How to Stay Motivated When Looking for Your First Graduate Job #MondayMotivation

How to Stay Motivated When Looking for Your First Graduate Job #MondayMotivation First of allcongratulations on graduating! Youve worked hard and youve earned your degreewhat an achievement. Now begins a whole new chapter of your life, and first thing on the list is: Get a job. It can be a daunting and scary time, and for most people it doesnt come easy. Getting your first job can be a difficult and exhausting task and often it can feel like youre getting nowhere with your job search. But dont fear! All your hard work will pay off, as long as you stick at it. Here are my top tips for staying motivated when looking for your first graduate job: 1) Treat it like a full time job: Its so easy to become lazy and unmotivated during your job search simply due to a lack of routine. This is why its so important to set yourself timescales. You should treat your job search like a full time job. Start at 9 and end at 5 and allow yourself a one hour lunch break. Doing this will keep you motivated and will keep you productive. 2) Dont punish yourself: It can feel very isolating to be unemployed and looking for a job but one thing thats important to do, is to continue having a life and doing other things. If your friends are going to the pub go the pub with them. You shouldnt feel as though you should be applying for jobs every second of every day (although its hard not to) and you should still appreciate your downtime. 3) Talk to peers: Chances are, many  of your peers are going through the same thing. Discussing your job search with people in a similar position can help you feel more positive in your situation. 4) Network: Dont rely purely on applications to get you a job. You need to be ALL IN. Attend networking events, email interesting people just get yourself noticed in a different way. 5) Re-evaluate: If you hear yourself saying Ive applied for 2,300 jobs and Im still unemployed!, you obviously need to change something up. By changing your approach, you may see opportunities  coming in from places you never expected. 6)  Dont take it personally: If you receive rejections from companies, its a natural reaction to take it personally and feel a great deal of disappointment. The trick to staying positive during your job search is to make sure you dont take it personally. Remember its all a learning curve, which leads me onto my next point 7) Remember its a learning curve in itself: Every time you apply for a job, dont get an offer or mess up an interview dont forget that youre learning something from it. Now this is a point easier said than done but treat all the difficulties like they are little lessons of life. Each interview that doesnt work out, makes you more prepared for the next one. Treat every experience in a positive light, even if it gets hard. 8) Celebrate the little things: If an employer compliments you on an aspect of your CV, celebrate! If you get an interview celebrate! If a potential employer responds to your introductory email celebrate! Its important to remember each of these small steps is actually part of the bigger picture, and that you should celebrate each tiny progression. Keep your job search positive! 9) Ask for feedback: If you feel like youre getting nowhere with your job search then why not ask the places you applied for feedback. Even if they cant, theres no harm in asking and you might just get some really useful feedback. 10)  Be patient: Its not going to happen overnight so be patient in your job search. It may take some time but youll get there eventually! Do you have any other tips for keeping motivated during a job search? Let us know by tweeting them to @UndercoverRec

Getting the Best Price for your Car from a Dealer

Getting the Best Price for your Car from a Dealer Sometimes selling a car can be a tedious task placing multiple ads across different publications and websites. You may find that when looking for a private sale that you come across a lot of people that are time wasters, either not interested in the car, or not willing to pay a fair price for it and to look to buy it cheap. If you want to sell your car and also want it to sell quickly, then you may want to think about selling it to a dealer. Know the Value The first thing that you need to do before looking to sell your car is to know the value of your vehicle. There are many websites out there that can give you a good estimate of your cars value. You can quickly enter all of your details and get an evaluation back in no time, which will help you to plan your strategy before approaching any car dealers. What is your Plan? You are either going to be looking at selling your car and using the cash for something else, or using the money that you get and buying another vehicle. If you are looking only to sell and take the cash for your car, then you are going to have less room for negotiation. The cash for cars industry is large, so you will need to do some shopping around at all of the various online car dealers who will be willing to buy your motor. There are some offers that will also differ quite drastically. You will need to do a lot of shopping around to make sure that you get the best possible deal, but the good thing about the internet is that you can do all of the racing around speaking to dealers behind a keyboard. Check out all of the local dealers that are close to you, but also look at dealers in other states, as many dealers will buy cars from almost any location. Speak to as many dealers as you can and compare all of the quotes that you receive. Time to Negotiate One thing that a lot of people forget is that when it comes to dealing with the larger car dealers, you can negotiate with them, and you do not have to settle for their first offer. You may even be able to play the companies off against each other and push the price up that they are offering for your vehicle. You can reply to any quote that you receive and make them a counter offer and see what their reply is. But, you do need to keep in mind that when selling a car to a dealer, they have to make a profit, so you will never be able to get the total market value of your vehicle. But, if you are trading your car in and do not want the cash, you can still get yourself an excellent deal if you negotiate hard enough and keep pushing the dealers to move their price. With some planning and some cajoling you will be able to get the best price possible for your car. Image Source; Image Source

