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5 Creative Ways To Find A Job

Ok, you have posted to every internet job board and every job on Monster, CareerBuilder, and HotJobs. You’ve followed up with calls and networked until you are blue in the face. Each Sunday you take the newspaper and apply for every job in your field with little to no results. Well try some unique ways to find a job.

Send Half of Your Resume
Find a company you want to work. Write a great cover letter on why you are a good fit, pointing to the enclosed resume. Don’t seal the envelope and don’t enclose a resume. They’ll think the resume fell out in the mail. They will call and engage in a conversation. Sell yourself shamelessly.

Write A Prospecting Letter
Make use of the power of direct mail. Locate 5-10companies. Write up a letter to your contact network and ask them if they know anyone who works at any of the companies on your list. When a contact says they know someone on your list, send them your resume and ask them to forward it their contact or ask permission to send it yourself.

E-Mail Chain Letter
Create a list of 20 companies you want to work for and send an email to everyone you know to see if they know anyone who works at these companies. Ask them to contact you if they do, so that you can ask for a referral. Finally, ask them to forward your email to 10 more people. However don’t do this if you’re currently employed!

Distribute A Booklet
Write a booklet with information relevant to your industry and give it away. Everyone loves free information and this demonstrates your expertise. Give the booklet away electronically and advertise it to newsgroups where hiring managers will see it.

Call Human Resources
Sounds crazy, right? Call the human resources department. Ask them what outside agency or third-party recruiting firm they use. They will ask you why do you want to know. Tell them that their company is not currently looking for someone with your skill set right now the agency may be dealing with other firms, so you are looking for a recommendation. They may very well ask you for an interview. If not at least you do get a lead. They would love to save the agency fees. Also being recommended gives you special attention. Send them a thank you note.

These are guerrilla tactics that can give you better results. Be sure to stay toned for another 5 creative tips.

‘Excellence’ Program Assists People With Disabilities

People with disabilities remain an untapped resource in the nation’s work force, facing an unemployment rate of 70 percent.

NISH, a nonprofit organization that helps secure federal contracts for agencies that employ people with disabilities through the Javits-Wagner-O’Day Program, is working to change the status quo. The organization has introduced a new program whereby agencies designated as “Centers of Excellence” serve as mentors to other agencies to help them improve the quality of the service and products they provide to the federal government.

The Javits-Wagner-O’Day Program is the largest single source of jobs in the U.S. for people with disabilities. Often referred to as the JWOD program, it provides employment opportunities for more than 45,000 people who are blind or have other severe disabilities.

Through the JWOD program, NISH works with a network of more than 600 nonprofit agencies that employ and train people with disabilities.

The program stems from the Wagner-O’Day Act, passed in 1938, which provided employment opportunities for the blind by allowing them to manufacture mops and brooms to sell to the federal government. In 1971, Congress amended the act to include people with severe disabilities and to allow the agencies to provide services as well as products.

According to a recent Harris Interactive survey, two out of three people with disabilities who are not working want to work, but the lack of opportunities and accessibility issues prevent them from finding employment.

Acting Courses, What You Need To Know!

Acting courses come in various shapes, sizes and most importantly costs. How do you know which is a good one? What I have below is a list of requirements, some obvious, some not, so when you are looking for a course the more of these boxes they tick the better. Some points may not be as relevant as others, but all are, to some degree, valid and worth considering. The order is no indication of importance – thats up to you.

A good acting course will give you a thorough appreciation of the filmmaking process. This will allow you to access and develop so many vital tools. It will give you understanding of how to create a character which is rounded and believable on screen. Understanding the technical process will hopefully help develop your confidence in front of the camera, if you know what a director wants, it should be easier to give it to them. Therefor any knowledge regarding the technical aspects of filmmaking will be to your advantage.

Any acting course should have be a positive learning environment. The classroom should be a forum for ideas and criticism, where no one is afraid to open up and enthusiasm encouraged. Large class sizes are not always a bad thing they give you the opportunity to network and make a few friends too.

Look for acting courses that provide script analysis and understanding as part of the curriculum. The script is your starting point and being able to see which characters work better than others or are more believable and three-dimensional, will enable you to work more efficiently with the director or writer.
The course should also highlight the difference between stage and film scripts, being good at understanding one doesn’t automatically mean you’ll be as competent with the other.

Even a film acting course can contain information and techniques for stage acting, they are quite different, but some aspects of stage craft can prove useful in front of the camera.

