17 Must-Haves for Your LinkedIn Profile

17 Must-Haves for Your LinkedIn Profile So youve got a LinkedIn profile, and you want it to be perfect so what do you add? This infographic by our friend Neal Schaffer at Maximize Social Business lists 17 things your profile must have. Takeaways: A serious profile picture is necessary on LinkedIn you dont want one that will turn people off you. Be active update your status regularly and share relevant content. Make yourself contactable add an email address, and links to Facebook/Twitter to the description. RELATED:  How to Create the  Perfect LinkedIn Profile

Beyond the Warwick bubble

Beyond the Warwick bubble Thanks to Emily for providing this entertaining and thought-provoking retrospective of her time at Warwick Three years at Warwick have come to an end â€" I’ve left the bubble for the last time, sold my books and destroyed three years of notes. It’s an interesting time to be a graduate. After this week I’ll be a fully-fledged adult entering the ‘real world’, but with media articlestelling us fun facts about our graduate prospects (75% of employers are looking for students with 2:1 or higher,  and that 66% of students get a 2:1 anyway), I’m getting fed up of feeling like a statistic. What  else  have I gained from university? What makes Warwick students stand out? So I’m taking stock of what I’ve learned from Warwick, from approximately seven hundred hours of lectures and seminars (that’s some  very  rough maths) to everything else that’s happened in this chapter of my life, and I’ve got to admit that the number of opportunities I’ve had outside of the classroom has been pretty astounding. I’ve been a pig/witch/fairy/dwarf (in a panto, although I’m sure I also felt like a pig and a witch during my exams), fronted a rock band, presented a radio show, designed posters, run societies, done a bit of Shakespeare, run a festival, and probably forgotten a bunch of other things that I tried out in my first year when I joined around twenty societies on the same day. Aside from these things being a bit ridiculous and ridiculously fun, they’ve also helped me develop as a person, as clichéd as it sounds. As much as Warwick students get involved with this stuff for fun and not for what it does for our careers prospects, these things really have made all the difference. Without having done much paid work while at uni, I’ve now got a pretty packed CV and have had a hand in everything from marketing and events management to financial planning, the kinds of things that employers expect you to be at least familiar with (or so I’m finding out). What have I learned? One of the most important things I’ve learned is that everything I’ve done at university has contributed to who I am and given me skills that help me to sell myself, and even know myself better. I’m never going to be much of a sportswoman, but I can work with a team to run events. My radio presenting skills won’t be winning me any awards, but my communication skills have definitely improved and so on. Even though I don’t have the next five years of my life planned out, I’ve come away from Warwick with a good degree and a wide range of skills under my belt, thanks to the over two hundred and fifty  student societies  and the lovely people at the  Careers and Skillswho have helped me realise that it’s the other things we do â€" from small roles in plays to the mammoth task of running a society â€" that make us more than just statistics to employers. We all know that degrees are important, but one of the best things Warwick can do for us is give us the chance to develop other skills that are invaluable in the real world, and opportunities that just don’t come up every day outside of a university environment. All we then have to do is work out what they’ve taught us, add them to that CV, and go hunting for the dream job (it’s out there somewhere!). So remember: I’m not a statistic. I’m a creative, adaptable, Warwick graduate who is fantastic at multitasking â€" and so are you. And if you should ever need a witch or a dwarf Emily Middleton is a Warwick graduate and has recently started work as a social media and PR account co-ordinator for  Perfectly Social, a social media consultancy.  

