Fall Back in Love with Your Job

The word ‘love’ is not a word most of us associate with ‘work’, as work is about function, purpose and necessity, while love is a blissful emotion associated with immense happiness. But like the personal relationships we have in our lives, our relationship with our job can often present the same challenges and play the same role in influencing our day-to-day happiness.

Fiona Webster, Head of Career Coaching & Outplacement at recruitment & HR services company, Randstad, believes we need to treat work more like a relationship to see its positive benefits.

If you were asked to rate ‘love’ and ‘work’ on life’s happiness barometer, it would be rare to find them on the same scale, but think about the 168 hours there are in a week and how many of those you spend working. So learning to love your day job is vital to achieving a happy balance both at and away from the office.

It takes two
Like love, work is a two-way street, if you don’t feel satisfied about what you’re getting out of your role, then it might pay to give more to your day-to-day activities. Sometimes, ‘you only get out what you put in’ and thinking of ways to improve your basic daily tasks can give you more satisfaction and provide more value to those around you. In the same way, contributing more to your team or getting involved in social activities at work might hold the key to a healthier two-way relationship in 2010. Read more

Five steps to a happier career in 2010

As those who struggled in 2009 emerge from the doom and gloom of the global financial crisis, the Christmas period proved to be the perfect solution to shake off the negativity of the past 12 months.

Traditionally a time for relaxation and rejuvenation, the holiday season provided recession-weary workers the chance to unwind, recover and ready themselves for the new working year. |It is now when employees can look to form a positive outlook for the coming year and arm themselves with the right attitude for a happy workplace.

It’s widely believed that genes play a major part in the formation of a person’s disposition – some people are easygoing and feel very little anxiety, while others are more susceptible to self-doubt and negativity. Martyn Newman, Consulting Psychologist for recruitment & HR services company Randstad, believes that happiness ultimately goes hand-in-hand with a set of emotional and social skills that can be measured and learnt.

Martyn Newman refers to happiness as ‘emotional capital’ because “It’s the kind of wealth that literally creates peace of mind. People with this kind of wealth are the ‘new rich,’ they are emotional capitalists with the spending power to be at their best whatever the challenge.

“Not only do they have more energy and drive than most people, they also enrich everyone around them with their skills and attitude,” he said. Read more

Increase in job seeking activity

In what could be a further sign of Australia’s economic recovery, the number of employees applying for jobs in other organisations has jumped dramatically during the past six months.

It’s been a tough year for recruitment agencies. Those who were barely hanging on before the economic downturn, were forced to close their doors at the height of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) when employers introduced a recruitment freeze. Now the job market is beginning to recover, employees are once again on the move and that’s good news for the recruitment industry.

According to Leadership Management Australasia’s latest Leadership, Employment and Direction Survey, one in six employees say they have recently applied to leave their current employment and more than half say they are considering moving on.

The survey also revealed that one in five are actively looking around – an increase of 36% since June 2009. Read more

When Saying Too Much in the Job Interview Works Against You

In job interviews: Do you talk too much, too little or say just the right amount to land you the job? Do you say the right things to the most appropriate people or shoot yourself in the foot?

What you say and who you share it with during the job interview process can work for or against you. There is no magic formula to follow to get the right balance, but rather an ability to read the interviewer and be discerning about who you share what information with about your abilities.

When most of us leave the interview we play back in our minds the interview questions asked and how we responded. Did we give the right answers? Were we too brief in our responses or did we prattle on too much? Did we come across as too shy or to confident? and so on. Ultimately, we wonder if we came across as the right person for the job. Rarely do we question if we shared the appropriate information with the appropriate person. We simply automatically assume we are doing the right thing by selling ourselves and our abilities to all that we interview with. Remember, not every interviewer is created equal! Read more

Women Media Networks Launches in Asia Pacific Region

Women Media Networks (WMN) is a new not-for-profit media organization that is creating a regional network to empower women and help them realize their full potential. WMN will launch in the Asia-Pacific region with a breakfast event on Tuesday 3rd November 2009 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Hong Kong. The event, held in conjunction with CASBAA Convention 2009, features a line-up of Asia’s most prominent media business leaders and women from Australia and New Zealand are welcome to attend.

