What is Your 5 Second Elevator Pitch

What is Your 5 Second Elevator Pitch Buy my LinkedIn DVD at 50% off (while supplies last). I think it was  Liz Ryan who called this a bumper sticker (great concept). In LinkedIn they call it a Professional Headline. Some call it a tag line. It is the bite-sized value proposition I might get bored listening to your poorly-crafted 30 second elevator pitch, but I cant help but digest your 5 Second Elevator Pitch. One of my favorites is from Carol Fletez, who is an IT professional in the D.C. area.  Look at how fantastic her 5 second pitch is: This might not mean anything to you but I used to work in a mainframe environment.  Mainframes are cool and powerful, but many times you feel like you are in the bedrock era.  Carols very simple phrase Helping Companies Migrate from Mainfraimes to the Future! is just clever! It brought a grin to my face, and immediately I assumed she has an expertise in legacy systems and new stuff, and marrying the two. Anyone who has been around mainframes will know what this means. Guess what?  She also has this sentence on her email signature she is getting that branding in multiple places (as she should). What is YOUR 5 Second pitch? What is Your 5 Second Elevator Pitch Buy my LinkedIn DVD at 50% off (while supplies last). I think it was  Liz Ryan who called this a bumper sticker (great concept). In LinkedIn they call it a Professional Headline. Some call it a tag line. It is the bite-sized value proposition I might get bored listening to your poorly-crafted 30 second elevator pitch, but I cant help but digest your 5 Second Elevator Pitch. One of my favorites is from Carol Fletez, who is an IT professional in the D.C. area.  Look at how fantastic her 5 second pitch is: This might not mean anything to you but I used to work in a mainframe environment.  Mainframes are cool and powerful, but many times you feel like you are in the bedrock era.  Carols very simple phrase Helping Companies Migrate from Mainfraimes to the Future! is just clever! It brought a grin to my face, and immediately I assumed she has an expertise in legacy systems and new stuff, and marrying the two. Anyone who has been around mainframes will know what this means. Guess what?  She also has this sentence on her email signature she is getting that branding in multiple places (as she should). What is YOUR 5 Second pitch? What is Your 5 Second Elevator Pitch Buy my LinkedIn DVD at 50% off (while supplies last). I think it was  Liz Ryan who called this a bumper sticker (great concept). In LinkedIn they call it a Professional Headline. Some call it a tag line. It is the bite-sized value proposition I might get bored listening to your poorly-crafted 30 second elevator pitch, but I cant help but digest your 5 Second Elevator Pitch. One of my favorites is from Carol Fletez, who is an IT professional in the D.C. area.  Look at how fantastic her 5 second pitch is: This might not mean anything to you but I used to work in a mainframe environment.  Mainframes are cool and powerful, but many times you feel like you are in the bedrock era.  Carols very simple phrase Helping Companies Migrate from Mainfraimes to the Future! is just clever! It brought a grin to my face, and immediately I assumed she has an expertise in legacy systems and new stuff, and marrying the two. Anyone who has been around mainframes will know what this means. Guess what?  She also has this sentence on her email signature she is getting that branding in multiple places (as she should). What is YOUR 5 Second pitch?

