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Late Start: How to Build Your Dream Career

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by Maggie Hammond

Even if you have a job you love, it may be a good idea to focus on evolving. “Reinvention is different later in your career. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible,” says Dorie Clark, author of Reinventing You. “In fact, it’s increasingly essential for any professional who aspires to remain in the workforce for any length of time.”

The reality is that you have to reinvent yourself professionally in order to remain relevant and valuable to your employer. Whether you are already in a job you love, or you want to work your way there, here are some tips for building your dream career — even when you are starting late.

Have a Plan
One of the advantages of being older is that you realize the value of time and just how much time you have. Use that fact to your advantage and develop a game plan to get you to where you want to go. Take the time to research a path for your career and map out how you could get there.

Invest in Yourself
You may also have more disposable income that you can use to invest in yourself — be it earning a PhD or getting braces. Use that. You may be able to take advantage of opportunities in your later years that you never even dreamed about when you were younger, like moving to a new country, relocating to a city center, or earning professional certifications.

Acquire Skills
John Tarnoff, author of Boomer Reinvention: How to Create Your Dream Career Over 50, says that acquiring new skills is one of your best opportunities to build your dream career. “The word ‘reinvention’ generally stops me cold,” writes Tarnoff. “I believe that with a little soul-searching about what you have to offer and opening up your mind to the possibilities, you have the capacity to redeploy your skills in a new direction, to a new field and type of job. You will, though, need to learn new skills and ramp up the ones you have.”

Get Hip
While in some cases learning new skills will involve bolstering the knowledge you already have, you may also need to “get hip” and educate yourself about the trends happening around you. Social media is a good example of this. To compete in the modern world of business, you will need to have a profile and a presence on social media. You will also need to monitor and manage your “shadow resume” on Google. Reputation is the new resume.

Leverage Networks
Finally, spend some time leveraging your networks. You may only be a single degree of separation from your dream job or the connection that gets you there. The ability to do this is something author Joshua Cooper Ramo calls “The Seventh Sense” for how critical it is in business. The idea is that by activating your network — reaching out to people you’ve met or with whom you’ve worked — you can become a player in the ever moving cog that is your industry and ultimately level up into a new and better position.
Building your dream career is not a goal for the young — or at least not exclusively. No matter how old you are, there are things you can do to reinvent yourself and redefine your professional goals.

How to Stop Saying Like All the Time (Infographic)

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People can often develop nervous habits when speaking – some will say, “Ummm” frequently (especially when they’re making a speech). Many (MANY!) others pepper their speech with, “like,” which is what the infographic below deals with.

Personally, a trend I’ve noticed that drives me batty is people ending sentences with an inflection, as though they’re questions.  For whatever reason, it drives me up the wall. I have, literally, changed channels and turned off podcasts because of it. In fact there was once a husband and wife team giving an interview on a podcast and as soon as I discovered they BOTH did it, I jumped up from the computer and sped to Starbucks for a Chai Tea Latte to calm my nerves.

THAT’S how batty it drives me.

Frequently saying “like” (as is the case with Ummm and making everything sound like a question) distracts from what you’re actually saying. It causes you to seem less knowledgeable and less confident. Pretty much the last things you want to convey!

The infographic has wonderful tips and advice. Enjoy! ~ Joi (“Joy”)

Courtesy of: QuickQuid

7 Ways To Develop Leadership Skills

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by Michelle Brooks

Whether you are a marketing executive, working with a team of professional editors and essay writers for companies like this one, or even still in college, the day will come that you will need to complete a group project. However, your role as team member can quickly turn to team leader. Very few people, though, are born with natural leadership skills. In this article, though, we are going to take a look at 7 ways that you can improve your leadership skills.

Use Your Strengths

When you are striving to be a good leader, the first thing you have to do is to know yourself. What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? By answering these questions, you can take note of what you can bring to the table as a leader and what you need to work on. 

When considering your strengths, you are using what you have to be a good leader. When you are looking at your weaknesses, though, it’s a little different. Not only are you looking at what you need to improve on, you are also considering what portions of a project you might want to call on your teammates for help on. Of course, your goal is to constantly improve but you shouldn’t be afraid to ask for help either. 

