With No Experience, Nobodys Interested. Am I Going To Be Stuck Forever

“With No Experience, Nobody’s Interested. Am I Going To Be Stuck Forever” Help from our Community “With No Experience, Nobody’s Interested. Am I Going To Be Stuck Forever?” * Sarah’s passionate about finding work that helps others. But her confidence fadesevery time she hears she doesn’t have the right qualifications or background. How do you find hope when you keep hitting dead ends? What's your career history and current job? I've been a dental nurse for 18 years. Originally I'd wanted to work with children, but the pay was so bad that I decided to do some dental nursing to tide me over. 18 years later, I'm still there! How do you feel about your work? I feel stuck in a rut. Being a dental nurse defines me because it's all I've ever done, but I don't want that to be my identity. I used to feel like I was helping people. The company I work for was recently taken over by a corporate organisation. Now, it's all about targets. The care seems to have disappeared. I don't feel passionate about what I do. It's not something that makes me want to get out of bed in the morning. I'm very much like a robot, doing day-to-day tasks. I have no enthusiasm for it anymore. The one good thing about where I work is that because I've been there so long, everybody who comes in knows me. I enjoy that familiarity and the friendliness. I like helping nervous people and children to feel comfortable, for instance. What would you like to be doing instead? I'm interested in working in mental health or occupational / public health, either for a charity or a not-for-profit. I've emailed the local children and mental health service, and keep an eye on the local council and NHS websites. I want to be in a career where I feel like I'm making more of a difference than I am now. I've suffered from depression in the past myself. I feel I have the empathy to be able to help other people who, like me, have suffered with bullying â€" especially children and young people, or people with learning disabilities. If I could help others like me get through to the 'other side', I'd feel like I was making a real difference to people's lives. What's the biggest obstacle in your way? When I find any different jobs outside of dental nursing and I email people about them, I'm told I don't have the qualifications or the experience. I've spoken to a couple of careers advisers and the only thing they've found for me are jobs that are really poorly paid, or jobs that I need to do more qualifications for. I live on my own, so I need to be able to pay the mortgage and the bills all by myself. I know I could do voluntary work to get experience and go back to studying, but that isn't sustainable for me. I know I'll have to go down in wages to change career. And I'd be happy to do some courses, or to learn on the job, but I don't want to pay for Open University or something similar and for it to not get me to where I want to go. I'm going around in circles, which makes me think, “Am I going to be stuck in this same situation forever?” My current job is safe. I know my way to work, I know what I'm doing, and I'm familiar with everything. Feeling safe can be helpful, but it isn't really living. How do I get past the 'no experience, no chance' Catch-22? Can you help Sarah? Have you been in a similar situation, or are you in the same boat right now? How do you think Sarah could move her shift forwards? Do you know anyone she could talk to? Share your thoughts in the comments below and click the thumbs-up button to show your support. Give Sarah a cheer of encouragement by hitting the thumbs-up button here:

