Career Break Or Sabbatical How To Decide What Is Right For You

Career Break Or Sabbatical How To Decide What Is Right For You Expert Advice > How to discover what you want to do next Career Break Or Sabbatical? How To Decide What Is Right For You * Sue Hadden examines the difference between career breaks and sabbaticals and explains how both can positively effect your future career. The terms ‘career break’ and ‘sabbatical’ are sometimes used interchangeably. Both relate to periods of time taken out of your normal routine to do something completely different. So, what’s the difference? What is a sabbatical? A sabbatical is a more formal system. A ‘sabbatical policy’ may exist within a company, whereby employees are able to take an agreed amount of time off. The usual job ‘perks’, such as being paid and your pension contributions, may be suspended for the duration of the sabbatical period. However, employees have the security of returning to their job. The period of time allowed depends on the company and may only be accessible to employees at a certain level in the organisation such as senior managers or full-time staff. This is the option for those who may be planning to return to the same job or field of work. It can be a useful way to take time out from your job to reassess where your career is heading and how you would like it to progress when you return. Debbie Norman, 52, Kent, took a 6-month sabbatical from her job in banking. Debbie qualified for the sabbatical because she had been working for the bank for over 10 years. During her time off, she sailed the Queen Mary and travelled the West Coast of America before returning home to England. As Debbie’s company provided a formal sabbatical policy, her job was held open so she slid straight back in on her return. Ann Sullivan, 39, Gloucester, took a 3-month sabbatical from her job in an insurance company and travelled through south east Asia. On her return to England, she returned to her role working in the Human Resources department. Employers’ attitudes are changing as they’re realising that, in order to retain good employees, they may have to release them for a certain period of time. The organisation may benefit from an employee who returns with new skills, such as a new language or a professional qualification. Inaddition, the employe is likely to have a renewed and refreshed attitude to work. What do I need to do to take a sabbatical? Step 1: Find out if your company offers a sabbatical policy and if so, the maximum duration. Are there any forms you must complete? Who do you need to inform? What benefits would be suspended for the duration? Which would be continued? Step 2: Be prepared. Before meeting your manager, arm yourself with information on when you want to take your break, how long you want to be away for, what you plan to do and how your work-load could be managed whilst you’re away. Make is easy on your manager by doing the thinking for them. Step 3: Arrange ameeting with your manager to discuss your sabbatical. Think about questions you may be asked, write them down and have the answers ready. You may have to negotiate the timing of your break, due to the nature of your role or the industry you work in. There may be a more ‘natural’ time to step away from the organisation that will cause minimal disruption to you and your team. Tell yourmanager the benefits of you taking a break and how this will impact the organisation in a positive way. Step 4: Once your sabbatical is agreed, complete the necessary paperwork and return it to the appropriate parties. Ensure you have all the dates confirmed and are sure about which benefits are suspended and which will continue. Step 5: Organise your farewell party and start packing! What is a career break? If you decide to take a career break and your company doesn’t have a sabbatical policy, you may have to resign in order to do it. By resigning from your job, you have the freedom to take a career break for as long as you like becauseyou are not tied to the organisation. You can use a career break as an opportunity to work on your career change without having the feeling of having to return to your old job after a few months. This strategy worked for Doug Kington, 25, who has taken many career breaks over the last few years. The organisations Doug has worked for haven’t offered sabbatical policies. Therefore,every time he took a career break, he resigned. He went travelling and found new work when he returned to England. Often career changers leave regular employment to set up their own businesses, go freelance, or to retrain in a different area. If this is not for you and you wish to return to regular employment after your career break (perhaps in a different sector), you may be wondering... What do prospective employers think about people who’ve taken a career break? This depends on the work sector, what you chose to do whilst you were away and how you position your career break to employers when you return. If you take on voluntary work or work on a personal project during your career break, these can add to your CV and perhaps help you move into a different job sector. In 2006, I returned from a 6-month career break. During my second interview with an investment bank, my interviewer asked why I returned to the UK. My simple and honest answer was, “I ran out of money”. My interviewer laughed and said it was a good a reason as any. I was offered the job a few days later. Taking a career break didn’t seem to have an impact during my job search or during my interviews. I believe that, as long as you sell the ‘benefits’ of your career break to your potential employer, it could be viewed favourably. But what will I do afterwards? Towards the end of your career break, the following tips can help prepare you to use the benefits of your career break in the next stage of your career: Update your CV to include any courses, qualifications and experiences you’ve had, such as volunteering, which may help you during your search. Decide how you can best sell the benefits of your career break to a potential employer. If you wish to move into another work sector, think about how you can build on your career break experience to make the move. List any contacts you made during your career break, whom you could speak to about work opportunities or collaboration. So, what’s it for you? Sabbatical or career break? Once you’ve made the decision to take a break, all you need to do is start asking questions and find out which one is a possibility for you. Does the idea of a career break or sabbatical appeal to you? Could you use it to help with your longer-term career change? Leave a comment below.

