opposed to the all-too-misleading charade of iterative interviews,” Schrage says. Schrage adds that, just as many organizations have grown more skillful at conducting Skyped ® interviews and using web-based quizzes and questionnaire to more effectively screen candidates, he is betting that we’ll soon see new genres of project-based enterprise hiring practices. “Facebook ® and LinkedIn ® are obvious venues for ‘app-sourced’â€"that’s ‘app’ as in applicant, not applicationâ€"business project design,” he says. “Increasingly, project leaders will design milestones and metrics that make incorporating job candidates into the process more seamless and natural.” He predicts that savvy job-seekers will also develop a keen sense of which “applijects” are genuine invitations to genuine success and which ones are merely sleazy attempts to temporarily acquire cheap labor. Top Candidates Expected to  Quickly, Easily Adapt to Appliject “In the same way job candidates learn how to interview well, they’ll get the skills to ‘appliject’ well because they (will) understand how to optimize their influence and impact within the constraints of the project design,” he says. Schrage says, however, that the reason he is predicting that projects are (or will become) the new job interviews is not simply because he currently is seeing a nascent trend emerging. “(Rather) . . . because this appears to be a more efficient and effective mechanism for companies and candidates to gain the true measure of each other,” he said. “Designing great applijects and projeclications [a contraction of “project” and “applications”] will be a craft and art. The most successful utilizers will quickly be copied.” Why? “Because the brightest and most-talented people typically like having real-world opportunities to shine and succeed,” Schrage said. To be sure, Schrage’s article certainly gives all of us “food for thought.” Actually, my recruiting firm has represented candidates who have landed their dream jobs based, at least in part, upon projects that they themselves voluntarily submitted to hiring companies. So, I have had at least some positive experience with and professional knowledge of the efficacy of the project approach in general. Will Project-Based Screening in fact Replace Traditional Interview? Maybe, Maybe Not Will project-based screening in fact replace (or nearly replace) the traditional face-to-face (and telephone), interrogative interview process? Perhaps, but I don’t see it happening “overnight,” by any stretch of the imagination. (Nor am I suggesting that Schrage sees it that way, either.) More likely, I believe, is that it may gradually become a supplemental component of the entire candidate screening process, at least in the short term, and be utilized by very specific types of companies, e.g., advertising agencies, software companies, etc.â€"all companies that require a very specific and easily demonstrated skill (or lack thereof), such as copywriting, graphic design or programming. Still, I personally (and professionally) am left with some key questions. For example, is the résumé really  â€œdead,” as Schrage (and others) allege? Or, more likely, will it simply morph into something that still looks (and acts!) a lot like a résumé? Without a résumé (or some sort of logical mutation of one), how will job-seekers be screened for the “first cut”? How will they get in a position to even be considered for participating in a project-based screening process? Without at least cursory job interviews (telephone and/or face-to-face), how will “headhunters,” hiring managers and Human Resources professionals be able to get the all-important initial “read” on prospective candidates? As with most factors (and facets) of the job market, things have changed in recent years, are continuing to change today, and certainly will continue to change in the future. One factor has remained, and will continue to remain, largely unchanged, however: Only those candidates who have professionally branded themselves as “the best of the best” will continue to be seriously considered for the really good, top positions available, in today’s and tomorrow’s job market. Just as these candidates are the ones who excel in the current interview-based applicant screening process, they will also be the candidates who canâ€"and will!â€"rise to the occasion if (and when) the process evolves into a project-based one. They also will continue to be the candidates who walk away with the best jobs, every single time. Author: Skip Freeman  is the author of “Headhunter” Hiring Secrets: The Rules of the Hiring Game Have Changed . . . Forever!  and is the President and Chief Executive Officer of  The HTW Group (Hire to Win), an Atlanta, GA, Metropolitan Area Executive Search Firm. Specializing in the placement of sales, engineering, manufacturing and RD professionals, he has developed powerful techniques that help companies hire the best and help the best get hired.