Work On Your Communication Skills

One of the biggest parts of being a leader is communicating your wants and needs with your team. Without your direction, the team you are leading will quickly fall apart. You should also be sure that when you speak, you sound confident in what you are saying. This means being careful to get rid of any filler words like “um” and “uh”.

You also need to be sure to listen to the people you are leading as well. Making sure that their ideas are heard is a great way to make them want to work for you rather than making them feel like it is their labor that is important rather than them as individuals. The best way to do this is to practice active listening when you speak to your team. 

If you are having trouble communicating with your team your wants and needs, you can always take classes in public speaking or communication. 

Be Passionate About What You Do

This isn’t always possible – as you will doubtlessly be assigned projects you don’t always like – but if you can find passion in a project, latch onto it. Having an unbridled passion for what you do, though, is a great way to motivate the people around you and help you get the results you want out of a project. 

One of the best ways to ensure this is to find a career that you are passionate about. By doing this, you will increase the odds of getting projects that spark your interest and spur on your passion. Even if you get a job that you aren’t as passionate about, look for the silver lining if you can; it will make the project not only more bearable but it will increase the likelihood of a successful outcome. 

Don’t Be Afraid To Follow

Sometimes to be a good leader, you first have to be a good team member. This allows you to see the methods of other leaders and learn what makes you feel like a valued team member and take these traits and use them the next time you act as leader. In addition, being a team member also gives you the perspective that you need to command your teams effectively. 

Following once and a while also shows the people that you are working with that you don’t have to be in control all the time. They will respect that you can listen to others’ ideas and handle taking commands as well as giving them. 

Stay Positive

It may sound corny but staying positive will go a long way. Say you are working on a a group project for a college class, for example. If you enter every meeting complaining about how you’re all going to fail the project, you are hardly inspiring your groupmates to work hard and produce the best product that they can. 

Learn to Build Teams

When you are leading a project, you won’t always be given a team. Sometimes, you will have to build one from the ground up. This can be done by paying careful attention to the people you work or go to school with. Who pays attention in class and knows the material? Who gets along? Who likes to take the initiative? It may take a little while to learn what traits work well together but it will be worth your time to pay attention to the teams around you. 

You Will Make Mistakes

It is crucial that you understand that while you are learning to be a good leader, you will make mistakes. What’s important, though, is how you handle these mistakes. You can’t simply recover from them and never think of them again. Instead, you have to learn from these mistakes and move forward. 

This also means that you have to be open to criticism. You can’t get defensive and ignore what your team or your seniors are telling you. Rather, you have to use what they say to improve yourself. 

 

The Non-Confrontational Person’s Guide to Conflict

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When this infographic landed in my e-mail, I couldn’t help but smile. I am, quite possibly, the most non-confrontational person to ever walk on two legs. I can’t speak for three or four-legged people, but I’m all but certain I hold the title among the two legged.

People do, of course, have different temperaments and personalities – as well as different experiences and life stories. Each of these things go into making us the way we are, for better or worse.

Personally, I think something else contributes to this particular train and you don’t have to look any further than your mom and/or dad.

Many times, if we’re raised by at least one parent who has an outgoing… confrontational, when need be… personality, we tend to pull back. It could be simply because we grew up knowing they would take care of everything. They had our back, so to speak, so we didn’t even have to turn around, let alone add our two cents to the moment.

It can, of course, go even further. If, by way of our own personality and temperament, we were somewhat embarrassed by our parent’s gregarious approach to conflict, we pull back EVEN further.

Welcome to my world!

My mom was NOT a wallflower. She was the most amazing, predominant piece of furniture… and she didn’t sit against the wall… oh no! She’d be the amazing, predominant piece of furniture in the middle of the room. Smack in the middle with a lamp shining on her. That was my mother and I loved her greatly.

While I was more the comfy chair next to the window, I did, usually appreciate her placement in the spotlight. However, there were times when (as a calm and quiet chair) she would mortify me in public. If her steak wasn’t “just right,” the server and cook would know about it. If we had waited beyond an acceptable amount of time at the clinic, the entire room would soon be aware of just how many minutes we’d been there.

