Alexandra Levits Water Cooler Wisdom Designing the Right Physical Workspaces

Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom Designing the Right Physical Workspaces In my work as a human resources and leadership consultant, I’ve observed that many organizations have dedicated spaces where employees come together to receive training. Most of the time, these locations are basic conference rooms, which led me to wonder: what if companies could build facilities uniquely equipped to meet the needs of the human learner? Seeking to find out what such spaces might look like and what best practices organizations would be smart to integrate, I spoke with Jonathan Webb, VP of workplace strategy for KI, a designer of 21stcentury interior furnishings. Alexandra: Jonathan, how should companies go about designing the right physical space for corporate training? Jonathan:In some ways, the key to creating corporate training spaces is the same as designing offices: flexibility. Just as employees have different work styles throughout their 9-to-5 day, new hires in corporate training have different learning styles. So recruiters have to design training spaces not only to enable the variety of tasks or lessons at hand, but to support the variety of learners theyre training in a given session. What physical design concepts best facilitate human learning and why? Jonathan:I think it entirely depends on what the goals are within each learning session. Thats why its important to align a companys training goals with the physical learning environment. Designing a flexible training space is vital to facilitating human learning. For example, if one training task requires an individual assessment, new hires may need walled-in spaces or privacy screens to focus. But if another goal of the training program is to build relationships among teams that will soon work together, trainees may move to larger, shared work surfaces. If an organization doesnt have a big budget for renovation, what tweaks can it make help improve its training spaces? Jonathan:Training facilities are often overlooked within organizations, but an organization can make some effective changes without knocking down any walls. When space is at a premium, designing workspaces that can be reconfigured to accommodate various learning styles and types is paramount. Flexible furniture on casters can be reconfigured quickly. Mobile whiteboards can double as space dividers and learning surfaces to provide excellent teaming environments. A mix of high and low tables, along with several pieces of lounge furniture, can often be assembled to allow various types of group work. For the rest of the interview, head over to the DeVry WORKS website.

Writing Resume For Volunterring - Things To Consider When Writing A Resume

Writing Resume For Volunterring - Things To Consider When Writing A ResumeWriting resume for Volunterring is not a difficult task. The reason why it is called such is because the Volunterring ranking works the same way as what a resume is supposed to be. If you do not know how to write a resume, just go get one. You may even have some old college or high school paperwork that you can use to write the resume.There are many different things you will want to keep in mind when writing a resume. First, the way you present yourself is just as important as the way you present yourself in your cover letter. Being self-confident is the best trait to have when writing a resume for Volunterring.Part of being self-confident includes the way you dress. Remember, the Volunterring ranking does not take into account whether or not you wear clothing that is inappropriate for the job. You may be thinking that dressing up for an interview is ridiculous. In actuality, you could still be considered for t he job. A suit and tie are still acceptable.Make sure that when you write the resume, you include your work history. Also, do not forget to include any references you may have. This will show them that you have done your homework and can back it up with proof.Incorporate a few sentences about yourself. What were you like when you were young? How did you get where you are now? Sometimes the Volunterring ranking will tell you that your skills are better than they think, so make sure that you offer up a few examples of how you are better than others in your field.What kind of group activities do you participate in? What do you like to do in your spare time? This will help them understand that you are not afraid to go out and be with the crowd and see what life is like. They will also see that you have some extra time.Know your objective. Know why you are applying for Volunterring. Why are you taking the time to write this document? It is to let the hiring manager know what you are all about and why you are so special. If you do not really know why you are applying for the job, then you should probably rephrase your objectives.Lastly, tell them that you will remember them and that you want to do an interview before writing your personal statement. It will let them know that you are sincere about your job search and will really want to be hired if given the chance.

Where To Find UK Tech and Start Up Jobs [INFOGRAPHIC]

