Alexandra Levit on Stress

Alexandra Levit on Stress I had dinner with Alexandra Levit a few months ago in Chicago Ive always liked her blog and style, and meeting her in person was awesome. Im a big fan! Since Im busy in Savannah I thought Id introduce you to her heres something she wrote just for you Stressed out? It might not be for the reason you think. Most people know that high levels of stress are associated with a number of negative physical and psychological consequences. Physical problems include high blood pressure and cholesterol, and an increased risk for heart disease, ulcers, and cancer. Psychological side effects include anger, anxiety, irritability, and boredom as well as sleep and eating problems and increased smoking, drinking, and drug abuse. In the world of work, high stress levels are linked with decreased productivity and increased absenteeism and turnover. While some jobs are clearly more stressful than others, it might surprise you to learn that top executives are not prone to more stress and stress-related problems. Rather, employees who are at greatest risk are those who have very little control over their tasks or work conditions. A research study I came across in my recent review of industrial/organizational psychology actually indicated that sawmill workers performing machine-paced tasks were the most stressed out of all! Overall, though, you should know that work is not the primary culprit when it comes to people’s stress levels. Events related to marriage (death of a spouse, divorce, etc.) are the ones that really send stress through the roof. Another interesting research finding showed that stress induced by daily hassles actually has a stronger impact on health than stress due to traumatic events. So the next time you think about taking a job that requires a three hour a day, traffic-filled commute, maybe keep that in mind. I remember my dad saying that one of the reasons he was quitting his job was that he believed the daily drive from suburban Maryland to suburban Virginia was shaving years off his life. It looks like he might not have been far off. Alexandra Levit (link to www.alexandralevit.com) is a twenty and thirty-something career expert. Shes the author of They Dont Teach Corporate in College (link to www.corporateincollege.com), as well as the forthcoming Howd You Score That Gig (Random House 2008) and Solving the Talent Equation (ASTD Presss 2008). Alexandra frequently speaks at conferences, universities, and corporations around the country about workplace issues facing young employees. Visit her blog, Water Cooler Wisdom, at http://alexandralevit.typepad.com. Also, she just started a new podcast series with Christine Hassler and Lindsey Pollak 30/20 Vision is for 20-something women who wish they had a couple of big sisters to clue them in on the ins-and-outs of life after college! Check it out here. Alexandra Levit on Stress I had dinner with Alexandra Levit a few months ago in Chicago Ive always liked her blog and style, and meeting her in person was awesome. Im a big fan! Since Im busy in Savannah I thought Id introduce you to her heres something she wrote just for you Stressed out? It might not be for the reason you think. Most people know that high levels of stress are associated with a number of negative physical and psychological consequences. Physical problems include high blood pressure and cholesterol, and an increased risk for heart disease, ulcers, and cancer. Psychological side effects include anger, anxiety, irritability, and boredom as well as sleep and eating problems and increased smoking, drinking, and drug abuse. In the world of work, high stress levels are linked with decreased productivity and increased absenteeism and turnover. While some jobs are clearly more stressful than others, it might surprise you to learn that top executives are not prone to more stress and stress-related problems. Rather, employees who are at greatest risk are those who have very little control over their tasks or work conditions. A research study I came across in my recent review of industrial/organizational psychology actually indicated that sawmill workers performing machine-paced tasks were the most stressed out of all! Overall, though, you should know that work is not the primary culprit when it comes to people’s stress levels. Events related to marriage (death of a spouse, divorce, etc.) are the ones that really send stress through the roof. Another interesting research finding showed that stress induced by daily hassles actually has a stronger impact on health than stress due to traumatic events. So the next time you think about taking a job that requires a three hour a day, traffic-filled commute, maybe keep that in mind. I remember my dad saying that one of the reasons he was quitting his job was that he believed the daily drive from suburban Maryland to suburban Virginia was shaving years off his life. It looks like he might not have been far off. Alexandra Levit (link to www.alexandralevit.com) is a twenty and thirty-something career expert. Shes the author of They Dont Teach Corporate in College (link to www.corporateincollege.com), as well as the forthcoming Howd You Score That Gig (Random House 2008) and Solving the Talent Equation (ASTD Presss 2008). Alexandra frequently speaks at conferences, universities, and corporations around the country about workplace issues facing young employees. Visit her blog, Water Cooler Wisdom, at http://alexandralevit.typepad.com. Also, she just started a new podcast series with Christine Hassler and Lindsey Pollak 30/20 Vision is for 20-something women who wish they had a couple of big sisters to clue them in on the ins-and-outs of life after college! Check it out here.

