Alexandra Levits Water Cooler Wisdom 5 Customer Service Skills You Can Improve

Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom 5 Customer Service Skills You Can Improve In a world thats increasing its degree of automation every day, the value of human interaction is greater than ever. Thats why having strong customer service skills is importantâ€"and why improving those skills can be a valuable goal for the new year. Those who excel at customer service may differ in their level, role and industry, but they typically have these competencies in common. 1. Business Knowledge If you arent well-informed about your customers business issues, consider making that a priority for 2018. You can read industry-related publications and relevant social media accounts and/or company materials. You could also interview colleagues about what theyve learned. If youre in doubt about challenges a customer is facing, ask. Showing extra interest and investment in their business can enhance your customer service skills, as can taking the additional step of questioning an existing process or situation in favor of continuous improvement. 2. Empathy There is no substitute for being able toeffectively communicatethat you understand where your customer is coming from and that you will do everything in your power to help. Your level of sincerity can make or break your efforts. Listening carefully to the customers scenario and imagining how youd feel in her shoes can help you boost your empathy. It also helps to pay attention to tone and to read between the lines. Considergently askingquestions and paraphrasingback what you hear. And if the customer just needs to get something off her chest, tryletting her. 3. Self-Control Customers can be infuriating sometimes, but those withstellar customer service skills rarely,if ever, lose their cool. Its important for service representatives to practice emotional control because they are essentially representing the entire organization, says Emily Bennington, author ofMiracles at Work: Turning Inner Guidance into Outer Influence.It helps to recognize that what we tend to view as a personal attack from a customer isnt really personal at allâ€"theyre frustrated with the business. Maintaining that perspective can help you hold your composure no matter what. For more where this came from, visit the American Express OPENForum.

Find Hidden Jobs Never Found on Traditional Job Boards - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Find Hidden Jobs Never Found on Traditional Job Boards - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Quit wasting your time on the traditional job boards. The monstrously big career building boards. If thats where youre spending a lot of your job search, thinking thats where youre going to find your next job, youre putting a lot of time and effort into a source with a very low rate of return. If a job search were marketing, using the job boards is about as effective as selling to teenagers through newspaper classifieds. Several years ago, I tried running my job search through these big boards, and had the worst luck ever. Ev-ver. If you dont count all the calls I got from duck-quacking insurance companies and strip mall finance companies who thought I had what it takes to be successful, I never got a call from a single employer doing a résumé search. And there were plenty of jobs that were always posted, always open, and never filled in months. I finally concluded that these boards were a complete waste of time and server space, and I focused my job searching on other places instead. In addition to tried and true networking, which landed me my last two jobs, these are three of my favorite job search destinations: Corporate job boards: Forget finding the big corporations and medium-sized companies on those big boards. While you may find some of them there, most companies just have their own internal boards and candidate software. Pick the companies you want to work for, check out their job boards, and apply. Many of them even have RSS feeds so you can run them through your RSS reader, and save yourself the need to go back every day to see if anything new has popped up. LinkedIn: But before you go running willy-nilly through the corporate job boards, make a few connections at the company first. Visit LinkedIn and see who you can connect with at your chose corporations, especially if you can connect with your possible hiring manager. Join their industry groups and connect there, or ask friends to make the connection for you. Once you make these connections, start providing value to them. Refer interesting news articles to them. Write blog posts about their big industry issues. Answer questions they have in the LinkedIn groups. Do this for several weeks. Then, once you see a job open up on the corporate board, ask them about it, and ask if they would like to see a copy of your résumé. LinkedIn has a pretty good job search function as well, so use it. Dot-jobs: I have a few friends, including the founder of my company, who work at a non-profit member organization that posts jobs on the .jobs boards. Basically, their members are recruiters for large companies, and they use .jobs and this organization as a way to post their jobs, thus avoiding the big job boards. Just type in an industry or niche plus .jobs, and see what you can find. Marketing.jobs, sales.jobs, finance.jobs, and so on. And because these jobs are only posted by member organizations â€" and they dont let just anybody join â€" you can be sure that these are not spammy recruiting jobs, where they want you to sell insurance or financial services to your friends and family Those are the strategies that Kyle Lacy (@kyleplacy) and I recommend to clients and readers of our book, Branding Yourself. Avoid the big boards, and focus on where the real recruiting is taking place. Be selective about where you search, and youll improve your chances, and avoid wasting a lot of unproductive time. Author: Erik Deckers is the owner of Professional Blog Service, and the co-author of Branding Yourself: How to Use Social Media to Invent or Reinvent Yourself. His new book, No Bullshit Social Media: The All-Business, No-Hype Guide to Social Media Marketing, which he wrote with Jason Falls, is in bookstores and on Amazon now.

