How to Get a Job: The Real Skills Everyone Needs for Successful Career Or Starting a Busines
When school students decide to continue their education at college or university it’s probably not because they miss homework, but for the sake of gaining the needed professional skills that will help in developing their future career.
How to get a job you will fit into? They only need to sharpen their skills in order to be more attractive to employers. Modern employers on the other side are looking for not only high academic grades but also life skills that an employee can possess. These skills make an employee flexible for any jobs in different sectors.
Surely, they have other reasons for entering university – it’s a great excuse if you don’t know what to with your life in the nearest four years, don’t want to work yet or have a strong desire to take the final, glorious step into adulthood and try all its charms 🙂
Don’t think we are cruel or anything like that, we just exaggerated it to have some fun (but every joke has a bit of truth, doesn’t it?). Students, those young people who want to experience the bright and entertaining side of college life, want to try all at once.
That’s why sometimes they may get in ridiculous troubles. But still, let’s go back to the serious side and those who try to look into the future and take action today.
How to Get a Job thanks to the REAL SKILLS
Luckily, many educational institutions provide such opportunities in the form of practical seminars, pieces of training, different internships. No wonder lots of students will eagerly prefer buying a research paper in favor of having more time for professional improvement to spending days and nights writing chapters of research on the topic they may not even like or be interested in.
That’s because writing has its benefits, but it’s definitely not something that will play a major role when you will be looking for your first job. Let’s take a closer look at the real skills everyone needs for a successful career or personal business.
What are the automotive skills, and why do you need them?
1. Communication skills
Wondering how to get a job? Communicate that.
Communication skills are the first aspects that all employer looks in any prospective employee. It entails both verbal and writing skills which include maintaining eye contact when speaking with someone, demonstrate a wide range of vocabulary prowess and impeccable writing.
On the other hand, communication skills entail active and ardent listening skills. Employers need people who are good at listening which mean they can follow instructions to the latter.
2. Critical thinking skills
This skill involves the ability to resolve problems and make an informed decision. This is one of the greatest assets that any employee should have. It involves gathering information from numerous reliable sources and be able to find the most reliable solution for the problems at hand. Apart from making informed decisions, having these skills can be helpful in serving in the customer care department.
3. Leadership skills
Leadership skills can be defined as the ability to inspire people towards achieving their personal best. People with leadership skills have a strong self esteem and self confidence, thus are perceived by employers to be able to be impeccable team leaders. Such people are required in any job to make informed decisions for group members and improve employees credibility.
4. Teamwork skills
It’s always the norm that teamwork wins. However, for any team to work out efficiently there should be an effective leader. Prospective employees with formidable teamwork skills are highly targeted by many employers. Such people with good teamwork skills are characterized by having confidence within the group by airing their views with no problem.
5. IT skills
How to get a job in 2021? Befriend technology. The racing man vs machine Advancement in technology has changed the way employers recruit new employees. This is the reason why most colleges and Universities include IT as part of their curriculum.
Having IT skills involves being able to manipulate computer operations using available operations. Furthermore, an employee should be conversant with simple tasks like opening an email and responding to it. Other software includes PowerPoint, Microsoft Word and Microsoft spreadsheets. Here are the top programming jobs in 2021.
6. Interpersonal skills
Interpersonal; skills are basic skills that one uses to interact with other people. An office setting, for example, consists of an array of people from different ethnic, religious and political backgrounds. Therefore, this means that how one interacts with one individual is totally different from the other. Interpersonal skills are important in that an employer will be in good terms with everyone, thus minimizing any chances of conflicts in the workplace.
7. Innovation and creativity skills
It’s less known by many but research shows that people with innovation and creativity skills are most likely to be hired by many employers. There is absolutely no employer who will turn his back on any person with the ability to find creative solutions to a problem. How to get a job? Learn to think outside of the box. Imagen such exercise: whatever you think, think the opposite!
It doesn’t require a new revolutionary innovation to possess such skills. Actually, it only requires people with sharp brains to think faster and find solutions to problems.
8. Management skills
It’s always perceived that management skills are always gained through classroom learning. What most people don’t understand is that just like other job skills, management skills can be gained from developing discipline principles. This is exactly what most employees are looking for. Management skills entail the ability to adequately manage recourses; no matter how little they are, at your disposal.
9. Resilience skills
Resilience can be defined as standing firm with one’s principles. Resilience skills, therefore, means being able to stick to the norms no matter the pressure anyone is being subjected to. This includes the ability to work under little supervision while at the same time following the set rules and regulations of employment. People with such abilities vividly understand work ethics and follow them to the letter.
10. Presentation skills
Whether you are a line manager or a new recruit in an organization or any other job, you will have to effectively present information at numerous instances. This, therefore, will require you to have knowledge of presentation skills. Furthermore, these skills come in handy during formal presentations where you will have to adequately present information in front of your colleagues or even the board.