Does Employee Satisfaction Drive Company Performance

Does Employee Satisfaction Drive Company Performance For generations, economists have told a simple story about how companies work like a juice machine. They combine ingredients â€" people, buildings and software â€" and transform the output into useful products. Employees are just another input in the production process, an undifferentiated cost that’s thrown into the juicer. But today’s economy has evolved significantly from the 20th century, dominated by manufacturing, agriculture and manual labour. Today, we rely more heavily on sophisticated services, technology and workers that are more valuable than ever as more diverse, knowledgeable and flexible individuals. They’re a valuable asset and source of innovation, not just a means to an end. Companies are a Garden, Not a Machine So then, how should we view companies today? A vegetable garden is a new story that’s getting more attention from economists today. Although you’ve got more unpredictable variables â€" seeds, soil and climate â€" when you combine them with whatever Mother Nature brings, you get valuable produce. And unlike the company-as-juice-machine metaphor, when the health and happiness of the individual plants are tended to, much like every employee, your product and yield can improve. Whether it’s employees in a tech company, or tomato plants in a backyard garden, tending to them can help build a great company culture that delivers on financial performance. There’s a new study we joint published this week that supports the notion employees are key assets of a firm. The study, Employee Satisfaction and Corporate Performance in the UK, from the University of East Anglia’s Norwich Business School examines the link between employee satisfaction on Glassdoor and real-world financial performance for companies in the United Kingdom. Happy Employees Drive Business Performance The results are striking. The authors show a strong link between a satisfied workforce â€" in the form of higher Glassdoor company ratings â€" and the financial performance of UK companies in the sample. Even after controlling for many other factors including industry, sales growth, company size, whether the company is private or public, and more â€" company ratings on Glassdoor still had a statistically significant and positive link to company profitability. On average, the study finds having a 1-star higher rating on Glassdoor predicts about a 1 percent higher annual return on company assets â€" a statistically significant boost. According to the authors, “firms rated highly by their current employees in terms of satisfaction [on Glassdoor] achieve superior profitability compared to those rated poorly.” It’s information that can be useful to companies and investors as this positive association suggests that, “online employee reviews can be used to forecast the financial results of UK firms.” Beating the Stock Market The study also looked at stock returns for companies with top Glassdoor ratings in recent years. The researchers used several rigorous methods to measure whether companies with more satisfied employees earned an extra stock market return â€" known as “alpha” in the financial world â€" and found an annual alpha of roughly 16 percent on average for an equally-weighted stock portfolio after accounting for other factors like company size, momentum, and riskiness of the company’s stock. This shows that investors in the market don’t fully account for how satisfied employees can improve business outcomes when they value stocks. “[This finding] corroborates the link between employee satisfaction and corporate performance in the UK and also suggests that intangibles are not fully priced in the UK market.” Perform Well by Investing in People This new study is significant for several reasons. It’s the first study ever to examine the link between Glassdoor ratings and company financial performance outside the United States. In a previous 2017 study published in the peer-reviewed journal Economics Letters, the authors found Glassdoor ratings predict better performance in U.S. companies â€" a result this study now confirms for UK employers as well. This is also the first study to examine the link between employee satisfaction and financial performance for both privately held companies and publicly traded employers. Unlike in the U.S., financial data are available for many private companies in the UK, allowing researchers to confirm past results for public companies also hold among private firms. The study is based on Glassdoor data for all available employer reviews for employees of UK firms between 2014 and 2017. For their analysis, the authors used only companies with at least 100 reviews in the four-year period considered. Their final sample includes 35,231 Glassdoor reviews for 164 UK employers. The authors argue their findings suggest employees in today’s companies are an important resource â€" not simply a homogeneous cost of production. In their words, “Our results support the human-centred view of the firm as we find a significant positive relationship between employee satisfaction and firm profitability.” About the author: Andrew Chamberlain is the Chief Economist at Glassdoor. Hes an applied labor economist specializing in the econometrics and data science of online review platforms, with a focus on developing insights about hiring processes, job search behavior, wage determination, and the microeconomics of employee satisfaction and company culture.

HOW TO Monitor Your Reputation and Boost Your Brand Online - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

HOW TO Monitor Your Reputation and Boost Your Brand Online - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Google Alerts alerts>Alerts can be very valuable to monitoring your online presence, addressing consumer concerns and keeping up with your niche or industry. All you need to do is choose a keyword or phrase to set up an alert for. You can choose the option to receive alerts instantly or daily. Start off with setting up alerts for: Your name (full name and nicknames) Your business name Your social network handles Your blog Your products or services You can also use alerts to keep up with your niche and its key leaders. Some things to think about monitoring with alerts: Keywords and phrases in your niche Names of important people at competing organizations Names of people you want to get to know Twitter mentions and search Setting up a column on Twitter, Tweetdeck or HootSuite for mentions of your handle will allow you to quickly respond to praise, comments and concerns. Don’t forget to follow important keywords and hashtags, too. Set up a separate column for niche keywords, phrases and your most used hashtags to follow the conversation. That way, if someone on Twitter needs advice, expertise or recommendations about something in your niche, you can be one of the first to respond to them. Trackbacks on your blog If someone links to one of your blog posts, tweets it, etc. it should show up in your trackbacks. You can see what they wrote about, why they linked to your post and thank them for mentioning your piece. Keep in mind that each way you monitor your brand you’re listening to feedback from your audience and others in your niche. While not everything you read will be praise, don’t discount negative feedback right away. Think about how you can incorporate suggestions and concerns and address it right away for the best results. All of these tactics will allow you to: Stay on top of what people are saying about you, your brand, your organization, etc. Keep up with trends in your industry/niche Get new ideas and inspiration for blog posts Be one of the first to read new posts by influential people (and leave a valuable comment, if you choose to do so) Build up a list of sites that you can possibly guest blog for What other ways do you monitor your brand? How has monitoring your online presence helped you? Author: Heather R. Huhman is a career expert and founder president of Come Recommended, a career and workplace education and consulting firm specializing in young professionals. She is also the author of #ENTRYLEVELtweet: Taking Your Career from Classroom to Cubicle (2010), national entry-level careers columnist for Examiner.com and blogs about career advice at HeatherHuhman.com.