Personal Branding Interview Roger Connors - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Personal Branding Interview Roger Connors - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Today, I spoke to Roger Connors, who is the principal and co-founder of Partners In Leadership. His latest book is called Change the Culture, Change the Game, and it is a #1 New York Times bestseller. In this interview, Roger talks about hiring the right people, forming a corporate culture, and the connection between a strong corporate culture and a successful business. What made you want to write Change the Culture, Change the Game? Change the Culture, Change the Game is totally revised and re-written from our previous bestselling book on culture change, Journey to the Emerald City. Over the last decade, we have learned a great deal about how to speed up the culture change process through integrating the use of the four key culture management tools we teach into the everyday work of people throughout the organization. The methodology we present is simple, straight-forward, practical and it works. Managing organizational culture is a leadership competency every management team must master. To not manage culture is to leave the low-hanging fruit of optimizing organizational performance on the table. We have seen our clients achieve remarkable “wow” kind of results through managing their culture, like a stock price increase from .31/share to $22.35 in just three years. How do you know if you hired the right people, in the right positions? What if you made a mistake? There has been a lot of talk about getting the right people on the right seat in the bus. That’s a great goal and one that every organization ought to aspire to. However, in our practical experience working with organizations, we don’t run into many that feel they have accomplished this incredible feat. While culture would be important even if your organization was filled with the most talented of all people doing just the right job, it is even more important when you have people in jobs who are aspiring to become proficient, who are being stretched to employ their talent and who are being asked to do things they have never done before. That’s real and that’s what is happening in organizations today. Culture sends the signals and cues people need that help them be most effective in their jobs and in their quest to help the organization achieve results. A culture rich in coaching, feedback, accountability, productive dialogue, a focus on results, alignment…I could go on. Creating a culture of employee engagement, involvement and development is what most organizations need in order to help people succeed. What are some companies that have extraordinary company cultures and why? Generally speaking, every company that is hitting its numbers and turning in the required results has an effective culture that is working for them. Culture produces results, so the best barometer of an effective culture is the ability to achieve results, particularly as measured over time. However, even the best performing companies have to continue to pay attention to managing their culture. As results become harder to achieve, shifts in the way people think and act become necessary. That’s culture. And if those shifts are not made, then, ultimately, the desired results will not be achieved. If I gave you a list today of companies that I thought had an effective culture, it is likely that they will fall off that list sometime within the next three years. How many books have been written about the greatest and most excellent companies in the world, only to find that they would no longer be listed a short time after the book had been published. You can’t take culture for granted. It is something you have to continually manage and pay attention to. If you do, then consistent results are achievable over time. We give examples of this in our book. Does a company culture have to be created before you grow, or does it change with growth? Every company has a culture that is working full time, never takes a holiday or vacation; never calls in sick. It’s always working, whether you know it or not, whether you like it or not. The question isn’t, do we have a culture? The question is, does our current culture work for us? Is it helping or hindering our ability to achieve results? As I mentioned earlier, culture produces results. You build your culture, the way people need to think and act, around the results you need to achieve. If a key result is growth, then there are certain workplace beliefs you need people to hold about what is important, how to get work done, how to resolve conflicting priorities, etc… Those beliefs are cultural beliefs and should be well defined and fostered. Unfortunately, we often see culture as the last place managers and leaders go to work, usually when everything else is not working. It ought to be the first place we focus. A recent 50-store pilot of the culture change effort with a large retail client demonstrated an 8-point gain in same-store sales in just 30 days, where 10 other initiatives had failed. Why? You can change the structure of the organization, you can change the processes people use, you can even change the people, but if you don’t change the way they think, then you probably will fall short of the true ownership and individual initiative that is necessary to achieve results. Youve been a NY Times bestseller multiple times over. What marketing tactics helped you climb to the top of the lists? Yes, our just released book, Change the Culture, Change the Game: The Breakthrough Strategy for Energizing Your Organization and Creating Accountability for Results was the No. 1 leadership book last week on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today lists. We have been fortunate in this regard. I think it is the culmination of some really good luck and a lot of hard work. We have a very effective marketing effort that creates exposure to millions of contacts, through both social media as well as other sources. We have complimentary webinars we offer every three weeks that are always “sold out.” And we have an amazing list of loyal clients throughout the world that appreciate our work on workplace accountability. At the end of the day, it’s most important to write a really good book that people enjoy reading, that they learn from and that they feel they can immediately apply. We are told that is how people feel about our books. - Roger Connors is the principal and co-founder of Partners In Leadership, the premier provider of Accountability Training ® Services around the world. He is the author of several leadership and management books listed on numerous bestselling lists, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Publishers Weekly and Amazon.com. His company has thousands of clients in more than 50 countries and their books and materials have been translated into 14 languages. He co-authored the classic New York Times bestselling book, The Oz Principle: Getting Results Through Individual And Organizational Accountability, ranked year after year as one of the top five bestselling business books in the leadership and performance categories. Roger is a member of the American Society for Training Development. His latest book is called Change the Culture, Change the Game.

