How to enhance your Marketability

The job search should be viewed as a lifelong process that does not end with interviewing for and securing a new position. Successful career management involves treating your career as a continuum of opportunities for growth and advancement and constructing a framework for creating, exploring and exploiting these opportunities. Plan for a stellar long-term career by following these simple guidelines for staying 'marketable' as provided by the career experts

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Maintain a long-term vision and take control.

Always plan ahead and make sure it is you at the steering wheel of your career. Do not let a job in marketing dwindle to a position in graphics for example, because of missed opportunities, poor assertiveness skills and lack of direction. Take on projects and assignments that lead you further along your chosen route and try to veer away from others that do not promote your growth and advancement whenever it is possible. Your career should be a learning path and you should always steer towards the track that involves new learning and growth opportunities.

Build relationships both in and outside of your firm.

Get to know people in your chosen profession and make networking both within and outside of your firm part of your job description. The more connected you are with others in the profession, the easier it will be to secure a new position. Follow up with the people you meet on a regular basis and exchange information on your respective businesses as well as on your professional development eg, projects you are involved in, courses you have taken, deals you have landed etc. A close network of friends and/or professional associates is an invaluable career management resource.

Research your industry thoroughly.

Learn about competitors and new areas, products and innovations in the industry. Know who the players are and keep abreast of what direction the industry and the different players are moving in. The more you know about your domain, the more valuable you are to your present employer and the easier it is for you to market yourself to a different company.

Update your skills and develop new unique skills.

Some skills are always in more demand than others and successful research will identify what areas to focus on to make you most marketable in your chosen field. Whether it be taking a course in computer programming or soft skills training, aim to continuously enhance your skills and further your education. Plan on taking evening courses, attending seminars and maybe even getting a further degree part-time to stay ahead of the game.

Join professional associations.

These look great on your CV and are a great way to network with others, gain visibility and keep abreast of the changes in your industry. Your boss will be very pleased if you are aware of developments in your industry and if you are making a reputation for yourself that reflects positively on the firm. Try to speak at these meetings if you can.

Read the trade journals and industry literature.

There is no substitute for reading the trade literature to stay abreast of new developments and remain competitive. Always communicate the relevant material to your manager so he is aware of your efforts to keep ahead of the curve and also so that you can incorporate them into your unit's gameplan.

HOW TO PROPERLY PLACE NEW EMPLOYEES . . .

A suggestion from a Human Resources Manager:

HOW TO PROPERLY PLACE NEW EMPLOYEES . . .

1. Put 400 bricks in a closed room.
2. Put your new hires in the room and close the door.
3. Leave them alone and come back after 6 hours.
4. Then analyze the situation:
a. If they are counting the bricks, put them in the Accounting Department.
b. If they are recounting them, put them in Auditing.
c. If they have messed up the whole place with the bricks, put them in Engineering.
d. If they are arranging the bricks in some strange order, put them in Planning.
e. If they are throwing the bricks at each other, put them in Operations.
f. If they are sleeping, put them in Security.
g. If they have broken the bricks into pieces, put them in Information Technology.
h. If they are sitting idle, put them in Human Resources.
i. If they say they have tried different combinations, they are looking for more, yet not a brick has been moved, put them in Sales.
j. If they have already left for the day, put them in Management.
k. If they are staring out of the window, put them in Strategic  Planning.
l. If they are talking to each other, and not a single brick has been moved, congratulate them and put them in Top Management.
m. Finally, if they have surrounded themselves with bricks in such a way that they can neither be seen nor heard from, put them in Congress.

Worst co-workers ever

By Suzanne Lucas 

 Worst co-workers ever
1.       The Exhibitionist - Gillimmott: One of my co-workers showed me her bare chest (after a full 5 days on the job!). It wasn't even sexual: I'm female, too, and she kept bragging about how she was accustomed to sleeping with male co-workers and customers. Not surprisingly, she turned out to be severely unhinged, manipulative, bullying and an outright liar. I left that job because of her. To this day I don't know why she never got fired -- maybe she showed her chest to our boss, too?

