Phoenix Jobing Community Blogs

Blog reader, it’s cold outside! (Well, for Phoenix, anyway.) But there are plenty of ways to keep yourself warm during December. If you’re a graduate of Arizona State University, you can raise your core body temperature by exercising your fingers on the computer keyboard applying for jobs posted to the Sun Devil Career Network. Many postings are posted exclusively to the portal, which is powered by Jobing.com.

 

Here are the week’s top jobs:

 

System and Network Administrator

Graphic Designer/Web Designer 

Out-Of-Home Placement Supervisor

C++ Development Project Manager

Visitors to the portal can post their resume to the site, and employers can post jobs online at the site, as well, tapping into ASU’s talent pool for very reasonable prices.

 

You never know what you’ll find until you visit http://asu.jobing.com!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Over the weekend I had the chance to see the movie Julie and Julia with a friend of mine.  We caught it at the discount theater.  That’s how overdue I was to see this movie I’d wanted to see for so long.  It’s really a great movie.  And I was especially taken by Julie’s need to blog and how she got so caught up in doing it every day.

I admire that because as you can tell from my posts – I’m nowhere near able to do it every day.  Mostly because of time – or lack of it.  But also because I have the hardest time thinking of what to write.  I’ve been like that since grade school.  Struggling to find subject matter and blending it with my need for privacy.  I do write on domestic abuse, and how I articulate that into consulting with managers and corporations to help them improve corporate culture.  I also write about the dynamics of abuse, how we can help and the costs to all of us as a result. 

So you think I could blog every day.  Still can’t.  The good news is that on January first I’m going to participate in a “Blogathon” with some other folks I know.  We’re to write as often as we can, with no expectation of a certain frequency.  So that’s good, because I’ll have support system.  I’ll also be held accountable to read the other participants blogs as often as I can and to comment on them.

So here’s something you can do to help:  you can suggest blog ideas.  You know my area of expertise.  Is there something you’d like to know about domestic abuse’s impact on business?  Is there something about victims or offenders you like to comment on or ask?  Let me know.  Let’s have a discussion.

Post your questions in the comments section here, or email me.  You can also visit my website and see if something on it inspires a question. 

Here’s the requirement though:  if you’re going to be offensive, insulting, use bad language, SPAM, or send gibberish (like a bunch of nonsensical characters) don’t write.  Period.  This is a forum for people who sincerely want a discussion.  Agreed?

 

Stephanie Angelo, SPHR is an award winning business consultant and specialist in articulating the significant impact to employers when their employees are victims, or perpetrators, of abuse.  She is the only expert in the country that provides this targeted focus and specialty on how abuse hurts a company's revenue.

 

Most job seekers tend to think the answer is when you attend a sit down interview with the employer, however most employers would disagree.  The minute that you make contact with an employer you have started your interview process. You are already demonstrating to this organization basic but incredibly important skills and traits like your professionalism, follow-up skills, attention to detail, etiquette, poise and the list could go on and on. In many cases, very qualified candidates shoot themselves in the foot by making silly mistakes in their application process with the employer. They "weed" themselves out through their actions before they even make it to the interview process. Job seekers must remember that first impressions are everything and a recruiter or hiring manager will assess your behavior throughout the application process in order to determine how you might act if they were to hire you. The following are some silly and easily avoidable mistakes that job seekers have made that have cost them the interview or tarnished that ever so important first impression.

1. Having unprofessional email addresses, ring tones on your phone or voice mail messages - This can make an employer question your level of professionalism.

2. Lack of follow-up or following-up to the point of annoyance - I was recently doing a hiring and I witnessed both ends of the spectrum. One candidate called over 20 times in less than a half hour and then I see other candidates that send their resume to an employer and then never bother to follow-up. You must find a happy medium that demonstrates to the employer that you understand how to follow-up and that you are truly interested in the position. Also, remember that most people will have caller ID and calling too much or too often can make you look desperate or too anxious.

3. Not following directions - If an employer indicates "no phone calls" - don't call them.  If you are required to complete an application, read all the directions and fill it out completely. Don't assume that because you have provided a resume that it should be good enough. The employer will assume if you can't follow directions during the job search process that there is a good chance you will conduct yourself the same way if they were to hire you.

4. Unprofessional communication - this includes having spelling mistakes in resumes, cover letters or email communications that your send to an employer. Speaking unprofessionally on the phone including the tone and words that you utilize.  Again, this will demonstrate the level that your communications might be with clients, vendors, etc. if the company employed you.   

5. Not being prepared at all times - Being prepared during your job search indicates to a future employer that you would be the kind of employee that would think of everything or someone who has strong attention to detail. Remember to always think ahead and prepare for any situation that might arise during a job search.

