Postgrad life vs. Undergrad life

Postgrad life vs. Undergrad life by Amber Rolfe Considering going back to uni? Things might have changed a little…Whether you’re currently studying for an undergraduate degree, you’ve just graduated, or you’ve been out of uni for a while â€" gaining a postgraduate degree is a great way to advance your knowledge, progress in your career, and even stand out to recruiters.If you’re not sure how further education differs from your undergrad experiences, here are a few things you might see differently as a postgrad:Nights outWhat undergrads think: ‘Where can I get a pirate costume at short notice?’What postgrads think: ‘Enjoy queuing for overrated clubs, Captain Hook.’Postgraduate degrees usually involve more research, studying, and additional life-admin duties you didn’t have when you were 18. And, because of this, nights out might be less frequent than when you were an undergrad â€" not to mention less appealing.After all, you’ve already enjoyed three years of uni life â€" and have undoubt edly outgrown partying until 5am every night, especially at a sticky-floored club with no concept of volume control.You’re not completely over nights out â€" you’re just wiser (and have better taste in drinks).CleaningWhat undergrads think: ‘I should go and start my essay â€" just as soon as I’ve done the dishes’    What postgrads think: ‘I should really take a break from procrastinating…’Although many years of cleaning the house once a month in a desperate attempt to avoid essays was great, you might not be able to save your work till the night before when you’re studying for a Masters.That means less time for procrastination, and more time for a clean-as-you-go and-study-more method. And/or learning to live in a constant state of ‘organised mess’.Hello, tediously organised cleaning rotas (and yes, there’ll be at least one person who ignores it).AccommodationWhat undergrads think: ‘Ah, free heating and electricity? Better get all of the fairy lights…’ What postgrads think: ‘I still can’t believe I have to pay for water…’If you’re a fresher, you’ll get to benefit from the possibility of living in halls â€" at least for your first year. This equals unlimited heating and electricity, which is all included in your rent.The latter part of your undergrad life will probably involve learning to budget in a house (see also: sitting in duvets because you can’t afford heating), meaning you might do a better job at making your living situation more comfortable as a postgrad.StudyingWhat undergrads think: ‘I’ll just do the essay the night before. 40% is enough to pass, right?’What postgrads think: ‘Study now, sleep later’Studying for a degree involves a lot of work â€" whether you’re an undergrad or a postgrad.However, chances are your first three years of being a student were a little easier than studying for a Masters or a PhD. The work becomes more specialist and advanced, and involves a lot more self-motivation t han it did in your undergrad days.On the flip side, you’ll be doing something you’re really interested in, and you’ll have a lot more choice on what you’re writing. No more hurriedly picking modules, no more dull lectures.#livingthedreamFriendsWhat undergrads think: ‘Must make friends with everyone I see’What postgrads think: ‘Netflix is my friend’Your first three years as a uni student often involve enthusiastically seeking friendship with everyone you meet, whether it’s on a drunken night out, in a lecture, or in halls.Unfortunately, the people you end up making friends with might not always be your favourite humans on the planet â€" which becomes obvious when you graduate and never speak to them again.Postgrad life allows you to be more selective with who you hang out with, especially because what you do for fun might have changed.  NappingWhat undergrads think: ‘I need at least two naps per day’What postgrads think: ‘Napping is for the weak’So, uni work is tiring. We get it.But although napping seems like a great way to recharge after pulling an all-nighter â€" it isn’t always viable. Especially when you’re putting all your effort into getting a good grade, which is probably a likely situation if you’re studying for a Masters.But although your napping days might be behind you as a postgrad student, at least you’ll have a decent enough routine to actually sleep at night. Naps just make you groggy anyway…EatingWhat undergrads think: ‘My diet basically consists of chicken nuggets and spaghetti hoops’What postgrads think: ‘Finally, all the Come Dine with Me repeats are paying off’As much as it seems totally fine to eat the bare minimum when you’re an undergrad, the novelty of 7p packets of pasta eventually wears off.And, as you start to enjoy eating more than going on big nights out, your money veers towards better food â€" food that will help your body recover from slumming it in undergrad life.Additionally, many postgraduate students may have had the opportunity to work before returning to uni, and might also be settled in a full-time or part-time job.In other words, name brands are back. You really can Taste the Difference…  Still searching for your perfect position? View all available jobs nowFind a job What Where Search JobsSign up for more Career AdviceSign up for moreCareer Advice Please enter a valid email addressmessage hereBy clicking Submit you agree to the terms and conditions applicable to our service and acknowledge that your personal data will be used in accordance with our privacy policy and you will receive emails and communications about jobs and career related topics. Postgraduate advice Postgraduates

