Hone Your Writing Skills During Your Job Search

Hone Your Writing Skills During Your Job Search Hone Your Writing Skills During Your Job Search If youre changing careers, searching for employment after job loss, or just entering the workforce, most of your time will be spent hunting down opportunities and filling out applications. However, you should also consider using the job search as an opportunity to hone your communication skills. As Dustin Wax of Lifehacker advises, Spending some time to improve your writing can result in a marked improvement in your hireability and promotional prospects.Here are five exercises that will help you develop your business writing skills. plattl one each business day and give it a shot. They shouldnt take more than half an hour to complete, but these short practice sessions will help improve your skills over time. Write every day as part of your routine until it becomes second nature.Exercise 1 Read an article or blog post related to your field and write a summary of no more than 100-150 words . The purpose of this exercise is to enhance your reading comprehension- youll have to identify the main idea, or thesis, of the article as well as the most pertinent facts- and to hone your writing skills. Its surprisingly difficult to limit yourself to so few words, so youll have to work at being concise. This is the opposite of what students practice in high school and college writing classes, where the goal is to reach an arbitrary word count.Exercise 2 Draft a gestalt letter of three or four paragraphs that serves a specific purpose. Thank-you notes, cover letters, networking introductions- all of these can be written ahead of time and customized when you need to send one. For example, a thank-you note for an interview might have a few generic sentences and a prompt to personalize the note by including specific details from the interview. Theres no sense in reinventing the wheel each time you need to send correspondence develop a portfolio of templates to save yourself time and sharpen your writing skills.Exercise 3 Writing for different audiences is a key skill in business communication. A casual office memo will read differently from an annual report destined for your investors. Take the same basic information- it can be something as simple as a party invitation- and try writing it for two different audiences. First, draft a casual glaubenszeugnis that you might send to a colleague. Then rewrite the same information for a more formal audience- an executive in your company, for example.Exercise 4 Pick a topic youre very familiar with and write a page or two explaining it to an imaginary audience who knows nothing about it. It doesnt have to be a serious topic you could write about the best way to make a peanut butter sandwich or explain why The Vampire Diaries is your favorite show. The point is to convey your thoughts as clearly as possible and prioritize which information your audience needs to know.Exercise 5 Improve your writing by eliminating wordy phrases and meaningless jargon. You can either use the copy you wrote in Exercise 4 or find a blog post to edit. Use a red pen (the color makes it feel more official) and strike out every word that isnt necessary. Phrases such as due to the fact that can be replaced by a single word- because- and most modifiers such as very can be cut altogether. If youre having trouble getting started, Purdues Online Writing Lab has a great series of exercises on eliminating wordiness.Of course, the final, essential piece to effective writing for any audience is proofreading. Microsoft Words built-in spell check is a decent start, but it doesnt catch everything. Grammarly is more effective in catching contextual spelling errors and other mistakes that Word misses.

How to Homeschool Engineering Students, Part 1

How to Homeschool Engineering Students, Part 1 How to Homeschool Engineering Students, Part 1 How to Homeschool Engineering Students, Part 1What do a jet engine, an 8-track tape, and a peanut have in common? For one, they were all associated with inventors and engineers who received at least part of their education at home rather than a traditional school. Those innovators Sir Frank Whittle, Bill Lear, and George Washington Carver join the ranks of technology titans like Thomas Edison who for one reason or another forsook the traditional educational track to a science or engineering degree to pursue their own pathway to professional achievement.Whether to provide all of a childs education or to augment formal coursework, homeschooling was fairly common during much of the nations history. The tradition of compulsory schooling outside the home dates to colonial Massachusetts.Over the next 300 years, the idea spread slowly across the growing nation in fits and starts amid changing att itudes toward immigration, church-and-state separation, and child labor practices. But by the early twentieth century, the nationwide paradigm of mandatory attendance at an accredited institution had become entrenched in the ideal of America as the land of opportunity for all. Homeschooling resurfaced in the 1980s, fueled by the evangelical Christian movements growing political clout. More and more U.S. school districts increasingly recognized homeschooling as a legitimate alternative to classroom instruction for families uncomfortable with the constraints of the modern secular curriculum.For You A Better Approach to Teaching STEM Percentage of homeschooled students, ages 5-17. Source U.S. Department of EducationHomeschooling today is in transition. For one thing, its getting more popular every year. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 1.77 million children about 3% of the school-age population are currently homeschooled. And far fewer families today try hom eschooling for religious reasons. NCES says more than 90% of families in the most recent survey cited the environment of their previous school as the main factor behind the switch.Engineering is a demanding profession that places high value on advanced academic degrees. Most homeschool parents find it a tremendous challenge to prepare their learners for college-level coursework in math and science. On the other hand, homeschooling may provide the ideal environment for many technologically precocious kids to develop leverage their own curiosity and learning style into academic and career success.For an engineering profession striving to increase the size and diversity of its future workforce, the homeschool movement poses important questions. Are homeschooled children being introduced to STEM subjects early enough? Are homeschoolers adequately positioned for college and career success? How will growth in homeschooling impact the number of women and minorities in STEM careers?These qu estions are impossible to answer but one thing is certain. Keeping homeschool kids on track for an engineering degree puts a heavy burden on parents and tutors. Fortunately, innovative STEM education resources are proliferating on the web and in communities across the nation. Here is a small sampling for engineer parents who may be considering this option for their kids.Read Part 2 of STEM Education Hits Home for the list of top curriculum resources and teaching ideas.Michael MacRae is an independent writer.