This, therefore, means that one should be confident and be able to articulate his/her concerns clearly. Additionally, it is worth noting that most interviews involve a presentation, therefore you must possess these skills in order to secure employment. These are the things you will need and may use not only in technical industries but also on a daily working basis or for managing your own business, for instance. They include:
11. Workplace management
A broad thing that includes time management work with customers and employees, etc. Typically, an average person is good only at time management (or is a master of procrastination pretending to be a time-management guru) or has strong communication skills (and can persu
ade a person to buy a new floral skirt and wear it for the meeting at work even if this person is a man) but is unable to see the “broad picture” and take into account all the tiny details of the workplace and the working process. To really manage everything, you need to dig dipper and work on all the mentioned aspects. It’s a long process that may affect your self-confidence, make you want to give everything up, but in the end, it’s worth it. No pain no gain, they say, and this principle works not only for the gym.
You need to learn to manage not only your workplace and time, but also your finances. For that there are useful websites such us llc florida and others.
12. Self-evaluation abilities
Self-evaluation abilities – every employer/partner would love to work with the person who can be objective and draw conclusions from any situations. It takes a lot of courage to admit that you may be wrong, make a mistake, or simply not know something, so the skill of being open-minded and ready to change is crucial. Humans are probably the imperfect creatures on our planet, so there’s nothing wrong if you sometimes get tired. Just say ‘yes, I blew it!’ Learn your lesson and move on – it’s going to be better next time.
13. Growth mindset
This includes a positive attitude and flexibility in solving problems, learning new things, coming up with creative ideas, you name it. Business is full of risks and potential pitfalls, so it’s hard to overestimate the importance of staying positive and determined.
If you think that your mindset is fixed (opposite to growth), don’t hurry to give up on finding a good job. Actually, many corporations are now interested in creating such an environment at a workplace that their employees turn on the “growth” mode naturally and with very little effort. They try to give their workers space for creativity and create an atmosphere where even failure is accepted and treated as a chance to learn something new, gain experience, etc.
Wouldn’t you like to work in such a place? Also, you can build the same conditions in your everyday life by allowing yourself to make mistakes, try out new things, and feel free in any beginnings of yours.
14. Confidence
Confidence may sound trivial, but often you’ll have to be able to make serious and difficult decisions, set goals, and achieve them, and these things take a lot of willpower. In the times when you want to give up, only your self-belief can stop you from doing this.
No one but you should be as confident as possible when it comes to running a business, because everything belongs to you – the idea, investments, sleepless nights of work, advertising, finance and more, and more. So, staying strong is just a way to be recognized and accepted in the future. Only men of grit survive through all the stages of making a career/founding a business. “But what if I am not confident at all?”
Well, you are not alone at this, dear friend. As you can probably guess, we do have some tips on boosting one’s self-worth and confidence, and it’s not only “fake it till you make it.” If you ever watched any TV shows or movies with FBI agents, you definitely noticed how amazingly cool they are.
We know what lucky devils do to develop such awesomeness! There are some tips.
How to develop REAL skills
1. Keep your inner child close
No, we are not crazy. Remember how you dreamed of becoming a superhero, a firefighter, or an astronaut in childhood?
You believed you can do anything because you had no limits you have now because of different stereotypes and tags people put on each other in adulthood.
2. Trick your memory
For us, humans, it’s much easier for some reason to remember epic fails rather than examples of their own success. So, why don’t you try and keep only good memories close to heart and mind, huh?
3. Talk to yourself
not out loud – you may seem a loco (but you can if you want, of course, and it doesn’t matter what others will think). No, we are not joking or trying to make people think you are crazy. Positive self-talk can motivate, encourage, and even help overcome fears.
4. Stay curious
Curiosity killed the cat, but you are not a cat, are you? Curiosity is the foundation of life-long growth. If we remain curious, we remain teachable, and our minds and hearts grow larger every day.
5. Look your fears in the eyes
We all know it works the best, and the feeling after you managed is heavenly good, but we still prefer to stay in the comfort zone. Become an example for others and a hero for yourself – just do this 🙂
Surely, the list can be longer or sub-divided into more precise points, but even this general overview looks quite impressive. Please, don’t freak out and say it’s too difficult to do.
Be honest with yourself – if you want it, if you need it, you will do it despite all the excuses and fears you might have. Another thing is that one may doubt that it is possible to gain all these qualities while studying at university, but we can assure you it’s true.
There are numerous stories of successful businesses and careers from graduates all over the world who managed to take the best from university times and put all the knowledge into practice. We could ramble about them for hours, but it’s unnecessary. You can always google information of that kind, but what you may be interested in reading about is the process in
Example of a Simple Univeristy Business
Atwater High School has provided its students with an exceptional opportunity of running a business on campus. Being sixteen years old, you may receive a chance to learn a lot of business related responsibilities (managerial and leadership skills, for instance, and the list is definitely larger).
Starting with the tiniest nuances and finishing with the art of being a good boss – friendly but controlling – you can learn so many things here! A team of 19 students, including 5 overseeing managers, works on various tasks daily.
They create floral arrangements for various events – from weddings to funerals or office orders for weekly deliveries.
