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diaryofalexis-blog1 · 7 years

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Give yourself fifteen minutes of free time before you start. Set the time on your alarm. Tell your parents or a friend to call you. Keep your eyes on the watch. Whatever works for you. Now, don’t think about what you have to do at all. Play on your phone, text your friends, look up memes. When those fifteen minutes are up, you need to physically distance yourself from whatever you were doing. Put your phone on airplane mode, or shut off your computer, and get up.

Sit down at your desk with a notebook and a pen. Write down all the things you need to do today, and try to prioritize them. For example, that English paper you need to turn in tomorrow is more important than planning what to take on your trip to Europe that is three months away. Try to divide each activity into blocks and give yourself breaks. If seeing so much written down overwhelms you, you can try splitting your list on different pages.

Close your eyes. You have that dream, right? That dream that you know you have to get to. That dream that you know you can turn into reality. Focus on that dream. Let yourself think of what it will feel like when you achieve it. It will be amazing, won’t it? You will feel so happy, and proud of yourself. You are going to make it. You will. But you need to put in the work, right here, right now.

Turn on some music and read motivating quotes. Now, motivational songs are preferable to the rest. Personally, I really like to listen to Almost There from The Princess and the Frog or Go the Distance from Hercules. Whatever it is that gets you pumped, that’s what you’re looking for. It is your choice whether to keep listening to it while working or not. As for the quotes, either search for them on tumblr (feel free to get them from my motivation tag) or click here to check out some.

Do your work. Now, this is the hard part of course. But now that you have your goals clear in your mind, and you believe in what you are doing, you need to gather all your self-control and get it done. Don’t forget to take care of yourself too: self-care is important and necessary if you want to really give it all you’ve got.

“You got the makings of greatness in you, but you got to take the helm and chart your own course. Stick to it, no matter the squalls! And when the time comes you get the chance to really test the cut of your sails, and show what you’re made of… well, I hope I’m there, catching some of the light coming off you that day.” – Treasure Planet

#motivation tips #tips

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diaryofalexis-blog1 · 7 years

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Advice for CV/Resume & Cover Letter

Original Content By Queen-Dread - Reposting to hide it under a link.

Right now, I’m sifting through 50+ applications for a new entry-level position. Here’s some advice from the person who will actually be looking at your CV/resume and cover letter:

‘You must include a cover letter’ does not mean ‘write a single line about why you want this position’. If you can’t be bothered to write at least one actual paragraphs about why you want this job, I can’t be bothered to read your CV.

Don’t bother including a list of your interests if all you can think of is ‘socialising with friends’ and ‘listening to music’. Everyone likes those things. Unless you can explain why the stuff you do enriches you as a person and a candidate (e.g. playing an instrument or a sport shows dedication and discipline) then I honestly don’t care how you spend your time. I won’t be looking at your CV thinking ‘huh, they haven’t included their interests, they must have none’, I’m just looking for what you haveincluded.

Even if you apply online, I can see the filename you used for your CV. Filenames that don’t include YOUR name are annoying. Filenames like ‘CV - media’ tell me that you’ve got several CVs you send off depending on the kind of job advertised and that you probably didn’t tailor it for this position. ‘[Full name] CV’ is best.

USE. A. PDF. All the meta information, including how long you worked on it, when you created it, times, etc, is right there in a Word doc. PDFs are far more professional looking and clean and mean that I can’t make any (unconscious or not) decisions about you based on information about the file.

I don’t care what the duties in your previous unrelated jobs were unless you can tell me why they’re useful to this job. If you worked in a shop, and you’re applying for an office job which involves talking to lots of people, don’t give me a list of stuff you did, write a sentence about how much you enjoyed working in a team to help everyone you interacted with and did your best to make them leave the shop with a smile. I want to know what makes you happy in a job, because I want you to be happy within the job I’m advertising.

Does the application pack say who you’ll be reporting to? Can you find their name on the company website? Address your application to them. It’s super easy and shows that you give enough of a shit to google something. 95% of people don’t do this.

Tell me who you are. Tell me what makes you want to get up in the morning and go to work and feel fulfilled. Tell me what you’re looking for, not just what you think I’m looking for.

I will skim your CV. If you have a bunch of bullet points, make every one of them count. Make the first one the best one. If it’s not interesting to you, it’s probably not interesting to me. I’m overworked and tired. Make my job easy.

“I work well in a team or individually” okay cool, you and everyone else. If the job means you’ll be part of a big team, talk about how much you love teamwork and how collaborating with people is the best way to solve problems. If the job requires lots of independence, talk about how you are great at taking direction and running with it, and how you have the confidence to follow your own ideas and seek out the insight of others when necessary. I am profoundly uninterested in cookie-cutter statements. I want to know how you actually work, not how a teacher once told you you should work.

For an entry-level role, tell me how you’re looking forward to growing and developing and learning as much as you can. I will hire genuine enthusiasm and drive over cherry-picked skills any day. You can teach someone to use Excel, but you can’t teach someone to give a shit. It makes a real difference.

This is my advice for small, independent orgs like charities, etc. We usually don’t go through agencies, and the person reading through the applications is usually the person who will manage you, so it helps if you can give them a real sense of who you are and how you’ll grab hold of that entry level position and give it all you’ve got. This stuff might not apply to big companies with actual HR departments - it’s up to you to figure out the culture and what they’re looking for and mirror it. Do they use buzzwords? Use the same buzzwords! Do they write in a friendly, informal way? Do the same! And remember, 95% of job hunting (beyond who you know and flat-out nepotism, ugh) is luck. If you keep getting rejected, it’s not because you suck. You might just need a different approach, or it might just take the right pair of eyes landing on your CV.

And if you get rejected, it’s worthwhile asking why. You’ve already been rejected, the worst has already happened, there’s really nothing bad that can come out of you asking them for some constructive feedback (politely, informally, “if it isn’t too much trouble”). Pretty much all of us have been hopeless jobseekers at one point or another. We know it’s shitty and hard and soul-crushing. Friendliness goes a long way. Even if it’s just one line like “your cover letter wasn’t inspiring" at least you know where to start.

And seriously, if you have any friends that do any kind of hiring or have any involvement with that side of things, ask them to look at your CV with a big red pen and brutal honesty. I do this all the time, and the most important thing I do is making it so their CV doesn’t read exactly like that of every other person who took the same ‘how-to-get-a-job’ class in school. If your CV has a paragraph that starts with something like ‘I am a highly motivated and punctual individual who–’ then oh my god I AM ALREADY ASLEEP.

Addendum: Stop sending me rude messages about this post, jesus christ. I DID NOT INVENT CAPITALISM OR THE TORTUROUS HELLSCAPE THAT IS THE JOB MARKET CULTURE. I GET PAID LIKE SHIT. I’M JUST AN EXHAUSTED MANAGER TRYING HER BEST. and i mean if you can’t take honest advice without complaining about how it’s phrased then boy howdy do i have some bad news for you about the big, mean world of jobhunting…

#Job Hunting Advice

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