By avoiding these very simple things you will ensure that you are more successful in your job search. Always take the process seriously and put your best foot forward every time. Think about how you would like someone to act if you were on the other side and conducting the hiring for a position; assess how your current job searching behaviors might come across to you. Nobody wants to lose their dream job for a silly or very easily avoidable mistake. Remember these words - the minute you make contact with the employer you are interviewing!

Let’s face it, no matter your current work situation, from here on out in December, it can be hard to resist the urge to enjoy the holidays and ignore whatever career-building projects (including job-hunting) you’ve got going. But advancing your career doesn’t have to consist of intense bursts of Herculean effort, punctuated by weeks of laying on the couch. It’s possible to take a few strategic actions each day, and head off for seasonal festivities knowing you’ve planted seeds today that could bloom into something very fruitful later.

 

Here are five actions you can take before the end of the year that can keep your career quest on track.

 

1.     Sign up for LinkedIn, if you haven’t already. And if you haven’t, why not? There are more than 50 million people worldwide on this work-oriented social network. You can research developments in your profession or industry, learn of new opportunities quickly, and research who among your contacts might be willing and able to help you—or vice versa! Another handy feature is the public profile option, which allows you to provide potential employers with an electronic version of your resume.

2.     Join or create a social network directly tied to your profession or industry. Platforms such as Ning make focused discussions related to your work easy. From She Writes to the Lean Accounting Super Group, there’s likely a group that will suit you. If not, creating a group is free and Ning, in particular, has tools to make it fairly easy to create and maintain a group.

3.     Take half an hour to explore local community organizations online. A good place to start is on the Web page Jobing.com has dedicated to showcasing local causes. Some of them might directly relate to your profession, others may represent a demographic group you fit into or a cause that’s close to your heart. Many need volunteers or advocates to advance their mission, which translates into opportunities to gain visibility and credibility in your hometown. Thirty minutes spent surveying the landscape now may provide you with days worth of networking ideas for 2010.

4.     Streamline your job-hunting workflow. That’s a fancy way of saying that you can focus on obstacles that you’ve experienced when applying for jobs in the past and find ways around them. For example, if you’re a graduate of Arizona State University, you can post your resume to the Sun Devil Career Network, powered by Jobing.com, and when you apply for jobs on the network, you can apply online immediately. It takes out one step (registration) from the application process, and makes it that much quicker.

5.     RSVP for a career event hosted by the ASU Alumni Association. The association’s Maroon and Gold Professionals and Women in Business mixer groups have grown substantially in their first year and a half of existence, regularly drawing as many as 60 to 80 Sun Devils to their laid-back, we’re-all-in-this-together gatherings. It's a great place to meet fellow ASU grads or reconnect with classmates.

 

Now’s a great time to register for the January gatherings for these groups, which will be Jan. 20 for the Maroon and Gold Professionals and Jan. 28 for Women in Business.

The staff and students of Life Development Institute attended the Diversity Leadership Alliance December workshop today at hosted by Paradise Valley Community College .  The topic of this month’s workshop was Curiosity: The Keystone of Intercultural Competence presented by Dr. Janet M. Bennett, Ph.D. The title alone was enough to stimulate an amazing conversation by the students of LDI on the way to the workshop, but real excitement came when Dr. Bennett began to explain the stages we as human beings go through while developing intercultural sensitivity. Dr. Bennett’s Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity. The model is broken into 6 stages, including: Denial, Defense, Minimization, Acceptance, Adaptation, and Integration. According to Dr. Bennett, the first three stages of the model are ethnocentric stages. During these stages we tend to believe our own culture in the center of everything. During the last three stages of the model we become ethnorelative and begin to view our culture in the context of other cultures.

This workshop opened up a great dialogue amongst the students of LDI. The students were all in various stages of the intercultural sensitivity model due to their diverse backgrounds and upbringings. One of the most interesting topics in their conversations after the workshop was that they believe as adults with hidden disabilities, many people tend to be less accepting of the challenges they face on a daily basis because their disabilities are not physical. Some of the students felt that people are not curious enough about hidden disabilities and this is why there is less acceptance for people who have them. I asked the students what they thought they could do to get people talking about becoming more culturally sensitive to people with hidden disabilities. They all had great ideas about getting out into the community to educate and inform in order to peak curiosity. One student gave a pretty good answer that stuck with me. He said “Keep going to DLA workshops and share what you’ve learned with the world.”

If you read my blog regularly, you know I am not a fan of New Year’s Resolutions. This year, I’m amending that.  There are resolutions that are worthwhile and can work. I’m a big fan of planning, and the reason I didn’t like New Year’s Resolutions is that many of them are spur-of-the-moment. If you don’t mind a bit of planning and breaking down tasks into steps, resolutions work well. That's why I'm posting this blog three weeks before New Year's.

For this article, I am using weight loss to represent any of your resolutions. Substitute your resolution, from finding a job or finding a better job to creating better relationships.

