Writing cover letters can be tricky considering that it’s more of an art than a science. Nevertheless, there are still a few pointers that we can follow to allow us to put the best foot forward and make a good first impression. Here they are:
Interviews are challenging and often we have good reason to feel worried coming up to the big day. Some of the biggest difficulties people have involve explaining reasons why they haven’t been working or personal issues that are difficult to talk about - or both!
The first thing to remember is that:
The truth will set you free!
Plato was a clever guy, a philosopher and mathematician in Classical Greece, and the founder of the first academy in Athens, the first centre of higher education in the West. His teacher was Socrates and his most famous student was Aristotle. Although Plato is long gone, and despite science having progressed so much since his lifetime, some of his lessons are still unavoidably true and relevant to modern life.
Read MorePeople often ask me how I help people to find and do work that they love. The answer is: I have a system that I work off. And here it is...
Read MoreThere are many pages online offering advice for writing the best Curriculum Vitae possible, but let’s start by getting the simple things right. Make sure that you have good quality content, a clear layout/design, relevant information, and the correct length. In terms of writing a CV, you can use your own personal style as long as you stick to a few standard rules. Generally speaking:
Read MoreWhen much of our time is spent deciding between two different sets of options which seem equally good or bad, it can seem like a dilemma. However, it's important to remember that dilemmas are not a frequent as they may seem.
Read MoreNetworking is important for job-hunting and developing business connections - and everyone knows it. We prefer to work with people we know and to hire people we know.
BUT, there’s a problem! Almost everyone I speak to about networking tell me that they really dislike it. So here are a couple of tips and pointers to remember about networking that I hope will help you.
Read MoreWould you steal a loaf of bread to feed your starving family? You probably would. Why? People often break their values to meet their needs. But what are these needs? The following paradigm is very useful for identifying what motivates us to do what we do. We are motivated to meet one or more of our 6 human needs at any one time. So what are they?
Read MoreI’ve been on radio 4 times now, which is a lot for me as I had never done anything like that before. Initially I thought it was going to be a nerve-wrecking experience, but it was absolutely fine. And I believe the reason for that comes down to my preparation. There are a couple I things that I try to do before radio interviews that are relevant for any type of interview or important meeting. Here they are:
Read MoreIn order to bring our society closer together, I feel that we must emphasise, through this education, the vast commonalities in beliefs, values and ethics that these religions share, as too much time and energy has been spent identifying differences, which we now know, often only lead to unnecessary conflict between neighbours. If you want to create ill-feelings, emphasise differences. If you want to create fondness, emphasise similarities.
“Familiarity breeds liking”
- Robert Zajonc, Social Psychologist
Below is a short tale by Mullah Nasruddin about searching. It’s a tale with a strong lesson, which like a lot of things, is simple when you know it. Take a look:
A man happened upon his friend one night on his hands and knees beneath the only streetlight in the immediate area.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked his friend.
The man glanced up then back down at the earth he was sifting between his fingers. ‘I lost my keys’, he said. “I’ve been searching for more than an hour and I still haven’t found them.'
Read MoreWhen so many people want to change jobs or even change industries, some of the difficulties that they come up with involve feeling that they are stuck in the same job because it’s all they’ve ever done. And while this may be true, it’s not true that they don’t have any skills that could be used in other positions. In any case, whenever you go to a new workplace or company, you have to learn the ropes in the new position. Therefore, often the details of the job or the industry may be different, but the fundamental skills are the same.
Read MoreHuman beings have an innate desire to help each other out or contribute to the greater good of society, so it's normal for people to say that they want to "work with people". Fantastic!... but let's go into a little bit more detail so that we can define the goal.
Read MoreSimple? Yes, very simple. Easy? Not necessarily. How many times will you ask yourself bad questions on any given day and get bad answers? We’ve all done it. This is something simple that we can consciously change just by becoming aware of it and having better options available to us.
Read MoreView the full list of career types and expand your options.
*Click the industry of interest to go directly to that area.
Read MoreSome people don’t like their jobs and want to change careers. Others don’t like their jobs because there’s too much stress at work. If you’re in the second category, then making sure that you have active recovery periods every week is key. It can be a waste of time and energy changing jobs to avoid something like stress - because you could just walk into the next job and have even more stress there. In that case, you haven’t really solved the problem, you’ve just changed the location of where it happens.
Read MoreThink how much effort it will be to do a four year course that you don’t like, to do 2 sets of exams every year and to spend hours every week in classes that you’re not interested in. In my opinion, it’s better to be bored while doing this research rather than being bored doing a four year course.
Read MoreOften clients come to my office and feel like they don’t know what they want to do. In many of these cases, the person actually does know what they want to do but they have run out of ideas for making it happen. Maybe they’re not getting the interviews they need, there doesn’t seem to be any jobs for them or they’re just not having any success in general. That’s a tricky situation so let’s think about some solutions.
Read MoreIn 2011, Nobel Prize Winner Daniel Kahneman released his book "Thinking Fast and Slow" which summarises research that he conducted over decades, often in collaboration with his colleague Amos Tversky. The book was an absolute game-changer as far as I am concerned. Kahneman successfully outlined and defined many common thinking errors which we all make from time to time. Being able to successful identify and avoid these errors will help us we make better choices in our personal and professional lives. That is the aim of this blog post.
Read MoreHere are a list of categories of interest based on the categories of books on Amazon. I thought it was a good way to help identify what job searchers or career changers would be interested in. Basically, if you were going to go into a book shop or watch a TV program, which categories would you choose? This exercise is designed to identify and increase your areas of interest. Once you've identified them here, you can go even deeper on the Amazon website itself. Enjoy!
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