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#JobSearch : Best Practices for a Job Seeker’s Cover Letter. Great Eight(8) Points Checklist.

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In this technology-based age, many companies are foregoing cover letters in the electronic uploads for digital resume storage, but some systems allow cover letters to be added separately.

Recruiters may review the cover letter for various reasons, but here are a few discriminators used to consider or to reject a candidate. 

1- What positive things do recruiters want to see in cover letters?  The ability to write an idea concisely, proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation demonstrate a well-rounded education.  Aesthetic placement of type font, white space, centering (vertical and horizontal) demonstrates a technical skill to use word processing software and awareness of creating a professional look and feel.

It’s hard to address a ‘real human being’ in any HR department. A Boolean search might bring up a point of contact in the company on social sites (company website, LinkedIn, or Facebook).  If your query and find an employee’s name, they may be willing to share an HR rep’s name and contact info.  ‘Dear sir or madam,’ is the professional alternative, if you can’t find any names.

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What Skill Sets do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

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2- Cover letters should be one page – no more – with one-inch margins and 11 or 12-point type font (Arial or Times New Roman).  If you can’t get the message across in three paragraphs, it’s too wordy.   The contents of a cover letter should be concise and within those three paragraphs. A well-written paragraph has at least three sentences.  Don’t start sentences or paragraphs with prepositions (e.g., and, but, because, etc.).

Recruiters prefer resumes and cover letters uploaded into Automated Tracking Systems (ATS) resume databases or may ask for an e-mailed resume.  Copy and paste it within the body of the email, but place it after your signature line.  You should have a very short notification, e.g., “Per request, please find my cover letter and resume after my signature for your consideration.”  Computer viruses make recruiters nervous about attachments.  Recruiters would rather have an opportunity to scroll down for information versus opening documents to save time and effort.

3- The first paragraph emphasizes the applicant’s interest in the company.  Explain why you are targeting the employer and the job title.  ‘Name drop’ a mutual contact if you have that advantage.  “I am applying for the Whiffle Ball hole-driller position because your company’s reputation is stellar in the junior-league baseball industry for making the highest quality play equipment.  Your emphasis on quality makes my skills as a driller a good match for (name of company)’s strategic objectives noted on your website.”  This shows the applicant has performed research and shows the ability to communicate a point effectively.

4- Name-dropping might be impolite in some circles, but for job shopping, it might get your foot in the door.  Mention a common contact to attract the attention of the recruiter.  “Joe Bob, Pellet Supervisor in your molding plant, suggested my candidacy for this position.”  Additionally, some companies provide incentives such as cash bonuses for employees, so this gives the recruiter documentation of the referral.

The cover letter is not your resume – provide a few salient points of interest in the second paragraph not already explained in the resume.  “A recent trip to the Congo provided valuable experience in creating Whiffle Ball leagues for schools in a district with three different languages.  This experience has enriched my capability to use diverse communications skills to ensure your company has effective methods of obtaining customer suggestions for where Whiffle holes are drilled in the balls.  This explains the gap in employment for the summer of YYY and the change in my career from nursing hamster pups to drilling Whiffle balls.”

5- The third paragraph should emphasize availability and refer to attached (or uploaded) resume and availability for interviewing (either telephonically or in person), accompanied by phone and e-mail information.  The applicant’s return address is already in the resume – don’t waste precious text or white space on repeat information.

6- The cover letter is not a place to try sarcastic or witty humor.  With no context or visible body language, the attempt at humor may backfire.  Write professionally.  Emphasize what you can do for the employer versus asking them to do you a favor.  Try to avoid using the word ‘I’ in the cover letter – it is, but it is not about you – it is about the company’s need to find a qualified candidate for a position.

7- Even English professors can misspell words or get a comma in the wrong place.  Send the cover letter through the grammar and spell check several times and then read the letter out loud to a peer to ensure it makes sense.  Just because a word is spelled correctly, doesn’t mean it’s correctly used (e.g., granite = granted, fast paste = fast-paced).  Get an unbiased outsider to proof the letter, a teacher, mentor, or a student in AP courses to check the spelling.  Look for sample letters on the Internet to compare.

8- The final piece of your cover letter is your signature.  If you have your address on the resume and telephone number and/or email address in the third paragraph, all that is needed is a full name under a ‘wet’ signature.  Applicants can scan a copy of their signature and insert the graphic to look like a real signature, which enables them to send the letter digitally without further scanning.

 

FSC Career Blog Author: Ms. Dawn Boyer, Ph.D., owner of D. Boyer Consulting – provides resume writing, social media management, and print-on-demand author coaching and consulting. Reach her at: Dawn.Boyer@DBoyerConsulting.com or http://dboyerconsulting.com.

 

FSC Career Blog |  April 12, 2020

#CareerAdvice : #JobSearch – What #Recruiters Look at When Stalking Your #SocialMedia … You probably Already Know Recruiters are Looking at your #LinkedIn Page, but What About your Other Social Media Platforms?