What Minimalism Is Not and Why Its For You - Classy Career Girl

What Minimalism Is Not and Why Its For You You landed that awesome new job with the corner office (good for you, girl!). You start thinking about all the ways you can spend your first paycheck. You’ll need a whole new wardrobe for this next step in your career. Plus, some new shoes, a new bag, and a mani/pedi because you deserve it! And you’ve been meaning to replace that couch since it’s gotten a little lumpy. Then you look around your already cramped apartment to see all the boxes stuffed with things you bought last time you got a promotion, some still brand new with tags! We’ve all been there. When you succeed, it’s a reason to celebrate! After all, isn’t the point of working hard to indulge in the spoils? As a minimalist, my answer to that is a big, fat NO. The word minimalism seems to be floating around a lot lately. What even is minimalism? Do those people really give up all their stuff and live in a white-washed box with no pictures on the walls? If this is what you picture when you hear minimalism then I’ve got news for you. It’s not what you think! Minimalism is like a create-your-own-adventure, with you in the driver’s seat! What Minimalism Is Not and Why Its For You 1. Boring Minimalism doesn’t mean boring! If you search Pinterest for minimalist inspiration, you may be hard to convince. A search may bring up small white apartments with only a chair and a lamp. Or one white couch that looks beautiful but makes you too nervous to sit down. On the contrary, minimalism is the freedom to add what makes you comfortable with your space. Whether that means having nothing on the walls, or it means hanging art on every surface, you can still use minimalism! 2. Pretentious Somewhere along the line “things that add value” became synonymous with “throw out all your stuff and buy new stuff.” Minimalism is not an excuse to throw out all your possessions and start again. As a matter of fact, minimalists wouldn’t suggest you throw out any of your possessions, especially if they bring you joy! Instead, focus on highlighting the things that bring you joy, and remove things that are just meh. If you get rid of the mediocre, the things that truly embody your personality are free to shine through. 3. One-Size-Fits-All Minimalism isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to designing your house. My home doesn’t have a coffee maker because I don’t drink coffee, but my best friend would have one running all the time. Spoiler Alert: There is no minimalist police to show up at your door and count the number of things in your house. How many items you have, and how you design your space, is entirely up to you. [RELATED:  5 Essentials For Minimalist Work Fashion] 4. Stressful Some people get really stressed out at the thought of parting with their belongings. We invest a lot in our things, and sometimes it’s hard to let them go. But if you’re being honest with yourself, staring at piles of clothes, boxes of unworn shoes, and mountains of paperwork is way more stressful than letting it all go. Removing visual clutter can help to reduce stress. So it’s time to let go of all those old papers, and enjoy your new zen! 5. A Way to Save Money While minimizing can help prevent you from spending money on useless things like yet another pair of sunglasses, minimalism as a money-saving strategy is almost guaranteed to fail. Minimalists tend to invest in quality pieces that will last for a long time. They make more intentional purchases and spend more time making decisions. Quality products tend to last longer, are more sustainable, and serve multiple purposes to justify the elevated costs. That means investing in one pair of sunglasses you love, instead of buying 8 cheap pairs you only sort of like. I can’t give you a step-by-step guide to minimalism and then pronounce you “in the club,” because there is no guide and no club! (But if there was, you’d totally be in!) Instead, minimalism offers peace of mind and ensures the items in your space bring you value and joy. It helps alleviate stress and ensure what remains is only what’s important. It’s the perfect way to live in the moment so you can work on being your best you!

5 Ways to Become an Invaluable Asset to Your Company

5 Ways to Become an Invaluable Asset to Your Company Todays post is by guest author Leslie Collins feel free to leave her a comment at the end. Thanks! Conventional wisdom tells us that the best path to job security is to make yourself indispensable to your employers. Thats easy enough to say, but how do you actually go about it? Here are a few steps you can take to stand out from the crowd and rise above your peers at the workplace. Find a Mentor A mentor can be a great gateway to bigger and better things. Try to connect with someone in the workplace who knows the little details of its daily operation. This not only shows drive and ambition, but a willingness to learn and a desire to become more valuable to your employers. Having a mentor can also raise your visibility with the company, especially if you gain a reputation for being invested in the companys success. Impress your mentor, and word will get around that youre someone on the way up the corporate ladder. Tread with caution, though theres a fine line between being ambitious and being a sycophant. Build a Personal Network When it comes to developing personal connections, theres no need to stop with just a mentor, or even within your own company.  Build an extensive network of people in your chosen industry or field. Building relationships with clients, vendors, and associates not only creates new opportunities that benefit you and your company, but also provide a valuable knowledge base you can draw from when the need arises. Having a personal network also increases your visibility with the company, especially if youre the employee who knows a guy who can solve a company problem. Learn a Language Looking for a new skill that will give you an edge over the competition? How about learning another language? A second language can broaden your professional horizons in a number of ways. Not only does it increase the scope of where you can do business (and with whom), it can be valuable in setting you apart from the crowd. Imagine being the only person on staff who can deal with that German supplier in his or her native language. You impress the supplier, you increase relationships with the company, and youve taken a big step toward making yourself irreplaceable. Become an Expert Be good at what you do is one of the most basic pieces of advice on how to do well in the workplace but if you truly want to go above and beyond, youll have to take your skill set one step further. Strive to become not just an expert, but the expert the go-to person that the company truly needs. Ruthlessly practice and hone the skills in your chosen field, so you can outperform your colleagues and impress your employers. Learn the obscure bits of knowledge that no one else knows. Dont just be good at your job learn how to do other peoples jobs as well. If theyre smart, employers will take notice. Become a Role Model Being an expert will make you valuable to your employers, but being a role model could make you valuable to everyone at the company. Strive to remain positive in your daily interactions at work. Dont backbite, gossip, or get involved with needless office politics. Be someone that your co-workers appreciate and enjoy working alongside. It wont always be easy, but nothing raises visibility and appreciation of your skills more. Be the kind of worker your employer wishes he had ten of before long, you could be the one doing the mentoring. Like any worthwhile advice, these steps wont always be easy. Working hard and staying positive can be a challenge to even the most devoted employee. But put yourself in your employers shoes, and see if youd consider yourself invaluable from their perspective. If the answer is no, then take another look at this list and step up your game! About the Author:  Leslie Collins is a long time writer for Pimsleur Approach. She has learned to speak Spanish through the program and enjoys traveling, coffee, discovering new cultures, and hiking with her golden retriever. Image courtesy of Kristina D. C. Hoeppner.