Three success steps:
1. Make it specific. “I want to lose 3 pounds in a month” is specific. “I want to lose a lot of weight by summer” is not.
2. Make it achievable. “I want to lose 40 pounds in 4 months” is not achievable for most of us. Don’t set yourself up for failure. Make it easily achievable, and you will be more likely to continue on the path of success.
3. Break it into steps. Even if you really want to lose 50 pounds, start with a way to lose 5 pounds. Write a list of things YOU can do to lose weight. Look for non-traditional ways that you enjoy. If you hate doing something, it takes a lot more willpower to achieve it.

Joining a gym might be great for your best friend, but you might want to take up line dancing, hiking, or another form of fun exercise. Make a list of interesting steps and decide the starting point of each.

You will need willpower. Your friends and family love you, but they don’t want you to change, because it forces them to change, too. They either have to change their image of you, or they have to change how they react to you. Both of those sound like work. So your friends and family will often not support or help you, while swearing they are trying to do just that.

They will load up your plate, give you excuses not to exercise, tell you you aren’t fat, tell you they like you the way you are. If you begin to fight with them and tell them they aren’t supporting you, the argument will shift to some non-topic, such as that you are getting cranky from dieting. There are lots of people who tell you to surround yourself with supportive friends, my idea is that you have to bring your own resolve and support, becuase you will fiind people with the best intentions trying to sabotage you. Tougher, I know.

Because this is not an article on dieting, but on planning resolutions, there are three more tips that help you get to your resolution:

1. Take stock once a week. Evaluate your progress, then re-set your goal. If you are ahead of your goal, go ahead and stay ambitious. If you didn’t make the goal, get real with the progress. Was it too much for the time span? Did you find you had to do more work to get to the goal than you thought? Giving yourself a reality check once a week helps you keep your goal and assess your own progress in real time.

2. Set a reward that suits the job. Making cold calls when you hate them? Give yourself a reward after you make a certain number. I once told myself I had to get five rejections to a proposal before I could quit calling that day. On the fourth try I struck success, and my first flash of thought was, “Damn! I have one more rejection to go before I can stop.”

3. Hire a coach. Full disclosure: I am a coach. I also have a coach, which is why I know that they work. A coach helps keep your eye on the goal, keeps you motivated and accountable.  They help you when you stumble, don’t judge you, and are curious about your work. Pick a coach who works with your personality and can inspire you. Tell him/her what you want to achieve.

--Quinn McDonald is a life- and certified creativity coach. She writes a blog on creativity.

Jobing.com would like to congratulate all the finalists and honorees of this year's Human Resources Awards.  We were greatly impressed by the talent recognized at this inaugural event and are excited for another great event next year. 

Arizona Business Magazine hosted this event to honor human resources professionals throughout the state and recognize them for all that they do for Arizona’s businesses.

Click here for the full list of finalists and honorees!

Thanks so everyone who got involved!

SHORT SUMMARY for hurried holiday readers:  Yes, CHANGE is hard work – but my 3-part post AND Dr. James O. Prochaska’s research will help you FOLLOW THROUGH in reaching your New Year’s goals!  So if you can’t read all 3 of my “Change Ladder” posts on this site, BOOKMARK THEM and RETURN when you need them.

Here is the final post on my 3-part series exploring changing behavior for the better, as researched and reported by Dr. James O. Prochaska.  In coining his six-stage Transtheoretical Model (TTM) for “…overcoming bad habits and moving your life positively forward,” Dr. Prochaska states that “Change is tough work, but nothing else will do.”  This is a good introduction to the last two stages of change below, Stage 5 - Maintenance, and Stage 6 - Recycling. 

Dear Readers – this is a good lead-in to NEW YEAR 2010 which is fast approaching!

For a brief glance back, my previous post ended with Stage 4 - Action!  But that doesn’t mean FAST action.  It means repeated, consistent action.  The action stage lasts for several months while you practice what you’ve contemplated and the actually take the steps you’ve prepared.  During the action stage, the first month or two are the most likely times for lapsing back into the habit you are working to leave behind.  So, if you are past the first 5-6 months or so of actively practicing a changed behavior (including lapsing now and then, but resuming positively the next day), you are now ready for LONGTERM change in the form of Maintenance.    

TTM Stage 5:  MAINTENANCE – You’re taking positive action toward your goal and you’re seeing the results you truly want.  You got there by valuing the pros of changing over the cons, and taking steps repeatedly and consistently.  Congratulations!  Now it’s time for lifestyle maintenance strategies – which is not a casual undertaking.  For example, remember your last diet?  If you’ve abandoned it, as many of us have, that is an example of taking action but neglecting the maintenance step.

Here are some ideas to help maintain your new behavior:

·   Write (in a journal or a list) the reasons you originally had for changing.  Review them frequently, record the benefits of your change, and list the steps that you are taking to keep the change. 