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You know, the ones where you post pictures of your latest vacation, share what you had for dinner and occasionally tag your friends in memes. Why, you might wonder, would a recruiter possibly be interested in viewing things like that?

As it turns out, those personal details are precisely why recruiters and hiring managers keep tabs on applicants’ social media accounts, says career coach Hallie Crawford. “It can help them get a more accurate idea about who you are outside of your resume — a more personal view into your life,” she explains. “A resume can tell them your qualifications, but your social media profile can help them determine your personality type and if you would be a good fit for company culture.”

Plus, recruiters are looking for red flags — risqué photos, bad language, signs of drugs use — that would show them you’d be a less than ideal man or woman to have in their offices.

So now that you know why they’re looking, how about knowing what they’re looking at?

Facebook

According to Crawford, recruiters and hiring managers are concentrating their efforts on two sections of your Facebook page — your “about me” section, and your photo albums.

About Me: “They will want to see how you describe yourself and if it matches up [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][with] how you have described yourself in your cover letter and resume,” Crawford says. Any discrepancies could cost you points pre-interview. What’s more, Crawford says, “they will also be looking for proper spelling and grammar” in this section, to see how seriously you take those skills.

Photos: When it comes to your photos albums, “a hiring manager will be checking not only your photos but also your descriptions,” Crawford warns. “A hiring manager wants to see if you represent yourself in a professional way.” To come off in the most positive pre-meeting light, “you will want to avoid using profanity, sexual or drug references,” Crawford says.

5 Mistakes That Will Keep You From Getting Hired

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What Skill Sets do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

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Twitter

Who You’re Following: “Recruiters like to see if you have any mutual connections and if you are connected with others in your industry,” Crawford explains. Following others in your industry is a smart thing to do no matter what — watching their feeds can give you a scoop on a new job opening, company announcements, the latest tech and much more.

Tweets: “Recruiters will be checking to see if you share useful information, if you share information relevant to your trade or if you just use tweets to fight with others,” Crawford says. If you’re applying for a job, take a look at your tweeting history and consider deleting anything that won’t show your best — and most thoughtful — self to a potential employer.

Instagram

Followers: Recruiters will check out the kind of followers you attract, Crawford says. Plus, they’ll want to see “how friendly and social you seem to be with your followers,” she says. What you say to them and what you say back, she explains, “can also give them insight [into] your personal relationships and if you would be a good cultural fit for the company.”

Pictures: You probably figured this, right? But recruiters are looking to see more than your photography skills (or lack thereof). “They will want to see how you represent yourself,” Crawford says. For example, “if you are at a party, do you represent yourself in a dignified way?” Crawford asks, or, “do you post things that others would consider inappropriate?”

Read Next: 16 Tips for Building an Online Personal Brand
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Your #Career : What #Recruiters Pay Attention To When They Look At Your #SocialMedia …Great REad!

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You probably already know recruiters are looking at your LinkedIn page, but what about your other social media platforms? You know, the ones where you post pictures of your latest vacation, share what you had for dinner and occasionally tag your friends in memes. Why, you might wonder, would a recruiter possibly be interested in viewing things like that?

As it turns out, those personal details are precisely why recruiters and hiring managers keep tabs on applicants’ social media accounts, says career coach Hallie Crawford. “It can help them get a more accurate idea about who you are outside of your resume–a more personal view into your life,” she explains. “A resume can tell them your qualifications, but your social media profile can help them determine your personality type and if you would be a good fit for company culture.”

Related:How To Tidy Up Your Digital Footprint Before Your First Job Search 

Plus, recruiters are looking for red flags–risqué photos, bad language, signs of drugs use–that would show them you’d be a less than ideal man or woman to have in their offices.

So now that you know why they’re looking, how about knowing what they’re looking at?

FACEBOOK

According to Crawford, recruiters and hiring managers are concentrating their efforts on two sections of your Facebook page–your “about me” section, and your photo albums.

About Me: “They will want to see how you describe yourself and if it matches up [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][with] how you have described yourself in your cover letter and resume,” Crawford says. Any discrepancies could cost you points pre-interview. What’s more, Crawford says, “they will also be looking for proper spelling and grammar” in this section, to see how seriously you take those skills.

Photos: When it comes to your photos albums, “a hiring manager will be checking not only your photos but also your descriptions,” Crawford warns. “A hiring manager wants to see if you represent yourself in a professional way.” To come off in the most positive pre-meeting light, “you will want to avoid using profanity, sexual or drug references,” Crawford says.

Related:Here’s How To Use Social Media At Every Stage Of Your Career 

Like this Article?  Share It !    You now can easily enjoy/follow/share Today our Award Winning Articles/Blogs with Now Over 2.5 Million Growing  Participates Worldwide in our various Social Media formats below:

FSC LinkedIn Network:   www.linkedin.com/in/fscnetwork

Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/pages/First-Sun-Consulting-LLC-Outplacement-Services/213542315355343?sk=wall

Google+:  https://plus.google.com/115673713231115398101/posts?hl=en

Twitter: Follow us @ firstsunllc

Question: Want the ‘the best/current articles/blogs on the web’ on Job Search, Resume, Advancing/Changing your Career, or simply Managing People?

