Alexandra Levits Water Cooler Wisdom Does Your Company Have a Bro Culture

Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom Does Your Company Have a Bro Culture I was sitting at a networking luncheon with eight men. I was the only woman, and it was a very odd experience. Even though none of us knew each other, the guys had an instant camaraderie. I couldn’t put my finger on why I felt uncomfortable other than the fact that I was wearing heels and was still six inches shorter than anyone else there. Then I read a piece by Ann Friedman in New York magazine about the bro culture in today’s American companies. Friedman talks about Pax Dickinson, Business Insider’s CTO, who was apparently ousted after a tech blog reported that he’d been sharing sexist opinions via Twitter for years. Since people get dinged for stupidly mouthing off on Twitter all the time, that isn’t the story. The news here is that one of Dickinson’s cronies defended him, saying that his friend was a “frequently hilarious performance artist who tweets with a faux-brogrammer alter ego.” (Brogrammer = an IT type belonging to a bro, or frat house-like, culture.) Bro culture was first mentioned years ago by feminist publications, but its lately been highlighted everywhere from the U.S. military to the financial sector. According to Friedman, it describes a group that’s dominated by wealthy, white, straight men that maintains its bro-ness by excluding those who are different. I recently created a course for a large Fortune 500 organization on gender differences. At this company, we noticed that no matter how many talented women the firm hired, few ever seemed to make it in executive management. The women didn’t seem to fit in because they didn’t laugh at the right jokes, didn’t go out for beers after work and simply lacked everything that makes a bro a bro. I know that this company is far from unique in this respect. Provided you want to appeal to a wide range of people, bro-ness can be just as damaging for your small team or business as it is for larger organizations. After all, if you don’t look and act like your customers, how will they be able to relate to you and why will they want to buy your products and services? Like many situations, the first step here is to admit you have a bro culture and that it may be a problem. For ideas on how to recognize a bro culture and combat it, check out my advice over at the AMEX Open Forum.

Chemistry Graduates University of Manchester Careers Blog

Chemistry Graduates University of Manchester Careers Blog Top 5 online resources for Chemistry Graduates To give you a helping hand as you head out into the big bad world of job seeking I thought it would be useful to list our top 5 online resources for Chemistry graduates. I hope you find them useful. Prospects ‘Options with your subject’   Includes a range of job profiles and information on typical employers, work experience and a breakdown of what graduates in this area have gone on to do in a range of subjects. Starting Point Series     A range of helpful job seeking resources including help on applications, interviews and specific help on finding work experience in chemistry. Sector Pages   Really useful information and links to further resources and job sites. Get an insight into different sectors such energy, environment natural resources and scientific work. Royal Society of Chemistry      Provides lots of useful chemistry related resources, publications and advice and also includes vacancy listings. As an associate member you will receive additional benefits such as travel grants, discount on conference fees and access to a range of RCS journals. New Scientist  Keep up to date with scientific developments and search for science related vacancies. Remember although your studies are over your contact with the Careers Service doesn’t end now. As a graduate youll receive full services for the next 2 years. This will include information, advice and guidance as well as access to vacancies and events listed in Careerslink. Find out more about eligibility and services here. Graduate

