How to Use the Holiday Season to Network for Jobs

How to Use the Holiday Season to Network for Jobs December can be one of the best times to network and look for your next opportunity for several reasons: Less people are looking for their next opportunity because they assume it’s not a good time to do so. People tend to be in a better frame of mind. There are many social gatherings that can be used as networking opportunities. It’s a great time to follow-up by sending a holiday card or email. I put together a short email to my business and personal contacts, extending my best wishes for a happy and healthy holiday season. I also mentioned a bit about myself but nothing too pushy. You will each probably find out about many upcoming holiday parties coming up. Go out and have fun and casually mention that you are looking for a new role. You should also do the same electronically via connecting with your network for the holidays. Many professional associations have holiday parties between Thanksgiving and New Years Day and some companies may have holiday parties for their employees families. Utilize your places of worship and volunteer organization networks, as there are many opportunities to help those who are in need and its a potentially great chance to meet other folks helping out, as well as those in temporary or long term need of help themselves. Networking during the holidays means laying the groundwork now for the positions that open up after the New Year, when the new budget goes into effect. An effective job hunt begins BEFORE the jobs are posted, so you can do an end run around the competition, and get in front of the hiring managers, recruiters, etc., before everyone else. Break out the business cards, folks, and be prepared to spread good holiday cheer! There is almost no time that is off limits for networking, but it also a light time of year. Its festive. Contact people you know from other jobs, family and friends you might not have talked to in a while, however, dont bombard them with Im looking for a job right away. People will ask what youre doing these days and you can say looking for a job and take it from there. If you feel like theyre interested, ask if theyd like to get coffee or lunch. Dont make obvious networking your goal if you can help it. You might also consider taking a part-time seasonal job, meet more people, pick up some extra cash. You might like it and stay on while looking for something more up your alley. Reach out to agencies and recruiters, you never know what youll hear back from them. Continue with LinkedIn networkingthis is a great time to revisit some of your network connections that you have not connected with in a while. In all cases, look to see how you may be able to help someone else that you meet or reconnect with first, and dont look for a job lead right at the beginning.. One of the overlooked aspects of job networking during this holiday period is that many companies have to fill a “hiring ticket” for a position before year end, sometimes in a “use it or lose it” mode. Therefore networking during this period can be very productive. Above all be authentic, warm and genuine. Be yourself! Offer to help the people youre networking with without expectation of return. Make sure you follow up with the people you meet and stay in touch periodically. Hope everyone has a happy and healthy holiday season!

Psychometric Tests University of Manchester Careers Blog

Psychometric Tests University of Manchester Careers Blog Recently we have had a lot of enquires about psychometric tests and how best to prepare for these tests so I thought it would be a good basis for my next blog post. What are psychometric tests? Psychometric tests are used by employers to assess your aptitude and overall personality. They are used as part of an employers overall selection process. Ability or aptitude tests are probably the most common and measure your verbal, numerical, abstract or diagrammatic reasoning.  Personality tests are pretty self-explanatory and are used by employers to see if you have the right personal qualities for the job. The type of psychometric test you are asked to take will depend on the employer and the type of role you have applied for. Verbal and numerical reasoning tests are used for a wide variety of sectors whereas abstract and diagrammatic reasoning tests tend to be associated with engineering and IT roles. You may be asked to carry out a psychometric test soon after the application stage or as part of an assessment centre. How to prepare Practice makes perfect- or at least gives you the best chance passing employers ability tests. Here at the Careers Service we have a range of different ways to help you prepare for these ability tests; Practice books â€"we have a range of practice test books (numerical, verbal, abstract and diagrammatic) you can use in the Careers Resource Centre. Check out our online database for a complete list of our resources.   If you have a graduate library card you could also check the Main Library catalogue as some psychometric test books are available for short loan. Online test If you can’t come into the Careers Resource Centre in person you can access a timed practice test online.   Access the practice verbal, numerical and diagrammatic test here. Other online resources There are various websites you can practice ability tests for free. For a list of recommended websites see here or   page 13 in our Assessment Centres and Psychometric Tests resource. Practice test â€" At certain time during the academic year we run practice psychometric tests under exam conditions. Check out the times and dates on Careerslink. You will need to sign up at the Careers Resource Centre. Personality tests are harder to ‘prepare for’ as they are testing what you are like as a person. It’s important to remember to   answer these questions as honesty as possible and try not to second guess what the employer is looking for.   The way I see it is if you don’t pass the personality test the job was probably not right for you anyway.  If you are interested in finding out more about your personality profile or learning style take our online Types Dynamic Indicator test. How to succeed Practicing will go a long way to psychometric success but remember… Tests are timed and may be designed so that it is unlikely that you will be able to finish the test whilst achieving a high score. Some employers may use negative marking   where   a point will be deducted from your score for every incorrect answer you give. Therefore it is essential that you balance speed and accuracy. Work as quickly and as accurately as possible and avoid guessing. If asked to take a test at home ensure you are in the right frame of mind and have   peace and quiet to complete the set test. If you have factors which might affect your performance (for example disability, such as dyslexia or a visual impairment) let the employer know before hand, reasonable adjustments can be made to ensure and these considerations are taken into account. All Graduate Applications and interviews Assessment centre