Answer: Simply go to our FSC Career Blog below & type(#career, #leadership, #life) in Blog Search:https://www.firstsun.com/fsc-career-blog/

What Skill Sets do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

Continue of article:

TWITTER

Who You’re Following: “Recruiters like to see if you have any mutual connections and if you are connected with others in your industry,” Crawford explains. Following others in your industry is a smart thing to do no matter what–watching their feeds can give you a scoop on a new job opening, company announcements, the latest tech and much more.

Tweets: “Recruiters will be checking to see if you share useful information, if you share information relevant to your trade or if you just use tweets to fight with others,” Crawford says. If you’re applying for a job, take a look at your tweeting history and consider deleting anything that won’t show your best–and most thoughtful self to a potential employer.

Related:This Is What Recruiters Look For On Your LinkedIn Profile

INSTAGRAM

Followers: Recruiters will check out the kind of followers you attract, Crawford says. Plus, they’ll want to see “how friendly and social you seem to be with your followers,” she says. What you say to them and what you say back, she explains, “can also give them insight [into] your personal relationships and if you would be a good cultural fit for the company.”

Pictures: You probably figured this, right? But recruiters are looking to see more than your photography skills (or lack thereof). “They will want to see how you represent yourself,” Crawford says. For example, “if you are at a party, do you represent yourself in a dignified way?” Crawford asks, or, “do you post things that others would consider inappropriate?”

This article originally appeared on Glassdoor and is reprinted with permission. 

 

 

FastCompany.com | March 26, 2018 | BY JILLIAN KRAMER—GLASSDOOR 3 MINUTE READ

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#Leadership : #WorkBalance – I Did a 30-Day Decluttering of my Online Life — and It Made me Much More #Productive ….The Three most Important Lessons I Learned & some Brief, Practical Tips for How to Apply Them to your Own Life.

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Over the last 30 days, I participated in Cal Newport’s 30-Day Digital Declutter Experiment.

  • Nick Wignall attempted to cut back on his phone usage for 30 days.
  • The experiment led to higher productivity and more creative thoughts.
  • By deleting certain apps off his phone, Nick realized that he didn’t miss social media.

The aim was to omit all optional digital distractions in your life in order to clarify the things that truly matter, afterward intentionally adding the truly valuable ones back in and letting the others go. You can read more about the details of how I implemented the experiment here.

This is where  —  finally  —  my digital declutter experiment comes in: Having spent a month mostly avoiding any kind of distracting or optional digital technology use outside of a few select times during the work day, I’m realizing that there’s a large psychological cost associated with keeping our minds in perpetual work mode: creativity and unconscious insights.

In addition to the values angle, I was interested in how a digital declutter might affect my productivity and work life.

Below are the three most important lessons I learned and some brief, practical tips for how to apply them to your own life.

Lesson 1: A little less distracted can mean a lot more productive.

As Cal Newport talks about in Deep Work, our ability to do meaningful, cognitively demanding work requires an almost neurotic level of distraction elimination or resistance.

Every weekday morning I try to spend at least an hour writing. No research, editing, or reading. Just writing.

Here’s how my “writing hour” really looks:

  • Write for 20 minutes.
  • Feel tired, check Twitter for four or five minutes.
  • Feel guilty about being on Twitter and start writing again.
  • Write for 15 minutes.
  • Feel thirsty, decide “it’s time for a break,” and go get a glass of water or make a cup of tea.
  • Start writing again.
  • Look at the clock and realize there’s only five minutes to go and decide, “close enough.”
  • Check Instagram, email, them skim that interesting article.

In other words, I maybe got 45 minutes of actual writing done, fragmented by multiple breaks.

Okay, so you lose 15 minutes of writing to distraction. But writing for 45 minutes every day is still pretty good, right?

Sure. It’s not bad. But here’s how my writing hour looked during week 1 of the digital declutter experiment:

  • Write for 20 minutes.
  • Feel tired and think to check Twitter but remind myself that I can’t because it’s not even on my phone any more and start writing again.
  • Write for 30 minutes.
  • Get stuck expressing an idea, feel frustrated, my finger moves to jump out of my writing app and into email to see if there’s anything interesting.
  • I catch myself, return to my writing, and finish the hour out strong.

Cool! By eliminating distractions you were able to stick with the writing and actually get a full hour’s worth in each day.

Yeah, not bad. Pretty good even. That’s a whole hour and 15 minutes more writing each week. But look what happened in Week 2:

  • Write for 40 minutes.
  • Look up at the clock, a cool idea for the opening of the next paragraph pops into my head, back to writing.
  • Hit the final period on a section of the article, look up and realize that I’ve been writing for 70 minutes.

I’m skeptical, but if that’s really true maybe this whole digital distraction thing is more significant than I thought.

Of course! Don’t take my word — try it yourself! In my experience, as a direct result of the digital declutter, I’m writing much more than I used to and I don’t feel as tired or distracted while writing.