Navigating the quarterlife crisis

Navigating the quarterlife crisis Scott Newberg flew into Logan airport in the middle of the night. He went straight home to his office, and in the dark room the blue light of his computer glared a screen full of unfinished work that piled up while he was gone. He sat down at the keyboard, and thats when he had the revelation. He gave notice. He has no other job lined up. He has no real plan for how he will make money. But the career he had was not fulfilling. One of the contributions Generations X and Y have made to the workplace is the quarterlife crisis. Its not the midlife crisis, typified by a baby boomer in a Porsche obsessively speeding. The quarterlife crisis happens in ones twenties and more likely involves takeout pizza and obsessive IMing. The journey toward crisis begins at college graduation, when the typical student has about ten thousand dollars in loans and no skills to land a decent job. Frank Furstenberg, professor of sociology at University of Pennsylvania, says the transition to adulthood is more arduous today than it was fifty years ago. Employers are not hiring people in their early 20s for staff jobs. Employers hire temps for positions that dont require experience. Society can incorporate people only when they get some experience working and there is a better match between employee and employer. With little to lose, most twentysomethings use their post-college time as an opportunity for finding oneself, seeing whats available, and trying a lot on for size. (Which translates to more than eight jobs before turning 32.) The new behavior, which looks remarkably like flailing, is appropriate for the new workplace. Jeffrey Arnett, psychologist at Clark University and author of Emerging Adulthood says, People have different personal time tables and its nice that people can make choices that are right for them. Yet this new phase in ones career is unnerving in light of the stability of previous generations of people in their 20s. And if the job-hopping doesnt stop by age thirty, the stress intensifies to crisis. Emerging adults have high expectations for work. It is not just a way to make a living, says Arnett. They want work to be fulfilling and to be an expression of their identities. This is true for Alexandra Robbins. She took the first job offered to her after college because she was seduced by the trappings: Short commute, friends at the company, office with a door. The pay was fine, but the work was not rewarding. She realized that in the post-college world, people are judged by their answer to the question, So, what do you do? And she knew she needed to do something that could define her. Typical of her generation, she does not claim to have extravagant dreams: I never had a big dream. I wanted to make a living writing. Dreams that are too specific lead to missed opportunities. As a writer she has become a sort of spokesperson for the generation of lost college graduates. Her recent book, Conquering Your Quarterlife Crisis, chronicles the ups and downs of people like her, who finally found their way. Like Furstenberg, Robbins sees that previous generations were more equipped to make the transition to adulthood. We cannot gain a foothold in society until age thirty. But our parents generation has twenty in their head. The crisis is a clash of generations. Fifty years ago, people expected to find a job for life right after college and be married with kids by 24. But for the current generation, Robbins declares, Thirty is the new twenty. Sure, GenXers and Ys have high expectations for work, and maybe theyre unreasonable, but the only way to find out is to try, says Arnett. Most people will fail. But by the time people are in their late twenties most have made peace with their dreams. Psychologically people tend to accommodate themselves to whatever they have. The problems start around age 27 or 28, when most people find a career. For people who do not feel settled, there is panic and what Arnett calls desperate and dangerous measures in order to reach their goals. Which brings us back to Newberg, whose wife is about to give birth. His plan is to stay home with the baby while she supports the family. And he will write music for commercials, though he has scant experience in the trade. And he will write some novels and shop them around. He wants to support his family in five years but has not figured out how many novels or musical compositions he would need to sell to do that. Those people who are not turning thirty might bristle at Newbergs plan. But he says, speaking for many in his generation, I dont want to be eighty and regret not taking this risk.

