Why it’s Important to have a LinkedIn Account as a Job-seeker

“A huge number of jobs that are filled are never advertised to the public, or if they are, they’re filled by people who have a connection to the employer.” ― Melanie Pinola

Many people have no idea that LinkedIn, the professional social networking site, has been in existence longer than Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snap chat. Its relevance has only been recognized in recent years, making it home to a network of more than 500 million professional profiles. 

The platform, with its unlimited supply of job opportunities and network connections, stands out as forum for crafting your personal brand including selling your projects, accomplishments, and skills – under one roof.

As a job-seeker, are you using your LinkedIn to the fullest to develop your career? LinkedIn should be a job seekers best friend! Caveat - you must take the full advantage of the LinkedIn features.

Majority of job seekers believe that just having a LinkedIn profile is enough to get you a job. That’s totally false!

While the platform has immense features that can help position your brand to a fully-fledged professional, it doesn’t work by itself. You have to curate your profile to make it stand out. Simply put, ensure your profile is complete, accurate and correctly portrays expertise – and start getting noticed by recruiters.

Take time to keep your profile updated, provide comprehensive skills and objectives, highlight your work experiences and achievements. Remember to include a friendly and appropriate professional image, a headline that rocks and request for a recommendation from a former employer or client. Above all, let your profile represent who you are!

Why is LinkedIn useful for job seekers? With a pool of over 500 million professionals, LinkedIn provides a platform for learning and networking. Apart from just providing a networking forum, LinkedIn Learning portal provides some free courses tailored to individuals and business looking to keep training their workers. Taking such online courses will show that you are focused on improving/growing yourself, and HR and Employers love it when you are self-driven and proactive!

LinkedIn has one of the most robust job-boards that most employers use to scout for talent. Many companies have moved the hiring process online and its common to see the LinkedIn section near the resume upload tool. You can upload your resume and your LinkedIn profile at the same time, making potentials employers to not only view your resume but you’re your LinkedIn profile. This gives you a competitive edge above your competitors!

Presently, many hiring managers and recruiters use LinkedIn to search for potential candidates. You don’t want to miss the opportunity to appear in searches of recruiters and hiring managers!

LinkedIn is an excellent platform for researching on potential employers. The LinkedIn database has millions of employers and the Advanced Search page can help a job-seeker search for a company and not only find employees working there, but also detailed information about the firm.

Are you in any professional or alumni group? Well, LinkedIn offers interest-based professional groups and alumni networks that can be magnificent for connecting with like-minded people. You can join as many professionals’ groups as you want, just to share your thoughts, learn from others, and go beyond your normal circles.

while other social media platforms tend to focus more on people’s personal lives, LinkedIn takes a different route as most of the content is often professional. LinkedIn has amazing smart and successful people and organizations who write educational or inspiring articles, both general and industry specific. Following the right people and organizations can help you gain knowledge that you can continuously show off to your employer.

Always remember, job searching is a sales and marketing project. Make use of the tremendous power of LinkedIn as a free marketing tool and find a new career or new clients and build your professional reputation!

Office Romance: Is It Worth the Effort?

Lots of people meet their future spouses at the workplace. While majority of companies have stringent policies against office relationships, office romance is steadily gaining prominence. A recent survey by Corporate Staffing Staff, a human resource agency in Kenya, revealed that seven out of 10 people have what they call an office ‘spouse.’

In the best-case scenario, office romance can lead to long-term partnerships that could lead to marriage. Majority of people above 25 years spend most of their time with work colleagues and these people become the primary source of social contact. Consequently, romantic relationships sometimes become unavoidable.

Spending a lot of time at work creates close proximity among colleagues and promotes open and vulnerable conversations. Also, most employers have recently adopted the model of hiring teams of people with similar backgrounds, creating good matchmaking opportunities for friendships. These pointers create a good chance for people to develop romantic relationships.

In the worst-case scenario, office romance can create uncomfortable situations in the workplace for those involved and even co-workers. Mixing business and pleasure can create chaos in the workplace, like accusations of favoritism; lost productivity due to distractions; unnecessary gossip; conflict of interest; and jealousy among co-workers. In other instances, cases of sexual harassment could arise.