Why Does NJ Teachers Need Resume Writing Services?

Why Does NJ Teachers Need Resume Writing Services?NJ teachers, desperate to land a new job after their final year of teaching, are now resorting to this unconventional method for career hunting - online resume writing services. Many students are now seeking opportunities to secure the best job from home or find employment that is on-demand - working at their own convenience with freelance writers who will work in their respective areas of expertise.To succeed in the academic career and post-graduate years is the dream of every NJ teacher. Accomplishing this, however, is not the only objective. It is true that successful students also come with a high level of achievement and are highly qualified and skilled but success in academic achievement is a result of hard work and diligent effort.These days, teachers with post-graduate degrees are actually expected to coach their students through the course work and help them in writing their own thesis. The real challenge lies in finding the perfect teachers with the required experience and skills. Unfortunately, they simply do not have the required experience and skills. The only way for NJ teachers to achieve a successful career after graduation is to look for the right teachers who can guide them in their academic career after they become teachers themselves.NJ teachers, in fact, have always had the feeling that working on school assignments or preparing for academic tests does not necessarily mean a successful career for them. The recent scholarship funding and increased level of student body allow them to go for their desired post-graduate studies and they now have the means to leave their jobs once they have secured their respective academic and graduate degree. They now consider the possibility of a professional job as a second job.If they were to use the services of resume writing services, the only way they can assure themselves of hiring the best available professionals in their areas of expertise is by ensuri ng that the professional writers have the required experience and skills. Such is the competition in the industry today that teachers can definitely check the credentials of professionals who are available to help them in their career quest.Being a good essay writer is not enough; a professional must be adept in education research, current events, curriculum development, and educational technology. The only way to ensure that the professional writing services are the most suitable ones to ensure that your NJ teachers get hired on the first or second go is to ensure that the best writers available are always sought out.Most of the agencies do not accept resumes that do not meet the qualifications of the prospective writers. They must therefore ensure that the list of the required professional writers includes people who are very well known in the industry. Not only do they ensure a higher than average probability of finding the right professionals for NJ teachers but they also ensure that you get the right professionals to write the resume that you want for yourself.With the help of the best resume writing services, NJ teachers can now search for the best writers with the right credentials and skills to write their best resumes in a very short period of time. All they need to do is get in touch with these service providers and hire the best professionals to help them achieve their goals.