Im a classified ad. Rarrrrr! Career Coach JobJenny

Im a classified ad. Rarrrrr! Career Coach JobJenny It came as a complete surprise to me today when the seemingly savvy job seeker on the other end of my phone line revealed that he'd been following the Sunday classifieds as part of his search. I think he was actually a little surprised that he wasn't finding much.Ring, ring. Hello? 1981? Is this you? Is it really you?With all due respect to the hard working paper route delivery specialists and the vending machine filler-uppers who may, indeed, still find a relevantjob via the classifieds?They are dead. Long, long dead.Why?They're ridiculously expensive compared to the many other online tools we recruiter typeshave available for announcing job openingsThey tend to attract respondents who are less computer savvy and technologically astute than those who utilize the Internet for job search efforts.Unless they're tied to a publications' online classifieds, they have a shelf life of, oh, one day.The dumbing down of America has been so remarkably effective that lots and lots of people neve r even pick up a newspaper, so why advertise jobs in there?Indeed.com. I do believe I mentioned this great tool just a few days ago. Scroll on down for the recap.Because I said so.Put down the yellow highlighter, and step away from Section F, please, Mr. Job Seeker on The Other End of My Phone. Your time is worth so much more than this.

A Master Plan for Masters University of Manchester Careers Blog

A Master Plan for Masters University of Manchester Careers Blog If youre just starting your Masters degree, it can all be a bit overwhelming, but half an hours planning now could be the difference between having your dream job lined up after you graduate or heartache as you settle for second best. Why the rush? Some employers in the UK recruit a year in advance for jobs ideal for Masters postgraduates. Theyre visiting campuses and careers fairs and accepting applications right now for jobs which start just after you finish your Masters. If you miss this window, youll find that they may be advertising similar jobs when you graduate but theyll be for start dates in autumn 2014! So I should panic and start applying now? Not necessarily If you have 2 or 3 years+ experience since graduating with a first degree, youre probably well   beyond these graduate schemes. Youre looking for experienced hire jobs which could be advertised at any time of year, and are very unlikely to be recruiting a year in advance (more likely 2-3 months before they want you). If you are looking for a very niche or specialist role, or want to work for a smaller organisation, again theyre unlikely to be recruiting a year in advance. If you want to get into one of those graduate schemes, the fast-track-into-management programmes, particularly if theyre with a big name employer, then you should seriously consider focusing on your career at the start of your Masters, or you may miss out for another year. If youre not looking for a job next but want to get on to a research degree, applications often need to be in by Christmas/January. To be honest, academics have often found leading candidates well before that, as keen would-be PhDs make contact and sound them out over the next couple of months. Nows the time to start your search, particularly if you want any funding. Help with your Master Plan Ive written a document to help Masters at the start of their programmes figure out what they need to do, and by when, to achieve their career aims at the end of their postgraduate degree. Its a long document but you wont need to read more than a couple of pages or so. At the start, there are a few questions for you to answer. These tell you which pages are relevant to your situation, right now. You can ignore the rest (unless you change your ideas, of course). Its available on the Careers Service website, in the Postgraduate section, or you can download it below: Careers Success for Masters: What to do, when to do it (pdf) Your Careers Timetable for the year We have lots of support for you during the year, but certain key events only happen during the autumn. Our Careers Service timetable for 2012/13 is available to download as a pdf, or you can view it here (click on the image for a larger, clearer version): Dont panic plan! Getting on to a Masters degree proves that youre smart, and more than capable of managing this whole process. A lot of the resources you will need are already available on our Careers Service website and through CareersLink. Ill be continuing to highlight support and information through this blog and on twitter and if you need to speak to one of us, just make an appointment. (OK, apologies if you have to wait a bit for an appointment around 15,000 of our students will be looking for a job at the end of this academic year, and they all want appointments in October! However, we will have lots of appointment slots available just ask.) All Postgrad-highlighted Postgraduate job hunting

