Monday, September 5, 2016

"Balance in life creates business success"/ career information interviewing

Jul. 1, 2016 "Balance in life creates business success": I cut out this article by Shannon Clark in the Merge magazine in Apr. 2010 when it was published.  You can read the whole article and magazine here.  It was about Mark Holowaychuk who sold supplements in Edmonton.  He was a health club sales guy before he devoted to this supplement business full-time.

There is one small part about life:

"Take responsibility for what you currently have in life.  Your job, your friends, and your happiness are all a result of your daily choices and actions.  If you want to create change it needs to come from within."

I'm going to put the above in the inspirational quotes.

Mark had some good tips:

Sell something people want.  A lot of people create businesses that are selling products that aren't in demand.

Copy a business and improve on it.



"How to write business": This was in Merge magazine in Jun. 2010 and it's by Jilly Scheyk. This reminds me of Professional Prose (like business writing) in Professional Writing.  This is about annual reports and newsletters.

"How to speak business": By Michelle Devlin

"How to listen for business": By Catherine Armstrong.  This reminds me of learning to listen in my Business Communication class in my Office Assistant program.

"Finding the Perfect Fit": by Sarah Kmiech.  They profiled the Headhunters staffing agency in Edmonton.  They have this personality and work style test:

1. Leadership orientation
2. Emotional
3. Social
4. Interpersonal
5. Task
6. Conceptual- the degree to which a person seems imaginative and open to change.




Ten steps to Publishing A Joomla! Website: By Marilyn Jones.  The article was good about how to create a website for your business.




My opinion: This magazine is old like from 2010.  From what I read, I would say it is a good business magazine.

Business news:

Jacob: I found this article I cut out in the Metro on Jul. 22, 2014.  Then I found this Apr. 2015 article that the store is still here.


Career Connections: This was in Fall 2011 issue.  They talked to people in the CAPS Career Mentoring Program:

Ivy Panganiban, Bachelor of Commerce, University of Alberta: Just try, you have nothing to lose.  If you do not try then you will never know the answer.

Book reviews: There was this Career Connections article about 2 business books:

Wan·der·jahr
ˈvändərˌyär/
noun
North American

noun: Wanderjahr; plural noun: Wanderjahre
  1. a year spent traveling abroad, typically immediately before or after a university or college course.









I already wrote about it before:







"In this amazing account, Daniel Seddiqui tells of working fifty different jobs in fifty states in fifty weeks. Working as everything from a cheesemaker in Wisconsin to a border patrol agent in Arizona, he details his journey across the industries and cultures of the United States and offers lessons he learned along the way about perseverance, risk taking, adaptability, networking, and endurance.

The part that stood out to me the most was this:

"It is probably best to sum up their respective journeys with the advice given to (Sean Aiken in One Week Job) by Rob, a park ranger in Hawaii, who said: 'There's no use thinking about what you should have done or what would have happened if you had chosen another trail.  The best you can do is cope with the conditions in front of you.  And if you're lucky, you've come well enough prepared."

I put the above in my inspirational quotes.

Feature website Twitter: I found this article in the Career Connections.  This stood out to me:

For work search purposes, try tweeting out your offer to work, the services you provide, links to your online portfolio or completed work and communicating  with people in your industry.  If you are using Twitter for professional reasons, keep it professional- no complaints, no harassment, no inappropriate pictures- and create another Twitter account for personal use. 

Career information interviewing: I found this article too.  The tips are like:

-see if the realities of a job fit with your interests, skills, and values

Step 1: Identify careers, jobs, industries or work settings you are interested in learning more about.

Narrow down if you want to learn about people based on their educational background, job title, professional membership, employer or sector.

Step 2: Identify your beliefs, assumptions and uncertainties about each area of career interest.

What positive, negative beliefs, and uncertainties and unknowns do I have about this job.

Step 3: Translate your beliefs, assumptions and uncertainties into specific questions.  Most interviews would be 30 min long.

Questions:

Can you describe a typical work day or week?

What do you like about this job?

What are the sources of stress in your job?

Step 4: Conduct the career information interview.

A) Identify people to contact- go to CAPS Career Information Network is an online list of professionals who have volunteered to provide career advice through brief individual meetings, emails or phone calls to do career information interviews.

- ask friends, family, professors, bosses
- attend CAPS events
-browse the CAPS Career Information Network
- web pages for university departments, faculties and alumni associations to contact past graduates
- review company and professional associations
- look up the position or title you are interested in
- social media like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook 

B) Make contact.

-introduce yourself and your academic program and how you know them.  Tell about the purpose of your call.  Arrange a time, date, location of the meeting.

C) Do the career information interview.

-Do not ask for a job, even directly
- Take initiative.  You asked for an interview, you need to ask the questions
-arrive on time and leave on time, unless you are clearly invited to stay longer
-always ask for referral to other people in the field you can talk to

D) Follow up and thanking

- Send a thank you email to them within 24 hrs of the interview
- it is recommended that you give updates to them about your job search if one of them kind of becomes a mentor to you

Step 5: Reflect on what you have learned

Look back on your questions and answers.  You can get multiple opinions from several different people.

You may get tips to take certain courses, join a professional association or volunteer- what are you next steps going to be.

Time for action

Career information interviews can confirm or question your original career plans. 

And if you are sure about where your career path is headed, they can also help you expand your connections and discover unadvertised opportunities.

People like to talk about themselves.

My opinion: This reminds me of the time I applied to get into the TV program at NAIT.  You have to write a career investigation with your high school transcript.  I did call a TV production company to get my career questions answered.

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