All of the above training and coaching will hopefully be provided by industry veterans or experienced professionals. Most courses will provide a resume for their instructors, but if no information is provided about the people who will be coaching you then the internet can provide quick and easy access to a persons professional background.

A good acting course will be able to supply you with plenty of testimonials from previous students to help you decide if its the right one for you. Don’t be blinded by one famous alumni, better a school produces a lot of good working actors than one superstar.

If you are to get a thorough understanding of the life of an actor your course should give guidance on auditions, including such aspects as monologues, casting call requirements and even details on agents. Lets not forget that they should be realistic and give you an incite into how to survive the arduous life of an actor.

Well thanks for taking the time to read my article. Acting courses really can be useful, even for experienced actors, I hope its been helpful.

Acting Auditions Tips

If your looking for acting audition tips this is a good place to start, It’ll give you a few things to consider though because of space its not totally exhaustive, so just consider this a starting point.

Acting auditions can broken down into roughly three sections, The Preparation, The Performance and The Result. We’ll look at all three which will give you enough ideas to make you a little more relaxed about the whole process.

THE PREPARATION

Preparation, as any job interview book will tell you, is essential.
Firstly, do as much research as you can, be it the character you going to play, the director, the company or even the writer. It will show  thoroughness and dedication that could be the deciding factor in your favor.
Secondly, make sure you know your monologues, you should have practiced them out loud in front of a variety of people to get as any opinions as possible, if you can’t get a wide range of opinions you may find it useful to record yourself(video or audio), this gives you the chance to evaluate your own performance from a slightly different perspective.
Thirdly, know exactly where the location of the interview is, how long it takes to get there and arrive early. This allows you to relax and find some where to warm up.
You could be hanging around for a long time so take a book, some water and food or something like an ipod to keep you relaxed and occupied.
When in the audition environment it pays dividends to be nice to everyone, remember, todays rival actor could be tomorrows hot new director. This Don’t be intimidated by the other actors auditioning with you, they will be just as nervous as you are. even if they appear cocky that doesn’t make them a better actor than you!

THE PERFORMANCE

First impressions count, so upon entering the acting audition room be confident, positive and friendly. It may be helpful to remind yourself that these people in front of you are on your side, they actually want you to be great! Its good to be as open and personable as possible because you want the director to want to work with you personally as well as professionally and any advantage is an advantage.
Try to keep any questions you may have to a minimum, these are busy people and too many questions can seem overly ingratiating.
Your initial monologue should not really be more than two minutes long, have others prepared, these should show your range and diversity, and also have a longer monologue prepared, just in case the Director requests it.
The director may ask you to reread after direction, so good listening skills are important, at this point its better to ask questions than to assume that you know what the director wants, accepting direction also requires flexibility, so don’t stick too tightly to the same old way you’ve done the reading in the past.

THE RESULT

No article on acting audition tips would be complete without a word or two about rejection.
As you have read there are many ways that you can improve your chances of getting a role, but most actors will get turned down for most jobs most of the time. You could do all of the above and more and still be overlooked, but you should not take this as a comment on your ability. It just indicates that the casting panel thought that someone else  was more suitable to that particular role at that particular time.
If you do get called back for a second audition then well done. The same basic rules apply with a few subtle tweaks that will have to wait for another article.

Thanks for taking the time to read my acting audition tips and I hope it gave you a few things to think about.

3 Job Search Tips That Increase Your Success

1) Approach finding a job as if it were a full-time job, because it is. If you had a job, you would report to work at the same time each day (like 8 am), take an hour (or less) for lunch, and quit at the same time each day (like 5 pm). You would work five days every week. And you would work hard to accomplish as much as you could because your career depended upon it.

When you are searching for a job, you should follow the same type of schedule because your future depends upon it.

Treating your job search like a part-time hobby guarantees that it will take longer.

So, begin tomorrow by reporting to work and spending the day on tasks that lead to a job.

2) Approach finding a job as if it were a project. That means you should set goals for yourself, make plans, and monitor your progress. You should apply all of the tools and skills that you used in your last job to the project of finding your next job.

As you must expect, this is an important project. The sooner you complete it, the sooner you gain a promotion into a job.

3) Be your own boss. Set expectations for what you need to accomplish, provide direction, and monitor your work.