A Poets Guide to Resume Writing

A Poets Guide to Resume WritingYou may have seen some writers recommend a free resource, a poem or some other free resources to help you with your resume. While this can be helpful, this is not the way to go about getting a resume that stands out from the rest. This is because these resources are not going to help you get to where you want to be when it comes to a professional resume.For example, a famous poet once wrote, 'writing is indeed the greatest love in the world.' Another famous poet wrote, 'creativity is the best medicine.' They both have something in common and that is, they are true. They are statements that have been passed down to us from the past.It is not enough to only use resources that are good for quality and quantity. You have to make sure that what you are doing is for quality and not just quantity. When it comes to getting to your dream job, quality is what will separate you from the rest. The more jobs you have, the better off you will be. It is that simple.So why would the professionals recommend free resources? This is because they want you to use the resource they suggest you use. They want you to do what they do and not do what they suggest you do. They would rather teach you how to get better at what you do rather than telling you what to do.They see you making their writers handbooks and poems freely available as an attack on their business. They feel that if they have to sell these resources, they will not get the most from their resource materials. When you make your own writer's guide to resume writing and use it freely and then give it away, you are actually teaching yourself to do the job that the professionals do and not sell them.This is not a writer's guide to resume writing that you would be using. This is simply a way for the professionals to use the resources for quality and not quantity. It makes sense that the professional would want the same of you. If you were using the guide and writing your own resume, you are teac hing yourself how to write a resume instead of teaching the professional how to do the job that you want to do.If you really want to do what you want to do, then you need to follow the professionals. Don't base it off of free resources and assume that the writers don't want you to do it. You may have just been given the resources in order to teach you what to do.The point here is, do not ever think that using free resources is the right way to go about getting a professional resume. While there may be some value to it, there is no substitute for the professionalism of the professionals when it comes to getting a professional resume. Make your resume to your style and use the professional method to get it done the right way and with the results you want.

Three Ways to Keep Your Children Healthy for Less

Three Ways to Keep Your Children Healthy for Less We all want the best when it comes to our kids.  And their health is one of the things most parents will never scrimp on, no matter how hard things may be financially. However, there are some ways you can keep your children healthy and happy without having to spend a fortune on treating their more minor illnesses, scrapes and other injuries. Here we look at three really effective ways to save money without compromising when it comes to making your children feel better! Get Discounts on Prescription Medicines If your child has a chronic condition or tends to experience things that need regular prescription medicine, like asthma, eczema, or allergies, then the cost of medication can be a huge expense for the family. Even if they just need some prescription medicine from time to time if they get sick, it can be reassuring to know that should this happen when you are short on money, youll still be able to afford to get it without any trouble, even without insurance that covers it. This is why it is well worth getting the free, printable prescription discount code from medicationdiscountcard.com. It is accepted almost everywhere.   Thats including the big pharmacy brands like Walgreens, Bartells and CVS.  And, it  can entitle you to discounts ranging from 10-84% on branded and generic prescription drugs for your whole family. If you have to buy regular medication for an ongoing condition, the amount you can save over a year can be staggering, however even just to stock up on what you need if your child gets a simple infection it can be a noticeably large saving. Learn Some Home Remedies For things like cleaning cuts, treating insect bites, and sunburn, it can be far cheaper and just as effective to learn some home remedies than to buy commercial products. Using natural remedies that rely on things you already have in your kitchen, like honey for sterilizing wounds, milk for sunburn, prunes for constipation, ginger for nausea and oatmeal for chickenpox itching, can help you relieve your childs minor injuries or skin problems without having to buy anything in. There are loads of resources on the web that can teach you how to make natural treatments out of stuff you have at home.  So it can always be a good idea to look up the thing you want to treat and see what the experts suggest. Buy Supermarket  Brand Off the Shelf Medicines and Vitamins One of the absolute simplest ways to save money is buying your everyday childrens medicines you keep for when they get a cold, a headache or a mild fever from the supermarket and choosing their own brands instead of branded medicines. They contain the same ingredients and are just as effective. The same goes if you buy things like chewable childrens vitamins. These are a few ways you can cut the cost of taking care of your kids if they get sick or injured.  And get them healthy and smiling again! Image credits Main   Discount