Established in Hong Kong, by lawyer Ms Bobbi Campbell, WMN provides members with professional support, leadership development and networking opportunities and consists of women employed in media companies, suppliers to those companies and women aspiring to work in the industry, across the Asia-Pacific region. WMN offers member activities and a mentoring program that taps into the region’s leading female executives.

“WMN is an organization which celebrates excellence by bringing together women in media to share, inspire and support each other. Our launch event features Asia’s most prominent and inspirational women media executives and we are honored to have The Walt Disney Company (Asia Pacific) Limited sign on as Founding Sponsor and Turner Broadcasting System Asia Pacific as a Corporate Patron Sponsor. The involvement of these leading executives and media companies demonstrates the opportunity to be gained,” said Bobbi Campbell, founder of WMN. Read more

Six Figures Expands Offering to Deliver Executives More

Six Figures, the Executive Job site for $100K+ jobs and talent jobs across all industries and professions, has launched a new website design and expanded the offering to include Executive Jobs, News and Services.

Due to growing demand by high salary earners for more specific career and industry related content, Six Figures is meeting demand by catering for additional aspects of a professional’s career, with career development, directorships, education and industry news forming a part of its extended offering.

Since launching in March 2008, Six Figures, Australia’s only stand alone executive job site, has grown to over 25,000 members ($100K+ job seekers) and over 300 advertisers spanning government, education, corporate and recruitment firms. With a focus on quality, service and building relationships the site is continuing to grow and deliver success to both members and our advertisers in sourcing top passive talent via their job ads. Read more

Adjusting to a New Boss

The market is changing, many companies are reassessing headcount and as a result we’ve seen mass redundancies in recent months.

With redundancy comes opportunity, many professionals will secure new work and will need to learn once again how to shine as the ‘new recruit’. James Nicholson, Managing Director of Robert Walters Australia offers some advice on how to survive a new job and inevitably, a new boss.

One of the most exciting challenges in a professional’s career is starting a new job but this can also be a very stressful and demanding time. Professionals must realise that the job will never be exactly as they expected although if you anticipate the challenges ahead, your transition can be much smoother. A new job means new relationships, new ways of doing things and new expectations.

Not only has your workplace changed but so has your boss. Many professionals will say that adjusting to a new boss is the hardest part about starting a new job; others will feel it to be the easiest. In order to ensure your new role starts well, it’s important that you let go of your old boss and accept that your new boss will have new priorities, a new focus and almost certainly, a new way of doing things.

It is important to figure out the communication style of your new boss, find out how they like to work and how they like things done. Be proactive and initiate a meeting with your new boss to discuss how they like to work and then adapt. This will help you get an understanding of what is expected of you and help set clear expectations.

Working under a new boss can be challenging, however it is an experience that should be embraced. Learn everything you can from the experience, try and empathise with the boss’ situation, this will ease the transition for you both. Ultimately it is just as important for you to manage your new boss, as it is for them to manage you. And remember – it’s up to the both of you to make the relationship work.

Robert Walters is a leading global recruitment consultancy, specialising in placing high calibre professionals into permanent, contract and temporary positions at all levels. For more information visit the website www.robertwalters.com.au

Source: Robert Walters

Recruitment, Redundancy and the Missing R – Respect!

Respect can never be underestimated as it is a value many of us hold dear; respect for our information, privacy, views, time, and so on. Yet one area that I increasingly hear about is a dearth of respect in and around both recruitment and redundancy.

Respect as defined by Wikipedia: ‘Respect is esteem for, or a sense of the worth or excellence of, a person, a personal quality, ability, or a manifestation of a personal quality or ability. In certain ways, respect manifests itself as a kind of ethic or principle, such as in the commonly taught concept of “[having] respect for others” or the ethic of reciprocity.’

When it comes to recruitment, the lack of respect shown by some falls on both the shoulders of the recruiter and the job seeker.

Recruitment, Respect & Job Seekers
From the job seekers side, it starts with an advertiser posting a job ad, with those that apply assuming that the ad is current and ‘real’.  Wasting people’s time with vague job ads where the advertiser may be simply fishing, looking to reverse market candidates into businesses, looking to build up the number of resumes in their databases, or maybe going through the advertising process as a part of protocol (even though someone has already been marked for the job) , shows a distinct lack of respect for the job seeker’s time. Read more

Career Management Services for Professionals and Executives at all levels

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