But the biggest change was Weeks 3-4: While my writing hour looked pretty similar to Week 2, I started to notice that the amount of time I spent editing my articles afterward was getting much shorter.

Normally it takes several rounds of editing and reorganizing to get an article as concise and coherent as I like. But after just a couple of weeks eliminating digital distractions and practicing resisting the temptation to take breaks by checking social media or email, the initial quality of my writing seemed to be improving as well as the quantity.

That was unexpected.

Takeaway: Even if the total time lost to digital distraction is modest, there are often subtle costs in terms of quality. By training ourselves to resist the temptation of digital distraction, both the quantity and quality of our work can improve considerably.

Action step: Pick one important or challenging activity or aspect of your work that you’d like to be more productive on. For a week, try to work straight through on it for 30 minutes without taking even a small break or giving into a short temptation to distract. Then bump it up to 45 minutes the next week. Then 60 the following week. Within a month, you’ll have a established aDeep Work habit.

Lesson 2: Just because you enjoy something doesn’t mean you’ll miss it when it’s gone.

If even small distractions like checking Twitter for a few minutes while we work can have such negative effects on our productivity, maybe we should do some more hunting for distractions we could eliminate or reign in more.

I’ve never been the kind of person who was constantly checking in on Facebook or Snapchat, or plugged into the Twitter news cycle 24/7. But I do spend a not-insignificant amount of time checking Instagram and ESPN. On an average day, I probably “check in” 10 or 15 times between the those two apps, maybe spending a total of 20 minutes a day on them.

I rationalize this to myself because neither one seemed as addictive or negative as, say, Facebook or Twitter. In my mind, they were small pleasures that didn’t lead to lots of outrage and negativity.

They also didn’t seem like excessive wastes of time. I just browsed photos of my friends’ kids and checked in on how unreal Tom Brady and LeBron James were each week. Harmless, right?

But during my 30-day digital declutter, I completely abstained from both. I deleted both apps from my phone and didn’t check either one once (I also don’t have TV and didn’t watch any sports). I didn’t even know who was in the final round of the NFL playoffs until I happened to see a clip of a halftime show on a TV at the bowling alley.

Now, uber sports fan I am not, but for me to not even know who the final four teams in the NFL playoffs were was pretty unusual. That probably hasn’t been the case since I was in early elementary school!

The strange thing is, I realized I didn’t miss either of them. At all. I basically never thought about Instagram or ESPN (or sports generally) once they were off my phone’s home screen.

Which made me wonder: If I don’t miss something when it’s gone for a month, how valuable can it really be?

Takeaway: We often decide to include or maintain activities in our lives because they’re enjoyable. But a better selection criteria might be, only keep those things that you truly miss when they’re gone.

Lesson 1 and 2 combined illustrate how many seemingly small pleasures or distractions we maintain hurt our productivity more than we realize and aren’t nearly as valuable or essential as they seem at first blush.

Action step: Make a list of 12 activities in your life that you enjoy or find mildly useful but are not truly necessary. Then, once a month, abstain from one of them completely and see if you miss it. If not, let it go.

Lesson 3: Placing deliberate constraints on our work leads to increased creativity and insight.

By setting explicit limits on our “work mode mind” we become more sensitive to creative insights offered up by our unconscious mind.

I was always the kind of person who enjoyed school. I started full-time preschool at 3 years old and graduated college when I was 21. I then took two years and taught middle school, followed by another two years getting a masters, then four years getting my PhD. If you count my two years teaching, I’ve spent 27 of my 32 years of life in school.

And while I’ve largely enjoyed that time (and benefited hugely from it), there was one part of school I consistently despised: There was always more work you could (and probably should) be doing.

Whether it was studying more, getting started on that term paper, or collecting more data for a research project, I always had that nagging, guilty feeling that I could — and therefore should— be doing something more. Even weekends, holidays, and summer vacations weren’t immune (seemed like there was always a standardized test I had to start studying for or a CV to update, etc.).

Through all this, I often had this itch in the back of my brain that if I didn’t constantly have a 20-item to-do list I was frantically working through, I would be able to think more deeply and carefully about things. But despite what they claim in their marketing material, most schools prioritize just getting stuff done over getting stuff done well.

Finally at age 30, I found myself working and not in a school. And my job was (and is) one of those rare, true 9-to-5s. With extremely infrequent exceptions, I never have to think about work or feel guilty about not doing a little bit more before 9:00 am and after 5:00 pm. I certainly don’t have to think about it on the weekends or holidays. And let me say, it feels glorious!

But here’s the thing: Even though I don’t have to think about my job after work, my mind has been conditioned by 25 plus years of school to be always on: thinking, analyzing, predicting, problem-solving, comparing and contrasting, summarizing, etc.

All those mental habits that make us good at school and in our jobs are surprisingly hard to switch off after 5:00pm, even if we have the luxury of not being in school anymore or having a job that encourages work-life balance.

By deliberately putting boundaries around when and how I use technology, I found myself having a lot more novel and creative ideas.