Women at Work True Career Story Advice From a Young Magazine Editor

Women at Work True Career Story Advice From a Young Magazine Editor Do you want to know how life changed for a sociology major after college? This interview will take you through the ups and downs you can expect in the transition and more. This is a true career story as told to WritingJobs.org.   I hold a job as an Editorial Assistant at a magazine and have been working here for a little over a year. I currently do administrative tasks such as sending out contracts for copyrights, dealing with photo credits, answering phones and general filing. In addition to that, I have become a consistent contributor to the magazine and have been given the chance to edit the readers letters page in the magazine. Some people may not realize that a job as an editorial assistant is an array of different tasks. You not only observe and help in the editing process, but you learn how each person in the magazine helps to publish  the final product. My  Career Story I hold a bachelors degree in Literature from State University of New York: Purchase College. Literature is a common major to have studied for this line of work. Knowing how to write well with correct grammar has been helpful to make sure my work is well received. Writers must also have passion and believe in what they want to accomplish. Everyone at work truly wants to produce informative and engaging articles.  Showing to my boss and co-workers how much I want to be in this setting makes my work even better. Furthermore, all of the written work that goes into the magazine is edited multiple times to make sure it is perfect. [Related Post:  How To Get Your First Job Out Of College] From College to Career Life is very different now that I have finished college and started my career. In college, I skipped classes whenever I felt like it. Now, I am on a strict schedule and barely take any days off. I must make sure to meet all deadlines that are set and constantly turn in my best work. I feel much more pressure to produce exceptional work on a daily basis. I make a modest amount of money and have many student loans to pay off from college. I feel, however, more comfortable paying them because I enjoy my job and know that school allowed me to be in this position. If my career was not related to my major, I believe I would be more frustrated with the amount of money I owe. The Job Search I found my job by looking for publishing houses in the area and applying to them, no matter what kind of written work they produced. The interview process for my current job included an online form and a phone call from the previous woman who held my job. I made sure to convey my excitement over the phone and thankfully, I was asked to come in for an interview. I met with the Editor of the magazine and he quickly sensed my passion for Literature and the publishing industry in general. We even ended up talking about books for the entire second half of the interview. He then invited me to come back for a second interview since he had to choose between one other applicant and me. After that, I was called and told that of the 100 applicants who applied, I got the job! My Caree Advice To You The most important thing to remember is that eventually, you will find the correct job. The job market is very tough right now and it is easy to become discouraged with the lack of work. I tried to use the services offered by my universitys career services program. Unfortunately, it did not have any positions available in the industry in which I was looking. I worked every day for a year to find a job in my field and finally found a company who recognized my passion and enthusiasm for this industry that I love. One of the hardest things about my job is coming into it with no experience at all. There is a certain vocabulary and schedule that the entire editorial staff uses to make sure the magazine production goes smoothly and on time. The hardest thing for me was finding a way to learn the information and understand the vocabulary and deadline requirements. If I could do it over, I would look sooner for a job in my wanted field. When I graduated, I took a job doing whatever I could just to make some money. I feel as though I wasted time when I could have been working towards my goal of becoming an editor. If I was applying for the exact same job position tomorrow, but with a different company, I would be sure to have my passion and enthusiasm come across in the interview process. Everyone I spoke with at this company said they could tell right away how badly I wanted to be here and I believe that is what helped me get hired for this position. I would make them understand that there is nowhere else I would rather be, and if given the chance, I would do my best to learn everything about the publishing industry prior to obtaining the position. Readers! Want to read more true career stories? Share in the comments what type of career you want to learn about next!