Elements of a Great Company Culture - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Elements of a Great Company Culture - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career A great company culture can help a company recruit the best candidates as well as improve productivity. Therefore, entrepreneurs and small business owners should start building their company culture from day one. However, what do you understand when you think about company culture? Office game rooms, free snacks or casual Fridays? There are much more important elements that must be in place for a strong company culture. Below you can find some of them: Clear Mission and Vision: All great companies should have clear visions and missions. They should know where they are at now and where they want to be in the future. Set goals to achieve your company’s visions and clearly communicate these goals to your employees via newsletters or meetings. Clear Communication: You always have to be transparent when communicating with your employees. Even if the news are bad, you should still clearly talk with your employees and explain them what is going on within the company. Create time to listen to your employees’ concerns and do your best to solve them. Keep an open channel of communication and get their feedback when necessary. Autonomy and Responsibility: Promote employee empowerment in your company. Let them be accountable for the tasks they work on. Also, if you give them more responsibility, this gives them a reason to learn more and move forward in their careers. When your employees accomplish their responsibilities, take the time to appreciate them. Recognize the Achievements of Employees: Always take the time to appreciate your employees. Write an email or a personal thank you note for their accomplishments and you can even give them a small gift like a gift card or tickets to a sports game. Also, recognize this success in their annual review and make a pay raise accordingly or promote them to the next level. Offer Flexibility and Mobility: Work flexibility is very important especially for younger work force. Since they are very tech-savvy, they prefer to work from anywhere with an internet connection in flexible hours. Make a program for them in which they can rotate departments or different offices nationally or globally. If you force them to stay in the same environment for a long time or sit at a desk all day long, they will be unhappy and their performance will drop. Thus, let them be flexible and mobile. Provide a Pleasant Work Environment: Providing a room for serenity and refreshment will help boost your employees’ morale and productivity. When your employees want to take a break, they can go to this room and relax. This room can also be used for socializing activities such as a happy hour gathering or eating lunches together.

Choosing a Career Identify a Problem You Can Fix! - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Choosing a Career Identify a Problem You Can Fix! - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career When Choosing a Career, make sure you are basing your decision on your own strengths, interests, goals, aspirations, skills and personal tastes and be aware of the tendency to be influenced by your siblings and their choices.   Many people choose a career path because they are familiar with the field as a result of having family members working in that field.   We all know people who chose to go into their profession or trade by what I call “career default”.  In the comedy film,  My Cousin Vinny,  Merisa Tomei (as Lisa)  explains the history of mechanics in her family when the prosecutor asks her how she is so knowledgeable of cars:” My father was a mechanic. His father was a mechanic; my mother’s father was a mechanic. My three brothers are mechanics, four uncles on my father’s side are mechanics.” Career default While it’s true that one may become more knowledgeable about an area if it’s frequently discussed at home, there is no guarantee that having this exposure and being familiar with a profession makes it the right choice for your career. I could not find any studies that prove people are happier who have entered a field because they have family members in that area.  In fact, there is more information available that may present the opposite view, identifying low self-esteem and regrets for entering a family business. I have a close friend who went into Medicine strictly based on the fact that her father, brother and every other person their mother respected was a Doctor. My friend’s “career default” choice is not as unusual as one would think.  She, like many others who fell into their careers, often questions whether her life would have been easier or more fulfilling had she chosen a different area such as business for a profession.   Sadly, she’ll never know the answer to this question as she settled into her life as a Physician and now in midlife it’s too late to start over.  The investment she’s made both in time and money to pursuing an M.D. and to her residency and to raising a family makes it extremely difficult to reinvent herself now and explore other options.  Her skills and training are highly specialized and would not transfer easily to the business world. In another situation, I observed the youngest child in a large family settle for entering the family business as that’s all that was talked about during his formative years and that was the obvious and best choice for his other siblings who were not academically inclined. It so happens that the older siblings opted to join the family business because they had no other great options.   They were not particularly successful students and they had neither burning interests nor connections that would lead them to another industry. The youngest, son who was my client, had both the social acumen and the academic ability to open doors for himself in many areas. Unfortunately, he developed some bad habits in school and lowered his academic performance to match that of his siblings’ because he wasn’t encouraged to maximize his own potential and grow beyond his brothers and sisters. Identify the problem and how you can fix it Too often we settle for a career or pursue a field based on what was right for our siblings or our peers and not what’s right for ourselves because of either parental pressure or our own blocks that prevent us from seeing ourselves as individuals with both the opportunity, challenge and responsibility for finding our own unique calling.   I suggest that if you find yourself in this trap of identifying too closely with your siblings and their strengths, skills or their limitations that you change your thinking now. Start thinking today about what makes you different from your siblings and how you can develop your strengths so you can find a suitable career and a path that meets your desires, interests, personal tastes and skills. Many people identify with family members as we see ourselves most closely linked to them by name and by life experience.  But, when it comes to choosing a career, each person in a family should recognize his own abilities and skills that may vary even if with identical twins.   Whether you have a sibling who is a superstar or one who is learning disabled, never assume that you are limited or confined by your siblings’ choices as their reasons for choosing a given career don’t necessarily apply to you when charting the course for your future. We all have choices but often we don’t consider them as we fall into the more predictable and comfortable path of being what I call a “career follower.”  We look to our parents, siblings, aunts’ uncles and possibly our neighbors and end our career search there. I almost went to law school because both my brothers and my fathers were lawyers and that was the profession I was most familiar with. The default career path for me as a lawyer would have led me to a path that would have made it difficult to stay home and raise my two children and impossible for me to fulfill my life dream to help others catapult their life dreams. One can learn from my situation that what at the time was a disappointment (not having scores that would get me into Harvard, Yale or Stanford) ended up being a huge blessing!   If I had followed the path of my siblings and my father of going to law school, I would have unknowingly forgone the opportunity to develop my marketing and other entrepreneurial skills that I gained by pursuing an MBA and working as a computer sales rep, marketing consultant, legal recruiter, H.R. executive intern and strategic planner and finally as an author and career coach.     All of the skills I gleaned over the years prepared me for the career I have today which ultimately is my calling!   I didn’t know that these steps would have resulted in me choosing to become a career coach: In fact this field wasn’t even in demand earlier in my career. The lesson one can glean from my story is that you can’t always know what career will be most suitable for you at the beginning of your career path. Also, b e true to yourself, seek out your own identity and don’t let others define you.   Your true calling can’t be revealed if you follow someone else’s path without introspecting if that path is one that matches your skills, interests, gifts, values and personal goals.  Author: Beth Kuhel, M.B.A., C.E.I.P (Certified Employment Interview Professional) Beth is Founder and President of Get Hired, LLC.   She advises students on how to bridge the gap from school to career.  Beth is the co-author of  From Diploma to Dream Job: Five Overlooked Steps to a Successful Career  (available on Amazon  http://www.amazon.com/dp/1461087082) Her coaching assists students to successfully match their needs, interests, passions, skills, and personal goals with the needs of a sustainable industry in a sustainable location.  Beth is also a resource for print and online media and offers workshops for University Career Service Departments, High School Guidance Counselors and College Alumni Associations. See website for more details about Beth’s services  www.fromdiploma2dreamjob.com