Cover Letter and Resume Writing Tips For an Easy Job Interview

Cover Letter and Resume Writing Tips For an Easy Job InterviewCover letter and resume writing tips are the building blocks for the success of an application. A professional look is highly important. The letter must be written to a specific job description and formatted for easy reading.It is therefore vital to know how to write a good essay to fill it up with useful information. It is not only necessary to have an excellent penmanship but also to use precise grammar. Students often make the mistake of writing their letters in a loose and awkward way. A well-written letter will impress your reader and his or her call for an interview.The other important cover letter and resume writing tips are to include the applicant's name in the headline as well as in the first paragraph. The last sentence is where the main point of the letter should be. The following sentences should contain essential details on the applicant's educational background, work experience, qualifications and hobbies.Th e employer would like to know about the applicant's ability to solve problems in the short-term or the more in depth brief description of his skills for the future. This way he can get a better idea of whether he would fit into the company's job profile. Professional letter format is also essential.There are many free cover letter and resume writing tips in the internet and in formatting software that help one achieve an adequate look. In some companies there are employees who have no formal writing experience but they have the talent to write good quality letters. They know how to write good professionally with full attention to details.The best free tip is to have a computer that has Word and Excel on it. One of the most popular Word-based programs is Microsoft Word. This word program helps to produce neat documents and can produce highly professional looking letters for some companies. Make sure you use the newest version of the software before attempting to write your own.Anothe r free tip for filling out the letter is to avoid using too many pictures and graphics. The hiring manager would rather get the real life picture of the person than the image of someone who looks like a cartoon character. Try to keep the letter to the point and make it as short as possible.Last but not least, before sending your free resume to any company, make sure it has a decent font size. Do not change the fonts once you have chosen the font that you like. Try to use all the advanced features that are available in the software so that the applications would work well for you. These cover letter and resume writing tips are enough to help you in preparing a good letter for your potential employer.

Cold-Calling for Jobs 3 Mandates From a Hiring Manager

Cold-Calling for Jobs 3 Mandates From a Hiring Manager Cold-Calling for Jobs? 3 Mandates From a Hiring Manager College graduates through senior executives; you absolutely should be adding cold calls to your portfolio of job search activities. You may be employed and aspiring to your next move or unemployed and seeking your next job. I recommend about 5% of your job search time should be scheduled for making strong cold call pitches. Now, the bad news: Most job search cold calls are horribly executed. As recipients, we can’t find the “delete button” fast enough! This is a real e-mail I received September 10, 2013, from someone I don’t know: Subject: Employment Inquiry Are you seeking an experienced MBA professional with a strong business / IT background to be a full time salaried long-term value added asset to your organization? Someone who can contribute to your growth and profitability with strong analytical skills and creative ideas? Here is my LinkedIn profile for your consideration . Please let me know if you have any openings available. Thank you, And another one I received September 5; again from someone I don’t know: Subject: Resume Dear Dana, I am looking for new job opportunities if you see any please let me know. Please forward to appropriate department and consider the attached resume as my application for career opportunities with your firm. I have over 12 years of Investment experience at a few bulge bracket firms and have owned and managed my own investment firm. I would like to begin a new career with new challenging opportunities. I am eager to start immediately, where I can put into practice the skills gained through my academic and professional experiences. In addition to my education, I have a unique and varied set of professional experiences that have given me the skills to apply at your firm. I feel confident I can successfully conquer any task or challenge associated with this position by being inquisitive and result-oriented. I appreciate your consideration of this application and I look forward to hearing from you. Sincerely, I hope you see the “crap” but I’ll highlight the big mistakes here: Mass e-mail with no customization, no research on the recipient, no relevance. Unclear as to what specific job they are looking for Grammar errors Desperate tone No call to action There is lots of great advice about cold calling for your next career move on the web â€" and, of course, in my book â€" but to get you started, here are 3 tricks from the hiring side of the table: Research: Too many cold call mails demonstrate a complete lack of effort by the candidate. Do your research: exhaust all options, including the company website, LinkedIn groups, Facebook, Twitter, and your local Business Journal archive. (bizjournals.com) Customization: Write a personalized, highly tailored e-mail to the appropriate executive, based on your goal. In other words, if you are looking for a finance director position, then write to the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) or another senior financial executive. Follow up: Don’t expect your cold call letter to deliver results. It probably won’t even be answered. But if your last sentence in your e-mail says, “I will follow up via e-mail on ,” then you need to do that. Then do it two more times after that. When you follow up, always forward the same original message, ensuring any attachments continue to be sent. Do NOT assume they remember you or have the original mail. You can follow up via the phone, as well but write out your script to leave a great voicemail! Then send an e-mail, too. What are your concerns with cold-calling? Do you have a success story to share?