5 Ways Introverts Can Stand Out at Work - Classy Career Girl

5 Ways Introverts Can Stand Out at Work The workplace can be a bustling center filled with personalities and people of every background. People come together at work from all over the country â€" and even the world â€" and bring forth a plethora of different skills and talents to contribute to the betterment of the business. In an environment like this, it can be difficult to find your place and stand out in your own right, especially if you have an introverted personality. Being an introvert is not challenging, but being an introvert in a workplace surrounded by go-getter extroverts can be daunting. Often, introverts feel so left out of the workplace conversation that opportunities for growth fall by the wayside as extroverts step in for the taking. If you have excellent coworkers who support your growth, you may have an extrovert co-worker who sticks up for you on your behalf and relays your individual talents to supervisors. This can be beneficial to introverts, but it can also set them back in their development toward being more vocal about their desires. In other scenarios, introverts can feel like they aren’t pulling their weight on the team because a coworker has outpaced or outperformed them. These are all real concerns that introverts at work worry about. What introverts in the workplace need to realize is that there are calculated moments when your introversion will benefit you and calculated moments when it will hinder you. The best thing you can do as the introvert is to learn when these moments are present and how to disable them from crippling your development. 5 Ways Introverts Can Stand Out at Work 1. Use Your Quiet Time to Get Ahead Most jobs have some amount of downtime, whether that is one or three hours of the day. This quiet time can serve to make you more productive or less productive, depending on how you choose to use it. For introverts, this quiet time often turns into the most productive part of their day. Introverts thrive in silence. It is some of the only time they are able to improve creativity and efficiency while maintaining a comfortable environment that enables them to be successful. Use this to your advantage. Save your downtime and your quiet time throughout the day for your highest priorities and important tasks. 2. Set Up One-on-One Meetings With Your Supervisor If group meetings tend to be the place that you shy away the most, use one-on-one meetings to really communicate your ideas and skills to your supervisor. Take the opportunity to be out of the spotlight to get your most impressive ideas on the table and your foot in the door. Your supervisor can also work as your mediator should your introversion keep you from performing to their high standards. Or, in the more difficult position, supervisors can help you manage relationships with potentially difficult co-workers or people in the office you feel deter your attention and focus. 3. Take On Individual Projects Group projects are the introvert’s nightmare. Introverts will tend to do one of two things in a group setting: either do all the work so they can avoid confrontation or they will shy away from work thinking their counterparts can do a better job. Both of these are probably the incorrect method for completing group projects in a work setting. Everyone within the group needs to participate and do an equal share of work for the project to be equitable for everyone. If you are introvert who falls back into one of those two above options, consider going to the manager for individual projects. Businesses are always growing and innovating and there is rarely a time when all the work is done and little needs to be complete. Go see your manager and ask them about new projects, new focuses, ideas, and notions being shot around the conference table. Find an area of your expertise that you can then request some private work in. Your manager will appreciate your motivated attitude and you will score some much-needed confidence points. [RELATED: How To Market Yourself When Youre an Introvert] 4. Be Strong When You Need To Be This is probably the most challenging piece of advice to give an introvert: be confident and strong. These traits don’t come inherently well to introverts as they tend to be slightly more meek and calm in scenarios thann forceful or demanding. However, having this resource in your toolkit can be extremely beneficial to the introvert in the office. When you feel even a tinge of passion about a specific topic, whether that is a debate during your weekly brainstorm, a project needing to be completed, or research that must be done, you need to find the confidence in your voice to stand up and ask for these tasks. Don’t sit on the sidelines while others have their glory. Join the glory by promoting yourself in your workplace. You will be surprised how much happiness employees gain from being confident at work. 5. Make Your Strengths Known Introverts are extremely strong employees. Some might argue that introverts make the best employees for a number of reasons. Introverts have strong characteristics that make them optimal for the workplace including time sensitivity, empathy, concentration, and productivity. If you possess a specific skill or strength that is required to complete a certain task, volunteer for that task and make your qualifications known. If the project calls for someone with excellent spreadsheet knowledge and you happen to have that, stand up and tell your managers that you are the right person for the job. Being an introvert at work doesn’t have to impossible or difficult. There are plenty of opportunities for all employees no matter what their personality type; it all depends on whether or not you have spotted these opportunities as they pass by. Be the introvert in the office who always knows what’s going on by reading memos, checking bulletin boards, meeting with your supervisors and more. If you know your office inside and out, there is nothing you can’t accomplish, even if you feel your introversion is holding you back.

What is a Resume?

What is a Resume?If you have been asked to write a resume, then you are probably wondering what a resume is, how does it work and what is the purpose of a resume. In short, resumes are the letters used to give employers a brief overview of the skills, abilities and experiences that the person has. These letters are attached to job applications or they can be submitted electronically via websites such as Elance. A resume will act as the head of your entire resume, so it is important to take your time to create the perfect one.When beginning to write a resume, you need to sit down and carefully consider your previous employment. Include all relevant information such as employment dates, salaries, supervisors and even any school qualifications you may have had. You should also include any awards or recognitions that you may have received as a graduate or professional. Be as thorough as possible when doing this, as it needs to be as complete as possible, including any special certificati ons. There are also some guidelines that you should follow when creating your resume, as the following will help to ensure that your resume is both impressive and professional.Make sure you use a resume that has been professionally designed and edited to ensure that it is of a high quality. This will help to ensure that it is written in a manner that impresses employers and is clear and concise. You should also ensure that you do not leave out key details when creating your resume. It is recommended that you include everything from experience, salary, education and awards.Look at your resume in terms of how long it is, as this can make a huge difference to how effective it is. Remember, it is not only the information on the resume that makes a difference, but also how well it is organized and laid out. With this being said, you need to make sure that you create your resume in a manner that is easy to read and to follow.Title the sections of your resume accordingly. This can help to distinguish them from one another and should be done before you begin the process of creating your resume. Also, make sure that you use the correct format for these sections and not something that may appear different. For example, if you want to place the name of the employer in the first section then you should place it in the first section of your resume.The third thing you need to remember when writing your resume is that it is important to keep it as professional as possible. While your resume is no doubt important, so is the impression that it gives. So make sure that you include things such as your contact information, telephone number, email address and other contact details so that you can be reached by a potential employer quickly.If you have any personal information included in your resume then you will need to either take it out or provide a note regarding it. Employers usually like to see you are professional and are not looking for any problems, and if you have anythin g personal then it is best to either remove it or put it in the appropriate section of your resume. If you are looking for jobs, then include any relevant education, such as college degrees, and prior employment.Last but not least, you need to know your strengths and weaknesses, as this is where you will be highlighting these in your resume. You should try to incorporate any new or current skills that you may have and these should be discussed in detail. In order to do this, include examples of work or past experience that can highlight your best qualities. If you are unsure about how to create a resume for engineers, then you should consult a professional resume writing company to help you create your perfect resume.

