High Five Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: How to Collaborate Your Way to the Top

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!

• How to Collaborate Your Way to the Top: "Some people think business success is primarily about crushing the competition. But leaders who rise to the top actually do it by building up others."

• How to Keep Employees Happy and Motivated: "As a leader, get comfortable with the idea of allowing your staff to make mistakes to ensure they have the opportunity to learn from those mistakes."

• How to Find Fulfilling Work: "Find a job or build a business based on whatever you like to do when you aren’t working. If you don’t know what you like, try different things. Test out everything from operations to sales."

• Everything You Need to Know to Improve Your Life: "A big share of life is spent getting ready, getting prepared, and part of it is the development of skills that make for success in the marketplace. It starts with personal development, self-improvement and making measurable progress."
• The 10 Hottest Jobs Right Now:"in areas such as construction and retail, workers’ disposable income is responsible for more jobs such as wealth managers, personal shoppers, and food service workers."

High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: 50 Thoughts That Can Motivate You to do Anything

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!

• 50 Thoughts That Can Motivate You to do Anything: "You deserve a better life -- whether that means a better job, a healthier body or more money. Work for it."
• How to Change Your Eating Habits for a More Productive Year: "It's not that coffee, alcohol, and extreme exercise are the enemy, but if your body cannot survive for three days without caffeine, and you feel exhausted when you're at the gym, what you need is not to push yourself harder, but to give your body time to rest and recuperate."
• 3 Ways to Plan Your Professional Development for the Year: "If you’ve been at your company for a while and already have a robust network, you can look outside for your connecting goals: who else do you want to meet in your field, or in your local business community?"
• 4 Ways to Perfect Your Resume in the New Year: "Resumes without a specific purpose – or objective – do not fare as well as those that are targeted. Remember, it is the job seeker's responsibility to establish his worth if he wants to capture the attention of a busy and distracted hiring manager."
• 4 Ways to Stand Out When You're New: "Many newcomers don’t ask important questions of colleagues because they don’t want to bother busy people or make poor impressions. Recognize the minimal social risk in asking a dumb question."

Stay Productive While Unemployed

Employers recognize that the weakened economy over the past few years has resulted in layoffs for many skilled workers. As such, an employment gap on a job candidate’s resume is no longer unusual or an immediate red flag to prospective employers. However, you need to be prepared to explain any gap(s) and give examples of how you continued to develop professionally while unemployed.

Employers like to hear that you have taken a course or finished a certification program to enhance your professional skill set. Volunteer work is another great way to strengthen your skills and gain relevant experience. If the only examples you can give are creating cover letters, fine tuning your resume, and sorting through job postings, you may be surprised to find that the red flag raised may very well be for lack of commitment and initiative—not the job gap itself.

Obviously, when you’re in between jobs, job searching is expected to consume much of your time, but not so much that you can’t identify and act on opportunities to improve professionally. Be mindful that life is full of distractions, so it may take some purposeful planning to make professional development a priority.

As an added incentive, consider the personal upside to keeping yourself sharp professionally while you’re unemployed. Not only does it look good to prospective employers, it can also help you maintain a positive attitude and a sense of fulfillment during a difficult time.

Stay Productive While Unemployed

Employers recognize that the weakened economy over the past few years has resulted in layoffs for many skilled workers. As such, an employment gap on a job candidate’s resume is no longer unusual or an immediate red flag to prospective employers. However, you need to be prepared to explain any gap(s) and give examples of how you continued to develop professionally while unemployed.

Employers like to hear that you have taken a course or finished a certification program to enhance your professional skill set. Volunteer work is another great way to strengthen your skills and gain relevant experience. If the only examples you can give are creating cover letters, fine tuning your resume, and sorting through job postings, you may be surprised to find that the red flag raised may very well be for lack of commitment and initiative—not the job gap itself.

Obviously, when you’re in between jobs, job searching is expected to consume much of your time, but not so much that you can’t identify and act on opportunities to improve professionally. Be mindful that life is full of distractions, so it may take some purposeful planning to make professional development a priority.

As an added incentive, consider the personal upside to keeping yourself sharp professionally while you’re unemployed. Not only does it look good to prospective employers, it can also help you maintain a positive attitude and a sense of fulfillment during a difficult time.