I have a new blog design. Yay!

I have a new blog design. Yay! I just got back from Washington, DC where we were meeting about the future of Brazen Careerist. The only time you have big company meetings for a startup is if you have no money or a lot of money. We just got a lot of money. Usually I bring something to do during Brazen Careerist meetings because I get so bored. I dont get bored when I talk. But I get bored when I listen. Unfortunately the only way to hear new ideas is to listen. So I try. We brought in this guy, Michael Mayernick, from the company Spinnakr. Heres a picture I took of him meeting with us. He has this great product that can tell where someone is coming from, and then you change your home page to appeal more to the type of person that would come from that site. Really big companies use this technology already, but now Michaels company makes this technology for smaller companies. So now, for instance, all of you who come to my blog from porn sites can get a version of this photo with Michael naked. When Michael wasnt there, I furtively worked on my site redesign. Not like I did the designing. Melissa did a lot of it. If you think the design sucks, heres her twitter handle: @melissa. I like the design because there are now more than 1000 posts, and this design is meant to help people get to them. I spent most of my time in DC drawing lists of ways to think about navigation. And peppering the conversation with bright ideas about where Brazen Careerist should go. I did not tell anyone in the company that I was taking the title Brazen Careerist off of my blog. I think it is time, though. This is a good design for a period when my career is in transition. I can change the categories and the links all the time until I figure out which parts of the last eight years of writing are best to highlight now. I hope you like the new design. Im looking forward to hearing your ideas of what to do next. Thanks.

