My home town I thought that I would share some beautiful photographs that I have seen and gathered on Pinterest.
Tramore County Waterford.
Thomas Francis Meagher & Reginald’s tower Waterford
Waterford City,
If you are thinking of visiting this wonderful city – please check out this website.
ok so I don’t have my holiday to the big apple booked just yet – but I wanted to post up some reminders of this faboulous city so that I can drool all over again and show to you guys what a great city NYC truly is.
When you first start looking for a job it is hard to know where to start. There are so many places to look for a job and it is hard to know where exactly to start. The whole thing baffled me to the point that I cried my eyes out when I first started looking. What I learned from my job search is that you need a plan – and you need to be organised.
How do you get your plan?
To get your plan you need to do know what type of job you are looking for – are you looking locally or beyond? This will help narrow everything down to local newspapers or to an online search.
What do you need?
You need to look at what your exact requirements are that will help with your job search so as above with your plan – you need to think of a few things – if this is a local search and will require access to local papers do you have the money for them. And secondly when do the newspapers hit the shelves so that you can get it straight away and get your CV in first to any place.
Next you need to look online – what recruitment or even company websites do you need to keep track of and have access to.
The online part of this will take up some time on you so please take your time, a day or so and get yourself ready for your job search. Don’t rush in and apply for every job you see on a hundred different websites just because you are desperate. Take your time and keep looking until you have what you are looking for. The same is said for recruitment websites, while I am not an overall fan of recruitment websites I do believe that they will help and point you to skills and companies that are recruiting. Maybe I should give a separate post on my despise of these websites. Anyway I am digressing.
Register for these websites if necessary, set up job alerts and be ready with your CV to apply.
Than you need to look at the resources that you have available and too hand at that and any given moment. So for example do you need a local newspaper for their jobs page – if so, budget yourself so that you can your local papers. Do you need access to certain websites, do you need a log in for these sites – if so than settle yourself down and get access to all these sites in one go.
Some will ask you to upload your CV –this of course if your own choice and if you do choose to upload your cv make sure it is best version and one that will show off all your skills no matter what type of job you are applying for. Unfortunately your CV will need to be generic but it will help get you showcased.
Next create an excel spreadsheet tracker of your applications which covers the following headings:
Date you applied, company applied to, contact name, name of position, date advertised and date application is closing.
Finally finish off your spreadsheet with a simple yes or no column confirming that you have saved the job specification someplace. Always save a copy of the job description of the position that you have applied for, because when it comes to interview you need to be able to reference back to this and it will have gone from the website. Make sure that when you apply for a position that you get some confirmation either via email or on the page itself that you have applied for the position, save this in your email or print the page in case you are required to proof to social welfare or another third party that you are applying for a position.
When you have the above created and ready to go , you are then ready to start your job search with confidence and a plan.
Next you need a daily plan along with a weekly target of jobs that you are applying to. I made it my business to apply for at least three jobs a week that I wanted. I am a procrastinator by nature so I needed to set myself a target number for jobs to apply for, if not I probably wouldn’t apply for anything. Then take an hour or two a day to search through the websites you have listed and registered for and to review the newspapers.
Be methodical about your job search and do it daily so as you know that you are not going to miss anything that is new to the jobs market.
Most of all don’t lose heart when it comes to the job search. It can be disheartening but you need to have perseverance, and you need to know that the right job will come up for you at the right time and in the mean time while you are waiting – learn something new and expand your knowledge.
Have you any tips on job searching?
S
It is time to review my commitments for 2013 for the month of February. I am intrigued to review these commitments to see how I got on as overall I didn’t think much about my commitments to change this month so I wonder if they have somehow worked their way in to my mind automatically. Lets review and see.
I won’t write down all the columns like I did last month – that just takes too much time and I am not sure if everyone really wants to read everything all over again.
What I will say to you all is that I am making progress on my change for good manifesto and everything is going in the right direction.
In every section there has been an improvement on last months scores. This means that I have finally gotten these in to my mind and I am working on them without even realising that I am. I have fully committed to becoming a better person and this month shows it to me. Although I am only two months in to this challenge and change I am happy that it seems to be going in the right direction.
How are you all getting on with your commitments for 2013?
Let me know
S
Every country is in a recession at the moment, and each one of us that are in the working world are doing everything that we pos
sibly can to keep that job and help keep our company going on a daily basis. Sometimes we think as the little people in a company that there is nothing that we can do to help our company on a larger scale but this isn’t true. There are many things that we can which will help us to keep our job in a recession when a company goes to downsize. Here are my top ten.
1. Get involved with training and development.
Learning more and expanding our own knowledge is one way to help ourselves and keeping our own brains nice and health. But did you know that learning more about your company and the business will also help make you indispensable in work. Maybe your company is looking to move in to a new geographical area or brining a new product out to the general market. Learn what you can about this area or product so that you too can help with its launch, sale and promotion. With this not only are you helping your company but you are also helping yourself and your own skill set to grow. As much as you love your job right now, you need to think about the skills you can gain and bring with you to another company.