Executive Job Search Top Mistake #1 of 6 Ego Bigger Than the Job

Executive Job Search Top Mistake #1 of 6 â€" Ego Bigger Than the Job Executive Job Search Top Mistake #1 of 6 â€" Ego Bigger Than the Job On the positive side, there are so many job search tips available to you, both on my site and many others. However, sometimes, seeing yourself in the mirror of major barriers can help you more. So, in the spirit of helping you get a job you want even quicker, let’s hit the major mistakes head-on. Executives, you have so many skills and experiences, you don’t need the fancy ego during your job search. Quite the opposite. You need humility, kindness, flexibility and an unrelenting focus on the customer: the hiring manager and hiring company. Here are some examples of “the funny* things executives say or do” in their job search process: (* = egotistical) During an interview: “…I’ve got a good black book I will open up for you” To a network contact: “…I’ve never had to job search…jobs have just come my way.” In a cover letter: “Mr./Ms. Hiring Manager, you won’t find anybody more qualified and skilled in this field. I’m your guy.” A cover letter with 15 sentences with the word “I”. Out of 16 sentences. A 5 page resume, in 8 point font, filled with acronyms from their industry. There are so many more examples, but more helpful might be to share the two main attributes of egotistical executives in the job search process: Entitled. I know you “deserve” that next career opportunity. And you have a huge base of skills, knowledge, expertise, education, experiences and so much more. But you can’t let that show! Your credentials, conversations, networking and social media presence (LinkedIn) will do that for you. Your role is to tell that story in a relevant way, one that is compelling to the hiring manager, to your network base and online. You need to bring all that pride and seniority to the job search process in a humble-yet-clear way. Stand-Offish. Better than others. Executives, your hiring managers, HR managers, recruiters and interviewers are most likely going to be younger than you. Do not EVER talk down to them, belittle, correct, or interrupt them. Your inside voice may be saying “they are my kid’s age”, “they won’t understand me”, or “they don’t know what they’re talking about.” But you now what? They are doing their job. They are doing their best job, just as you have done and will do in your next career move. Homework: write down all of your experiences in helping other employees, mentoring, training and making others succeed. Keep those stories for your interviews. Bragging. It is a well-known fact that bragging is a sign of insecurity. If you are truly confident (and you should be), you will be a great listener, unassuming, and eager to provide relevant and fact-based insights about your background, when appropriate. Executives, Cut the Crap, Get a Job! You can do so much better and leave a much more lasting, memorable impression if you are genuine, likeable and humble. Have confidence in your skills, be sure your resume is well done and that your cover letter articulates the 3 main reasons why you have the best set of experiences to be the best candidate for the hiring manager. Good luck!