Where To Find UK Tech and Start Up Jobs [INFOGRAPHIC] London Tech City is booming again as the job fair for graduate technology Ninjas, Gurus and even the occasional Jedi is back this weekend with the latest Silicon Milkroundabout. The event will see 100s of the UKs top start-ups offering more than 800 jobs to the UKs brightest and best Tech and Engineering graduates. Big names like Twitter, Songkick, Moo, Wonga, Mozilla and Moshi Monsters will all be there. There are 1,500 tickets for each day of the event. Saturday is for Product Management and Design and Sunday is dedicated to Engineering. Key Graduate Recruitment Stats from Adzuna: There are 4,167 Graduate technical jobs currently available in the UK, up 33% since the last Silicon Milkroundabout just 6 months ago. Of these jobs, 31% are in London. Over 7,000 Computer Scientists will graduate this summer from University in the UK, meaning just under 2 applicants for every graduate tech vacancy. Compare this to the UK average number of applicants to graduate positions of 50, and it’s clear there is a massive supply demand imbalance in Tech. There will be well over 100 companies hiring at SiliconMilkRoundabout this weekend including Songkick, Mozllia, Twitter and Shazam with over 800 technical jobs up for grabs for the attendees. Positions on offer start at £21k (Junior Dev, undisclosed company) and range all the way up to £60k (Perl Developer, undisclosed company) 25% of start ups currently hiring in London are offering stock to graduate tech employees 0% of banks hiring graduates are offering stock. The average Banking IT salary is £51,158k which is 22% higher than the average tech start up salary. The highest paying Graduate Tech position in the City is an eye watering £75k. This is what the start-up hiring community is up against. Mobile developers are in hot demand in 2012 with the number of job vacancies up 65% year on year for Android developers and up over 100% for iPhone and iPad developers. Graduate Objective-C developers are able to demand starting salaries of £41,327, 23% higher than the average technical graduate job. Appetite for HTML5, Hadoop, Android jobs continue to grow with search volume for these languages up an average of 82% year on year. Despite what appears to be an abundance of tech jobs in the UK, 1 in 10 Computer Science graduates remain unemployed. (source: Higher Education Statistics Authority) 2012 is seeing massive growth in new tech terminology in job ads. Graduates looking to get a head start should be clued up on Big Data (1,300 ad mentions), Social Discovery (112 ad mentions), Augmented Reality (186 ad mentions), Mobile Payments (920 ad mentions) and the OpenGraph (88 ad mentions) Key Battle Android and iOS Developers are duking it out for best mobile Graduate salary, with Android devs on average getting paid £1k more P/A than iPhone developers. There are currently 596 UK employers looking for “Gurus”, over 70 “Ninjas” in hot demand and even one Tech employer looking for a “Coding Jedi”. Tech giants Google, Apple and Facebook appear to be leading the charge with these new stylistic superlatives RELATED:  UK Salary Trends for Startup and Tech Jobs

Reader Feedback How Important is Dressing Well - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Reader Feedback How Important is Dressing Well - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career I had a hearty chuckle when I saw this tweet last week from @employmentguru (aka Jay Hofmeister of the Resume Bay): “What is proper business attire for job fairs? Dispatch had a picture of people at a job fair, I thought it was Woodstock” But this weekend, when flipping through the New York Post, an op-ed piece entitled “Schlub Nation” caught my eye. The writer Faran Krentcil lamented about the prevalence of mourners at Ted Kennedy’s wake dressed in flip-flops, undershirts and dirty tees. Dress to impress or dress to include? Krentcil argues that putting the effort into dressing well for important eventsâ€"like weddings, wakes, job interviewsâ€"shows as much respect for the other person as it does for yourself. Arent you better than a ripped t-shirt with a mustard stain on the collar? he asks. We’ve all heard the saying, “You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover,” but should we? I admit that since moving to Florida from New York City, my everyday dress is much more casual. I have driven to Whole Foods wearing flip-flops, for example, where I’d never worn flip-flops before except for maybe the locker room at the gym. But I still dress up for speaking engagements, business meetings, television appearances. When I’m in the spotlight, wearing good quality, nice fitting clothes makes me feel more authoritative. I’m happy to have all eyes looking at me, and looking pulled together reinforces my personal brand. My husband and I had a discussion recently about what advice he should give to a friend who is interviewing for a job with my husband’s employer, a Fortune 500 bank with a very casual dress code. He thought his friend might stick out in a bad way if he came in a suit. He would look “too New York” for this non-New York crowd. I said that while I understood his point, if I were interviewing someone, no matter how I personally was dressed, I’d expect the candidate to be wearing a suit and tie. What you dress like when you have the job is one thing, but I don’t think it ever hurts to dress up to get the job. But that’s just me. How do YOU feel? Reader feedback wanted Since readers of the Personal Branding Blog are pretty diverse, I thought it might be enlightening to get your opinion and I’ll summarize the findings in a future post. Here are some questions to get you started: What style of dress is most consistent with your personal brand? Thinking about the one or two standard deviations away from the middle of the bell curve rather the extremesDo you feel better in business situations when you’re dressed a bit better than average? Or is it more important for you to blend in, maybe dress down slightly so as not to make a big deal about appearance? Do you have a higher opinion of someone who is dressed a bit better than average? If you weren’t sure of the implicit dress code, would you tend to dress up, dress down or dress consistently with your personal brand whatever that happens to be? I’d love to know your thoughts. Author: Liz Lynch is founder of the  Center for Networking Excellence and  author of Smart Networking: Attract a Following In Person and Online (McGraw-Hill, 2008).  She writes, speaks and consults to experienced professionals on  how to seamlessly integrate social media and traditional networking to save time and  accelerate results.