Five ways to make career change easier

Five ways to make career change easier Most of us will change careers at least three times in our lives. And most of us will be nervous at one point or another in the process. Invariably, youre giving up the known to pursue the unknown. So, even if you hate your current career, its still scary to give it up. Five Steps to a New Life I have a lot of experience in this arena. Ive changed careers a lot, going from professional beach volleyball player to software marketer to entrepreneur to freelance writer. While I was doing that, my husband changed careers three times in five years. Each change was different and difficult in its own way for both of us. But Ive learned some tricks along the way to make career changes easier. Here are five ideas to consider in your own career change: 1. Test things out before you make the leap. You dont need to quit your current job to get started in a new career. Give yourself a chance to test things out. Try it on vacation or on the weekend. Try an internship theres no rule that says an intern has to be 19 years old. Its very hard to predict what youll like. Once you admit this and really try things out, youre much more likely to be accurate about what youre well-suited to do next. The most effective way to make the very serious move of changing careers is to try out that career in a not-so-serious way. Ive done this in the past, and I once discovered that  I didnt end up liking the new career. This tactic can save you a lot of large missteps. 2. Talk about your change in a way that will make it happen. When people ask you what you do or, even better, what you want to do you need an effective answer. Tell people what youre aiming to do and why it makes sense. This little speech is what will allow people to help you make that career change. Laura Allen, co-founder of  15 Second Pitch, helps people figure out what to say when they want to make a career change. The key to answering the question what do you do is knowing yourself and knowing why you want to change. Once you know that, the pitch will come more easily. 3. Keep your significant other in the loop. A career change is so emotionally and financially  profound that its practically a joint decision if youre living with a significant other. I learned this the hard way,  when my husband changed careers. As a career advisor, I had a lot of opinions about what he should be doing, but I didnt want to step on his toes so I tried to leave him alone to make the decisions himself. But I started getting nervous about the instability his choices might create. Theres a definite balance you need to strike between wanting to support your partner in chasing his or her career dreams, and wanting to maintain sanity in the relationship while the chase is on. Keeping your partner in the loop, not just about what youre doing but also what youre thinking, can go a long way toward creating a team feeling. 4. Make the change before you go nuts. Most people hold out in a career until its clear that its not for them. All change is hard. We like to be stimulated and interested, but most of us dont like constant change. Its too stressful, so we find ways to avoid it. The problem is that if you put off change for too long you compromise your ability to orchestrate it. I spent a lot of my career with the bad habit of  letting myself bottom out before I made a big change, so take it from me the change is much harder to manage when youre operating from a place of desperation and exhaustion. 5. Downplay financial issues. I write a lot about how you dont need a lot of money to be happy. In fact, research shows that  you only need $40,000 to be happy, and that the rest of the money you earn has little impact on your happiness. But  Tim Ferriss  takes this one step further. In his book, The 4-Hour Workweek, he starts with the idea that time and flexibility are worth more in life than money. So when you think about if you can afford to make the change, think in terms of your net gain in time and flexibility rather than in money. Anticipating the Risk Career change is always risky. But if you have a good understanding of why youre leaving your current career and choosing the new one, the clarity can give you the strength to endure instability and uncertainty. At some point, your self-awareness will make the career change your only viable alternative. Then itll seem like a relatively low-risk move.

Tips For Creating An Objective For Your Resume

Tips For Creating An Objective For Your ResumeMany people make the mistake of trying to fill every one of their objective fields with perfect information and not even trying to cover all of them. Some people fill their objective with exactly what they're looking for, while others take the extra time to think it through and figure out exactly what they're looking for.The way you make your objective really reflect what it is that you're looking for. One option is to go to the old resume sample and just put down what you're after in bold letters. Try not to go too far over the top with what you're looking for and leave room for the employer to put something in there that matches what you're looking for, but don't go overboard.You're going to want to come up with some sort of motivation and a statement of purpose. This is something that you can put in the objective section that tells the reader who you are and why you are hiring. It can be a small short sentence or paragraph explaining w hy you want the job.Make sure that the rest of the objective section doesn't take up too much space. It can be good to go into some detail about a few of your skills and achievements. Even though you're looking for a sales position, use this as a way to emphasize on your ability to motivate and how your new employer can benefit from what you've learned from the company. Maybe even mention that you're a hard worker and have a great personality.Make sure that you explain in the subjective section of your resume that you're looking for a specific thing. You can write in a list of three main things that you want and what you do best. You should always make sure that this first section of your resume is as close to concrete as possible.Make sure that you detail exactly why you're looking for the position, what you hope to accomplish once hired, and why you're looking for any particular areas of expertise. When people read this section, they're getting a sense of what it's like to work wi th you and what you do in the office.Use your preferred career path in your objective. You should also mention all of your major accomplishments in this section, but you can't include anything about where you learned or any of your favorite people. In fact, you don't want to name any of your childhood friends because this makes you sound unprofessional.Finally, stick with the objective when you're creating the resume. Don't add other sections such as awards, letters of recommendation, and references. Your objective should be the most important part of your resume.