What Work Worries Keep Your Employees Up at Night

What Work Worries Keep Your Employees Up at Night Learning how to engage millennials in the workplace has turned into an utmost priority for most business leaders. But what is found is that efforts to try and fight back these issues might not have come to fruition yet. At least that’s what is suggested by peoples online searches. Perkbox and SEMrush joined forces to examine what work worries are keeping employees up at night according to online searches. The findings represent searches from 2015 to 2017 for the UK and the US. Employees spend a lot of time at work counting down their days, hours  and minutes before hometime. To be exact, in the UK ‘how many working days in a year?’ was searched just over 123 million times in 2017 and just over 276 million times in the US. It’s the most searched question by keyword ‘work’ of the last three years, for both regions. But perhaps what’s most concerning is that searches for this term increased by over 14% year-on-year from 2016 to 2017 in the US and more than doubled that amount, 31%, in the UK. Employee engagement is clearly still not at its strongest. Looking at search terms by keyword ‘boss’ also reflects some interesting findings. Mainly that we’ve lost a lot of respect towards our bosses in the last few years. We found two clear indicators of this based on two common questions asked online: 1. How to impress your boss? The question how to impress your boss? was searched 21,700 times in the UK in 2015. This has dropped by 15%, to 18,500 searches in 2017. In the US, the same question has dropped by 33% over the same time period, which is comforting to know. 2. How to prove your boss is bullying you In the UK, the question how to prove your boss is bullying you increased from 1,200 searches in 2015 to 4,100 in 2016 and 33,500 in 2017. They have increased by a stunning 2691%, which is an incredible increase and worrying stat to know in terms of the relationships being built between bosses and their employees. The US won’t make us feel better on this one sadly as searches are high but have at least decreased year-on-year between 2015 and 2017. So what does this mean? Good bosses are essential to any organization. But as the world of work continues to change, so will the qualities and characteristics of effective management. That’s what’s likely to be showing in these searches. Today, employees are not looking to ‘impress’ their bosses in the same way as they used to twenty years ago. ‘Impressing’ in today’s world of work almost means ‘challenging’ your peers as opposed to taking them at their word. As a result, bosses that are ‘caging’ their employees into strictly doing their day-to-day tasks and belittling them for their new suggestions because they’re too ‘inexperienced’ come across as bullies. Great bosses today must possess exceptional adaptability skills, and just want to build a relationship with their team based on trust, commitment, and engagement. That’s the environment where great ideas truly flourish. About the author:  Chieu Cao, Co-Founder and CMO at  Perkbox,  the UK’s fastest growing employee benefits provider.