Working Smarter 7 Time Savers That Think, Write and Create for You

Working Smarter 7 Time Savers That Think, Write and Create for You For busy people, there are never enough minutes in a typical working day because eventually, something does not get to be done.Many solutions are applied in this case: some hire an assistant to help with the tasks while others just try to reduce the number of things to the amount that could be done in one day. All these options are certainly effective and can help to achieve more, which means that a person cannot be as productive as with the help of technologies or other people.Requiring help is not a problem these days because there are a lot of amazing tools that assist in getting the things done in various ways. For example, some of them optimize the time to ensure that every errand gets proper attention while the others actually perform the task.evalThe number of such tools on the net is enormous, so let us save you some time by providing a list of seven time savers for modern people that appreciate productivity and efficiency in daily business. Some of them are work-related whil e others are best suited for individual use.1.FreshdeskThis is a great tool to use for business person’s responsibilities of which include response to customer emails. Freshdesk is a cloud-based customer service platform that optimizes the customer support work by streamlining the number of email addresses that are used by customers to contact the company.Moreover, it has a variety of automated ways to respond to various emails, which saves time for the support representatives working hard to answer all messages.The list of features of Freshdesk continues with multichannel support through chat, social networks, and phone lines. Moreover, the platform is available for iOS and Android, which makes taking care of the customers’ email very easy on the go.2.HootsuiteIf you need to manage social media accounts of your business effectively and efficiently, HootSuite might be the right option for you. This platform falls into the work-related category and makes monitoring of the activit y across social networks really easy because it combines all accounts into one working environment.It contains a lot of functions related to proper social media management, including a schedule of automatic posts, a delegation of assignments to other users, organizing feeds, managing followers, viewing the analytics and many more others. Many small and medium companies around the world have recognized the easiness and functionality of the service.3.StayFocusdevalThis one falls into the personal use category. Stay Focusd is a great Google Chrome extension that performs a very important function: blocking of the sites that provide distractions during work. If you tend to use entertainment and other sites during the working session on Chrome, you should definitely check it out because it allows blocking any website for the amount of time defined by the user.It can even shut the Internet down on your computer if you tell it to. The extension therefore helps to concentrate on work and st ay away from distracting sites with funny pics, news, and so on. And it is completely free.4.Bubbl.usThis tool is great for writers because it helps with the brainstorming on the new work. For example, if you decided to compose a new piece, say, novel, essay, research paper, or any kind of essay writing, but have a hard time coming up with a plan for structuring the ideas for it, use Bubbl.usThe platform’s easy-to-use interface turns the organization and mapping of writing ideas into an enjoyable process, the results of which can be saved as an image or HTML and shared with others via integration with social networks. Also, it uses various colors to differentiate the ideas and even supports hyperlinks if you need to see where the content came from.evalFinally, other great news is that the platform is completely free to use and does not require you to sign up unless you want to save your work as an image or HTML. Some premium account plans are proposed as well, though.5.BufferBuffe r is another tool for social media that allows doing a lot of useful things for those that need to keep their business accounts active. It connects all the needed accounts into one environment where the user can include the content for posting and the time when it occurs automatically.This schedule is totally up to the user, which makes it really convenient to manage multiples accounts without visiting the actual sites and posting. Moreover, Buffer includes analytics to inform the user about the visits, visitors’ behavior, and other related aspects. Indeed, it is a great tool that can save you at least half an hour a day that otherwise would have been spent on creating and posting the content at different hours.If you struggle with coming up with the content, Buffer has the ability to help you by offering the suggestions of posts that you can use. Check it out on Google Play and Apple Store.6.BestEssayTipsBestEssayTips is one of the popular services that can help with writing in a ll its forms. When you are sick, tired or just don’t have the inspiration, the team of professionals would always come with their support. They can help with proofreading, generating ideas or even writing. Use their services and stay calm. Get unique, correct written pieces at the right time.7.Portent’s Content Idea GeneratorIf you struggle with coming up with the title for your blog post or article, this idea generator is a perfect option because the only thing it requires is the area of writing.For example, typing the word “Marketing” generated a fun and interesting idea for a headline: “Why Holden Caulfield Thinks Marketing is Prony.” Interested? Apparently, the platform can generate a lot of ideas for writing and the only thing you must do in order to get them is typing the word and clicking one button.Also, the user can revise the results to make even more great content and check out some resources proposed by the site below the results on the blog.ConclusionWe do n ot have all the time in the world to accomplish all things but we certainly have a choice of little helpers that can make this process easier. Whether you need a new idea, organize the thoughts, manage the social media or responses from clients, the tools in this list are the ones you are looking for.evalAlways remember that net is full of other tools as well, so searching them might be a good idea if the tool you need is not on this list. This concludes the list of the seven time savers that think, write, and create content for you. May they lead to a more efficient and awesome you.