That said, one must be very cautious when getting into an office relationship. Its important to ask yourself; how am I going to manage an office relationship in a way that does not affect the organization negatively or infringe on the privacy of fellow colleagues?

While “at work” ranks among the top five places where people met and had long-lasting relationship, you might want to tread carefully before committing to an office romance.

Before getting into an office relationship, check the organization’s policy regarding dating co-workers. If it is against the company policy, it is not worth it! However, if the organization allows workplace relationships, be discreet about it.  Being discreet means, you keep the relationship private until both of you are ready to announce publicly that you are a couple.

Avoid public display of affection at all costs. Openly showing emotions and feelings in front of co-workers might create an unprofessional environment that can affect other employees ‘productivity, and this is something you may want to avoid at all costs.

Also, be certain that the connection you are creating is the real deal. Seek clarity on the expectations you have for each other. This involves the understanding of keeping things professional at work and avoiding personal confrontations that might create unnecessary embarrassment. It is also important to understand the potential impact the relationship could have on your work and make plans to mitigate such consequences.

The workplace is a community. While combining business with pleasure might make sense to you when you fall in love with a co-worker, always ensure that both of you have similar outside interests and know how to handle yourself in both the best-and-worst-case scenarios.

7 Tips for Effectively Working from Home

In the recent past, working from home has gained popularity among many employees. The idea of freedom and flexibility has become plausible for not only the employees but also organizations for obvious reasons such as cutting costs on office space. Working from home sounds enjoyable, right?

Well, not for everyone. Working from home also has its fair share of unique challenges. Some people may find it tough to adjust to the newfound freedom. This article provides a few tips that can help someone transition smoothly and still maintain productivity since majority of organizations never explain effective ways to work from home.

1. Set up a workplace

Before you begin working from home, identify a designated space such as a spare room as your office. Having the freedom to work from home does not mean you can work anywhere, like your kitchen. No! One must find a designated space. Having such a space helps you stay focused and motivated since anytime you go to the designated space, your mind gets ready to work.

2. Invest in reliable technology

Working remotely requires access to consistent internet. Remote work involves a lot of communication ranging from video calls, audio calls, and web-messaging. Along with that, its important to invest in other tools such as noise-cancelling headphones, wireless keyboards and mouses for greater efficiency.

3.  Plan your time well

Just because you work remotely doesn’t mean you don’t plan your day. We all know that planning your day effectively helps you stay motivated, maintain a positive mood and achieve your goals.

Remote working needs commitment to an agenda that outlines the assignments for each particular day. Set an agenda and time and stick to it. This will help you avoid distractions and unplanned tasks. As a precautionary measure, make your plan a day before to keep you focused when you wake up the next day.

Also, schedule breaks ahead of time. Having breaks is important since it will help you manage your energy throughout the day. Use the breaks to stay away from your desks instead of just watching YouTube channels.

4.   Communicate deliberately

While it may sound awkward, remote working requires constant communication since you will be separated from the team members. Communication is an important skill for any professional but for remote workers, its an even more important asset.

You need to choose a clear communication channel to keep your colleagues updated on your projects. Schedule weekly check-in meetings with your supervisors and team members just to stay up to date. Remember, out of sight, out of mind!

5. Be Human!

Working remotely might sometimes sound lonely. Reminder: working from home doesn’t mean you don’t interact with other people during the day. It’s a good idea to take a walk and have a chat with neighbors, run an errand or order coffee. Such interactions will help you bring a personal connection to this lonely way of work. Human interactions keep you sane!

6. Avoid distractions

All remote workers out there face distractions to contend with and succumbing to them might affect your productivity negatively. Television, pets, family, social media, your comfy bed and couch and unnecessary mobile notifications are notable distractions you will encounter while working from home.

A remote worker needs an organized and comfortable workstation and a proper schedule to stay focused. Also, ensure that your family understands your professional life and private life. Let them know that your work demands your undivided attention.