Four Ways To Make That Tiny Bathroom Feel Bigger

Four Ways To Make That Tiny Bathroom Feel Bigger Hey, maybe most guys dont care.  After all, theyre in and out of the bathroom and ready to go before we know its happened.  But with hair, makeup, and shaving all the nether parts, women spend a lot more time in the bathroom.  So if its on the small side, it can almost start to close in on you.  Here are four ways to make that tiny bathroom feel lots bigger. Mirrors.  Think BIG Mirrors. In most small bathrooms, the potty is placed next to the sink top.  Typically, the mirror used is the same width as the sink area, meaning the mirror is between 30 and 36 inches.  And the wall over the toilet is blank.  Often, to fill the blank wall, an essentially useless towel rack gets stuck there.  But why not get a bigger mirror that covers that entire wall space? Nothing opens up a room like the generous use of mirrors.  Not to mention that with all the prepping and fussing we do to get ready, more mirror is a good thing, anyway.  This is actually the least expensive hack to fix that tiny bathroom, and youll love the results. Bright Lights. I dont know about you, but theres nothing I find inviting about a dimly lit bathroom.  I want to see the clean.  And, hopefully, not see any dirty!  But beyond that, great lighting is essential to getting the makeup right.  The real benefit though is that brighter lights also make the bathroom feel larger. This is only common sense, right?  Think, we use white or lighter colors to make things appear larger or stand out.  Darks, on the other hand, make things seem smaller.  So bright lighting in that cramped little bathroom is a must.  And while youre at it, throw on a coat of very light colored paint, preferrable pure white or just a tad off-white. Use Clear Glass. Whether you have a shower or tub in the bathroom, theres probably a glass partition to keep the water from splashing out.  Known as shower enclosures in the U.S. and shower cabins in the U.K., if you have a smaller bathroom its probably an older bathroom and has a obscured or frosted glass.  Its time for a replacement! That frosted glass is making the bath or shower fixture feel like a separate space from the rest of the bathroom.  By installing a clear glass enclosure/cabin, that space inside the bath or shower will feel like part of the bathroom and give the whole room a feeling of being larger.  Side benefit: its way prettier and lets more light in if you happen to have a window in the bathing or showering fixture area. Extend The Counter. How many time have you put your brush on the top of the toilet tank cover only to have it slide directly into the toilet?  Definetly not good when youre hurrying to get ready.  Heres a creative solution to that. The benefits to this are more counter space, a more elegant look to the bathroom, and of course a lot fewer objects taking the dive into the potty. Tiny Bathroom Fixed With A Small Budget These four tiny bathroom hacks will totally transform the look of your bathroom.  And instead of the high cost and mess of doing a complete bath remodel, youll do it without breaking the bank.  Then you can just lock the door and make him wait. Images:  Mirror   Main Image

How to Write a One-Page Resume

How to Write a One-Page ResumeOne of the best ways to meet the need for a well written resume is to know how to write a one page resume. This resume is perfect for those who are having trouble writing a more complicated, multi-page resume. Because of the constraints that come with writing a one page resume, people often give up and find it hard to actually finish their resume in a timely manner.Before you start doing anything to your resume, the first thing you need to do is make sure that you are getting ready to do a one page resume. Most of the time, the employers are expecting your resume to have a lot of information on it and in some cases, they will need all of it, for them to get a rough idea of your abilities. In such instances, having a one page resume is pretty much a must. This is something that is completely made possible by using a standard word processing software.In order to be able to do a one page resume, all you need to do is choose the template and fill out the inf ormation in it. Depending on the template you chose, you can place a header and summary of the information that you want to include on your resume. Other than that, all you need to do is fill out the other details on the template.After you are done with the template, just print it out and then write the letter that you want to send to the company. After that, you need to type in the contact number of the employer in case you have any difficulty or if you want to update the information. Make sure that the format of the letter matches what the companies require.The next step is to attach the resume to the cover letter. This letter will tell the reader about your accomplishments and also detail your skills and experiences that you can bring to the company. In fact, the cover letter should serve as the main portion of your resume. After your resume and cover letter are finished, you should then go to the internet and download templates of resumes for different job fields. It would be ve ry helpful to do this step once you've filled in the required information on your resume. Just click on the search engines and search for the templates that you want to download.After downloading, you can start writing your resume. It would be a good idea to write the first page or two of your resume on one sheet of paper, so that you can easily get the hang of how to write a one page resume. Once you are comfortable with the basics, it would be best to write the rest of the details on the computer.Once you are done with your resume, just keep it somewhere safe and keep it there until you're finally called for an interview. It's important to make sure that you always have the resume on hand because it will prove to be useful in the long run.