8 Ways to Stand Out and Build A Reputation of Excellence

8 Ways to Stand Out and Build A Reputation of Excellence If you dont feel you are getting the recognition you deserve, try implementing some of these ideas today and see what happens. Tired of being overlooked and missing out on promotions? Then its time you build a reputation of excellence and get promoted (or poached!) What people think and say about you when you arent in the room is known as your reputation (personal brand).  And it matters a lot. Think about the people youve seen get promoted. They werent necessarily more qualified, were they? What did they do that earned them the privilege of being selected? You want the people you work with to perceive you as someone who cares about the work you do and the people you work with. It is up to you, each and every day, to bring the best version of yourself to work. Master  Your Role Before you are ready to take on new challenges, you must perform your job exceptionally well. That means youll have to do more than just complete assigned tasks. Youll need to do your job exceptionally well. Performance and understanding of technical skills are only part of mastery. You must provide proof that you care about the work you do. This includes arriving at work on time, fully completing projects before the deadline and with a high level of accuracy. It also requires you demonstrate emotional intelligence, which is your ability to understand your emotions and the emotions of other people. Dont overlook the importance of developing your self-awareness, empathy, motivation, self-regulation and social skills. [Read 90% of Top Performers Have This to learn more about emotional intelligence] Champion  a Special Project Once youve mastered your current role, look for other opportunities within your organization to lead a special project. Large or small, every team has a project that ends up on the back burner due to time constraints or insufficient resources. Touch base with your manager first and ask if there is a postponed project you could help with. (Carefully) Suggest Improvements Instead of complaining or criticizing an initiative, provide an alternate solution that would improve upon the task at hand. Its easy to find fault, but much tougher to suggest alternative solutions. But be aware, you have to earn the right to make suggestions. And if you do speak up, be prepared to lead the project. Highlight  The Work of Others Go ahead and talk about the great things your company and team have accomplished. Give a public shout-out on social media to someone who went out of their way to help you solve a problem or thank the team for working together to meet a deadline. It is far easier to highlight the work other people do than it is to promote your own efforts. Contribute Within Online Communities In other words, share what you know and help other people. When you contribute to online communities, not only do people see you are a valuable resource, they also recognize the fact that you took the time to help other people. Simply offer help or share lessons learned with other people in online communities. Look for questions youve had experience solving and share how you overcame the hurdles. Being a compassionate community member earns you recognition and respect. Always Do the Right Thing There will be times when youll feel ambivalent about what youre being asked to do. You should listen to your gut. Speak up, stand up or walk away. From avoiding office gossip to taking a moral high ground on how to resolve a client issue, your reputation is also determined by where you stand on ethical or moral issues. Its up to you to stick to what you believe in. Just realize, not everyone will have the same beliefs you do. This could become a potential problem and may even result in you losing your job. At the end of the day, you will need to stand behind any decision you make. Over Prepare For Everything Over prepare for your upcoming meeting. Know the facts and know how you will present the information to best connect with the people you are speaking with. You can even over prepare for meetings you attend without having to present. Review the meeting agenda topics, familiarize yourself with past meeting minutes and/or action items and show you are paying attention take notes. Even your workday can become more efficient when you establish a productive routine and create a list of action items. Build strong habits today which will carry you forward in your career. Treat Others Kindly Theres an old saying that implies you should treat others as youd want to be treated. Be kind. Remember the simple things like saying thank you when someone holds the door or does a favor for you. It takes very little effort on your part to make someone feel recognized and appreciated. Its often the small things that matter most! This article originally appeared on US News World Report On Careers

Tips For Writing a Resume For Sales Position

Tips For Writing a Resume For Sales PositionWriting a resume for sales position is not a difficult task at all. To start with, you need to be well organized, and know your purpose of being in sales.Start writing the resumes of your prospective clients in rows. You can write them like this:The first row is the background information about your prospective client. Be sure to mention everything such as date of birth, position held in past few years, home and office address, job title, company name, etc. You should also include the contact number of your prospective client.The second row is the selling message of your prospective client. Explain to them your services. Provide an example of your sales techniques. And then take them to the next page and list the two other categories of your services: recent achievements and your average monthly sales.Jobs are classified in the third row. So, it is appropriate to write down both your jobs and your experiences, or just experience. Be sure to put the most important information in one table.The fourth row is for the skills and qualifications of your prospective client. List those things which are required by the company. Include information regarding the industry that your prospective client is involved in. If your client is an MBA graduate, then your resume should also mention his industry where he has had his education.The fifth row is where you can place your knowledge of a particular company. So, it is appropriate to tell you a bit about your recent work experiences with that company. Include your services to them. Then, your testimonials, and so on. The sixth and the last important section is your education. Do not forget to include your previous schooling. It is best to fill in all the information in one page, but if you have to separate them, you can do so.