How to complain constructively - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

How to complain constructively - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog Last week I wrote about chronic complainers at work and what to do about them. Now, I dont want anyone to think that Im opposed to complaining as such. Complaining can be a great tool for initiating change and if we outlaw complaining in the workplace, as some managers try to do, all we do is drive it underground where it becomes even more toxic. So we should accept that complaining plays an important role in business, but the key thing here is to know the difference between constructive and unconstructive complaining. Here are some of the differences: Unconstructive: Complain about what bugs you the most Constructive: Complain about the right thing Is the problem really the problem? Or is there a deeper issue going on? Complain about the problem, not just the symptoms. Unconstructive: Complain when you feel the most annoyed Constructive: Complain at the right time There are times to complain and times not to. Choose a moment where theres time, will and energy to deal constructively with the issue. Five minutes before an important meeting starts is probably not the time. Unconstructive: Complain to whoever will listen Constructive: Complain to someone who can do something about it If your boss is the problem, complaining to your co-workers can be a lot of fun, but it changes nothing. Complain to your boss or to the bosss boss. Unconstructive: Point fingers. Constructive: Look at yourself first. Maybe its just you who has a problem and everyone else is fine with the situation? Try to recognize those situations where everything is actually fine youre just being irrationally annoyed (happens to me all the time). Also: To what extent are you a part of the problem? How are you contributing to either the problem or to the solution? Before complaining about others, make sure you know what your role in the issue is. Unconstructive: Seek blame Constructive: Seek solutions Going in with the intention of making people admit theyre at fault is rarely productive. Does it really matter whose fault it is? Forget blame and focus on moving on and finding lasting solutions. Unconstructive: Only complain Constructive: Also appreciate whats good Complain when theres a reason to, but remember to appreciate the good stuff also dont just always complain. Did I forget anything? Add your thoughts in the comments! Basically, constructive complaining leads to change whereas the unconstructive variety traps a workplace in the status quo by zapping everyones energy, optimism and belief that change is possible. And that may be part of the attraction of unconstructive complaining: It reinforces a bad situation, but its a bad situation you know and have learned to deal with. At the same time it reinforces the status quo and protects you from change that might bring new problems you dont yet know how to handle. Theres an amount of safety and comfort in it. But to my mind, unconstructive complaining is a tar-pit that can eventually trap even the sunniest, most optimistic person in a sticky hell of perpetual, ineffectual and often petty dissatisfaction from which people arent really seeking a way out. Thats why we need to be able to break away from the moan-mentality at work and make sure that we complain in a way that makes change happen. Ie. constructively. If you liked this post Im pretty sure youll also enjoy these: How to handle chronic complainers How to handle jerks at work Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related

Summary Sunday Prep Your Career For The Future

Summary Sunday Prep Your Career For The Future When was the last time you stepped out of your cube and thought about preparing your career for the future? Theres a lot happening outside your organization and I recommend you future-proof your career! You dont want to get left behind! Trends in how employees are using social media at work, learning the art and science of storytelling and how to prepare for an interview will help keep you up to date!  And while youre at it, check out the infographic showing job titles that didnt exist five years ago. What does that tell you? I love finding and sharing interesting and helpful articles to share with people who are serious about managing their careers. If you follow me on Twitter, youll see what I mean! SOCIAL MEDIA 5 Benefits of Social Networks at Work by Jessica Miller-Merrell | Workology The next time your boss, HR or VP tells you that social media is a waste of time, show them this article! [Social media] provide a way for employees to interact and develop as well as give leadership insight into who their employees are and what makes them tick. INTERVIEWING Great Interview Delivery: Six Steps From the Classroom to Your Career by Lea McLeod | YouTern Are you really prepared for an interview? You shouldnt wing it nor assume you are prepared. Follow these six steps and I  guarantee youll improve! CAREER A Storytelling Guide for Those Who Stink at Storytelling by Jessica Stillman | Inc. You may not have a knack for storytelling YETbut if you follow this 5-step structure to storytelling, you can begin building your storytelling abilities. You see, people remember stories. It stirs emotions and helps them connect with you. 99 Simple Ways to Gain the Respect of Others by Lolly Daskal | Inc. Who doesnt want to be respected?! There are little things you can start doing today that will improve how people see you! JOB SEARCH 10 Job Titles That Barely Existed 5 Years Ago [INFOGRAPHIC] by LinkedIn Infographic by LinkedIn MENTIONS Many thanks to Jason Alba of JibberJobber for featuring my 6 Step Process in several articles! What A Job Search Strategy Looks Like