Professional Resume Writing Tips

Professional Resume Writing TipsThis is a very effective professional resume writing practice that is easier than you may think. You will find that it is easy to write your resume and that it can help you get an interview quickly and easily. The importance of making sure you have written your resume as professionally as possible cannot be stressed enough.When you are writing your professional resume, do not try to get fancy with your skills or accomplishments. In fact, they need to be the same as all other professional resumes. By getting fancy, you may come across as being more qualified than you really are.Also, do not make the mistake of rewriting your own resume or trying to include the wrong information. The right thing to do is to simply skip past the section of information about you when writing your resume. The section of information will not read in any way like you yourself. It needs to be professional and appealing to the reader.If you do wish to add a little something to your self-made resume, it may be to include a few examples of how you have excelled in the past. An example will show the reader exactly what they are looking for in the section where you place your information. Keep in mind that the examples should be in a section at the end of your resume.You should also consider making a list of your accomplishments. Writing a list of accomplishments that is as short as possible is the key to successfully writing a professional resume. As such, you should think about going to a nearby library and locating a blank book.Be able to write a sentence or two about yourself before you even begin listing your accomplishments. If you are not comfortable with this, think about asking a friend to help you out with this. They will be more than happy to write a short paragraph about you.There are many different resources on the internet that can provide you with good ideas for writing a professional resume. The most important thing to remember when it comes t o using a resource such as this is to write what you know best. This means that the information you read is only information that is specific to you and what you have done in the past. You want to make sure that you get your personal information in there as well.Resume writing is something that everyone will want to get done. With this said, it is important to remember that no matter how great you think your resume is, someone else will be able to get that in there as well. By thinking about what you would want the person reading it to see, you can better prepare yourself. Make sure that you are only including what you know and how you can best benefit an employer.