Meet with yourself once each week to evaluate your performance. I recommend doing this by writing two reports. The first is a candid evaluation of what you accomplished during the previous week. The second is a description of your plans for the coming week. Your plans should include your goals, actions, and priorities.

The first time that you write these reports, write an evaluation of what you have done so far. Describe the results that this effort has produced. And compare these results with what you wanted to have.

Next, map out a realistic plan for the next week based on achievable goals. For example, you could set goals for the number of people you will call, the number of networking meetings you will attend, and the research you will conduct.

In the coming weeks, compare the results that you obtained during the previous week with the goals that you set. For example, if you planned to attend twelve networking meetings and you attended only two, you should a) explain why this happened and b) plan actions that will correct such a difference. You should also analyze why you missed your goal because this provides insights on what you need to do differently. For example, Your goal (e.g., of attending twelve networking meetings) may have been set too high. Or maybe there are things you can do that will make it easier to achieve your job search goals, such as car pooling with a friend who is also looking for a job.

Finding a job is a full time job. Work through it with a plan and the support of a good boss (yourself).

I wish you the best of success.

A Teaching Resume Will Define All Your Strong Points And Qualifications, Displaying You As The Best Choice For The Job.

A teachers resume should be a brief document in which you provide as much as evidence as you can to the employer that you will be a good teacher.

Basically a resume should contain your full name, campus and permanent address, telephone numbers and email addresses. Apart from that a teaching resume should include the following information:

A clear cut career and job objective which shows your sense of direction to the employer.

Your teaching resume should have the names of each of your employers and your corresponding job titles.

Mention the number of staff that you manage (if applicable).

Highlight the list of subjects and the age of the pupils that you teach.

Mention some of the teaching and learning methods that you use, field trips, discussions etc.

Mention your responsibilities in curriculum developments.

Highlight how you develop pupils with practical, creative, academic and social skills by balanced learning programs.

Mention any administrative duties in your work place.

Your methods and procedures for setting and marking home work, course work and exams.

How you did assessment of pupils work.

How you are maintaining relationships with other teachers, parents, counselors, social workers etc to improve the activities of pupils.

Mention how you are working, advising and guiding pupils on personal and academic problems and issues, caring responsibilities.

Highlight any extra curricular activities that you organized and the result of it.

Highlight any other achievements that have benefited your department and obviously your organization in general.

3 Points You Should Negotiate When You Are Losing Your Job

You work for a company that has been going through a lot of changes and upheaval.  Word is going around about lay-offs and you worry you will be next. If you’ve been an exemplary employee and the lay-off is not because of anything you’ve done, be sure you ask these three questions as you are being handed your Pink Slip:

1.    Ask for a Letter of Reference.  You can use this to help you land that new job because it will be beneficial to have a letter that praises you and your accomplishments.  This will show future employers that your termination was a business decision and not because of any wrong-doing on your part. Most people forget to ask about this, and it is difficult to try to go back later and ask for one.

2.    Ask about severance pay. You are not automatically guaranteed this unless it was stipulated in your employment contract when you were hired.. Typically, one week of severance is given for each year of service to the company, but this can be negotiable. And, especially if you’ve recently finished an important project, been honored or achieved a major goal, be sure to remind them.  It may buy you another week of severance pay they weren’t planning on giving.

3.    Are you entitled to unused vacation pay? In most cases, the answer is no. Some companies allow you to roll over your unused time from one year to the next, while others have a use it or lose it policy. Most companies will explain their rules in the employee handbook, but asking to be paid for your unused vacation pay just may earn you a few extra dollars you could use right now.

You may not get any severance or vacation pay, and you especially won’t if you don’t ask for it.  Don’t forget, this is a very difficult situation for your boss, too, so he or she may be willing to give you more than had been planned on. You’ll never know unless you try, and the worst they can do is say no. If the moment passes, chances are you won’t have another opportunity to ask these questions again. Knowing ahead of time what to ask for may give you the confidence to speak up for yourself at this difficult time.  Good luck!

A Sample Interview Thank You Letter

A sample thank you letter that you use after an interview, as a guideline or template, will save you a lot of time when preparing this type of correspondence.  Since you’ll prepare it before the job interview when you are not nervous and have a clear head, the letter will really increase your chances of making or reinforcing a good impression.

Trying using this for your own uses.

Date
Name
Company
Address
City
State
Zip

Dear Name,

I enjoyed the chance to visit with you in your office today concerning career opportunities with ABC Company.  After discussing the future of the company I am convinced that I can make a positive contribution, and believe our association could be mutually beneficial.

