Cool Career Tools for Today

Yes, we are blogging the trends and tools, so you don't have to!

1. PeekFace.com just launched some 6 months or so ago, and it is still in beta, but it's utility to job seekers seems quite compelling if you live in the metro areas of Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington or Wilmington to share job experiences with each other. This site starts to take the function of a corporate reputation scorecard for attributes of job satisfaction. All companies are added, and administered by the company. While you can not always use others experience to make a decision, you can use their experience, to help you evaluate complimentary corporate culture. Thanks Jim Stroud!
   
2. VocationVacation.com-- wow I had never heard of this service, but it is a novel idea, of sort of a travel agent for professional dreaming, with real value and opportunity. Ever want to be an Actor, Artist, Bootmaker, Corporate Filmmaker, Chocolatier, Nonprofit Director, Professional Speaker, or Photographer? How about a Pro Wrestling Event Coordinator?
   
3. United States Fair Labor Links-- lets you research labor department statistics on hiring, employment, etc.
   
4. Example Resumes by Occupation.
   
5. Indeed.com's Job Postings Per Capita.
   
6. PersonalityType.com
   
7. LondonCareers.Net Winning Behavioural Interviews... Tell me about a time when... ?
8. 
   

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You Seek Problems, Because you need their gifts..

Over dinner with friends we reflected on the lessons of life, and some of the lessons our particular personality seems to have an affinity for desiring to perfect.

In Richard Bach's "Illusions, the Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah", the statement, "You Seek Problems, Because you Need their Gifts", has a profound depth of possibility for me. In my career I have started to discover a shortcoming of mine is to expect people to behave as they have, and to expect me to play my role in response to that prediction. The problem with that approach is flawed, first in the assumption that people will always behave in one way or another, second in expecting that every future action should mirror that of history. Ahh but that is how I amuse myself.

If I seek problems of coming to a place where change is required, the steps are obscured, and the engagement is unclear, I create the muscle, the will, the dedication to show results.. Why? Because that is the role I am comfortable playing. When I understand the reason for change, I find it easy to create the case for why it is not only necessary but practical, and I get a charge out of helping people join us. So now that I have defined part of the gift part, what is the problem?

I don't enjoy the steps I take to achieving this outcome. While it is effective for business, it is not supportive of my health or well being, because it is basically leveraging predictable behavior to repeat the elements of success, but not changing the unhealthy course that get results.. Why change if it has the desired results?

Because I have not articulated more completely the emerging vision for perfectly balanced stimulation, belief and opportunity. What could I accomplish if I did not expect an uphill battle to leverage change. What if there were no opposition, only support? What if we are all merely allowing our ego to get in the way of more productive choices?

Let me be the first to admit that sometimes I am a slow learn, but honestly I feel growth is brewing, because I am recognizing my role in the pattern, and in that recognition, and the observation of "stuck-ness", I can get myself back on the track of productive change with productive health balance.. surely this is the results of more conscious choices, and more deliberately defining the outcomes of success!

Life Is NOW. Future is not Past..

It has been said by many philosophers that what you "think about, talk about, and act about, you bring about". This seems to suggest that we professionals have more of an active role in our productivity than we often give ourselves credit for.

Think it looks like rain? Well that is neither good nor bad if you are prepared with an umbrella! Rain serves great purpose in nature, provided in balance.

That in mind I will share some career related possibilities for effective career satisfaction. This is based upon coming out of the past-- past experiences, past failures, and past successes, and start living this moment, this time as if it has the potential it already does!

What of the tools in your career toolkit? If the tool is not supporting your present objective and future desires, it should not be used.

When preparing a resume-- the interview, cover letter, the reference checks are all about explaining your suitability and experience for the opportunity you might accept were the conditions matching yours. The same conditions for your experience matching theirs also exists.. So really this means getting a job boils down to clarity on the type of environment, work, and ideal professional opportunities will create your desirable future, and articulating all the excellent moments in your past that have prepared you for them..

Other simple truths on living in the career now:

• Vision is understanding the difference between where you are and where you desire to go.
  
• Connectedness or disconnectedness is a manageable choice or state of being.
  
• The better we feel, the more productive we can become-- so seek inspiration before justification for continued bad experiences.
  
• The worse we feel, the bigger our snowball or evidence of failure can become.
  
• Fresh thoughts, ideas and expectations creates a fresh new experience or opportunity.
  
• A legacy of difficult experiences creates a rich proof for why your history will continue to be your future, despite the ability to change your mind and your opportunity.

It's gonna be a bright, sunshiny day.. If we let it! What have you done to let it be the best and most memorable experience of your present?

Career and Business Network Resources:
Linked In Helping Friends Group | LI HF Yahoo Group | Ryze Winning Careers and Business |

Personal, Meaningful, Transformation

My friend, Dani introduced me to this quote in her MySpace blogworks-- Nice notion..