Ditch Gut Decisions in Favour of Data-Based Hiring

Ditch Gut Decisions in Favour of Data-Based Hiring “Your instincts may have gotten you this far, but it’s solid data that can take your business to the next level if used correctly.” Mike Michalowicz, CEO of Provendus Group Watching every organisation around you change their decision-making from a foundation in natural leadership instinct, to a data-based formula is difficult. It’s even more difficult to make this change yourself when you’re so accustomed to the great decisions you’ve made based on the enlightened business knowledge you’ve gained over the years. But with the increasingly technology-centered world, are your gut instincts enough to be considered enlightened in the data-savvy business domain? Transitioning from gut-based to data-based decisions can be an alarming change, but it’s one that, if done right, can help your business go from 0 to 60 in 30 seconds flat. No Guts, No Glory You’ve grounded your decisions so far primarily on instinct, and they’ve been great choices for your organisation. With that, it’s hard to justify spending the money or the time integrating a new data aggregator. You’re not alone in your hesitation. When company leadership in the UK was asked about how they make major decisions, they ranked data and analytics as the third most important factor (23%). This is behind their own intuition (41%) and the experience of others (31%). Embrace Inner Numbers The idea that your CEOs instinct may be wrong is disheartening, we understand that. But there are just too many tech-outlets to thoughtfully ascertain the best business decisions purely on your gut. Your company already uses a plethora of number and data sets that you may not even realise are relevant. The ATS, CRM and your accounting department uses data in order to sift and filter the candidate pool in order to find the best-fit talent. Does that sound familiar? These platforms gather the numbers (CVs) and sort them to give you a data set for the best hiring decision. Technology is changing the way we look at HR, and that new look is becoming more and more data-centered. Don’t Forego Instinct Now that we’ve told you to base your decisions on data, listen to this don’t rely solely on the data. You’re a skilled leader and you’ve spent years watching your company grow from the ground up. Don’t simply discount your gut instincts as “outdated,” they are valid. You do, however need to augment your decisions and findings with data in such a way to hone your instincts creating educated decisions. Mike Michalowicz, CEO of Provendus Group, said: “Whether you’re deciding to hire or fire an employee, or whether you’re weighing the risk of expanding your product line, basing your decisions on what’s been proven to work is your best bet.” How can you find what’s been proven to work? You find it through data analysis after your platform of choice has gathered all of the information you need in order to decide and combine it with your seasoned gut instinct. Transitioning from gut-based to data-based decisions has many company senior leaders hesitating on the benefits versus costs of the change. Although you can survive on the decisions purely based in instinct, chances are (with rising business and talent competition) your company will eventually be left lacking. However, if you combine the success of your gut intuition with the high potential of data-integrated choices, your company will speed to the forefront of talent and business objectives. You’ve made the gut decision to go with big data aggregation… let the data solidify your business choices. [Image Credit: Shutterstock]