I was especially impressed with the information you provided concerning expansion into other markets and a need for an invigorated marketing effort.  With my background in advertising and insurance sales and experience as a carnival promoter, I believe I have a lot to offer.

ABC Company has an outstanding reputation in the field and is the type of organization I wish to associate myself with.  I pride myself on being an outstanding salesman and promotional specialist, and look forward to a chance to make a positive contribution during this period of growth.

If I can provide any more information that would be of assistance to you, please don’t hesitate to call me at the phone number listed above, or email me if that is more convenient.  I look forward to hearing from you in the near future.

Again, thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

John J. Doe.

Using this sample letter will save you time and lead to more second interviews and more job offers.  However, if your field is not sales or marketing it may not be perfectly suited to your needs.  It should be easy to analyze the thank you letter and see which sentences and paragraphs can be changed to make it fit your needs and your profession.  With modern word processing software you can customize one version, and then copy the file and make another letter geared towards a different type of job completely.  For instance, if there are three or four types of jobs you would consider then creating a thank you letter for each is probably a good idea.  The same of course is true with your cover letter and resume. Different versions for different types of jobs, emphasizing different aspects of your skills and experience will make you more versatile.  If, however, you are determined to pursue only one type of job, then you obviously need only one sample letter, one type of cover letter and one type of resume.  This is a personal choice and you are the only person who knows exactly what job would be best suited for you and if there is more than one type you’d consider.

A Resume Sample Will Give You A Clear Idea Of What Will Best Suit Your Needs.

Any good sample resume will have the following sections. This section is devoted to giving various ideas for great resume writing.

Clearly stat job objectives
Highlight qualifications
Directly relevant skills and experience.
Work history.
Relevant education and training.

Choosing The Right Resume Format:
There are different types of resume formats available.  Choose the best format that suits the job you are applying for.
Chronological Format:
The primary organizing principle of this format is your employment record advancing in a particular career direction. Choose this format when you have clear cut qualifications and you are opting for a new job position in the same field.
Functional Format:
This format is suitable for candidates who are starting or changing their career. Your key skills, knowledge and related accomplishments are the primary organizing principle of this format with proof and prediction of your ability to contribute in your future job.  You can also have a combinational format by combining the features of both formats.

In our website you can find some of the most important information that should be included in your resume. These are elements that an employer will look for, regardless of the number of years of experience you have. Advice for Computer Software Engineers, Architects, Sales Executives, Administrator, Pharmacists, Nurses, Teachers, Construction workers etc are given for your benefit. This information will help you to prepare an original and unique resume. Be sure that you are not simply copying a resume format that you happen to find appealing.

Instead of copying, consider your sample resume choice very carefully.  Pick and choose the concepts and information or parts of any of these sample resumes that best fits your unique resume. Select the format that most emphasizes your strengths and achievements and excludes or reduces your weaknesses. Your resume needs to impress the recruiter or hiring manager enough to get you an interview.

A Nursing Resume Should Reflect Your Qualifications As Well As Your Personal Skills.

Every employer is looking for a specific set of skills and expertise from job-seekers that match the skills necessary to perform a particular job.

Basically a resume should contain your full name, campus and permanent address, telephone numbers and email addresses. Apart from that a nursing resume should include the following information:

A clear cut career and job objective which shows your sense of direction to the employer.

Your resume should have the names of each of your employers and your corresponding job titles.

Give a brief description about the employer like what they are doing, if they are not well known.

The number of staff that you manage(if applicable)

Mention your education, training and licenses as well as academic honors, scholarships and extracurricular activities.

As a specialized professional nurse, demonstrate what type of individual you are and give as much details as possible of your skills and experience.

Mention your interactions with other departments, external agencies and health care professionals.

Highlight your duties and responsibilities as a registered nurse, including planning, assessing and evaluating patient care, record keeping, the type of work or ward and routine tasks carried out etc.

Present a narrative statement of your value like: experienced with a comprehensive background like pediatric, oncology, long-term care and ICU/ER, knowledge of Medicare home health regulations and JCAHO standards/reimbursement requirements, registered nurse with 10 years of track record providing quality, patient centered care in home, hospital, nursing home, hospice and private office settings etc.

Highlight any other achievements that have benefited to your department and obviously your organization in general.