Watching yourself is the key to your transformation. Be in a let go, allow things to happen as they come. Use your intelligence and learn from what you watch in yourself. That will do. ~ Mi Zu

Have you ever held a dream of personal transformation so tightly that you can think, feel and visualize the outcome, but are trying to figure out how much time should be spent in action, versus restful space? I have.. And then this week business activities demanded I prioritize other activities.. Perhaps a watched pot never boils-- but step away for a few minutes to rest or focus on other activities, and when you come back, a nice rolling boil has occured.. If this is true, then could it be that life is what happens while we are busy creating moments? I work hard.. Very hard, because it is part of my DNA to be focused on results. But that activity of working hard is not the key to transformation. The key in transformation is in "allowing" the changes to take hold. Oh sure in the pot example, expose a pot of water to flame, high enough, hot enough, and long enough, and it will boil. However dreams don't work like instant macaroni and cheese... Kind of more like the kids that love to eat "MacnCheese"! Dreams, are raised, and established through careful care and feeding, through activity, and letting go, through allowing the possibilities to unfurl, and to appreciate how far you have grown, and finding joy in the capacity of how far you could grow! ' Some simple truths I feel around experiencing transformation:

• Surely transformation is found in balancing the "human being" with the capacity for "transformation allowing".
  
• Seeking balance in everything, exerting too much or too little will not work.
  
• Seeking balance in everything, pure "wishworks" alone will not create activity, but neither will just activity without vision for what success looks like.
  
• "Obsesessional Outcome" is not nearly so helpful as "Practical Allowance" in the course of personal transformation.
  

How then can we improve our ability to discern, to balance, and to allow more meaningful experience into our daily lives and transformation experiences?

__________________________________________________________
Dawn: Frappr | Hi5 | Linked In | MyBlogLog | Ning | Ryze | Stumble | Xing | Yahoo |

Winning the Prized College Internship

College Focus! Career Success while going to college? Yes you can!

There are many career success stories on our Linked In Helping Friends Career and Business Networks! Please feel free to join us, send articles, job leads, etc. add links to your favorite college Job and Internship Resources.

Don't limit yourself to just your University Student Affairs if you are looking for an uncommon internship experience-- by all means look at the resources your local university offers and beyond!

Our Career Network was based upon the uncommon notion that we can create profound opportunity through a community of caring, sharing, and helping. Helping Friends has a number of really promising professionals looking for summer work and college internships, so the Helping Friends will gladly list great internship opportunities-- and we will invite our members to share their experiences too.

Others that have stories of success as a result of summer work or interning, please share that in our Yahoo Helping Friends Career Transformation Talk Group at: http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/HFCN-CareerTransformationTalk/

TIPS FOR COLLEGE INTERNS:

1. Learn how to use LinkedIn and put a headline in your profile for your internship so you can be discovered. MANY interns are achieving exceptional opportunity as a result of having a focused profile that makes it easy to recruit them for outstanding opportunities.

2. Join the HFCN Transformation Talk Group and check out the library for Networking, global opportunities, and competitive career search resources.

3. Remember your "public" profile on social networks could be a powerful ally or enemy. Yep Recruiters and hiring managers socially network too!

4. Dream big and set a stretch goal for your summer professional development! Check out the Ultimate Summer Internships article on Forbes.com; The Princeton Review article on Intern by Design...

5. If You are looking for Internship opportunity, register your resume, profile, key requirements and geographic interests at the Helping Friends Career Network, make sure to indicate your preferred job type, and we have a new category to support our college intern job seekers.. Select "College Intern" positions to be considered for internship opportunities. Our Applicant Tracking System will help employers to identify great interns using the quality community and networking capabilities of our community.


FIRST NETWORKING ASSIGNMENT: Know any talented Marketing Majors looking for an excellent internship? This one is hot and will close fast!! Check out Job 247 in our Open Jobs! Apply online.

Dawn Mular http://linkedin.com/in/dmular
Linked In Helping Friends Business Network

Introduction to Career Satisfaction (Kids perspective)

Imagine the courage to go and dream to a place of business or career success. It is a myth that life circumstance locks in your future as it has been your past experience. We all have dreams, however sometimes we are too busy to assimilate the inspiration into a picture that creates career satisfaction.

Sometimes we get so busy being responsible adults that we forget the reason why it is so important to LIKE the work we do, when we consider how very much of it that we do in the course of a lifetime!

Have we forgotten those things that we want to appreciate most? Are we in touch with the reasons WHY we want to find a certain opportunity, and what we hope the outcome would be.