I think one of the reasons we find it hard to completely unplug after work and in our down time is that the internet  —  aided by our smart phones which keep us constantly connected to it  —  encourages us to remain in that mindset.

Having easy access to email, Twitter, Facebook, CNN, and Reddit means we have a steady supply of novel and interesting things for our minds to chew on intellectually. And while browsing Facebook seems like a much different activity than organizing a meeting agenda, putting together a lesson plan, analyzing financial models in Excel, or whatever it is you do in your day job, to your mind it’s not that different.

Because of the ubiquity of smartphones and other digital technologies, our minds spend an increasingly high proportion of our waking lives in work mode. Which is problematic when you consider the psychological opportunity cost of always being in connected and in work mode.

This is where  —  finally  —  my digital declutter experiment comes in: Having spent a month mostly avoiding any kind of distracting or optional digital technology use outside of a few select times during the work day, I’m realizing that there’s a large psychological cost associated with keeping our minds in perpetual work mode: creativity and unconscious insights.

By deliberately putting boundaries around when and how I use technology and the internet (basically not at all on the weekends and not between 5:00pm and 9:00am on weekdays), I found myself having a lot more novel and creative ideas.

One simplistic measure of this: I keep a notes file on my phone for potential article or book ideas that occur to me throughout the day. Since beginning my digital declutter, it has literally quadrupled in size compared to where it was a month ago (I went back and looked at my iCloud backup of the notes file to check).

Whether my mind is literally generating more ideas or I’m simply more aware of them because I’m not so distracted by “work mode mind,” I’m not sure. But I know that I like it. A lot.

Takeaway: By putting explicit boundaries on “work mode mind” —  especially by limiting or fencing in our digital technology usage  —  we allow ourselves to be more receptive to creative insights from our non-conscious mind.

Action step: To experiment with this in a small way, try not doing anything on your commute. No radio, podcasts, phone calls, etc. Don’t try and think about anything in particular  —  no work mode mind for the brief 20 or 30 minutes each way to and from work. Commit to trying it for at least a week and see if you notice anything.

Businessinsider.com | March 21, 2018 |  Nick Wignall,  Medium

Your #Career : How To Tidy Up Your #DigitalFootprint Before Your First #JobSearch …You Can’t go Back in time and Not Post those Embarrassing Photos, But you Can Erase your Mistakes Before your Future #Boss #Googles You.

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When I graduated from college in 2000, social media didn’t really exist, and managers didn’t do Google background checks. I didn’t realize how easy I had it compared to today’s graduates.

“It isn’t at all uncommon for hiring managers to look at Facebook or Instagram to see what type of person the candidate is. You can gauge what someone’s like from an interview, but only to a certain extent,” says Callum Williams, a senior recruitment consultant at FRG Technology Consulting. “The attitude [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][the applicant] displays once they have the job could be entirely different, so social media can offer valuable insight at times.”

If you’re entering the workforce now, you were raised in an era where social media has been ubiquitous. Your posts from high school might come back to haunt you when a prospective employer searches your accounts.

Of course the best way to stop embarrassing posts from coming on to the radar of a prospective employer is not to post things that you wouldn’t want your boss to see in the first place. But if you’re reading this article, it’s clearly too late for that. So here are some steps you can take to reduce the chances that your past online activity and digital footprint will hurt your job prospects.

MAKE YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS PRIVATE

As soon as you enter the professional realm, or enter the phase of looking for your first professional job, it’s time to privatize your social media profiles. Yes, it feels good to have hundreds or thousands of followers, even if you don’t know 90% of them, but is that dopamine high you get when you snag a new follower worth it if your public social media account stops you from getting a job?

Here’s how to make your Facebook profile private, make your Twitter profile private, and make your Instagram profile private.

 

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Question: Want the ‘the best/current articles/blogs on the web’ on Job Search, Resume, Advancing/Changing your Career, or simply Managing People?

Answer: Simply go to our FSC Career Blog below & type(#career, #leadership, #life) in Blog Search:  https://www.firstsun.com/fsc-career-blog/

What Skill Sets do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

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REVIEW YOUR TIMELINES

Of course, there are times when it’s beneficial to have public social media profiles when hunting for a job. This is especially true if you’re looking for a job in the media, where your social media profile can serve as an addendum to your resume.

But even if this is the case, you’ll still want to scan through all your social media posts and remove any photos or comments that could cast you in a negative light. Such posts include anything that makes you look petulant, nasty, or immature. Obviously get rid of “funny”/potentially embarrassing photos, and comments that could cause offense. As far as posts about politics go, it’s okay to stand by your political views, just don’t leave any posts up that demonize the other side simply because they disagree with your point of view.

CONTROL TAGGING

Of course, sometimes you can appear on social media despite not posting the content yourself. This often happens when our friends or family tag us in content they post. These tags with our names can often show up in Google searches, especially Google Image searches, as most tags are applied to photos.

“Be conscious of the things you are tagged in,” warns Williams. “Friends have a habit of tagging you in pictures and videos that you would rather not share with the world. Ask them to remove the tag or remove it yourself.”