Is a Business Degree Right for You

Is a Business Degree Right for You In the fall of 2016, an estimated  20.5 million students  enrolled in college. And while the college-age population is rising, more 18 to 24-year-olds are enrolled than ever before, much of the student population is entering directly from high school. You might be asking yourself, is a business degree right for me? Here are a few things you should consider before buying textbooks. Cost A four-year undergraduate degree costs  between $9,650 and $33,480, according to data found from the College Board Survey of Colleges. Tuition and fees for an in-state school average $9,650, while students who travel out of state for an education can expect to pay $24,930 at a four-year public university. Tuition to a private non-profit university is by far the most costly, at $33,480. Prospective students should know that there are other opportunities for education available. Online resources like Khan Academy offer free online courses that cover dozens of subjects that teach marketable skills from computing and coding to economics and entrepreneurship. Time Not everyone has the time to go to school for four years. Whether you have kids, a current job that demands your time or other responsibilities that may pull you out of the classroom, it’s not uncommon for life’s circumstances to interfere with a traditional college education. However, today’s classrooms are evolving. More and more universities are offering online courses that can be completed on a student’s own time. There are still deadlines, but students have the flexibility to get their work done and study on their own time without having to worry about commuting to campus, finding a babysitter or reaching a work schedule. Returns The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has found that business-related careers rank high when it comes to Americas top paying jobs. For example, some of the highest paying careers in business-related fields include chief executives, who rake in median pay of $165,080 every 12 months, engineering and architectural managers who earn $119,260 annually and IT systems managers who take home $115,780 each year. Traditional education plays a large role in the amount of money you take home. But it’s not always the one deciding factor. Many successful entrepreneurs have set out on their own paths or dropped out of college, yet still managed to achieve success. Some examples include Mark Zuckerberg, Richard Branson, Steve Jobs and Mark Cuban. Even the founder of Coca-Cola, Charles Culpepper and Walt Disney pursued opportunities that strayed from  a traditional college degree. This goes to show that a person can achieve success in business, even without a business degree. Staying Competitive Cost, time and return all play a role when deciding whether a traditional college education is the right option for you. Whatever your circumstances may be, you should always aim to keep your doors open. You can do this by volunteering, joining networking events, taking free online classes to learn a new skill, keeping your resume polished and even picking up a side hustle. Figure out what you like to do. For example, you could be your own boss and make a little extra with  Amway. The direct selling business provides people from across the globe with their own business opportunity. Amway cites that 3 million people have set out on their own entrepreneurial path using their business model as a platform. Do some research. Find a side hustle that is a good fit. You might learn something new, make a connection or hone your business skills, all while earning a paycheck.