If a salesperson, nurse, doctor, or electrician was rude, they’d soon pay the piper.

My dad and I exchanged so many, “She’s about to blow…” glances over the years and nearly as many, “She blew…” glances.

Two different teachers flat-out wronged me in high-school and – by the time it was all over – I almost felt sorry for them. You see, nothing would elicit an eruption quite like thinking her only child had been wronged.

I wonder if either teacher has recovered yet?

At any rate, I am non-confrontational to the extreme. If you’re a similar “comfy chair” (And let me go ahead and say there’s nothing wrong with that! What’s a room without chairs, after all?!), you’ll enjoy this infographic as much as I did.

~ Joi (“Joy”)

The Non-Confrontational Person's Guide to Conflict (Infographic)

Credit: The Non-Confrontational Person’s Guide to Conflict

Three Most Accurate Personality Tests You Can Take Online

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Personality Quizzes

by Michael Stoddard

In 1920 first psychological tests were designed to select people to the armed forces. A personality examination is a special quiz created to reveal psychological features in children and adults.

Now questionnaires are taken by most of people to get to know more about their character or simply for fun. Social media offers hundreds of examinations to take every day when you read your Facebook or Reddit feed. But do you really know what the reasons to take a quick personality test are?

•      Defining Your Career

A psychological quiz can help you define your skills and aptitudes to a particular activity. If you haven’t yet made up your mind about a future profession, think of a short quiz. Some recruiters use this method when hunting people for their jobs. They can identify whether a person fits this job position or another.

•      Understanding Your Competencies and Strengths

Get to know what type of person you are – extrovert or introvert. It will come in handy when choosing work or attending an event. According to your psychological aspects, you will be able to prepare yourself for communicating with a big company or delivering a speech.

•      Identifying Hobbies and Interests

With a good questionnaire taken you will help your self-advancement. Reading a book or hanging out with your friends? What are your interests and preferences? Try to pass a test and use the results for planning your rest effectively. You will know yourself better and will be able to act adequately in any situation or company.

Most Accurate Personality Test: A List of Top Quizzes

The Internet is full of good and free online quizzes for identifying personalities types. Here is a list of the most accurate and trusted sources to learn about your individuality and charisma.

  1. The Myers-Briggs – a perfect and interesting character type indicator. It is based on the identification of 4 key features about a person:
  • inner and outer world;
  • perception of information;
  • the way of making decisions;
  • structuring the world.

Based on the information got in the research process, conducted by Edu Birdie, you can identify what type of individuality you are. A specially designed table consisting of 16 buttons with 4 initial letters of your core features will show the qualities you possess and will detect your psychotype.

The objective of this questionnaire is to make the psychological knowledge clear to people and results useful for everyday lives. The advantages of taking the Myers-Briggs are as follows:

  1. You will be able to work inside a big company efficiently.
  2. You can make the right choice for career opportunities.
  3. You will be able to help your children learn effectively at school or university.
  4. It is good for individual growth and close relations within a family.
  5. Minnesota Multiphasic Person Inventory is a 30-minute test that assesses a person’s mental condition and detects if a person has some mental health problems. It consists of a certain number of true or false questions. Unfortunately, it is not available online as it is recommended only by a professional psychologist. MMPI distinguishes 10 abnormal states and behavioral style inherent in humans psychology including the most popular conditions such as depression, paranoia, and schizophrenia.
  6. Revised NEO Person Inventory is the best personality test based on the 5-factor model. It is used by psychologists to assess mostly adults but is available from the age of 12 as well. You will need 40 minutes to pass a test in a web or written form. This methodology identifies 5 personal traits: consciousness, agreeability, neuroticism, extraversion, and openness to experience. NEO-PI fits good business environment or clinical observations.

How Can Test Reports Come In Handy?

Taking a complete character exam means that you want to know more about yourself. Short funny quizzes may strongly influence your life or career development. Moreover, a well-designed psychological test can be helpful in detecting mental health issues at early stages. Never underestimate the power of a personal test taken.