·   Take personal credit for the change you have made, and renew your commitment to yourself verbally, often.

·   Stay away from lifestyles and OLD habits that have potential to derail your NEW habits.

·   Select a person who can be your touchstone and inspiration in keeping you on track – a coach, a true friend, a helper.  Contact them asap when you feel your commitment lapsing.

·   Dr. Prochaska says, “Check your thinking.”  Realize that your OWN ATTITUDES are cornerstones of your success, and negative thoughts erode your efforts.  Stay positive – especially with yourself. 

·   Keep taking the ACTIONS that you have previously determined are essential to changing.  ACT consistently, continually.

TTM Stage 6:  RECYCLING – Here’s the bottom line from Dr. Prochaska:  few people achieve lasting change the FIRST TIME through this 6-step cycle.  It is uncommon that a person achieves lasting, significant change in behavior without a series of lapses along the way.  Don’t blame yourself – it’s in our wiring!  In fact, blaming yourself will create extra barriers that block your future success.  Focus on resilience, bouncing back, forgiving your lapses and restarting your efforts in one of the six stages of change that make sense.  Often it may be Stage 4, Action.  Other times may be back as far as Stage 1, Precontemplation.  Yes, recycling happens. 

Take note of these tips to help you through Recycling:

·   You’re the engine behind self change, so do not berate yourself for recycling – resolve to power forward.  Remember, change is hard work, but it’s worth it!

·   Identify and record the specific causes of your relapse.  Write a plan to address them successfully in the future. 

·   Ask yourself, “Am I willing to focus on taking action to change for the next 6 months?”  If the answer is “yes,” then resume positive action immediately – as if you had not suffered a lapse.  If the answer is “no,” then decide where you want to go with this change before you reenter the change cycle

That’s it.

Change?  Believe me, I walk the walk!  At this moment, I am about to go outside and “Take Action” (Step 4) in practicing my new exercise program – which includes a 30-minute walk EVERY DAY, no excuses.  I am definitely NOT at “Maintenance” (Step 5) yet.  I’m still taking action to make exercise a regular habit in my life, and I’ve hired a COACH who can support me in getting there.  I look forward to tackling the “Maintenance” stage of a regular exercise program by March 2010.  I wish I’d done this sooner, but, hey – I’m doing it now!  That’s what counts.

Start your own plan.  Let Prochaska and me support you along the way.  Successful change takes continual focus and practice, but habits can be replaced with other habits – the ones you WANT to own. 

Here are a couple of books to support your efforts:

CHANGING FOR GOOD – A Revolutionary Six-Stage Program for Overcoming Bad Habits and Moving Your Life Positively Forward, by Prochaska, Norcorss, Diclemente) HarperCollins (1994).

The HABIT CHANGE WORKBOOK – How to Break Bad Habits and Form Good Ones, by Claiborn & Pedrick New Harbinger Publications, Inc. (2001)     

HAPPINESS in NEW YEAR 2010 and HAPPY CHANGES IN YOUR LIFE!

__________________________________________________________________

Author Gayla Doucet - Certified Creative Life and Talent Management Coach (International Coach Federation) and a member of the Phoenix Chapter of the ICF in Arizona. Find her at People Powered Solutions LLC (www.pplpowered.com), and www.LinkedIn.com. 

Copyright (c) 2009 People Powered Solutions LLC

__________________________________________________________________

Are you at the threshold of changing your self-direction?  Then it is an ideal time to have a conversation with a professionally certified coach to help you clarify your focus on the goals you want to reach.  Find us in the International Coach Federation listings at http://www.icfphoenix.com and call to get started up the Change Ladder.

You may have seen the movie.  The Bucket List starred Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman as two aging men who meet in a hospital while each is dealing with the shock of learning they are terminally ill.  They decide to devote their remaining time before they “kick the bucket” to experiencing a list of dreams—some modest, some not—that they had never found the time or the opportunity to realize while they were raising families and earning a living.

The movie is a poignant treatise on friendship in unlikely places, and perhaps more importantly, a powerful lesson about how best to live our lives (and our careers).  It offers an admittedly old truism, but one worth remembering: we should never put our dreams off because we don’t know how long we will have to see them come true.

With that thought in mind, I offer my bucket list for recruiters—the things we should strive to get to while we can.  It’s an abbreviated list, so is not meant to identify everything that we might hope to accomplish in the course of our careers.  In addition, some of the goals may be beyond our reach—at least without some outside cooperation—while others are much more susceptible to our own efforts.  However, all of the goals—be they large or small—are worthy aspirations.  By reaching for them, we improve our experience as recruiters.