7.  Know when to sign-off

Most remote workers face the challenge of knowing when to log off from their workstations and call it a day! It’s unhealthy to keep on working without time limits. Working endlessly may also be unfair to your family which may desire to spend time with you.

Knowing your time is limited will help you be more productive. Most importantly, remote working brings with it the flexibility of working when you are most productive. So, set the working hours and stick to it.

Aspiring for Growth as an Employee

My first point of contact, the job market. The current unemployment rate in most developing nations is still very high. One must absolutely stand out, socially and technically, to have the chance of landing that 'lucrative' job you are looking for.

One of the most important things a company can do to move towards achieving its core objectives, is hire the right people. After all, employee performance essentially dictates the productivity of a company, and the quality of its offering. That now brings me to the employee-to-be.

In the 21st Century workplace, 92% of high-growth company executives believe that culture--so-called 'soft skills' --are just as important as technical ability, and 25% of this majority assert that culture skills are more important than technical skills. There are key attributes that will drive your growth as an employee. Practically, every organization has its own way of doing things, and to some extent, you will learn on the go.

The desire to learn, and learn fast is essential. One must be willing to learn, be curious, and continuously look for new areas of improvement, both personally and professionally.

Integrity is core, both within and without the workplace. Integrity will guide one in decision-making. Having moral uprightness makes fellow employees respect you, and hold you in high esteem. 

Most employers are looking for people who are passionate about their company and the work they are doing. Passion unleashes one' creativity and creativity drives innovation. Quoting Donald Trump, "Without passion, you do not have energy; without energy, you have nothing."

Most importantly, an employee must display excellence at collaboration. Much of the work employees handle on a normal work day revolves around teamwork. The 21st century workplace requires a highly collaborative individual, as teamwork helps build cohesive teams and groups, and helps build strong professional relationships.

The Four traits will be very essential as you look forward to grow both professionally and personally. Employers are looking for people who possess the right culture fit for their company and will be able to navigate the fast-changing world with commitment, curiosity, and a team-first attitude.

The Comfort Zone: A Dangerous Confine…

Do you know what’s killing you slowly without your knowledge?
That which makes everything look too good and brings the feeling of contentment.
It’s your comfort zone. It’s what is stopping you from realizing your passion, achieving your goals, and finding lasting happiness.
Staying longer in the comfort zone deprives us of happiness, growth, and accomplishing our true potential.
But why do people find themselves in the comfort zone? The word ‘comfort’ implies a state of freedom from pain or constraint. So being in ‘comfort’ gives the illusion of safety since it provides an environment of least resistance…and allows you do things where your chances of failure are minimal, or resistance is negligible.
However, in the confines of least resistance lies the inability to take risks or venture into an unknown world that will expose a person to greater resistance, albeit with chances of exploiting one’s full potential.
Also, it’s imperative to understand that by nature, HUMANS regard all change negatively by default at the first instance, whether it’s a positive or negative change. What does this mean? Well, this mindset complicates the idea of taking risks or venturing into an unknown world and preserves the status quo. This makes many people stay within their usual confines simply because it is safe and familiar.
Are you stuck in your comfort and still wondering how to move out? You can make the decision to move beyond your ‘normal’ capabilities, experiences, circumstances and settings you are familiar with, to a path that pushes you beyond your limits to become more that what you previously were.
Let’s get this right. This does not have to do with getting out of your character like running a marathon in less than an hour or walking on water like Jesus. Going beyond your limits doesn’t have to be that life-threatening.
Expanding beyond your comfort zone implies breaking from the regular habit or way of doing things and experiencing what is outside of you. This stimulates the brain to think in ways that challenges you to improve yourself.
Recognize the opportunities that exist beyond your familiar confines and take advantage boldly. It is difficult to overcome our inaction if we don’t take chances that appear uncomfortable or unpleasant.
Remember, the comfort zone is a very predictable place where life stalls and dreams die. It’s where you keep wishing, hoping and dreaming of a better life. But it never comes!
BREAK OUT of that comfort zone and go beyond your limits. The unknown world is unpredictable but provides an environment of constant learning, growing, connecting and keeps you on the path of self-improvement.