High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: Interviewing Success

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

• The One Essential Element of Every Job Interview: "People appreciate honest, specific and personal stories that foster a connection and show some human vulnerability."


• 4 Ways to Use Facebook to Find a Job: "List not only your current but your past employers, your job title, a description of your role and the years you were with the organization. If you want to make yourself known to all of those recruiters who troll for job candidates on Facebook, take a few minutes to fill out this information."


• How to Build a Meaningful Career: "Invite four or five people to serve as your informal board of directors. You might tell them, 'I’m doing some exploring about what I want from work and I’d love to talk with you on occasion to get your feedback on my direction'."


• 5 Tips for Instant Interview Success: "The best interviews are a give and take. Come prepared to discuss the company, the role, your background, current trends in the industry, the reason for the opening and any recent business events that may impact the interviewer, role, company or industry."


• Social Media and the Job Search: "A key principle of marketing is to generate interest without giving away the whole story. Your resume and your LinkedIn profile are advertisements and their purpose is to pique someone's interest enough to get you a first interview."

High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: Dust Off Your Resume This Spring

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

• Dust Off Your Resume This Spring: "Now that the season is changing, it's time to do an overhaul on this document."


• Employer Report Card: Candidates with Disabilities Identify Many Opportunities to Improve "GettingHired conducted a survey of job seekers with disabilities. The results reveal several areas where employers could improve."


• 6 Tips for Stopping the Excuses and Meeting Your Goals Instead: "People often fall back on excuses and give up on trying to reach their goals. Here are several tips for jumping off the excuses train and forging the path to your goals."


• 4 Strategies for Accompanying Spouses/Partners to Stay Relevant in Your Career Field: "Once you have made the decision to travel with your family, how do you stay up-to-date on career-related technology, best practices, and trends in your industry?"


• How Using Your Job Application to Tell a Story Can Get You Hired: "By adding context to your resume, you give hiring managers a frame for your experience and accomplishments so they can quickly digest your story."

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

• If You Want a Great Job, Tell a Great Story: "See yourself as a storyteller, and your professional successes and accomplishments as your story. You have an ability to make an emotional as well as intellectual connection with members of your network and hiring authorities by the way you tell your story."


• Finding the Job of Your Life: "There is no job of your life out there, waiting to be found. There are only jobs that may make you feel more or less alive. If you allow them to, that is."


• How to Overcome Workplace Distraction: "Your email, phone and colleagues will try to pull your attention away, but you may become so engrossed in solving your puzzle that you can concentrate until you find the answers."


• Three Secrets of Entrepreneurship That Will Transform Your Career: "Entrepreneurs have a natural hustle about them—a go-big-or-go-home sensibility to the way they live their lives, run their businesses and pursue opportunities."


• Make Your Body Language Work for You During an Interview: "Research suggests up to 93 percent of communication isn't transmitted via our words, but is broadcast through our actions and attitude." (Also see the related video of the week below.)

Career Success by Reexamining Your Stories

Once upon a time there was a nice guy safely driving to the grocery store when-all of a sudden-some jerk cut him off. The nice guy honked his horn to let the jerk know that he had endangered the nice guy's life, but the jerk went about his business, exiting at the next street.

Sound familiar? A recent trip to the grocery store turned into a ready-for-TV drama, all because of "some jerk." But notice the point of view that this story is told from: that of the "nice guy." What if you were to learn that the "jerk" was racing to the hospital because his wife had been seriously injured in an accident.

Wow, different story now, isn't it?

We are telling ourselves stories all of the time, and the stories that we tell ourselves around our career can turn into self-fulfilling prophesies. Through our stories we can feel empowered or victimized depending on the information we choose to process and the assumptions that we make. This is particularly pertinent to our careers: a bad economy, terrible unemployment, and other factors outside ourselves can keep us in a perspective where we are not the triumphant hero...but the pitiable victim. But if the economy is so bad, why are some industries thriving? And if unemployment is so terrible, why do employees still leave their jobs?

The stories that we tell ourselves shape our self-concept, our outlook, and-ultimately-our behavior. If you find that you are struggling in your career, examine your stories by asking yourself the questions below:

What stories have I been telling about my current career?

In what way am I a hero in these stories? In what way am I the victim?

How were my decisions in these stories influenced?

What different decisions could I have made to change this story?

How will this knowledge influence my future actions?