How should you read the list?  Simply insert the following phrase in front of each item: “At some point in my career—and the sooner, the better—I would like .to …”

1.  Work for a CEO who gets it.  We know they can say it—“Our employees are our most important asset” is the siren song of every CEO worth his or her salt in corporate America —what we seldom experience is one who does it.  Indeed, the limit of what many executives seem willing to invest in their workforce (and the recruiting team that brings it in the door) is just that—verbal capital or what you and I call “hot air.”  If they really believe they can’t get by without great talent, they will have to open their wallets in a much bigger way.  And those that do are the organizations for which we should seek to work.

2.  Work with hiring managers who get it.  Too many of today’s managers think that it’s still 1952 and there’s an unlimited supply of top talent just salivating at the chance to work for them.  They are too busy to write a decent requisition, get involved with sourcing candidates or learn how to prepare for and conduct an effective interview, but they always have enough time to wail about what they perceive to be inadequate recruiting support.  If they want to see more high caliber applicants for their openings, however, they will have to get more involved in filling them.  And those that do are the business partners to whom we should devote our best efforts.

3.  Work with coworkers who get it.  While recruiters are formally charged with acquiring talent for the organization, it is clearly in everybody’s best interest to ensure that their coworkers are as capable as possible.  Especially in these days and times, there’s no better form of security than an organization brimming with high caliber workers.  Which begs the question: why is it so difficult to get people involved in their organization’s employee referral program?  If our coworkers want to get more satisfaction and security out of their work, they will have to work harder at searching out and selling top talent.  And those who do are the employees we should celebrate and support.

4.  Work with an applicant tracking system that gets it.  Recruiters may be responsible for processing a lot of information, but that is by no means their most important accountability.  In addition to acquiring top talent, they also have a fiduciary responsibility—they must ensure that they invest their employer’s money wisely.  To do that, they need accurate data on the source of their applicants, and they rely on their ATS to get it.  Unfortunately, however, the rudimentary technology offered by many ATS vendors is simply not up to the task.  If these vendors want to help recruiters get smarter about where to spend their recruitment budget, they will have to upgrade their source identification capability.  And those that do should be the vendors from which we buy our systems.

5. Work with applicants who get it.  Unfortunately, a lot of applicants today think that the question we want them to answer is “What have they done?”  And, of course, the insight for which we’re really looking is “What can they do?”  For us?  Right now and in the future?  The fact that they’ve been in the workforce for twenty or thirty years doesn’t mean a thing if their skills and knowledge are that old, as well.  If they want to get considered by us, therefore, they will have to bring themselves up-to-date.  And those who do are the prospects we should pursue most aggressively.

The notion of a bucket list, I suppose, can be off-putting at first.  It can seem … well, a bit pessimistic.  On the other hand, if we see it as our horizon, as the future toward which we would like to journey, then it is as hopeful an outlook as one can have.  It affirms our ability to better our condition, to reach for the richest and fullest experience we can have in the one-third of our lives that we spend at work.

Thanks for reading,

Peter

Visit my blog at Weddles.com/WorkStrong

Peter Weddle is the author of over two dozen employment-related books, including Recognizing Richard Rabbit, a fable of self-discovery for working adults, and Work Strong, Your Personal Career Fitness System.

© Copyright 2009 WEDDLE’s LLC.  All Rights Reserved.

The Arizona Mature Workforce Initiative presents the following Blog
 by our “Guest Blogger”

Ms. Christine Bryson-Lazo, CSA, is a Certified Senior Advisor & a Mature Marketing specialist, president of the Northern Arizona Seniors in Action Coalition (dba the Verde Valley Seniors in Action Coalition), chair of the Seniors in Action Business Alliance, member of the Mature Workforce Committee of the Governor’s Advisory Council on Aging.  

Arizona Mature Workers – Learn About Job & Education Opportunities through Local Organizations by Christine Bryson-Lazo CSA

Jobing.com is a great resource to locate job opportunities locally, regionally and nationally. In addition to this resource, the current limited job market also beckons one to be creative and even more resourceful. Perhaps looking within your community for organizations addressing employment, work skills training, and even business opportunities may be just the answer you are searching for to provide a sustainable income.  For example, here is how the greater Sedona area created a business alliance to do just that.  

When the State of Arizona launched the Arizona Mature Workforce Initiative (http://www.azgovernor.gov/gaca/MWI.asp) in February 2005, a cluster of senior service providers, senior citizens and senior advocates were putting the finishing touches on a Commission on Aging Feasibility Study (http://www.sedonaaz.gov/egov/sidePage.aspx?dID=Aging%20Feasibility%20Study) for the City of Sedona.  A section of this study, “Economic Development Implication of Senior in Sedona,” addresses the situation how the senior populace was not being fully considered pertinent to job and business creation.  