Summary Sunday Good Reads and Job Creation

Summary Sunday Good Reads and Job Creation Certainly some interesting happenings this week for me.   I can now officially call myself an International Speaker thanks to STC Torontos invitation to speak at their Career Day Conference.   Combine that with a presentation with Deborah Mourey on Monday on Reverse Mentorship and Ive learned a lot. We are a both a stubborn and eager to learn society. Stubborn in that we desperately want things to be like they used to. We crave security and stability.   Well, at least those old enough to remember the good old days.   And as I was listening to a presentation yesterday on MBTI types, I heard that the majority of people in North America are SJ types.   These types crave a sensible orderly world.   They are process-oriented.   So when we look at what the future requires, it isnt so much about maintaining a process but innovating a process, idea, service or product, and SJs arent so good at that.   How can we switch our personalities to NP?   How can we make this the new cultural norm?   I dont have the answer, but I am thinking about it and I hope you do too.   How can each of us become a bit more comfortable using the opposite traits that can make more innovation? There are two books that I think can help with this. Thomas L. Friedman (NY Times columnist and author of The World Is Flat) and Michael Mandelbaum have recently published That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back If you havent read The World is Flat, you may want to.   It explains how and why we are a global economy.   It is scary and exciting. The other book that may be helpful in preparing us all for the new challenges of leadership and even self-leadership is called What Got You Here Wont Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful by Marshall Goldsmith, executive coach. I recommend both of these based on endorsements from others.   I have not yet flipped them open myself. For some shorter, more bite-sized nuggets of help, here are some of the posts this week I recommend: The Forever Recession by Seth Godin This post has to get you thinking.   It will piss some people off and others will argue against it.   I, personally, chose to embrace his message and encourage people to do the same.   Heres a section of his post: Job creation is a false idol. The future is about gigs and assets and art and an ever-shifting series of partnerships and projects. It will change the fabric of our society along the way. No one is demanding that we like the change, but the sooner we see it and set out to become an irreplaceable linchpin, the faster the pain will fade, as we get down to the work that needs to be (and now can be) done. Networking Is Not a One-Hit Wonder by The Wise Job Search The 4 Step Process for Closing the Job Search Sale on GlassDoor  (original post from  MonsterThinking) Do you think it is possible for the US government to create jobs?   Or do you think there is a better way to create jobs/stimulate the economy?

More praise for Happy Hour is 9 to 5 - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

More praise for Happy Hour is 9 to 5 - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog Michael Stallard, president of E Pluribus Partners, read my book about happiness at work and liked it: Alex?s writing has a fun, conversational style, just like you would expect from the Chief Happiness Officer. Don?t mistake this for fluff, however. He covers a lot interesting material in a thoughtful, smart way. You can read Michaels entire review here. But someone has Michael beat Zeke Chan has read my book three times! Heres what he thinks: I have read it 3 times and have been constantly referring to it every now and then for inspiration and ideas. A whole lot of things have happened since then which has just been unbelievable. I started by making myself happy. In your book, you champion the concept of doing something to make you happy. So I did just that I did things that made me happy, tried to be positive, helped my colleagues and made an effort to learn something new about someone each day. I always start my day by doing something that I love and enjoy. Only then do I start my day which has been a habit of mine the past 2 months. When I successfully made myself happy on a daily basis, I realized there was something else that needed to change to be truly happy my attitude. That has really taken some time to do and Im still learning to master my attitude and thinking. Heres how things have changed since Ive started. I really love my work and enjoy the company of my colleagues. I have tonnes of ideas that have great potential and could be worth something. I have started a freelance business that Im positive will be successful. My relationship with my wife has gotten even better so much that Im encouraging her to discover what makes her happy and to find that happiness in the work she would love to do. She is struggling somewhat with this new concept of happiness at work, but I have no doubt that things will turn out great. I want to thank you for your book. It is simple to understand and your suggestions are highly practical and easy to do. Im trying to spread some happiness at my workplace but it has not been easy due to the culture but one thing Im certain of is that Im at YAY! happiness level. God, Im good :o) Click here to read the book free online or buy it on paper or as a pdf e-book. Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related