Top 10 Resume Mistakes from YPIC, Yuma, AZ

Top 10 Resume Mistakes from YPIC, Yuma, AZTop 10 Resume Mistakes from YPIC, Yuma, AZTop 10 Resume Mistakes from YPIC, Yuma, AZTop 10 Resume Mistakes by Stressed-out Jobseekers Discovered by Yuma, Arizona Resume Writers where it is 26% UnemploymentYPIC, Yuma, AZ Career Counselors, June 2009By Kathryn Troutman, Certified Federal Job Search Trainer Program Director and President, The Resume Place, Inc.At Yuma Private Industry Council, Reemployment Center, three very busy professional resume writers were telling me about their jobs in writing resumes. Their customers are the 26% unemployed Yumans who were notlage expecting to write a resume any time soon. In 2006 Yuma was written up as a Sizzing Hot Spot with NO unemployment.This article is about some of the resume problems they see and fix at YPIC. Career professionals all over the US are working hard to help stressed-out jobseekers with resumes, so they can compete in a very tough job market.Lori Heredia described how the jobseekers ar e so distraught about losing their orts that they dont pay close attention to the details they need to write a good resume showcasing their experience and education. They have trouble remembering dates, duties and accomplishments. Its hard to get them to concentrate.Katie Fuchs noted that jobseekers often dont even have a resume when they walk in the door. She bewerberinterviews the jobseeker, creates the work chronology and writes draft descriptions while they wait. This is a lot of pressure to remember a career history on the spot and types it while the jobseeker tries to create and dictatejob titles, companies, dates, duties.Ralph Villa, Resume Writer and Community Outreach Coordinator / Trainer described his efficient method of writing resumes using O-Net Online to help write position descriptions because jobseekers are just not able to describe their jobs in much detail. He can find Occupations, skills and crosswalk search easily for building a better resume. This is a free pro gram and can help a non-thinking jobseeker write about their past positions.The YPIC has been providing professional resume writing, job search coaching, and interview preparation for the citizens of Yuma who are seeking new jobs since 1987. I was there to teach the career staff how to help the Yumans how to apply for federal jobs and write federal resumes. But we had to start with a good basic resume before we could convert that resume to a federal resume. So, we had a lot of discussion about a good resume for private industry job searches or federal job searches.Katie, Lori, and Ralph have discovered some major resume writing errors that are typical for a stressed-out job seekerHere are 10 of their Top Resume Problems that they see TOP TIP START WITH A GOOD CHRONOLOGICAL RESUME. To provide the best quality resume writing services, Lori, Katie, and Ralph would like to have a good chronological listing of jobs, including employers, dates of employment, job titles, and a short posit ion description. With this information, they can then edit, format, and develop position descriptions that are targeted toward specific positions more effectively.1. Not Detailed Enough Too many jobseekers dont include the last employers name, specific dates, and job titles with a good position description. Many resumes are just not complete and detailed enough.2. Functional Format is dead HR recruiters want to see your specific job duties and accomplishments within the chronology of your positions. Even if the functional is great at highlighting your top level skills, the fact is, recruiters want to see what you did, as well as when and where.3. Chronological with no focus A down the middle, everything resume is okay for your starter resume, but not to submit to anyone. The reverse chronological resume (starting from your current or most recent position), is THE format you need to start with in order to build your focused resume.4. Too many skills You cant do everything, and the HR recruiter isnt going to hire someone who can do everything. People who say that have multiple skills, diverse skills, and will do anything are just not going to land anything. HR recruiters are not going to sit and try to figure out what your best skills are, and your highest level of skills. You have to pick your best five skills and stick with it. You can have two resumes one with five skills and another with five different skills.5. Length What is too short? One page is probably too short. Go for two pages and give the HR recruiter more details to select from. Give them some examples, details about the customers you served, and some challenges/obstacles that you overcame. Add a skills summary of your five best skills.6. NO dates Even if your employment chronology has problems with too many jobs, multiple or long gaps in employment dates, keep the dates and chronology in the resume. HR recruiters are getting used to gaps, multiple jobs, or too many jobs over a short amoun t of time. The job market isnt like the old days where someone stayed with one company 20 years. Today, jobseekers routinely have six to eight jobs on their resume and do have some gaps. The HR recruiter is looking for the specialized experience needed for THEIR position. They can find that at any point in the resume. Just stick with the dates.7. Too many jobs Yes, a person can have too many jobs and raise a red flag for potential employers. You can reduce the number of positions by taking out any small jobs that you took to earn extra cash between jobs or while employed in a more permanent position, as well as any jobs that were really short term didnt turn out for whatever reason. The HR recruiter is looking at your major positions with some longevity. Save them time and leave out the small, short-term jobs focus on the positions that will present your skills and experience most effectively.8. No accomplishments If your resume is all about your competition, your job duties, an d what you were responsible for all day long, then this is not going to stand out above the other resumes that are written the same way. If you want to stand out, add two or three accomplishments that show you have initiative, new ideas, creativity, and will go the extra mile to improve efficiency and effectiveness. The supervisors LOVE this and might want to interview you.9. Too generic Resumes that contain no specifics about customers, programs, scope of work, dollars, or any numbers are going to put the HR specialist to sleep and your resume will just scoot over to the NO pile in one second. Not good.10. No direction in sight Make a decision about the direction of your job search. If your resume includes a list of various jobs with no real skills or mission direction, this could be a problem for the HR recruiter. Many resumes are just a list of various, unrelated jobs that people take to earn money. With this type of resume, it is hard for the HR recruiter to see your best ski lls and abilities.To see excellent samples of resumes that feature keywords, accomplishments, details, a chronological work experience section consider this book Resumes for Dummies, 5th Edition by Joyce Lain Kennedy. The Resume Place, Inc. produced ALL of the sample resumes in this book. Joyce writes about a Core Resume that can be refocused for each resume application with keywords, qualifications, skills. They are on-target and easily changed for each position.