6 signs of burnout and how to avoid them - Debut

6 signs of burnout and how to avoid them - Debut This article was written by a member of the Debut Student Publisher Network. Burnout is no joke. Debut writer Christine lays out the signs of burnout you need to be watching out for: Essays, societies, deadlines regardless of whether youre a student preparing for exams or a graduate desperately job-searching, burning out is a real possibility. Sometimes, burnout can feel inevitable, but knowing how you get to it is a great way to make sure you never do. Heres a few pointers on the symptoms and how to get yourself back on the self-care track. 1. Energy  levels Take a look at how your energy levels are during the average day. Say youre usually super efficient, but now your movements are sloth-like. Perhaps youre generally pretty relaxed, but nowadays youre all jittery and nervous. A massive change in your energy levels is an easy way to tell youre rushing towards burning out. How to avoid this: get some rest! With the most recent iOS, the default Clock app has a Bedtime function that can help track your sleep cycle and get it back on track. Try to get to bed at the same time every day if you can. 2. Appetite and cravings Listen. I love food. As in, I really,  really love food. On the cusp of my personal path to burnout, I found myself either eating too much or nothing at all from day to day. Checking yourself and how and when you eat is super important. How to avoid this: meal plan! Have a look at preparing food in advance so you can take control of when, how, and what you eat. Theres a great subreddit, /r/MealPrepSunday, that can help inspire. Alternatively, plan meals with other people. You cant skip dinner if youre cooking it with a flatmate. 3. Reliance on vices Weve all felt that bizarre mixture of anxiety and calm when were faced with far too much to do. Instead of a) taking a healthy break or b) getting on with the work, its easy to take the third option en route to a flame out by  running straight to your vices. Be it alcohol or smoking or anything that makes you forget your responsibilities, know that the relief it grants you is only temporary. The work to do hasnt just disappeared. How to avoid this: Reward, dont procrastinate. Obviously, I am not condoning these vices, but if you absolutely must indulge in them, use them as incentives as opposed to escapes. If youve had a long day, by all means indulge in a glass of wine or two. 4. Silence and/or humour If youre struggling with juggling all the events in your life, its easy to avoid the truth. Some people stay silent and shoulder their burdens by themselves. Others use humour to deflect attention Haha, yeah, Im  so busy, Im basically crying inside but its  totally fine  and I am also  totally fine! from their inability to cope. How to avoid this: Honestly, just talk to someone. It may feel embarrassing or shameful to admit that you cant quite stay in control of your life, but you never know if that person can help. And at the very least, venting can help you sort through all the things you have to do. 5. Seriously skewed priorities At the height of my personal burnout, I found myself forgoing grocery shopping and slowly replacing real meals with an assortment of instant noodles from the local Asian grocery store. This definitely wasnt the best decision. How to avoid this:  Physically write a list of what youre prioritising and what youre avoiding or ignoring. Youd be surprised how jarring it can be when you realise you havent been doing something important, even essential. 6. Mood shifts You might find yourself snapping suddenly at something minor. Maybe the bus is five minutes late, and you find yourself sobbing at the bus stop. Or perhaps a friend bails on you and you feel absolutely nothing. Your mood is one of the best ways to keep track of how close you are to burning out. How to avoid this: Watch how you react to things. Take a deep breath and count to five. Try to keep track of whether your emotional reaction is appropriate to your situation. Hopefully, some of these tips will help. Its easy to get caught up in how busy you are. Just remember to take a few minutes and breathe. Youll be just fine. Download the Debut app and get Talent-Spotted by amazing graduate employers! Connect with Debut on Facebook and Twitter

10 Differences Between the Job Search of Today and of Yesterday - CareerEnlightenment.com

6) Employers Only Care About What They WantIn years past, a resume or job application was focused on what the job seeker wanted. This is not true any more. Now an application, resume or cover letter must speak to what value the seeker can bring to the organization. How can you bring value to the company and how soon can the company realize that value.7) Don’t Mind the GapLarge gaps in your resume are not as important as they used to be. Not only do employers today realize than millions of great and wonderful people got laid off, they also appreciate it when candidates showed initiative and tried to start their own thing.8. Nouns are the New CurrencyScreening software and LinkedIn talent searches have introduced an unexpected element to the way a resume should be written. Because these tools rely on nouns or keywords to deliver search results to recruiters, the resumes with the right combination of nouns often win.If you want to succeed in today’s job search, make a commitment to learn how to research keywords and how to use them appropriately on the page.9) Everyone Has a Personal Brand, Yes, Everyone10 years ago, not many people even knew what a personal brand was, let alone was having one really that accessable. These days, even if you don’t know what it is, you still have one. And because recruiters and hiring managers are just looking for red flags, inconsistencies in your image or messaging will prevent you from passing screening. Even if you never touched a computer in your life, you have a personal brand as well as an online reputation. So you have to decide, will you be in control of your image or will someone else? See chapter X on personal branding.10) Typing isn’t a Skill AnymoreBeing able to type used to be a skill people would highlight on their resume. Now, you have to know how to type just to have a resume. What really matters is well you’ve prepared yourself for the application. You have access to more information about a company then generations past. As a result, expectations for preparedness are much higher. To really shine, focus on customizing each resume and cover letter. It’s better to send off a few very targeted applications then it is to spray and pray.Special thanks to the following people for their valuable insights for this post:Sean Harry, Career Coach and author of Careers 2.0Vicky Lind, Career Counselor and Marketing CoachJT ODonnell, founder of Careerealism.com and career coach