Understand Salary Negotiation By Knowing These Statistics

Understand Salary Negotiation By Knowing These Statistics Less than half â€" 43 percent â€" of PayScale Salary Negotiation survey respondents have ever asked for a raise in their current field. For the 57 percent who have not asked, the reasons most  often  cited are: My employer gave me a raise before I needed to ask for one (38 percent) Im uncomfortable negotiating salary (28 percent) I didnt want to be perceived as pushy (19 percent) You can download the image above as a high quality pdf   Download Salary Negotiation Statistics 112.18 KB 153 downloads ... Guide to Salary Negotiation PayScales Salary Negotiation Guide includes more than 15 total articles, including in-depth analysis of PayScales recent Salary Negotiation study. The survey  polled 31,000 people between 10/1/14 and 11/24/14 who took the PayScale Salary Survey to find out if they had ever negotiated their salary, how successful they were, and if they hadnt, what was holding them back. Salary Negotiation survey result takeaway: The higher your annual salary, the more likely you are to have asked for a raise and the more likely you are (with just a few exceptions) to have received it. While only 25 percent of those earning $10K-$20K received the raise they requested, 70 percent of those earning more than $150K received their requested raise. Women are more likely than men to state that they are uncomfortable in starting salary negotiation  â€" 31 percent vs. 23 percent â€" and that holds true even among C-level executives where 26 percent of female Chief Executives said they’re uncomfortable negotiating salary compared to 14 percent of male Chief Executives. The gender split between people who negotiate was largest in the Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction industry. More women than men in this industry have asked for a salary raise (51 percent vs. 40 percent), but men in the mining industry are also more likely to report that they received a salary raise without having to ask or have always been happy with their salary. For those that do ask for a salary increase, women in this field appear to be a bit more likely to receive the increase they requested (54 percent of women vs. 47 percent of men). Women holding an MBA degree seem to be struggling most with potential gender bias when it comes to salary negotiation. Of those who asked for a raise, only 48 percent of female MBA grads received the requested raise compared to 63 percent of male MBA grads. And, 21 percent of female MBA grads received no raise at all after requesting one, compared to 10 percent of male MBA grads. Gen Y is far less likely to have indulged in salary negotiation  and far more likely to be uncomfortable negotiating or worried about being perceived as pushy. Both likely stem from lack of experience. Baby Boomers, however, are more likely to say they didn’t negotiate salary for fear of losing their job, which could indicate a concern over age bias in the workplace. Workers with low job satisfaction are more likely to ask for a raise (54 percent) than those with high job satisfaction (41 percent), but only 19 percent of people with low job satisfaction receive the salary raise  they asked for, whereas 44 percent of workers with high job satisfaction receive the salary increase  they requested. 8

Importance of Sketch Writing Resume

Importance of Sketch Writing ResumeSketch writing resume is an effective means of presenting the details related to your career to different employers. It is one of the basic elements to be included in any professional resume. By no means, it should be neglected because the technical aspects would be quite important. However, sketch writing resume also needs some care and attention in order to serve its purpose successfully.Sketch writing resume is intended to support the rest of the elements of the professional resume such as skills, experience, interests, talents, abilities and so on. Aside from highlighting your competencies, it would also help to highlight your talents and the areas where you have been spending your time.Sketch writing resume should be based on facts and accurate information. Some of the common mistakes that are made by most of the amateur writers are some incorrect spelling and grammatical errors. This can greatly harm the impression that your employer gets from your resume. Avoid these errors if you want to get a high-ranking job.Always keep in mind that you should always be designing a resume that is professional, neat. This includes design of the page and color usage. You should consider your resume as a tool that serves as a platform for expressing yourself. Some important design elements are layout, font style, body, font size, paragraph spacing, bullet points, tabular format, and of course, the illustration.Since professional resume will have different elements such as the format, content, fonts, outline, etc., you should think about each of these carefully before implementing the ones that you feel appropriate. Take note that the format of your resume should be balanced enough between headings, subheadings, paragraph structures, and body format. In fact, your resume should be free of confusion especially if it is used as a reference during the interview process. It is important to get rid of errors while designing a professional res ume.One thing that you must remember is that what looks professional does not necessarily mean that it is professional. As long as it is legible and clear, it would still look professional even if it is not formally designed. Always remember that it is the information of your work experience and education that can actually help you get a good job if you present it properly.There are people who hire a graphic designer to create their professional resume. Aside from the cost involved, hiring a graphic designer could be more cost-effective in the long run. In fact, it can be considered a preventive measure in terms of having professional resume designs.Sketch writing resume is also one of the essential elements to get your name in the search engine results. Aside from searching online, just go out of your home and search it at local search engines like Google and Yahoo. This would take some time but is well worth it if you want to secure a job at a particular company.