10 Ways to Keeping a Happy Office

10 Ways to Keeping a Happy Office Would you like to work in a happy and harmonious office? Heres the  definitive guide to achieving this: 1) The kettle is your friend:   One of the biggest causes of conflict in every office is the kitchen area, either people not doing the washing up, pinching stuff from the fridge, or not making their fair share of tea and coffee. Never assume that it is the most junior member of staff’s responsibility to make the tea, everyone should muck in with this task, even management. 2) Remember to CC: Not Cc-ing your colleagues into emails is enough to drive some of them round the bend. Failure to do this simple task though could have some serious consequences. If one of your bosses hasn’t seen an email which you’ve sent to a client, he or she will either think that you haven’t done it or worse they are not in the loop with what’s going on. 3)  Grovelling doesn’t suit you: No one likes a brown-noser â€" not even the people who you are trying to suck up to. You’re not the first to think you can go up the ladder by grovelling and you won’t be the last. Management see this time after time and know how to deal with it as it reflects badly on you. In fact rather than charming your boss you give off the impression that you’re not confident in your own ability to succeed so you’re having to rely on grovelling. RELATED:  Which Type of  Office Worker  are You? 4)  Talk! If you need help with something ask someone! I’m willing to bet that 99.9% of all conflicts in the office are due to a lack of communication. Often when you speak about things they become easier to resolve â€" sitting quietly at your desk struggling, getting yourself ever more wound up is not good for the task in hand, the company or indeed you. 5)  Cheats never prosper: If you make a mistake, confess it quickly. Everyone makes mistakes and the sooner they are out in the open they quicker they can be resolved. If you sit on an error you have made or try to hide it, you are digging yourself a hole which after time will be harder and harder to climb out of. Lies will always get found out and cheats will never prosper. 6)  Watch what you write: Always be careful what you put in emails as you can never guarantee that they will remain private. Therefore never put anything in an email or an internal memo which you wouldn’t be happy with the entire office seeing. 7)  I’m sorry, no: Learning to say no to someone is a difficult but essential life task. You need to be able to do it but it is essential that you learn how to convey this in the best possible manner. The last thing you want is to be burdened with everyone’s work because you didn’t have the guts to say no to them, but similarly you don’t want to be seen as a stubborn donkey who won’t lend any one a hand. The phrase, ‘I would love to help but I’m really tied up at the moment â€" if it’s not urgent I should be able to help later in the week’, is always a good set response. 8)  Boundaries: Know where to draw the line. Your office colleagues are not the same as your close group of friends or your family. What’s more the office is not the pub or a lounge so your behaviour should reflect that. 9) Say well done: Praise is so often forgotten in many work places. You don’t have to lay it on thick or go over the top with ‘good job’ cards, but a simple ‘well done â€" you did a great job on that’ will go a long way. Positive reinforcement is such a powerful tool in the office and has the potential to create a very happy and productive workforce. Even simple things like employee of the month, can get the most out of people. RELATED:  7 Phrases Employees Want to  Hear  from their  Boss 10)  Smile: You would not be surprised by the number of people who sit at their desk all day with a glum expression on their face. They don’t talk or smile, they just come in, do their work and then go. After a while these people become a black hole of negativity and their miserable attitude spreads to the rest of the office. You would be astonished at the difference it can make if everyone smiles in the office. Granted there’s not going to be ‘The Sound of Music’ style jollity all the time, but pleasantries like saying ‘good morning’, or ‘how are you’, or even holding the door for people, all make the office a better place to work. Author:  Michael Davies from  LondonOffices.com

Time for a Girls Night Out

Time for a Girls Night Out Gather the girls, its good for your health!    Career girls, its time to pencil down a girls night out! Aside from the positive effects on your mood of having a great night out with friends (and the negative ones the morning after if you’ve had one too many!), socialising can also be extremely beneficial to both your physical and mental health in the long term. Aside from eating well and exercising plenty, it’s important to include a social element as a regular part of life rather than being seen as a treat or reward. That theory is backed up by a study which â€" if you’ll forgive the comparison between people and primates â€" was conducted for more than fifteen years on a group of female baboons in Africa. The Guardian published an article on the findings of the report in 2009 which shows that the more social connections the baboon has, the better the quality of life they would have. “Females with strong social bonds may be shielded from social conflict and competition,” said Joan Silk who made the report, “and they might be able to forage more efficiently and nourish their offspring better.” Silk also said that it could be this need to make friends which has led to the evolved larger size of the human brain â€" which could also be what gave humans their advanced knowledge; the healthy need to make friends! So if you’re in need of a physical and mental boost, it could simply be that you need to reach out and make a new friend, or catch up with an old one. We recommend the following: Seeing friends Whether you want to pop round to a mate’s house for coffee and a biscuit, or even just feel like picking up the phone, you’ll be glad of the chance to have a catch up and it’ll be sure to cheer you up! Trying something new If your social life is in need of a new boost, why not try signing up for classes at your local college or joining a book club? That way you get to test the knowledgeable side of your brain as well as the social side! Regular outings Gather up your friends and make a big night of it. Plan it out start to finish. Spend time with family Plan a visit to your relatives â€" maybe you’ve got grandparents who live a little out of the way, or simply haven’t seen your siblings in a good while; you should make arrangements to meet up and have a brew. Now, its time for a  girls night out!