I Did It Anyways John Lees Story - When I Grow Up

I Did It Anyways John Lees Story - When I Grow Up This series used to be called  The Recession is Bullhonkey series, where I shared stories of those who had gotten hired and/or started their own businesses (or sometimes both!) since 2008. In 2016, though, it felt irrelevant, so Ill now be sharing these made-my-dream-career-happen-despite-challenges-and-adversity stories under the title I Did It Anyways, because by golly, they did! And Im preeeeeeeeeeetty, preeeeeeeeetty, preeeeeeeetty over-the-moon to have the one and only John Lee Dumas here to kick this series off. Hes a big deal, you guys. Read why and how he got there-  below. Every morning my alarm clock would go off, and I’d wake up tired already dreading the day ahead. I’d check my phone immediately for any emails that had come through; then, I’d get in the shower, shave, and put on a suit. Around 7am I would jump in my car and drive to the office. I felt trapped uninspired and like I was running on the treadmill of life: constantly moving, but going nowhere. I’d drive to the office every day wondering where I had gone wrong. I’d done all the right things Graduated from college Officer in the US Army Worked in Corporate Finance Yet here I was, working in Commercial Real Estate, doing the same thing I’d been doing for the past 5 years: what I thought I was supposed to do. But where was the passion I was “supposed” to be feeling? I kept myself going by thinking as long as I did what everyone else told me I was supposed to, I’d one day find success. The year was 2011, and a couple of years prior I had been introduced to podcasts by a good friend of mine. At least I had my podcasts. Stuck in the car and continuing to jump from one unsuccessful showing to the next had me consuming hours of podcast episodes every single day. I’d finally found an outlet for inspiration and motivation: podcasts interviewing and sharing stories of successful individuals who had created the exact life they wanted to be living. Through these podcasts and the stories they shared I discovered the success they were living didn’t have anything to do with them getting a job tied to their degree and then climbing the corporate ladder. Their success was a result of them creating a business based on their expertise and their passions, and then sharing that with an audience who needed it. I was hooked. I started to have a love/hate relationship with being in the car; on one hand, it was my trap, and on the other, it was my inspiration. And then it happened: I ran out of podcasts to listen to. Eeek! After two years of listening to backlogged episodes from these podcasts, I had caught up with all of them. That’s when I had my a-ha moment. Why wasn’t someone creating a daily podcast that shared the same type of inspiration as those I was listening to? Why wasn’t someone interviewing successful individuals entrepreneurs and sharing their journey to success in order to inspire others to take their own entrepreneurial leap? The day I ran out of podcasts to listen to is the day I decided to be the change I wanted to see in the world. I was going to create that podcast. My ah-ha moment came to me in June 2012, and by August of that year I had quit my job in Commercial Real Estate to focus on learning exactly how I was going to create this podcast. Was it easy to leave the firm I had moved across the country to join just one year prior when I was on track for partnership? No way. It was incredibly difficult and scary. To add to that, I felt like I was going to be letting my family and friends down leaving a perfectly “comfy job” to leap into the unknown world of entrepreneurship. But because of my financial background and healthy saving habits, at least I had a runway to help support myself. This allowed me to focus on the Zig Ziglar quote that has literally guided my journey from the very start: “You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want.” With fear, uncertainty, and no one to lean on for support who was going through the same thing as me, I lept. My immediate first step was to research as much as I possibly could. “Google, how do I create a podcast?” Then, once my research was off the ground, I hired a mentor who was exactly where I wanted to be: Jaime Tardy of The Eventual Millionaire. My next step? I started attending conferences in the entrepreneurial space so I could meet others who shared the same passions as me and who were also where I wanted to be. Most who I shared my idea with told me I was crazy that starting a daily podcast would never work. They said I’d get burnt out, that I wouldn’t be able to find enough people to interview, and that the few listeners I’d have would grow tired of hearing the same thing every day. I listened and then continued to FOCUS on my #1 goal: to launch a daily podcast interviewing today’s most successful and inspiring entrepreneurs in 100 days. In September 2012, I launched EOFire, the first daily podcast that interviewed successful and inspiring entrepreneurs and shared their journey. On May 14, 2013, nearly 8 month after I launched EOFire, I had 1 millions listens in over 145 countries, and I was interviewing some of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world including Seth Godin, Barbara Corcoran and Gary Vaynerchuk. (Michelles note: I had the honor to be interviewed on  EOFire you can check it out here!) What I was looking for all along inspiration, and ultimately, freedom I found by choosing my own path, not the path others wanted me to follow. Today, over 25 million downloads and a multi-million dollar business under my belt, I realize the key to living the life I wanted to live started with setting and accomplishing my #1 goal. John Lee Dumas is the founder and host of EOFire, an award winning Podcast where he interviews todays most successful Entrepreneurs 7-days a week. JLD has interviewed over 1200 Entrepreneurs and has noticed they all share one thing in common: their ability to set and accomplish goals. That’s why he launched TheFreedomJournal: set and accomplish your #1 goal in 100 days!