Warehouse Worker Cover Letter Sample - Algrim.co

Warehouse Worker Cover Letter Sample - Algrim.co Warehouse Worker Cover Letter Template Download our cover letter template in Word format. Instant download. No email required. Download Template Related Hiring Resources Warehouse Worker Resume Objective Examples

Tips For Writing a Searchable Resume

Tips For Writing a Searchable ResumeWriting a searchable resume is the most important step in getting a new job. This means that your resume should be searchable by a job applicant database that has a wide and active search engine. It's easy to forget that a new resume is more than just your job history, education, and skills, but it's a good practice to remember when reading other peoples resumes.Since so many people are out of work or unemployed, there are plenty of people who are perfect candidates for a job. For one thing, they have the skills and knowledge for the job, and for another, they have all the qualifications that are required to get the job. If you're not qualified, you can still apply for a job, but you won't get it with a generic resume.When applying for a job, it's usually best to submit a resume and cover letter. These documents can take anywhere from a couple of minutes to several hours to complete. If you're filling out the same old job application, you could be missing out on valuable information. Make sure to do your homework on a job opening and use those resources.When you find yourself getting a lot of rejections, chances are you need some career assistance. Even if you know that it's perfectly acceptable to use a generic resume, you might have some things about your personal life that you want to tell potential employers. Because of this, it's important to add any pertinent information to your resume as soon as possible after you apply.Make a point to schedule a few sit down meetings with a professional recruiter when you're doing your job search. You want to avoid situations where you apply for the same job six times in a row, because these applicants aren't going to get the interviews. You should be able to meet with each individual recruiter before making a decision about your next step. This will ensure that you get the information you need in order to be on the right track to getting the job you want.When you're going back to sch ool to get a degree in a different field, it's important to make sure that you're as competitive as possible for any available jobs that are posted. This will give you an edge over other job seekers who were at their full-time job, but didn't find anything that they wanted to do. It's just as important to do the same thing when you're looking for a new job. If you're looking for a job that's five years old, it's better to be as competitive as possible than to try to fit into a scenario that isn't right for you.When your resume is going to be read by an employer, you want to be as clear and concise as possible. You also want to know how to spell and write clearly. If you've had some experience in a certain field, a common word might seem less important, but it can't help you get the job you want if you can't communicate clearly with the employer.The searchable resume is one of the most important tools you have in your job search arsenal. Make sure that you're familiar with the best w ay to use it in order to get that first interview or lead. It will give you a leg up on the competition for a job that you are very interested in.