Besides asking friends to untag you, most social media sites also give you the ability to disable other people from tagging you in the first place. Here’s how to control tagging on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

FIND AND CLOSE ANY OLD SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS

When we think of managing our social media profiles, we generally think of the current big three social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. However, chances are that many of us have digital footprints floating around online from other platforms that we’ve long since abandoned. I’m talking about old platforms like MySpace or Friendster or abandoned social media profiles on services like Google+, or from that time we created a Flickr account just to post our pics from that wild trip to Cancun.

You might not even remember how many abandoned social media accounts you have. To find them, Google your name to see what comes up (check past the first page of results) or try a service like Deseat.me, which aims to help you find all your forgotten online accounts. Any accounts you do find, either make them private or close them down completely.

Not sure if a certain post might hurt your job prospects?

“If in doubt about a historical social media post, consider the first impression it would give a stranger,” says Williams, “and be mindful that the standard of a hiring manager is higher than that.”

FastCompany.com | February 23, 2018 | BY MICHAEL GROTHAUS 3 MINUTE READ

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#Leadership : IKEA Introduces Trailblazing Parental Leave Policy in Retail Sector…Sad but True: The U.S. is Still One of only Four Nations in the World that Fails to Guarantee the Right to Paid Maternity Leave.

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Sweden, on the other hand, is unequivocally the sweetest country for working moms or dads, lavishing parents to a whopping 480 paid days off per child. Several top companies here in the U.S. are finally starting to catch up with the progressive Scandinavian nation, particularly in the tech sector.

Most recently, IKEA expanded its paid benefits to up to four months for new parents — a major breakthrough for a company in the retail industry. Last year, Netflix unveiled a trailblazing unlimited paid leave policy for new moms and dads, inviting them to take off “as much time as they want” in the year following the birth or adoption of a child. Software giant Microsoft also upped its parental leave offering. Adobe quickly followed suit, doubling the paid maternity leave it grants employees.

The message is clear and long overdue: American companies are finally grasping that workers with families require more flexibility than ever before. To get the best out of them — and to keep them from jumping ship — employers must step up and seriously support their charges, and not just in the workplace. On the homefront, too. It’s a smart business move, one that we hope goes viral, coast to coast.

Here are 14 leading U.S. companies offering exceptionally generous parental leave policies:

IKEA

Swedish furniture company IKEA has expanded paid benefits to up to four months for parents with a newborn in their lives. The policy applies to dads, moms and adoptive or foster parents, and to both salaried and hourly employees as well.

Extended paid leave like this is not as common in the retail sector as it is in industries such as technology and finance. For example, Wal-Mart offers 90 days paid maternity leave and 14 days paternity or adoption leave to salaried employees. Target doesn’t commit to any paid parental leave policies.

 

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Etsy

Image credit: Bloomberg | Getty Images

Started in April of this year, Etsy announced it will be giving parents up to six months of paid parental leave. Not only that, but the company has gone so far as to offer new adoption and surrogacy benefits as well coaching programs for new parents and their managers.

“It was the most important way I could have spent that time. Building a company is a team effort that includes the immense support we get from our families,” said Etsy CEO Chad Dickerson.

Spotify

Image credit: JONATHAN NACKSTRAND/Stringer | Getty Images

With its roots in Sweden, it’s no surprise the music streaming company offers an awesome parental leave policy. Spotify offers six months of paid leave to full-time moms and dads across the globe. Employees are also offered flexible work options such as the ability to work from home or a part-time schedule upon their return.

The policy is “born out of a Swedish culture that places an emphasis on a healthy work/family balance, gender equality and the ability for every parent to spend quality time with the people that matter most in their lives,” writes Spotify’s chief HR officer Katarina Berg.

Netflix

Image credit: Shutterstock

The 18-year-old Los Gatos, Calif.-based streaming media provider offers new parents unlimited paid leave for one year. The pioneering policy enables them to take off as much time as they want during the first 12 months following the birth or adoption of a child. They also have the choice to come back part-time, full-time or to “return and then go back out as needed.” Not bad on top of unlimited vacation time. The company went even further in early 2016 to include hourly workers in the policy as well.

Related: Netflix Sets a New Standard With Unlimited Parental Leave

Adobe

Image credit: Adobe | Facebook

Starting Nov. 1, the multimedia software juggernaut will provide 16 weeks of paid time off for primary caregivers, “allowing new parents more time to spend bonding with their children.” The generous policy, available to Adobe’s 6,000 U.S. workers, will be extended to mothers and fathers who become parents “through childbirth, surrogacy, adoption or foster care.” With combined medical and parental leave, birth mothers who work at the San Jose, Calif.-based company — which views its employees as its “most important assets” — will be eligible for a total of up to 26 weeks of paid leave.