Sometimes we place unreasonable time lines, expectations, and undue pressure on ourselves, becoming our worst enemy by worrying more about the intangibles than taking action on the steps that could take us there. Sometimes the distance to travel or the terrain to traverse seems so great that the "settle for option" might become our "settle for" desire, that keeps us from striving.. Sometimes it is our own limitations that obscure our better selves by believing..

"It's too tough."
"I was laid off, that makes me less desirable"
"I don't have ___"
"I am too old."
"No company will ever pay me that much again, for the freedom, ___ ____. "

All of these things that one might use to keep them less active, are no deterrent to someone that has found a career opportunity that is so clear and desirable that it makes their heart sing, and they know they are taking measured steps each day to visualize and actualize the steps on the journey.

This when a job search, stops being a painful experience in fear, uncertainty, doubt and negative self talk, and starts being an adventure.

WHAT IS IT THAT YOU WANT:

• I want to start my own business.
  

REASONS WHY YOU WANT THAT OUTCOME:

Eyes of a Child Reasons: (its not money, its defined time, love, and happiness)

1. Because recess and summer vacation is a whole lot more fun!
   
2. Because dinner and breakfast time is more than just instant oatmeal!
3. Because we get to wake up when we want to on weekends and play more.
4. Because my parents are less grumpy and have more time to spend with us.
   

Grown up Reasons:

1. Because I like the freedom to create changes and prosperity.
   
2. Because I feel better when I am helping others and making a difference.
   
3. Because I love the creativity, planning, and hardwork that benefits my family.
   
4. Because I value the feeling of my best genuine self.
   
5. Because I feel proud of what we have accomplished in our community, and want to spend more time and work doing that.
   
6. Because I like to uplift others and the experience of creating career satisfaction.
   
7. Because I work best in an environment that allows me to work hard, but creatively.
   
8. Because I am compensated for creating successful outcomes for others and that benefits my family.
   

What does this next ultimate career or business success look like? (What do you like about various aspects of work, relationship, meaning, spirituality, etc.)

• Good Health, Energy, and Vitality to do, see, and experience more of those things that make life refreshing.
  
• Prosperity sufficient to care for my family, community, and causes.
  
• Inspired work that allows me to create opportunity and positive experiences.
  
• Happy People who care about one another, and respect themselves too much to languish in negative activity, criticism, or anger.
  
• Meaningful Partnerships that are drawn together by the practical win win business sharing that creates opportunity and appreciation.
  
• Charitable Culture that sees opportunity to transform and produce positive aspects of life experience.
  

THEN:

1. Create a Plan- and a few milestones along the way so you will know the course.. (Nick Jr.'s Dora the Explorer does this well by using sequencing, feedback, and breaking down each big journey into three milestones, that she sings and gets toddlers singing along the way-- so they all recognize success when it's achieved)
   
2. Cultivate Inspiration - Join forces with others. Enlist the assistance of Mentors, Coaches, Models/Examples, and communities of like minded dreamers that challenge you to stretch and grow.
   
3. Informational Interview, Curiosity, and Asking for help-- enlist ideas, motivation, and actively seek feedback for strategies that can make that belief system, dream environment into a real plan for success.
   

You are never given the dream, without the equal capacity to make it happen!

The Secret: Career Success, Yes, You Can!

What is it you want to feel about the profession you participate in?

What is the best thing about your present career?

Wouldn't it be nice if:

• Job Searching had a competitive edge for me?
  
• I did not feel like I was in the search competing against the world?
• If an innovative employer needed my particular talent & compensated well for it?
  
• If team dynamics worked hard to create an awesome product, rather than save themselves?
• I jumped out of bed in the morning eager and inspired by the career I am going to?
  
• I had access to people who wanted to share their success and hiring resources?
• My Recruiter would represent my qualifications well, for the opportunities that fit me best.
  
• All this work I have done to apply and build a network could be put to good use, for me and my collegues?
  

The secret is you are already competent, the right opportunity is awaiting discovery, and so is a network of supportive professionals who have been there, dreamed that, and done that! Also on this network are some top notch recruiters and career coaches.. Career Success... Yes You Can Dream, Do, and Be anything you aspire to be!

Most people forget or fall in a rut-- that's being human.. Choosing to stay there, that is just plain silly! Get back in the habit of dreaming, and striving, taking action towards inspiration.

Challenge your traditional ruts:

• This is the last job that will ever treat me so well (Hours, Pay, Benefits, ___) You have worked how many years? It is good to know that you feel at your personal best. Would you feel more inspired if you knew what could make this job or your next even better?
  
• The Market is Tight! Do you know how many of my friends are looking for work now? Hey, don't do what too many do.. Take positive action every day towards finding the one job that is right for you.. See you don't need to be a statistic of difficulty. The odds are really in your favor given you only need ONE good paying job that needs your skill!
  