What Is A Resume Writing Process?

What Is A Resume Writing Process?There are a lot of people who get confused about what is a resume writing. They believe that all they need to do is fill up their resume and send it in to get hired. That is a very popular job interview myth that many people have been involved in.The first thing needs to be considered when writing your resume is the importance of the resume and the things that you need to include. The information that you put on your resume is the deciding factor of whether or not you will get an interview. This is one of the most important things that need to be considered before you even go in for a job interview.Career managers see to it that each of their applicants has an accurate resume. They review the information that is on the resume so that they can see the right candidate for the job. You want your resume to stand out among the thousands of resumes that you will receive. You want to provide them with information that is accurate, relevant, and informative.T he information that you will put on your resume is what makes up your present company profile. You need to make sure that this is accurate. Some of the information that you need to put on your resume is your name, your contact information, contact number, dates of employment, positions held, amount of experience, certifications, names of previous employers, positions held, and education that you have completed.Before you sit down to a job interview, you need to know that you have prepared the best resume possible. You also need to know how to write a resume that is perfect for a job interview. You will find a lot of professional writers online who can help you with this task.Resume writing can be a lot of work but there are some tips that you can use to help you along the way. Make sure that you have everything ready before you start working on your resume. You want to be able to make the most of the time that you spend to write your resume.A lot of people don't take the time to put everything together. They don't get around to filling out all of the information before they are looking for a job. If you spend time planning everything out, you can be more organized when it comes time to write your resume. It is easy to get confused if you aren't organized and know what you need to do and where to begin.When you are ready to begin your resume writing process, you want to make sure that you are prepared. You will want to have all of the information needed to be interviewed. It can be difficult to write a resume if you are not ready for the job. Prepare ahead of time so that you can focus on other things while you get your resume ready.

Happiness at work - 5 tips to try today! - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Happiness at work - 5 tips to try today! - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog James Parr at Omniblog has a great post on happiness at work, and how any company can become happy: Now you might sit here reading this and thinking ?yeah, that?s all very well in another company, but in ours where we?re just making widgets day in day out, who?s going to be that passionate about working for us?? Fair point, in essence. It?s a common notion that we can?t all be Google, with a raft of cool people, eager to sign up. Like many common notions though, it?s complete and utter BS. You?re worried because you?re not making uber-sexy products, or you?re worried that it?s just too tough to get your warehouse staff excited about stacking boxes right? Well worry no more. Happiness at work can apply to everyone. Call centres (notoriously high attrition rates) can be happy places. Production lines can be happy places. Banks and leisure centres and council buildings and hospitals and schools and compliance units and McDonalds and everywhere else can be happy workplaces! It?s about doing some basic things right. He then goes on to list 5 things your workplace could try right now. He also goes on to say some very nice things about yours truly. Im blushing here :o) Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related