The Verde Valley Seniors in Action Coalition decided to move forward partnering with the City and the Chamber of Commerce to encourage economic development in senior-related industries. As a result, the Seniors in Action Business Alliance (SABA) was formed in 2006 with meetings commencing in January 2007.  SABA’s mission is to unite organizations, businesses and individuals of all ages through an ongoing dialogue in order to understand and support a senior-friendly business environment, promote the creation of businesses and services serving seniors’ needs, and to be a catalyst for promoting the mature workforce in Sedona and the Verde Valley.  

First order of SABA ’s activities requested by the businesses and employers was to create a survey to determine what goods, services, education and activities seniors desire, what kind of work they seek, what workplace skills they have and need, and how they acquire information. This survey was circulated in 2007 and 2008 achieving a point of reference for businesses. However, due to recent economic events, personal finances have drastically changed for boomers and seniors, thus another survey is planned for distribution in 2010.  

Additional SABA activities educated employers and job seekers to the Arizona Mature Workforce Initiative and the programs being developed by the Mature Workforce Committee of the Governor’s Advisory Council on Aging.  The Arizona Mature Worker Website, hosted by Jobing.com, was developed to provide resources and information to both mature workers seeking employment, as well as employers wishing to attract or retain mature workers.  The Mature Worker Friendly Employer’s Certification program was also designed to recognize Arizona employers that have worked to develop a mature worker friendly environment within their organizations.  Knowledgeable speakers from the Governor’s Office on Aging, AARP, Yavapai and GateWay Community Colleges have attended SABA meetings, sharing programs and resources imparting employment databases, career training, mature workforce job fairs and other business opportunities.  

It isn’t difficult to start a similar program in your area enabling a concerted effort among community associates.  Begin by checking the list of employers located in your community who have earned the Mature Worker Friendly Employer’s Certification, by visiting www.azmatureworkers.com .  Talk to the financial officer in your municipality, the local Chamber of Commerce, your elected officials, and perhaps your regional Economic Development Council to become strategic partners in creating your local senior business alliance.

We invite you to visit the Arizona Mature Worker Website, hosted by Jobing.com, at www.azmatureworkers.com   Check it out today!

 

 

Looking for a job-hunting advantage? One tip for better success is to apply at companies where people know you. If you’re a graduate of Arizona State University, the best place to do that is on the ASU Alumni Association’s Sun Devil-centric job portal. Many postings are posted exclusively to the portal, which is powered by Jobing.com, and many of the potential employers are looking specifically for applicants trained in ASU degree programs.

 

Here are the week’s top jobs:

 

Insurance Agent

Data Visualization and Infographics Manager

Education Coordinator

Registered Nurse/Home Health

Visitors to the portal can post their resume to the site, and employers can post jobs online at the site, as well, tapping into ASU’s talent pool for very reasonable prices.

 

You never know what you’ll find until you visit http://asu.jobing.com!

 

December is a both a wonderful and stressful month in one.  At work, there is that last push to produce before the year ends and the same is true at home, where we scurry around in holiday activity.  So that you don’t fall victim to a race-to-the-finish-line mentality where everything goes by in a blur, here is a simple technique you can use to have more peace and calm. 

In the moment of feeling stressed or agitated, briefly stop and ask yourself:  What channel am I on?  Note your answer and then, when you’re ready, consciously change channels. 
 
Two weeks ago I was out running for what I hoped would be a quick errand at lunch and was anxious to get back to my office to wrap up work before heading into the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.  The parking lot was a congested obstacle course and as I trekked to the grocery store from the spot I found in Timbuktu, I noticed my neck muscles were hard as rock.  Knowing I was planning to write an article on this topic and wanting to practice what I preach, I asked myself: What channel am I on?  Answer: The rushing-around channel.  I surfed to see “what else was on” and found the feeling-the-sun-on-my-face channel.  I took a deep breath of fresh air and changed my afternoon. 
  
It sounds incredibly simple, and it is.  Like my neck muscles did in the parking lot, your body gives you signals.  You need only pause long enough to ask what channel you’re on and then consciously choose to switch from dwelling on one aspect of your reality to another one.
 
This channel-changer technique is an abbreviated version of an OASIS in the Overwhelm strategy called Cue-2-Do.  The strategy helps you connect cues from your body to the emotions they signal.  From there, you can acknowledge what’s going on and select the best course of action to take. 

This Month: Remember, the remote is in your hand.

To hear ideas for how you can create more peace on a regular basis, tune in to the WOW Zone Radio Show tomorrow, December 8, at 9:00 AM Arizona Time (8:00 AM Pacific, 11:00 AM Eastern) when I’ll be interviewed on what it means to “live in the current” and we’ll also discuss tips for reducing overwhelm during the holiday season. Listen live here. Call in questions are welcome: 866-472-5788.