The opinions in this blog are mine...

The opinions in this blog are mine... I am not sure why this even needs addressing. Of course these are my opinion and are not necessarily those of my company. I see this a lot on the blogs I read. Why are we so cautious, consumed with being politically correct? I am not endorsing loose canons. I am merely pointing out that we are human beings not programmed computers immune from making imperfect decisions or communicating without flaw. In this weeks The Week magazine, which, by the way, I love reading! Contained two nuggets relating to this idea. One, Obama apologized to theChairman of the Special Olympics for a comment he made about how his bowling looking like he was competing in the Special Olympics. Sarah Palin, remember her, jumped on the bandwagon and criticized the President for his comment. Let me ask how else he might have made this statement? Do you believe that he was trying to insult or show negative bias against people with disabilities? Or was he just simply drawing an analogy? Can we just make a comment without being judged on what the deeper meaning might be? Lighten up Francis. Stop taking everything so personally. The other article summary in The Week discussed how we should read and listen to opinions different from our own. By nature, the article says, we are drawn to like-thinking.It recommendsworking-out your brain by reading ideas far from your own or at the very least different. Listen to these new ideas. If we continue to do the same things, we will continue to get the same results. Maybe stretching our brains and speaking our minds isnt such a bad thing these days?

A Beautiful Reminder - Be Kind - Kathy Caprino

A Beautiful Reminder - Be Kind This week, a wonderful participant in my  Amazing Career Project group coaching intensive shared a quote that made me stop in my tracks. It was this: Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Wendy Mass That quote struck me hard and gave me a pang.   I realized only after reading it that Ive forgotten this truth, and I havent been my   highest self this week (or this month). I   hear from hundreds of people a week, and often, theyre urgently in need of help and advice. Sometimes, when people are sad, beleaguered, and challenged, they can be harsh.   They lose their softness, gentleness and patience, and they forget to be respectful and kind. And I know when Im going through deep challenges, my patience wears thin and Im more easily annoyed and angered. Im not the person I want to be. When my first post when viral on Forbes a few years ago, I was floored at the 300 emails I received a day for a week from people needing help. They often demanded my advice, without a thank you or a kind word. But after this happened several more times, I finally figured it out: when our cup is empty and were deeply afraid, we often lose our ability to be compassionate and caring for others. My work allows me a special window into peoples lives (and souls), and Ive found that when you peel the onion youll find this to be invariably true every single person on this planet is fighting some kind of battle, some kind of challenge, trauma or situation that we know nothing about. And if we knew about it, our heart would soften. Wed be more compassionate, caring, and understanding. Wed want to help. I find it beneficial in my life and work to remember this what we see of people is not the whole story, not by a long shot. As a friend shared recently, I wish my life were as wonderful as my Facebook page makes it look. So true whats going on behind the scenes and in our hearts isnt what we show the world.   We dont let on whats really going on how scared and confused we feel, or let down by life. Sometimes we dont even let ourselves see whats really going on. If someone in your life is acting unkind, I hope youll think about the hidden battle that theyre going through, and find it in your heart to be understanding and empathetic. I know when I stop and remember this, my load becomes lighter, I feel better, and my path to joyful work and living is a bit smoother. Whats the hidden battle that youre struggling with today, and can you reach out to someone who can help? (To build a more joyful life and career, visit kathycaprino.com and take my 6-Day Amazing Career Challenge.)