Are you pestering people in your job search - Hire Imaging

Are you pestering people in your job search - Hire Imaging Unless you’re one of the tiny minority who lands that perfect job by blasting your resume to an advertised opening, you are going to have to talk to people. And the real key to success is in talking to people at the companies where you want to work. Abandon any worries that you’ll come off as too aggressive or needy. Job Search Truth: YOU HAVE TO PESTER PEOPLE TO GET HIRED. You are most likely going to have to make contact several times with an organization to be hired. Have a plan to get into their minds all the while you are being considered. This rarely happens with a single application or with one contact. Let’s say you pick up the phone and make contact only to hear, “We’re not hiring.” “You’re not right for us.” “Not in this lifetime.” Okay, then move on. BUT if you hear, “We’re not hiring at the moment,” or “We have nothing now, then you have an opportunity to plan a way to make contact with them over time. Don’t ever let a hiring decision-maker forget about you. Bug or fly away? Hiring can take weeks, not atypically months. My client Greg knew what he wanted and had identified target companies. Greg was wise in that these organizations were those that he felt could potentially hire him before they posted an opening. He   focused on his beating out those other 100 to 1,000+ candidates who would apply once the position was posted. And he accepted as reality, he would have to most likely approach these companies more than once. Greg could circulate the best resume  in the world to these places. Some of them may even perceive him to be a real catch. But if Greg never reaches out (remember, we’re talking no advertised or official opening at this point), theyre not going to bite. Greg’s a numbers guy. He’s quite reserved and by his own admission, borders on introverted. But Greg’s also smart. He knew that in his job of job search, he was in a sales role. He could phone, email, reach out in person but to the point, he had to reach out more than once. And he had to reach out to the right people. I find it fascinating that job seekers so frequently think their resume and application will do it. Frankly, that’s overestimating one’s attractiveness over the competition. There are some really impressive highly-qualified candidates out there. And if you wait for the post-advertised scenario, it’s honestly quite vicious. Scanning software is cold and imperfect. The right fits are often missed. In my conversations with those who hire and surveys I’ve read and helped conduct, hiring decision-makers love hiring someone who is referred by an employee or finds another way to get their attention. That is a dream compared to sifting through hundreds if not thousands of resumes and applications. And from your perspective as a candidate, how do you stand out in that pile that’s so high? Job Search Truth: NEVER ALLOW SELF-DIRECTED FADE FROM HIRING RADAR Hiring process 101 What happens when a job is created and posted anyway? Here’s the Reader’s Digest version. A manager decides that she needs help. Someone’s leaving. Growth has resulted in mounting workload. Change in process with new technology has created a disconnect with tools and staff’s skill sets. The manager goes for as long as possible, but then decides she needs someone ASAP. She goes through the motions of trying to train internally. She may hire a temp.  Anything to ease the pain without making a permanent hire. It’s not working. Training takes too long. The motivation for internal folks is not there. So, she means to initiate the hiring process. But that mounting workload means she’s overworked too. A month goes by. She’s swamped and frustrated. Enter HR. They have Jane analyze the work to be done. Jane writes a job description and posts an opening. Then it’s a few weeks to collect and review applications and resumes. More time for telephone screening interviews. Then in-person interviews. Reference and background checks. An offer. Negotiations. Often renegotiations. As my granddaughter says, “OMG seriously?!”No wonder hiring folks would love to not have to go through this. The workload is not being handled adequately. The manager is tired and frustrated. HR has to dive into a laborious process that is taxing and by no means perfect for finding the right fit. Yuck. Job Search Truth: YOU NEED TO PLACE YOURSELF INTO THIS SCENARIO AT THE HEART OF WHERE THE WORK IS Think about how it might be if you got to that manager when she was moaning over the situation. If you can get her attention and let her know you could perform what needs to be done, with virtually no risk to the company, hmmm. Maybe she’ll hire you part time or as a temp. But it’s a foot in the door. Once HR gets involved, there will be requirements written in that you don’t possess. There’ll be purple squirrels  who have what they ask for and the qualifications to perform three other jobs in the organization as well. Here’s what I find most interesting. My clients and you, my readers, are intelligent. You get the gist of what I’m saying. You know that once a position is advertised, the odds go down to about 4-6% of getting an interview from applying only. Or even applying and following up with a phone call. And yet, many smart folks spend hours at their computers, blasting out to these posted jobs. Perhaps it’s because like Greg when he first came to me, many do not know how to place themselves into the situation at the heart of where the work is. This is what’s often referred to as the hidden job market. In future posts, I’ll walk you through some of the ways I’ve found to work for manyâ€"turning them from outsiders to insiders with companies of their choice. For now, please take my word for it. Get in before it goes to the masses. Talk to however many people it takes. And get in at the right place. It will make all the difference. Photo:  theps.net