Conference - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Conference - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog I spent monday and tuesday attending a conference on mental health in the workspace. Topics ranged from stress and depression to motivation and creativity. The speakers were psychologists, business managers, scientists and even a priest (Johannes M?llehave). The quality of the individual sessions varied, but overall the conference was good. I am left with the impression that mental health in the workspace is now being taken seriously. 15-20 years ago companies started improving the physical working conditions, and huge progress has been made in this area. Mental health, however, has long been a taboo, in private life and especially at work. Therefore it was very refreshing to hear Jytte Hilden (ex-minister and current cultural director of the Royal Library) talk openly about her 3 bouts with depression. The latest happened a couple of years back, and when she needed 2 months off from work to deal with it, the Royal Library gave her that. She also did something I admire deeply: Before leaving, she assembled her staff, and told them exactly what was going to happen. She believes that this made it easier for her to come back after the 2 months, than if people had been told a cover story. It was also very interesting to hear Niels Due Jensen the CEO of Grundfoss (the worlds second largest producer of pumps with 11.000 employees worldwide). He talked about how Grundfoss fight stress in their employees, and how they try to help seriously ill employees. It was clear to see, that this is a company that cares for its people, above and beyond the bottom line. However, I have one major concern about the way the issues of mental health at work are being handled. In most cases its a matter of trying to avoid something. Companies are fighting stress, they have programs against smoking and drinking or they are trying to prevent employee burnout. These are fine and essential pursuits, but looking only at what you are to avoid os not enough in my opinion. You could in theory create a workspace where nobody suffered from stress, burnout etc., but that does not automatically make it a great place to work. I think we should try to define the qualities that we DO want present in our work, and try to envision a way of working together that will give people a positive work life. Its more fun to create a future when you base it on something you want, than when you base it something you want to avoid! 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

4 steps for productive disruption

4 steps for productive disruption 4 steps for productive disruption Whether you are a leader looking to advance in your organization, an owner trying to jump-start innovation, or an individual seeking something new, getting started on the path to disruption is not an easy task â€" especially if every opportunity seems out of reach, and every door appears closed. I spoke with Whitney Johnson, a leading thinker on driving innovation through personal disruption. In her new book, Disrupt Yourself : Putting the Power of Disruptive Innovation to Work, she shares four key steps to finding an open door: 1. Identify what you do well. What compliments do you repeatedly dismiss? These are the dismissals you do, not because you were being coy, but because the thing you were complimented on feels as natural as breathing. Maybe you’ve heard this compliment so many times, you’re sick of it! The tendency to deflect compliments around what you do reflexively well is understandable, but in deflecting, you devalue the very strengths that are your superpowers. Something that comes easily or seems obvious to you may be rare and valuable to someone else. 2. Match your strengths with unmet needs. Once you have a clear picture of your one-of-a-kind skills, match those skills to unmet needs. Consider jobs where you’d be the wild-card candidate. Or look for ways to combine your passions. Look at problems that the organization needs solved, and ask yourself: Can I fix that? There is no shortage of jobs to be done or problems to be solved. But there’s only one of you. The right problems are those that you somehow feel called to solve, and are capable of solving, because of your expertise and accumulated life experiences. 3. Invite someone to lunch who is not exactly like you. If you are having trouble finding an unmet need, talk with someone who works in a different industry or is an expert at something you are not. Seek out advice from someone of a different gender, ethnicity, race, or age. This can help open your eyes to find open doors. While a closed network reinforces your sense of belonging, you hear the same ideas over and over again. An open network can be a bit painful because you will have to work harder to understand a person not like you, but you are more likely to have breakthrough ideas. 4. Reflect on the last time you were scared and lonely. Now, give yourself a high five. When you are scared because you are trying something new, you’ll not only know that this endeavor matters to you, it probably means you are on the right path to disruption. To do something astonishing will require that you walk through a door no one else has been through before. Think about the achievements you have made by surmounting some huge, probably unexpected, even undeserved, obstacle. Maybe it was your upbringing, health challenges, financial circumstances, or relationship woes. Once you got over the “If only…” thoughts, you allowed your obstacles to become a tool of creation. By reflecting on your past accomplishments, you know you have the courage and strength to overcome fear and take risks â€" and that it will all be worth it. Being able to find the open door and go through it can be scary because it’s uncertain. But because you’re blazing your own trail, you’re more likely to be successful. After all, you can’t find an open door without moving; and you can’t move without taking risks.