Contact me if I can help:

Dawn Mular
http://hfcareernetwork.com/findajob.htm
Free Linked In Helping Friends Business Group

Sun Tzu Inspiration and Opportunity. Appreciation and Referrals!

Paraphrasing the wisdom from Sun Tzu Strategies for Selling in a way that applies to one's professional development:

Make the opportunities lost, your best advantage to take the effort to learn from opportunities that do not fit to define the positive nature of what you do want. Relationships matter, so keep in touch. Thank them for the time, and maintain a stance that the right opportunity exists and once you achieve a dominant thought, it is a matter of time before you attract the opportunity that fits you.

Today I am so appreciating the value of the relationships that matter! I am indeed honored to serve and have earned the referrals from my friends. They stay in touch

I am thinking,and open to others ideas.. I also like to share ideas with my network partners can be more effective in helping others. We share referrals and possibilities with one another, because it is a sheer delight to activate our more purposeful nature.

One of the suggestions of a friend is that it is time to tell the story about the Helping Friends... A beautiful notion, and yes, I suppose it is time to tell the story of friendship, networking and possibility. Hmmmmmmm yes it is nice.. How can we do this with the power and beauty of community interest PART and parcel to what makes the basis of our success so appealing?

In the meantime, we have shared a simple "how to refer" page for our friends. Sharing this because we DO value your ideas, business, link exchanges, job seekers, and hiring manager referrals. Together we can create more opportunities, through a community of caring, sharing, and helping.

http://hfcareernetwork.com/HF_FactsQA.htm

Great Blog: Use Conflict as an Opportunity....

MyBlogLog.com has been a source of some great blog content, and again I find incredibly relevant content from Colorado. Bud Bilanich is an amazing wisdom who very much appears to "watch and walk" the life wisdom he shared.

This article was really chock full of practical wisdom; "Use Conflict as an Opportunity to Strengthen Relationships and Develop Creative Solutions to Problems".

This is a notion I have come to live with. "Contrast is that conflict that occurs when something is not fitting your filters, and observing and treating conflict as an opportunity to learn, adjust and explore is much more practical than the unempowered feelings that negative emotions are to be ignored or glossed over. Understanding the root of conflict, allows you to see and articulate , even act on your values. All that is a good thing.

At the end of the day, we have much more influence than we give ourselves credit for. I wrote Deeper Secrets on the Laws of Attraction as an appreciation for those willing to become their best personal selves.

Forward Mobility-- Careers in Other Locations Topic..

The Helping Friends Career Network receives frequent requests for advise and tips on how to promote and cultivate forward mobility. This notion of "forward mobility" means that level of flexibility and resilience to create and discover opportunities you might not otherwise have found. Success if found by simply opening up your views on your career. Here are some of the frequently asked questions in this area.. Let us know if you have other questions that we might assist with.

General tips to forward career mobility:

1. Improve your networking. Established through LinkedIn and local trade groups. Take an expert you appreciate to lunch or coffee for an informational interview on the industry trends and advise. If from a distance, schedule a teleconference or Skype call.
   
2. Improve your career profile-- in resumes, Linked In Profile and online networking. Too many jobseekers orient resumes to "getting a job". Resumes should be geared to WHAT COMPANIES are hiring. Orient your profile so that employers WANT to learn more about you.
   
3. It's not for everyone, but if you are self directed, you might consider companies that offer telecommuting programs.

I. Suspecting Unemployment is a limitation in my area, what can I do? Unemployment trends are real, and based upon factual data, but the impacts of unemployment CAN be over-rated and for several good reasons. Do not assume you must move or recareer yourself based upon what you read or hear on the news... Thousands of people are finding jobs each day, even in the most economically difficult areas. Remember that you don't need a thousand jobs, you need one.

II. Always wanted to live and work in ____, how can I make it happen? For the person where location is no object, opportunity is wider as well. Imagine choosing your perfect ideals for work environment and work... It IS possible. To research a move to areas where you do not currently live, following are some options for your target areas:

• Consider getting a local presence... Mail and Phone Number.. For Mail, secure a local mailing address or Post Office Box with forwarding, or Remote Mail options. For Phone numbers, check out "Skype Voicemail" number in the location you have targeted. In this way you can have the appearance of a local presence.
  
• Seek Networking Groups in the industry or area you want to be..
  
• Linked In Yahoo Groups General or Targeted.
  
• Industry Groups like ITSMF, HDI, SMF, WorldWIT, with a global/local presence.
  
• Find interest groups on Ryze.
  
• Search your LinkedIn connections and request introductions or connections to help to create local presence. Join the Linked In Helping Friends Group and LI Helping Friends Business Network Yahoo Group and ask for help in your desired area-- this group is chock full of resourceful and well connected networkers! Extend your connection capabilities by joining any relevant Linked In Collegiate, Industry, or Company Groups. Ask a Question of Linked In Answers.