Twitter

Image credit: Twitter | Facebook

Birth mothers receive a none-too-shabby 20 weeks of paid maternity leave at the eight-year-old company. Meanwhile, new fathers and adoptive parents at Twitter get 10 weeks paid time off. Further cementing its commitment to supporting families with children, the San Francisco, Calif.-based tech social media mammoth also hosts new parent and new parent-to-be roundtables on a quarterly basis. During the meetups, moms and dads ask questions about leave and swap war stories from the messy trenches of parenthood.

Related: Twitter: What Went Wrong

 

 

Google

Image credit: Google | Facebook

Google, which will soon morph into Alphabet, grants biological moms 18 weeks of fully paid and vested maternity leave. Mothers who experience complications during childbirth are given 22 weeks paid time off. Primary caregivers, regardless of gender, are eligible for up to 12 weeks of paid baby-bonding leave, adoptive and surrogate caregivers included. Non-primary caregivers can carve out up to 7 paid weeks off.

On the heels of its maternal leave expansion from 12 weeks to 18 weeks in 2007, Google reported an uptick employee retention. “It just felt like the right thing to do,” a company spokesperson told The Atlantic. Additional perks for parents include priority placement at Bright Horizon child care centers across the U.S. and $500 in “baby bonding bucks.”

Cool fact: Google’s first employee to go out on maternity leave is current YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki. She has taken a total of five parental leaves since joining Google in 1999.

Johnson & Johnson

Image credit: Johnson & Johnson | Facebook

Perhaps best known for its baby products, Johnson & Johnson sure knows how to take care of those who take care of babies. New parents, whether by birth or adoption, who work for the 129-year-old consumer products conglomerate are privy to grocery and laundry pick-up services. Mothers get all of up to 17 weeks of paid leave and fathers nine weeks. The Brunswick, N.J.-based legacy brand’s recently expanded parental leave policy extends to parental units of all stripes — maternal, paternal, same-sex or adoptive. Time off can be spread outover the first year following birth or adoption.

Related: Johnson & Johnson Just Gave New Parents Seven More Weeks of Paid Leave

Facebook

Image credit: maxpro | Shutterstock

Facebook, and its hot photo-sharing subsidiary Instagram, furnishes all new mother and father employees with 17 weeks of paid leave. Additionally, the Menlo Park, Calif.-based social media behemoth provides a $4,000 “baby cash” stipend for each child adopted or born.

 

We’re curious as to how long founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg will head out on leave when he and his wife, Priscilla Chan, welcome their first child, a baby girl. Zuck can divvy it up over a year or use it all at once, that is unless the head honcho is an exception to the rule. Facebook also subsidizes adoption programs, child care, and, somewhat controversially, surrogate parenting, sperm donation and egg freezing initiatives.

Goldman Sachs

Image credit: Goldman Sachs | Official Website

Per its policy published on its official website, Goldman Sachs provides new moms with 16 weeks of paid leave. That includes four weeks of parenting leave at full pay for primary caregivers. Fathers and non-primary caregivers are eligible for four weeks of paid leave. Paid surrogacy and adoption leave is also offered for up to 16 weeks. Breastfeeding new mothers at the New York City-based global financial services firm enjoy around-the-clock access to lactation consultants and are privy to use on-site lactation rooms.

Related: The Ban on Talking in the Elevator at Goldman Sachs Can Finally Go Away

Reddit

Image credit: Reddit | Facebook

Reddit, which has been struggling to clear a path following a string of controversial leadership decisions, offers new mothers and fathers 17 weeks of paid parenting leave. The San Francisco-based company allows for leave to be taken within the first year in two-week stretches at minimum. Like Zynga, HubSpot and Groupon, the troubled social-sharing platform also offers unlimited vacation time.

Bank of America

Image credit: Alexey Rotanov | Shutterstock

The global banking giant boasts a progressive family “life management” program, offering employees who have worked at the company for at least a year up to 12 weeks of paid maternity, paternity and adoption leave. If more time is needed, workers can take up to 14 weeks additional time off without pay.

When it comes to adoption, the Charlotte, N.C.-based banking giant goes above and beyond, reimbursing eligible employees up to $8,000 per legally adopted child. BofA also pays for up to 25 days of childcare center babysitting for kids ages six weeks to 12 years of age, should the primary caregiver be temporarily unavailable during work hours (as in out sick or on vacation). It also reimburses employees up to $240 a month per child for childcare costs incurred while working.

Related: Randi Zuckerberg’s Simple Secret for Juggling Career and Kids

Microsoft

Image credit: Microsoft | Facebook

On Nov. 1, Microsoft will roll out its most expansive parental leave policy yet. Piggybacking the tech industry trend, the Redmond, Wash.-based global software colossus will lengthen its maternity and paternity leave to 12 weeks at full pay, with an additional eight weeks of paid leave for birth mothers. Leave can be taken all at once or in intervals. Birth mothers also have the option to go out on short-term disability during the two weeks leading up to their due dates.

Related: The 7 Books Bill Gates Wants You to Read This Summer

Yahoo

Image credit: KAREN BLEIER | Getty Images

In 2013, after giving birth herself, CEO Marissa Mayer installed a parental leave policy letting mothers take 16 weeks paid leave and fathers eight weeks. The company also offers them an additional $500 to help with any expenses related to the newborn.