2. Helping other employees to be more productive
Another facet to the above is getting involved with helping to train and mentor another employee in the company so that they too will be knowledgeable in a certain area. Some may see this as possibly training someone in to do your job, but don’t give away all your state secrets – remember you are trying to hold your job as well. Being friendly and supportive to other colleagues is an essential part of any job and training and developing other employees will be beneficial to your overall career and success.
You may also notice that a colleague is completing a task on a regular basis and you have an idea that will make this task easier, simpler and quicker. Don’t be afraid to share your knowledge in a helpful way.
3. Uncover ways to increase revenue with existing clients.
We have all had those moments in work where we have said, I wish the boss would do this or do that as it may bring in more money. So why not finally sit down with your boss and tell them the ideas that you have. Remember one important thing, don’t just walk in there with ideas – walk in with more than that. Walk in with a full plan of action, if it is that you should focus on selling a second product to an already existing client, then determine why this is a good idea and explain this to your boss. Don’t just ask because we should. You need to establish the market is really there for your company to take.
Another way to increase your revenue, perhaps is face to face meetings with clients once a month rather than the usual over the phone meeting – if this is the case, make sure that a budget can be allocated to this, and determine how much of a budget is required.
4. Acquire new customers
Each one of your customers has their own customers – think of ways that you can tap in to this market. Think of other customers who are out there and may not have heard of you – how can you manage to get their attention. Perhaps if you are not already on social media as a company, than you need to implement a social media strategy to create brand awareness. Remember, don’t go in to your bosses office with half an idea – follow through on your own idea with a full plan.
5. Always take an opportunity to impress your boss.
Sometimes when times are tough in a company, the boss can tend of forget everyone that is on his/her staff and the importance of the job that you do. At all times, stand up and be counted. Impress your boss, whether it is bringing him/her a cup of coffee because they looked like they could do with one – this becomes the perfect opportunity to talk to your boss and remind them exactly what you are doing, what you are working on. Why not be the one to create a internal communications newsletter for your company, offer everybody a chance to put their own good news out there for their department – this also allows you to put your good news out there as well.
6. Do more than is expected of you.
My philosophy with work is to try and stay a step ahead of my boss. By doing so I am always anticipating what is next and what they will need of me. When I work on a project I determine what my boss wants and I try to figure out what will make it better, what would be a good addition to it. It is not always easy to stay a step ahead or do that little bit more than is expected of you – but as we are in a recession we need to work these things out. Think of your own job and what you can do on a regular basis that will be above and beyond.
7. Create a list of no more than 3 things that must be accomplished every day, and primarily focus on those ultimate goals.
Think about what you do every day – do you a list of regular items that need to be completed. Then make sure these are the first things that you do every day. In my company, I look after social media therefore one of my first tasks each morning to be completed is to review all aspects of our social media, interact with our customers, generate new status updates or something on our twitter feed which is new and in line with our company philosophy. This is working towards my ultimate goal of increasing our following on both facebook and twitter to a certain number. You might have other items that you can place on your task list to go to every day but make sure it is working towards an ultimate goal to help your company and your own development within the company as well.
8. Be prepared to drop everything to help put out fires.
We have all heard of the term firefighting, it is trying to resolve an issue after it has happened rather than pre-empting it as an issue in the first place. Unfortunately firefighting happens in every company at one stage or another. Don’t take the attitude of this is not my problem sort it yourself. But instead stop what you are doing and help your colleague to fight that fire. This will be of benefit to you to help raise your profile in problem solving within the company, and the person who can remain calm under pressure. My one piece of advice to help you become that person is make sure that your time management of your day and tasks that you complete is perfect so that you have at least 30 minutes to help other people.
9. Invest in yourself and always be presentable.
No matter what your job title, you are important, you are part of the sales department and you must make sure that you are presentable and look the part. Take some time to invest in some staple items for your wardrobe. Try not to keep up with fashion so much when it comes to office wear as this can be costly on your bank balance. Invest in staple clothes like a black or brown pants and a few matching shirts and tops to go with that. If you don’t invest in your every day work wear, it is unfortunate sign of the times that people in your job won’t take you seriously and will not go to you when they need help or support. The old saying “ dress for the job you want not the job you have” really is evident in every day work life.
10. Reward your colleagues for good behaviour or helping you out.
Always say “thank you” when someone helps you out – even if you really don’t want to. Be the nice person in the office, remember it is only for a few hours a day that you have to do nice; when you leave the office at 5pm you can curse your head off and be as rude as you like. But during those office hours you need to polite and courteous at all times. This means that people will be more likely to come to you for help when they need it. But remember, it will expand your network and people you can ask for a reference if you ever need it.
If someone is under pressure to get a project completed – why not make them a coffee if they haven’t had a break. It’s the small simple things that will help you get noticed and be more beneficial in the long run.
Following on from yesterdays post – a few pics of inspiration to let you know where I am coming from! Maybe for some of you it will help you understand me a little bit more.
My first pic is exactly where my thoughts are at 99% of the time. And something my ex aka the disastrous date should remember.
My Life Motto