© 2009, Virginia M. Kravitz

VIRGINIA KRAVITZ, Career and Life Coach, founded In the Current® to serve accomplished professionals who want to move boldy in new directions and start living with a greater sense of joy and abandon.  Ginny’s e-zine, published every other Tuesday, is entitled Current of Life.  Visit at: www.inthecurrent.com 
 
Note:  
OASIS in the Overwhelm is a coaching program based on a book written by my friend and colleague, Millie Grenough. In the book, Millie introduces you to four simple strategies to rewire yourself towards health/happiness and away from stress/disease.   

Photos are powerful.  They capture moments, engage people, and for the purposes of this blog post, can be a way to drive traffic to your website.

A couple weeks ago, a photo of a funny looking turkey drove over 1,000 people to the website http://www.pursuethepassion.com.  98% of the people who visited had never been to the site.  Many of them stuck around to view more pages.   

This spike in traffic peaked my curiosity around the power of using images to drive traffic.  I spent some time looking through the Google Analytics of http://www.pursuethepassion.com and found that over 20% of the site's traffic had come as a result of images we posted to flickr.com/photos/pursuethepassion and embedded in our blogs.  That's pretty powerful stuff. 

This morning I sat in on a presentation done by our very own Joel Cheesman, who provided some helpful tips on how to optimize photos on Flickr.  If you're using Flickr, please use Joel's bullet points below as your checklist whenever uploading photos to Flickr.  You never know when 1,000 people are going to search for a term that fits perfectly with an image you took. 

Here are Joel's tips:

• When you upload your photos, ALWAYS add tags. The “tags” or keywords that you associate with your photo will make it findable to users when they are searching, and lend keyword weight to the photo’s page. Enter as many tags that accurately should be keywords associated with your photo as possible. Note! When entering multi-word tags you must put them within quotation marks. Ex: “pickup truck”

• This should be obvious, but have your photos publicly viewable — not just restricted to viewing by your friends and family.

• Create a descriptive title for the image. This adds yet more keyword weight to the photo’s page within Flickr. "HRSW_2009_1STDAY8," for example, isn't very descriptive for search engines. Instead, "HR Southwest Conference 2009" is more descriptive.

• Enter a description under the photo, or write something about the picture.

• Names. Many pictures include people. Don't be afraid to add names of those people, because there are lots of Google searches around a person's name.

• Create thematic sets for your photos, and add each pic to the set(s) appropriate for it. This provides yet more contextual clues to search engines about the content of the photo’s page, and it will allow a user arriving at the page a way to easily look at other similar pix you’ve taken.

• Add your photos to a Flickr group. The more links to your photo page, the more important your photo will be considered, so add it to a number of groups. Ideally, add it to groups which have a lot of members — the number of members indicates the popularity and traffic of the group.

• Link each of your Flickr photo pages to your website, or to related pages on your website. You can add hyperlinks into the Description field below the photo. Use link text that has a call to action, or which tells the user what to expect if they click on the link. Ex: “We sell this product at our website.”, “This view from tables at our Restaurant.”, “This room is available at our Bed & Breakfast“. It’s best to link to specific pages of related content as a richer indicator for pagerank transfer.

• Link to your Flickr photo pages from your website. You could use text links back to Flickr, but even better, post the Flickr photos directly on your site’s pages, using the HTML code Flickr provides under the “All Sizes” tool. The HTML code they provide hyperlinks the photo back to it’s Flickr page. Why is this important? It provides a bit more link weight to the photo’s page, and allows users of your site to go through and browse your other related photos easily.

• Finally, post as many optimized pix as possible. This is mostly a game of many small fractions adding up to large, cumulative results. The many pages of pix, linking back to your site will help build your overall PageRank. The more pages you have, the more likely it is that other Flickr users will find your content, and link to your content. It also expands your chances of having a lucky picture or two find its way onto a viral popularity wave which spurs many users to send links of your pic to their friends, or a reporter might find that one of your pix is ideal for their news story and give credit where credit is due.

Brett Farmiloe is one of two social media managers for Jobing.com and the founder of PursuethePassion.com.  The above points were written by Joel Cheesman, Senior Vice President of Jobing.com. 

Exiting news coming from Casino Arizona. . . We are happy to announce that the completion of our new resort is in its final stages. Talking Stick Resort will be a premier resort in the Valley of the Sun.

We are beginning to prescreen and interview applicants for our 4 diamond resort. We offer a wide variety of positions fulltime & part-time. We have competitive Wages, excellent Benefits, 401K, Medical, Dental & Vision. You also get 22 days of PTO your first year.

Our Dream Resort, Your Dream Job

If you have a positive attitude and want to work in fun, energetic, and great team environment come on down to our Career Center.