4 Ways to Win Extra Points During Your Next Interview

4 Ways to Win Extra Points During Your Next Interview Dont just brace yourself for an interrogation before your next job interview. Win extra points by being the candidate who shows they really WANT the job! We are all constantly multitasking and overwhelmed by information. Your future interviewer has a thousand things running through their mind as they conduct the interview with you. These circumstances may seem beyond your control, but there are surefire ways to win the interviewers attention. 4 Ways to Win Extra Points During Your Next Job Interview 1. Begin the Interview on Friendly Terms Prior to your interview, research your interviewer on LinkedIn  and  the companys website. Also search the internet for mentions of their name. You are looking for information about  interests, activities, colleges and high school to find something in common. Dig until you find something you can use to start the conversation. Instead of making idle small talk about the weather or how nice the office is, prove you have a genuine interest in the interviewer by sharing some of what youve learned about them.  It may be as simple as sharing the same major in college or being a member of the same professional association. As Dale Carnegie, author of How to Win Friends Influence People, famously said, You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. 2. Know How You Fit If you show up and throw up the same canned interview answers, youll bore the interviewer. Your interviewer is looking for a special candidate who will fit in with the team and company as well as shine in the role. The interviewer may not be able to define what the exact qualities they are looking for, but they often say they know it when they see it. Do your best to research the company and department by speaking with past or current employees. Ask questions to learn about why people like working there, why employees leave, what current challenges the company faces and what the companys recent successes have been. Search the web and check the companys social media streams for clues that will help you uncover how you will fit in. Go beyond what the company  says they need in the job posting. Based on your conversations and research,  connect the dots and explain how you can solve internal issues, match the feel of the department or team, take the department to the next level, or fix  the problems they need solved. To do this, you will want to  select the most relevant examples of your success. Pick stories that fit with the culture and your potential managers style. 3. Provide Visual Proof If you are seeking a job in a creative field, such as design, marketing or advertising, using visuals is an obvious way to demonstrate your creativity. But many employers  look for standout candidates who can demonstrate multifaceted skills and entrepreneurial thinking. For example, instead of saying youve streamlined a process or improved productivity, you could show how you did it. Create a graph or walk the interviewer through the process flowchart youve recreated so that anyone can understand your  logic and methodology. Another option is to bring a copy of your infographic resume, which uses images and graphs to underscore important points on your resume, and point out highlights during the interview. Or you could create a presentation of your career highlights for that role with that company. Leave a hard copy with the interviewer. If youve created an online portfolio, be sure to provide the interviewer with printed screenshots and the website address for immediate access and future reference. Practice presenting your visual evidence with different people from different backgrounds to make sure it hits the mark. As a final reminder, it is faster and easier to view pictures than it is to read text. Images evoke emotions and trigger memories. Your visuals could help solidify your qualifications in the interviewers mind. Be sure to show your success in industry-neutral terms. In other words, leave out specific product lines or industry jargon that the interviewer may not understand. And always protect the privacy and intellectual property of your previous employer. 4. Close the Deal By Sharing Your Plan Salespeople are often asked to present their goals for the first 30, 60 and 90 days on the job during their  interview. While you may not be in sales, consider presenting your 30-60-90 day plan during the final interview. It cements your interest in the job. Heres a rough outline. The first 30 days usually address how you will learn the companys systems, procedures, people, customers, clients and overall culture. For the first 60 days, outline how you will to begin to use your strengths to fit in the role. Finally, in the 90-day outlook, list some of the actions you will take to help meet goals stated in the job description. If creating this plan  sounds difficult, it should. You are showing your exceptional interest in the role. During each  interview, you should be asking questions to uncover what your future manager expects. You always want to make sure that you and your future manager are on the same page. Creating this plan requires a thorough understanding of the role, your manager and the companys goals. Thats the type of investment many employers are looking for in a job candidate. This post originally appeared on US News World Report On Careers Want more interviewing help? Get your copy of “Do I Want This Job”

The cult of the NDA - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

The cult of the NDA - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog Frozen North has an excellent piece which argues that a certain level of openness (as opposed to total secrecy) can actually be healthy for startups. This is right up my alley: I believe that openness and generosity (in many forms) is one of the ways to become happy at work and to succeed! 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