2.       The Stinker - Juni: The data entry staffer who I supervised was very good at his job but smelled like cigarette smoke more than anything I have ever experienced before, worse than a '60s airport lounge, worse than the worst old-man bar you've ever walked into. His eau-de-nicotine was so strong that I had to ask him to move his workspace to an unused office. When I did, he shrugged and trudged off to his new workspace without a peep because he knew. He knew!

He was laid off about three months into the job because we restructured our department. His being laid off had nothing to do with his job performance -- which was frankly very good. Though I could barely get through a 10-minute supervision with him without gagging. His work was good, he rarely made mistakes, and he had a pleasant attitude. But when he left, we had to fumigate the workspace and actually had to throw out all of the equipment (chair, desk) because no one could get the smell out. It even permeated his computer. We had the IT guy take it apart to try and clean it, it couldn't be cleaned, so we tried parting it out as spare parts, but everything smelled so bad that we had to drill them and recycle.

3.       The Convenient Illness Sufferer - Jay: The absolute worst co-worker was the receptionist we had for a couple of years. If she was assigned a special task by one of the execs, she would make a big deal about she was "on it!" and then she would mysteriously have an allergic reaction to something. Her "cleaning lady" notified her that her daughter's hamster died, so she had to rush out and pick her daughter up from school to tell her and explain the Circle of Life. She would claim that her blood sugar dropped, and then we'd find her sleeping on the floor of one of our conference rooms. (She was hung over). The excuses got more and more ridiculous. She conveniently had food poisoning over lunch after being reprimanded earlier that morning for yet another late arrival or for not completing regular duties by the deadline set. She would stop employees and guests when they walked by her desk and tell them in great detail about her therapy
sessions, weekend parties, her daughter's escapades and cute quotes. We all eventually learned how to avoid the front desk completely until she was finally let go. She was perfectly healthy as long as she didn't have to do anything other than answer the phones and show up 30 minutes late and take extended lunches. She was also notorious for blaming her lack of quality work on others and was often found sobbing in a manager's office about how terribly she was being treated by the other employees and that's why she couldn't work.

4.       The Thief - Lisa: The worst co-worker I ever had was when I was 18 and working at a fast-food restaurant. The co-worker, also 18, had gotten fired from her other part-time job for stealing. She then needed more money and decided that I should lose my job so she could have my hours. She took money from my cash drawer so it would look like I had stolen, told manager’s lies about me, and defaced a work-safety sign and blamed it on me. Given that I'd gotten 2 performance raises in 6 months and had never shown up drunk like she had, management did not believe her, and she was fired.

5.       The Software Pirate - Leslie: At my first job out of college, a coworker insisted to management that he needed all kinds of pricey, high-end software to do his job, especially video- and photo-processing tools, even though his job did not entail either creating videos or manipulating photos. (But it was a new position and he came highly recommended, and the management didn't really know what he would need, so they approved everything.) When IT came to install the software on his work computer, he always told them that he was in the middle of something important and that he would do it himself later. They would leave the installation disk and key, and he would take it home and install it on his personal computer. I found out when he offered to let me take one of them home for my own computer. When he was finally fired, management discovered that he had, of course, done none of the work he was hired to do.

Link to the article: http://articlesandreports.blogspot.in/2012/02/worst-co-workers-ever.html and http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505125_162-57368046/worst-co-workers-ever/?tag=nl.e713

Faith, Trust & Hope....

1. Once, all villagers decided to pray for rain,on the day of prayer a boy came with an umbrella. THAT'S FAITH.

2.  When you throw a one year baby in the air, he laughs because he knows you will catch him. THAT'S TRUST.

3. Every night we go to bed, with out an assurance to be alive next morning but still we have plans for tomorrow THAT'S HOPE.

Celebrate each and every day of your life with - 

Faith, Trust & Hope....