How To Not Be a Turkey in the Gig Economy - Career Pivot

How To Not Be a Turkey in the Gig Economy - Career Pivot Gig Economy You have probably heard the term gig economybeing thrown around a lot these days. WhatIs.com defines this term: Agig economy is an environment in which temporary positions are common and organizations contract with independent workers for short-term engagements. Most of you probably think of driving for Uber or Lyft when you hear the term gig economy. The gig economy I want you to consider is beinga consultant or contractor where the length of the gig is measured in months or possibly years. Rather than being a full-time employee, you are hired to manage a project, develop a piece of content or software, or work on a project until completion. You are probably saying to yourself, “Why would I want to do that? I want a full-time job with benefits.” The gig economy is going to make full-time employment a thing of the past. Even if you have a full-time job, you had better start thinking like a contractor or consultant. Your job may not be around next month. The last thing you want to be is a turkey in this gig economy. How to not be a turkey In my last post, Looking at Your Career from a Turkey’s Perspective I discussed how a turkey is born into a safe environment. It is fed and taken care every single day. Life is good. Life is really good…until the 4th Wednesday of November when it is not so good to be a turkey. In the gig economy, you cannot affordto be a turkey. Whether you are an employee, contractor, consultant or freelancer, you should ALWAYS be looking for your next gig. As a freelancer, contractor, or consultant, you are hired to solve problems. Listen to the most recent episode What problems do you solve? Get clear and make sure you can articulate the problems that you solve. You may want to document these in your LinkedIn profile in the summary section as part of your brand story. Use the keywords that will attract people who are looking for people to solve the types of problems you know how to solve. Look for companies that have the kind of problems that you know how to solve. These are the companies that are capable of hiring you as an employee, contractor, or consultant. Marketing plan From this day forward, I want you to consider yourself a free agent. As a free agent, you will need a marketing plan. I do not care that you are currently an employee and you think you will be an employee for the rest of your career. Only turkeys think this way. Create a personal marketing plan that includes the following: Target markets Target companies within each target market Methods for you to promote your talents Blog Social Media Personal website Budget It is no longer enough to tell me what can do. You need to demonstrate what you can do. You need examples of your work. You need to publish posts that demonstrate your knowledge. Show me, do not tell me. Your marketing plan should have a strategy for you to promote your talentsand skills. Building a portfolio career I have started interviewing baby boomers who have made successful career pivots. Some have created portfolio careers. They have createdmultiple income streams from different kinds of clients by solving various kinds of problems. A goodexample is a gentleman who set up a consulting practice where he provided one on one executive coaching, taught leadership classes at a university, taught leadership training workshops for a training company, and consulted for major corporations on HR issues. Each service ebbs and flows during the year. You have to be prepared to offer services that match the current market demands, which can change from month to month and year to year. In the coming gig economy, the days of having a safe secure job are over. You need to plan for uncertainty. Is this shock? Are you ready for the gig economy or will you be a turkey? Marc Miller Like what you just read? Share it with your friends using the buttons above. Like What You Read? Get Career Pivot Insights! Check out the Repurpose Your Career Podcast Do You Need Help With ...

Heaven, Im in heaven - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Heaven, Im in heaven - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog Im in book heaven: It seems that all my favourite authors have new books out right now. I just finished Chuck Palahniuks new book Diary, Douglas Couplands Hey Nostradamus! is waiting for me and, wonder of wonders, I walked into a bookstore today and they had Neal Stephensons new book Quicksilver which is a kind of prequel to Cryptonomicon. Im 50 pages into it already, and it looks excellent and best of all: Theres still 900 pages to go! 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

Resume Writing Group Activities

Resume Writing Group ActivitiesWhat can resume writing group activities to help you do? Certainly, any sort of game can help you to get yourself organized. However, the best part about the activity is that it will be a good way to spend your time. Here are some examples of the game I mean:First, a typical game, and the one most often given to the group is the old paper wall. Simply, the group puts on a paper or cardboard wall that is decorated with plastic balls. The balls will appear and disappear as the person reading the resume reads it. This can be fun because, you see, you get to add in your own personality and flair. You will have to be active and the more the ball gets moved, the more times the person has to write a letter of reference or go back to the beginning and start over again.Another classic video game is the alphabet game. In this game, the group puts on a table or a desk and the persons are simply told to start looking for something. One person reads the letter and a nother gets to start at the end of the alphabet. After each person has completed the alphabet, that person is asked to put their finger up on the end and sign the next letter. Again, this is a great way to help the person who is reading their resume become organized.Interestingly enough, the very popular and commonly played computer game Scrabble is very common computer games that the group can play together. In this game, the first person will be given five words and then they will take turns putting the word in front of them to see if the other player can find the word. As the game progresses, the reader will be forced to make more words. This can be great for getting the group to work as a team. It may even have the individual player picking words that they do not know, so they do not embarrass themselves.These examples of resume writing group activities are easy ways to get the group to get more involved. They are activities that the group will be able to do and then be able to really work as a team. This can be a great way to create a lot of camaraderie.Also, resume writing group activities can serve as good get together to play a game or even to have a good time. Some people are serious writers, while others just want to do some little writing like making the filling out a cover letter. Maybe the group can play Scrabble together or some other form of a fun game to make it easier for the readers.Furthermore, these types of resume writing group activities can also be fun for the writer as well. There are many examples of what some might consider to be badly written letters. For instance, the first paragraph could be awfully long. Others might skip the introduction or make minor mistakes, so it is always good to be prepared with some help from the group.These things can be learned over time and by doing these things, the writer can become better at what they do. When you are preparing for a writing task, think about the many different ways that you can get outside help. Resume writing group activities can be fun as well as being great for the reader.