 

Entrepreneur.com | December 8, 2016 | Kim Lachance Shandrow

 

 

Your #Career : Here’s Why #Facebook is Bad for You & Your Career…You might Think you’ve Earned a Few Minutes on Facebook after Completing a Task or Getting Through a Meeting, but Taking Frequent Social Media Breaks Can Derail your Productivity.

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It probably happens before you even realize it. One minute you’re in the middle of a work project and the next, you’re mindlessly scrolling through your Facebook timeline, Twitter news feed, or even your LinkedIn connections to see if there’s a colleague you haven’t yet connected with. In some cases, you don’t even remember opening a new tab and navigating to the social media site, and there’s not even a new notification waiting for you because this is the second time in an hour you’ve done this. Not only should this habit be slightly concerning on a personal level, but it also has the potential to be a huge detriment to your professional goals. You might think you’ve earned a few minutes on Facebook after completing a task or getting through a meeting, but taking frequent social media breaks can derail your productivity.

Free- Business Desk

We’ve written before about the dangers of using social media too much, especially Facebook. Social media can distort your perceptions of your friends, affect your mood in ways you don’t even realize, and is even linked to an uptick in depressive tendencies. An article from Psych Central summarizes a number of studies that have expounded on this idea. Using social media too much can often have a negative effect on a person’s self-esteem, especially since people tend to only post the best aspects of their lives on social media. The excessive use of Facebook and other social media sites is also linked to an increase in anxiety and trouble sleeping. In other words, you tend to get uptight and on edge after staring at your news feed for too long, so it’s no wonder that it’s a bad idea to spend your work breaks on the sites.

 

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Social media’s ‘distracted norm’

Avoiding social media during the workday has made several lists about how to be more productive in the workplace, and it’s not just because they occasionally have negative effects. For some people, checking Facebook regularly won’t lead to negative feelings. But even if you’re immune to social media, checking social media throughout the day is still bound to be a professional pitfall.

There’s a new ‘distracted norm’ in almost every sphere of life now, including the workplace, writes Forbes contributor Frances Booth. The author has written extensively about digital distractions, particularly in the workplace, and has found that phones buzzing in pockets, the easy accessibility of email, and even the habit of surfing the Internet lead to decreased productivity at work, even if you’re doing your best to ignore those digital distractions while on the clock. In one article, Booth asks how long it typically takes for you to switch from a focused work task to a distraction — with email or Facebook the common culprits. Is it an hour? Thirty minutes? Or is it (more likely) quick bursts of 10 minutes or less?

The larger issue here, Booth argues, is that easy work tasks get accomplished within a few minutes. You can easily reply to one quick email, post on social media for work purposes, or something else that’s relatively simple. But more complex work issues either get pushed to the side, or take way longer than they should. “If a task is too difficult or too boring, instead of working through this and sticking with it, the easy answer is to turn to a distraction,” she writes.
Number of Active Social Media Users by Network | FindTheCompany//

The fear, in terms of work productivity, is that innovation and creativity requires deep thinking. This means you can’t be turning to a distraction every five minutes. You need to sit with a problem, think about it for yourself before turning to Google to answer it for you, and be willing to work through an issue for multiple hours at a time. A Facebook dependency won’t help you accomplish that. “Giving in to distraction produces half-formed thoughts, unoriginal thinking, and the same old arguments again and again,” Booth argues.

Facebook has more than 1.4 billion users worldwide, so it’s easy to make that site the bad guy in all of this. But it’s not the only platform that leads to distraction, and it makes up just a part of what behavior science expert James Clear refers to as “digital procrastination.” Clear, in an interview with Entrepreneur, says that digital procrastination is a productivity killer, but it also can negatively affect other decision-making long after the work day is finished.

Fighting social media = less willpower

The reason is because you likely know you shouldn’t be checking Facebook every half hour during the day, so you try to resist the pull of social media while at work. But you’re using up a lot of your willpower to do that, which means you’re vulnerable later in the day to try to resist other bad habits you’re trying to break, like smoking or eating that second piece of cake. “Willpower is like a muscle,” Clear explains. “Every time you use a little bit of it — to resist going to Facebook or BuzzFeed or whatever it is — you’re flexing that muscle. By the end of the day…your willpower fades.”

Entrepreneur suggests trying an app like Freedom, which blocks social media sites and other select websites during the work day (or whatever timeframe you set up for yourself) so that you have no choice but to stay on task. Freedom charges a fee to use its services, but others like Cold Turkey have free options. “It takes the decision making out of your hands,” Clear said.

While we’re on the topic of work breaks, though, keep in mind that research does show that more frequent breaks for smaller amounts of time does help productivity throughout your work day. One study found that productive people often work for 52 consecutive minutes, and then take a break for about 17. Those might be arbitrary numbers, but give it a try to see if a similar breakdown works for you. Just opt for a quick walk or a chat with a coworker instead of logging into Facebook to see whose birthday it is.

 

CheatSheet.com | March 3, 2016 |