Reasons behind your surging phone bills How you could keep them from soaring

Reasons behind your surging phone bills â€" How you could keep them from soaring Didn’t we all think that technology is gradually going to get cheaper day by day? Well, if you check the technology behind cell phones and their service providers, you’ll see that the opposite is happening. Cell phones and their service plans are consuming a big portion of your household budget each year. In recent years, the average cell phone bill in a month soared by more than $100, Verizon being the costliest carrier. Reports reveal that Americans spend nearly 60% more on cell phone services now that we’re in 2017. Though they keep grumbling about the soaring mobile phone costs, yet they make payments on time. There are even some families with several phones which pay $300 or $400 in a month, not knowing how they should cut back on areas like cell phone expenses. NobelCom and their prepaid calling cards can help an individual and a business slash off costs on both domestic and international calls. But before you know the solution, let’s check the reasons behind soaring cell phone bills. Reason #1: Taxes are increasing Americans ay around 18% of their cell phone monthly bills in state, federal and local fees and taxes, as per reports from Tax Foundation. This means a 5.8% federal rate and 12.4% rate for local and state taxes. There are cities like Baltimore, Chicago, New York and Omaha where tax increases up to more than 30% of the total bill amount. The cities are increasing their taxes and such hikes are being seen in several places throughout the country. Reason #2: Too many fees are being added Cell phone service providers are adding more fees for various services. For each line, there is an activation fee which can cost you up to $35 or even more. While buying a new phone or while extending your phone’s contract, there is even a bigger fee. Then you have the early-termination fee which can run into several dollars. Reason #3: Scarcity of unlimited data plans Few years back, the service providers were comfortable enough with offering unlimited data plans but this step was taken by them way before they even realized that the cell phone users will voraciously use data. Now, most of them have capped data plans and they even charge the customers for crossing their daily limit. There are some others which don’t cap the limit but they reduce the speeds whenever users hit the threshold. These caps even offer companies with a good opportunity for making money. Reason #4: There’s not enough data For the Americans, the very thought of using data within a limit is bewildering and hence it is very easy to cross the cap. Even if the service providers offer you 300 MB, what would that mean to you? When you have High-Definition movies on the internet and hours of Pandora to stream, who would even think of dealing with the different data caps? The brand new phones are actually powerful computers and hence they consume more data as compared to their predecessors. Reason #5: People are ditching their landlines Maintaining your landline and your cell phone can get a bit too costly and hence to save costs, most of the households are ditching their landlines. This is being yet another cause of soaring cell phone bills, as per the National Health Interview Survey. Among the houses which still have their landline and mobile phones, more than third of them don’t ever use their landlines. So, now that you know the reasons behind your soaring cell phone bills, it’s high time to take action against it. Use prepaid calling cards or other internet calling options to stop bleeding due to soaring cell phone bills.