High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: 4 Essential Career Tips for Millennials

This is our weekly roundup of some of the best career-related articles, interviews, blogs, etc., we've read during the week. We share them so you have some great resources to prepare you for the coming week. Enjoy!

• 4 Essential Career Tips for Millennials: "Traveling, especially to third world and developing countries will expose you to new cultures, new ways of living, and teach you more about yourself. Travel expands your personality, and gives you time to find a career path you’ll truly enjoy, more so than if you immediately took a job out of college."
• LinkedIns Top 3 Secrets to Getting Hired: "We’ve learned it’s not necessarily your best friend who’s going to help you land that next job. It's more likely to be your best friend’s former coworker, or even that coworker’s neighbor."
• 9 Bad Habits You Must Break to Be More Productive: "It takes you 15 consecutive minutes of focus before you can fully engage in a task. Once you do, you fall into a euphoric state of increased productivity called flow. Research shows that people in a flow state are five times more productive than they otherwise would be."
• 7 Things You Can Do to Build an Awesome Business Brand: "Brands that embody a deeper sense of purpose have a significant advantage over those that don’t — they have something to say and stand for, not just something to sell."
• 7 Ways to Persist When You Want to Give Up: "It can be easy to focus all your energy on reaching your ultimate goal. But if the only thing you can see is your end destination, you’ll miss the beauty of the journey along the way. The new experiences and welcome surprises provide much-needed fuel to keep going."

High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: Controlling Bad Habits for a Successful Career

This is our weekly roundup of some of the best career-related articles, interviews, blogs, etc., we've read during the week. We share them so you have some great resources to prepare you for the coming week. Enjoy!

© Bellemedia | Stock Free Images & Dreamstime Stock Photos

• Controlling Bad Habits for a Successful Career: "Create small wins. The most efficient way to make a permanent change is to focus on daily, incremental improvements."


• The Right Way to Say Thanks After an Interview: "Instead of simply expressing gratitude, a successful note builds on the interview by illustrating what the candidate can offer in addition to what was discussed."


• 3 Ways to Engage Your People in Your Company Brand: "Create a brand event or brand day and invite employees from around the company to participate. Solicit their feedback on the brand. Implement regular brand contests that support branding objectives."


• Building Confidence as a First-Time Job Hunter: "The first step is to believe you have the skills to get the job. This will boost your confidence, and it will definitely show in the interview--which is where you really have to nail it."


• Social Media Snafus to Avoid: "63 percent of recruiters have negatively reconsidered candidates based on finding profanity in their profiles. Illegal drug references top the list of content to avoid, with 83 percent of recruiters reconsidering candidates because of them."

High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup

This is our weekly roundup of some of the best career-related articles, interviews, blogs, etc., we've read during the week. We share these every weekend so you have some great resources to prepare you for the coming week. Enjoy!

© Bellemedia | Stock Free Images & Dreamstime Stock Photos

• Second Acts: Turning Your Passion Into a Paycheck: "For many who have spent their first half working for other people, the soul-searching often leads to entrepreneurship."


• The Skills Gap That's Slowing Down Your Career: If your speed bump is a lack of the right skills, it helps to first do a quick cost/benefit analysis to see if investing in an upgrade will be worth it."


• How to Build an Antifragile Career: "Most of you will fail, disrespected, impoverished, but we are grateful for the risks you are taking and the sacrifices you are making for the sake of the economic growth of the planet and pulling others out of poverty."


• Success Will Come and Go, But Integrity is Forever: "Building a reputation of integrity takes years, but it takes only a second to lose, so never allow yourself to ever do anything that would damage your integrity."


• A Better Way to Plan Your Career: "To prepare for whatever surprises lie ahead, try to make choices today that will maximize your options in the future. Gain transferable expertise — in the classroom or at work — and form close bonds with your peers and colleagues."

How to Maintain Your Personal Brand.

In previous posts I have discussed how to define your personal brand and how to create your personal brand. Now, I want to address how to maintain and protect the integrity of your brand. Personal brands may be redefined due to career growth, education, discoveries, or industry trends. However, you never want to lose sight of the core of your brand message.

In my previous post about branding I talked about In-N-Out Burgers with their three-item menu – burgers, cheeseburgers and double cheeseburgers. An example of a loss in brand integrity for In-N-Out may be suddenly venturing into chicken sandwiches and hot dogs. This would seemingly fly in the face of the brand they have built.

> When you are managing your personal brand, keep in mind your reputation is on the line and you should protect it with all you have. Here are some tips to do just this.

> Keep your skills and knowledge current and relevant. Outdated information or skills will kill a candidate’s personal brand relevancy faster than most anything else.

> Manage your online reputation. Conduct a Google search of your name periodically and set up Google alerts to ensure your brand is represented accurately online.

> When something negative is printed online go into damage control mode as quickly as possible. Staying true to your brand will help you to avoid negative publicity; however you can’t make everyone happy all the time. Be prepared with a disaster recovery plan using search engine optimization tactics if this situation arises.

> Keep your private life, well . . . private. This is especially true with the proliferation of social media. Filter what you say online. No matter how well you manage your personal filters, those you interact with online may not be as diligent. When in doubt, keep it off the internet!