5 Strategies For Staying Mentally Strong In the Midst of Emotional Challenge - Kathy Caprino

5 Strategies For Staying Mentally Strong In the Midst of Emotional Challenge In late 2013, I was intrigued to watch a friend’s article on Forbes.com begin to balloon and reach millions. Cheryl Snapp Conner’s post featuring psychologist Amy Morin’s insights on Mentally Strong People: The 13 Things They Avoid, hit an international nerve and is now one of the most read post on Forbes.com. Interested to learn more from Amy about the back story of this piece, and how she identified these 13 critical ways mentally strong people stay resilient and retain their strength, I asked Amy to share her events that led up to this tremendous hit. Now an internationally recognized expert on mental strength, Amy is a psychotherapist, speaker, college psychology instructor and the author of the great new book 13 Things Mentally Strong People Dont Do. Amy shared this: In the Fall of 2013, I found myself in a surreal situation. Celebrities were tweeting my work, national figures were talking about me on the radio, and I was being interviewed by major media outlets across the world. A mere 600 words, written just weeks earlier, had launched me into the midst of a viral super storm. Within hours of being published to the web, my work was read and shared millions of times. Just a few days later the list was reprinted on Forbes, where it reached nearly 10 million more readers. It seemed like everyone in the media had the same question “How did you come up with your list of the 13 things mentally strong people don’t do?” I always responded by explaining the concepts were based on my training, education, and experiences as a therapist. While that was true, it certainly wasn’t the whole story. But, I wasn’t ready to reveal the painful situation that was still unfolding around me on national television. Now I am. In 2003, my mother passed away suddenly from a brain aneurysm. Then, on the three year anniversary of her death, my 26-year-old husband passed away from a heart attack. While publicly helping others deal with their emotional pain as a therapist, I’d spent years privately working through my grief. It was hard work but I made slow but steady progress. A few years later, I was fortunate enough to find love again and I got remarried. Just as I felt grateful for my fresh start however, my father-in-law was diagnosed with terminal cancer and I found myself thinking, “I don’t want to go through this all over again.” But just as quickly as I began to feel sorry for myself, I was reminded that self-pity would only make things worse. I sat down and created my list of the unhealthy habits I needed to avoid if I wanted to stay strong while facing my inevitable circumstances. When I was done, I had a list of 13 thoughts, behaviors, and feelings that would hold me back from facing my circumstances with strength and courage. Although the list was meant to be a letter to myself, I published it online in hopes someone else may find it helpful. I never imagined millions of people would read it. Throughout my painful experiences, there were five critical strategies that helped me personally stay mentally strong during my time of emotional trauma and pain: 1. Exchanging self-pity for gratitude When life became difficult, I was tempted to exaggerate my own despair. Losing my loved ones was certainly terrible, but I still had much to feel grateful about.After all, I had a job, a roof over my head, and food to eat. Whenever I’d begin feeling sorry for myself, I’d create a list of all the things I had to be grateful for. It wouldn’t take long to recognize all the loving, supportive people I still had in my life. And it served as a wonderful reminder, that although some of my loved ones were no longer here, I was fortunate to have had them in my life. 2. Focusing on what I could control The repeated losses in my life served as a reminder that there are many things I didn’t have any control over. Wasting energy focusing on all those things however, wouldn’t be helpful. Instead, I needed to focus all my energy on the things I could control. And no matter what, the one thing I could always control was my attitude. I could choose to allow my difficult circumstances to turn me into an angry, bitter person or I could choose to remain a hopeful, positive person with a desire to become better. Focusing on all that I could control â€" whether it was helping a family member with a practical task or making a decision about my finances helped me recognize that I wasn’t simply a victim of my circumstances. Instead, I was able to create a wonderful life for myself by making the most of every day. 3. Living in the present The loss of my loved ones tempted me to dwell on the past. After all, the past was where my loved ones were still alive. And I feared that if I didn’t constantly think about the past, or if I moved forward, I’d somehow be doing them a disservice. It takes courage to make the conscious decision to live fully present in each moment, rather than ruminate on how life used to be. But once I was able to shift my focus to honoring my loved one’s memory â€" rather than trying to prevent life from moving forward â€" I was able to begin fully enjoying life again. 4. Retaining my personal power When I was going through tough times, everyone had an opinion about what was best for me. Although their intentions were well-meaning, doing things simply because others advised me to wouldn’t be helpful. I had to deal with my grief in my own way and I needed to create my own plan for how I was going to move forward in life. Taking ownership meant I couldn’t blame anyone else. Instead, I had to accept personal responsibility for my thoughts, behaviors, and feelings. 5. Embracing change My world changed drastically over the course of a few years. And, although it was tempting to dig in my heels and try to prevent my world from changing, it wasn’t going to be helpful. I had to embrace change â€" whether or not it was welcomed. I had to create a new sense of normalcy without my loved ones present. Often, that meant giving up certain goals or activities that were no longer meaningful and searching for new opportunities that would give me purpose. Embracing those changes allowed me to move forward and create a fulfilling life for myself. * * * * * * Amy’s advice is both powerful and empowering. As holocaust survivor and renowned psychiatrist Viktor Frankl shared in his life-changing book Man’s Search for Meaning, “…everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms â€" to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” Check out Amy’s new book 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do, and learn more about her work at http://amymorinlcsw.com. (To build a more successful and rewarding career, visit kathycaprino.com and take my 6-day Amazing Career Challenge.) Report this Share on LinkedIn Share on Facebook Share on Google Plus Share on Twitter

Motivation Monday Inspiration

Motivation Monday Inspiration Believe in the Endless possibilities of a Blue Sky Day! It is the start of another week. What will you do differently this week? What will inspire you to take risks and step outside of your comfort zone? If you know your direction. If you know what you really LOVE to do, there is little that will stop you.   Right? You just need a big dose of inspiration. Over 4 years ago I shared my dream with a friend and talented graphic artist photographer, Patti Jacobs. Since then, she has been sending me photos of blue sky days.   My dream was and is to write a book entitled Blue Sky Day.   Today, we are so much closer to making that dream a reality.   It has taken time and effort, yet it has been something I gladly carve time out to do!   It is risky.   It is daring.   Heck, neither of us has either done a book before.   But every time I begin working on the project, I am filled with excitement and the fears slip away.   Who knows what will come of this book.   I do know that it has given me joy, driven me past my limiting fears and inspired me to continue to believe in myself and the goodness of others. What can you do to feel inspired?