We will be doing several Career Events, stop by and visit us at:

Location    Pavilions Shopping Center
                   9011 E Indian Bend Road
                   Scottsdale, AZ 85250

From:          11am – 7pm

Food and Beverage interviews:

• Tuesday, December 08
• Thursday, December 10

Housekeeping / Maintenance / Warehouse & Security interviews:

• Tuesday, December 15
• Thursday, December 17

Cage Cashier / Count Team / Finance / Keno / Slots / Poker & Blackjack:

• Tuesday, January 05
• Thursday, January 07

Hotel & Spa interviews:

• Tuesday, January 12
• Thursday, January 14
• Saturday, January 16

Remaining position:

• Tuesday, January 19
• Thursday, January 21
• Tuesday, January 26
• Thursday, January 28
• Saturday, January 30

You can also visit us at www.talkingstickresort.com

The positive growth turned in by the American economy in the third quarter of this year suggests that maybe, just maybe this Great Recession is now in our rear view mirror.  As it fades away, of course, the tales will begin about what we did during this terrible time.  While recounting those legends is surely important, so too is sharing the insights we’ve acquired from our experience.

Cataclysmic events often alter our perceptions of the world around us.  That was true during the Great Depression, and it will be true as we emerge from this Great Recession, as well.  Some of these new views are opinions about what happened and why, but others are actually lessons that we’ve learned about how best to survive and prosper.  They’re the things we wish we had known before the event occurred because that knowledge would have undoubtedly enabled us to fare better than we did.

I think the sharing of this wisdom is good for us—it’s cathartic to acknowledge that we’ve earned an advanced degree in the school of hard knocks—but it’s even more helpful for our kids and grandkids.  In a very real sense, we are giving them a gift, a roadmap for the future that may help them avoid the dead ends and dangerous potholes they are sure to encounter.

Each of us has our own view of the lessons we should pass along.  For me, the following four insights are among the most important.  They are realizations everyone must have in order to chart a successful and fulfilling career in the 21 st Century world of work.

Seeking job security makes you vulnerable.  In today’s turbulent economy, employers have no idea what will happen tomorrow or the day after.  They may promise you job security, but they can’t deliver it.  So, counting on it is likely to put you out for the count.  A far better objective is career security—the ability to stay employed in a job of your choosing regardless of the condition of any single employer or the economy as a whole.  Unlike job security, career security is a state you create for yourself.  You don’t have to rely on the good will of some employer.  You anticipate the changes in your career—the timing of a move from one boss or organization to another, the refocusing or reskilling that’s necessary to accommodate shifts in your industry or profession—and then you plan and execute those changes so they benefit you.

Recognition is something you give yourself.  Most managers and supervisors mean well, but if you wait for them to recognize your accomplishments at work, you’re likely to be disappointed.  Some have the social skills of a brick and others are too worried about their own security to take care of yours.  That’s why it’s important for you to keep track of your own “career victories.”  Sure, it takes a little effort to maintain a contemporaneous record of what you’ve done and how well you’ve done it, but that account will give you more satisfaction than most managers ever will.  Don’t just write it out, however; also review it regularly.  Take the time to remember what you’ve done and pat yourself on the back when you deserve it or give yourself a little counseling if you’ve let yourself down.

Working tirelessly is a sure way to get tired.  Sadly, many people in today’s world of work find themselves wired up with no place to go.  They’ve learned the hard way that staying continuously in contact with the office doesn’t protect you.  It exhausts you.  We’re all worried about the H1N1 flu becoming a pandemic, but workaholism already is.  If you have any doubt about that, look left and right the next time you’re lying on the beach.  Every other person will be glued to their Blackberry or iPhone checking their email.  The impact of such behavior on both individual performance and wellbeing is already acute and likely to get worse.  In a knowledge-based economy, your worth is measured not by your connectivity, but by your contribution.  And, your contribution suffers when you don’t give your mind and body a chance to rest.

Taking care of your career is the best way to take care of you.  The conventional approach to career self-management has been to get an annual checkup and leave it at that.  Historically, we paid attention to our career just once each year—during our performance appraisal and salary review.  That approach was dangerous then; today, it’s a sure-fire way to induce career cardiac arrest or what most of us call unemployment.  The only safe course in a workplace as turbulent as the one we now have is to develop career fitness the same way you develop physical fitness.  You have to commit yourself to building up the strength, endurance and reach of your career every single day.  Yes, that’s a lot of work, but it’s also a smart investment.  You spend one-third or more of your day in your profession, craft or trade, and you deserve an experience during that time that is every bit as good as the rest of your life.

We have acquired many insights from our experience over the past two years, but these four maxims are the key lessons we have learned.  They are the things we wish we had known so they are now the things we want others to know.

Thanks for reading,

Peter

Visit me at Weddles.com

Peter Weddle is the author of over two dozen employment-related books, including Recognizing Richard Rabbit, a fable of self-discovery for working adults, and Work Strong, Your Personal Career Fitness System.

© Copyright 2009 WEDDLE’s LLC.  All Rights Reserved.