How a December Job Search Can Yield Great Gifts

Career Expert

Whether you’re looking to make a change or looking for a new role full time, it can be tempting to spend the holiday season on a break from your job search. No one hires over the holidays anyway, right? Wrong.

According to the data, December may be one of the best months of the year to look for your next work opportunity. Increased turnover, decreased applicant pools, and year-end hiring quotas are just some of the reasons you may want to consider transferring your job search from your post-holiday resolutions file and placing it front and center on your December to-do list. Read More

6 Telltale Signs Your Job is Unhealthy

Career Expert

“A little hard work never hurt anyone…!”

It seems like we heard that a lot growing up, either from a parent admonishing us to get busy doing chores, or an elder chiding us to get serious about earning a living. Either way, the implication was we were shirking around in a prolonged childhood, and needed to take on adult responsibilities. It would require a little work, but it wouldn’t hurt anyone in the end.

We’re grown up now, working in the 21st century economy, and we know better.

We’ve learned that with any amount of hard work comes stress. Going to work and earning a living are now major preoccupations in our lives, and some of our biggest sources of stress.

Day after day of doing even a little hard work adds up to a lot of stress, and often leads to devastating effects on health and wellbeing. In his recently published book, Dying for a Paycheck, renowned management professor Jeffrey Pfeffer pinpoints four major workplace stressors: work-family conflict, long work hours, low control over the work environment, and job insecurity.

In an earlier study, Pfeffer and his colleagues found that job insecurity increases the odds of developing a physician-diagnosed condition by about 50 percent, while long work hours increases mortality by nearly 20 percent. The overall effects of workplace stress on health is more acute for women than men.

Research also shows that it is actually healthier to be without a job than to continue in a highly stressful one. Leaving is often the best thing to do in a situation where your job is literally killing you. Taking positive action towards moving on, such as updating your resume, can help re-empower you while also addressing the stress of job insecurity. (A free resume builder can help should you move in this direction.)

Regardless of whether you work in a toxic environment or a healthy one, you will experience stress, both good and bad. Being aware of how it affects you and your emotions can make a big difference on your health and wellbeing.

Here are 6 signs your job is unhealthy: Read More

6 Resume Tips for Career Changers (That Don’t Involve Sacrificing Salary)

Career Expert

If you’re like most people, you’ve at least thought about shifting careers or fields. A recent Harris Poll conducted for the University of Phoenix indicated that more than 50 percent of working age adults are interested in making a career change.

More than 80 percent of the survey’s potential career shifters anticipate barriers to securing a position in a new field at their current compensation level. The following resume tips for career changers can help you land a brand-new role or shift industries without sacrificing compensation. Read More

Back to School but Not Back to Work?

Career Expert

It’s that time of the year again. The first leaves of fall are beginning to fall, pumpkin spice everything is back on the shelves, and the kids are back in school. However, instead of the same old routine for your job, what if you could change things and start working for yourself from the comfort of your own home? Now is the time to start thinking about the business opportunity that the Arise Platform has to offer. If you sign up now, you can have a new life before the holidays arrive. Read More

Gearing Up for a Fall Job Search? Here’s What You Should Do in August.

Career Expert

Decision makers are on vacation, offices are empty, budgets frozen, and candidate searches placed on hold. What’s a jobseeker to do in the final weeks of summer? Work harder than ever, of course.

Don’t use this employer downtime as an excuse to take a vacation from your job search. Instead, take advantage of the annual hiring hiatus by positioning yourself for a productive fall job search. Attend to aspects of your search you’ve been neglecting: Revise your resume and cover letter templates, increase your networking contacts, spruce up your internet profile, add content to your professional web site, or finally launch one.

The good news is that when hiring managers get back from their vacations, they often find themselves under pressure to make hires. Managers will be eager to staff up as they start feeling the pressure to hit year-end goals. Department heads will want to fill positions and start using salary lines before they lose headcount.

The following tips can help you make the most of the final weeks of summer so you can spring ahead of the competition come the first weeks of your fall job search. Read More

6 Practical, Essential Tips for Working from Home

Career Expert

Who wouldn’t want to work from home? You can work in your pajamas, lounge on your couch all day, and still get paid – or at least that’s the theory. In reality, it takes discipline to be a successful remote worker.

The number of U.S. workers who spent at least some time working from home reached 43 percent in 2017, according to a report from Flexjobs. The percentage working from home 50 percent of the time or more was much lower, at just under 3 percent. But hiring managers expect work-from-home opportunities to increase rapidly in the next 10 years, to one-third of all jobs.

If you’re among the growing number of remote workers: congratulations. There are plenty of positives that come with off-site employment, from time and money saved on commuting to enhanced work-life balance. But these benefits come with unique challenges. Not everyone can remain productive when they are no longer working shoulder to shoulder with peers under the watchful eye of an on-site supervisor.

The following tips for working from home can help you stay motivated and focused. Read More