By performing all that, young employees not only learn how to run the floral business per se but also master marketing, accounting, customer service, and budgeting skills. That sounds quite impressive to us.
The goal of the program is for the students to become certified florists, having developed awesome skills and with the possibilities of further studies at the University of California campuses. Such experience is also a great resume builder that can help with looking for the first job not so stressfully.
Students themselves share
impressions and seem to be extremely satisfied with having a chance to combine
theoretical and practical knowledge. Here’s what one of the students said: ‘In the classroom, we are instructed
verbally, but the floral shop is hands-on.’
By running the shop students gain the needed
confidence and improve the automotive skills we mentioned above and even have
the strong belief the shop can be self-sustainable and will not require any
additional funding as it has now from the Atwater high Agriculture Department
and FFA.
It is pretty hard to imagine a
better “work-life school” than this one, isn’t it? Hopefully, we have clarified
the importance of automotive skills and their connection with your future
career.
If you are eager to find yourself on
the list of successful entrepreneurs one day, you’d better start right now and
stay alert not to skip any chances life may offer to you. To go even further,
create those chances with your own hands. Would you dare? How can we let you go
without a couple of motivational words? Take a notepad and a pen, be nice and
take notes – you are going to like it.
Our buddy Churchill once told: “Success is not final; failure is not fatal: It
is the courage to continue that counts.” Chris Grosser agreed and added: “Opportunities
don’t happen. You create them.”
Don’t you agree yet? How about this: “The
ones who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones that
do.”
Okay, Steve Jobs will persuade you for sure: “If you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long
time.”
We have a lot of quotes in the store, so you’d better get motivated already and start making a plan of conquering this world with the help of you. Yes, only you and nobody else. You know you can do it, so…
JUST DO IT! 🙂
Before getting any ob you likely would have to write a cover letter. Don’t underestimate its power. Making a solid cover letter will help you to gather your thought before the actual job interview.
How to improve your cover letter in 60 minutes
Nothing is as time-consuming and exhausting as education. Starting from elementary school and all the way up to university – this journey can take up to 20 years. But after graduation, a new quest begins, and that is – finding a job. The number of graduates churned from colleges is usually higher than the available job slots, hence the chances of securing a job immediately after college are slim, especially in highly competitive fields.
Nevertheless, not everyone suffers this fate as some secure jobs even before they can graduate while others spend years looking for a place where they can apply their skills. Some young men may underestimate the importance of having a good cover letter, forgetting that it can significantly boost their chances when applying for a position. Here below are some professional cover letter tips which you can utilize to improve your cover in just 60 minutes.
Use personal salutations
Everyone knows that when writing a letter, you should start with salutes. We’ve all been taught how to write letters, though some of these tips can and should be ignored when your future job is at stake. Try to avoid using general phrases like ‘dear sir/madam’ or ‘to whom it may concern.’ Being polite is great, of course, though an impersonal greeting can be perceived as your failure to find out what the company you want to work at is actually about.
Remember that if you like the position, there are dozens of other guys that will also find it attractive. Think of HR managers as of girls you want to impress. The numbers of applications they get count in hundreds, but it is you who has to get the position. And to achieve that you have to try really hard.
By addressing your letter to a real person rather than an abstract ‘sir or madam’ you will show your interest in the job. Don’t shy away from conducting a little research on the job you want to get. You haven’t forgotten how to do this, haven’t you?
For instance, you can visit the company’s website or read its catalog to know who is the person you are writing to. Alternatively, you can call the company’s help desk to inquire about this.
Express your interest in the job
When applying for an advertised position, say where or how you’ve found the ad. That is where and when it was posted.
Then you should write why you think you are the right candidate for the job. For instance:
‘The purpose of this letter is to express my interest in the position of the financial advisor advertised on the Nation’s daily post on the 4th of October 2018…”
Another thing that you may want to express is your awareness of the company’s projects and objectives. You can get some information from the official website, business articles, company magazines, and press releases.
Also, try to understand the expectations for that job and demonstrate that you are the one who can and will handle the job if given a chance. As you do this, remember the company is trying to see if you have done your homework well.
Replace your objectives with achievements
When applying for a job, the only way an employer can get a glimpse of the applicant is through the cover letter and resume, and thus both should be made in a way that they will give a positive impression about you. Young men love to exaggerate facts about them, which is a good thing to do in a certain way. However, do not abuse the approach, as the last thing you’d want is to seem a liar.
Be honest and highlight your competencies that will be useful in the position you apply for. Even when making a blind application, specify the job you are looking for as failure to do this depicts lack of seriousness on your part.
Stating that you are hardworking, pro-active, self-supervised adds no value as employers assume every applicant possesses these attributes otherwise they would not have applied for the job. Focus more on what makes you different from others, things that can make people want to hire you. For instance, you can put it this way:
“According to the advertised job post, you are looking for web designer to boost online sales. I believe I can help your company achieve this objective as I helped Y- sports attire company to design its website which eventually led the company realizing 25% increase in sales within the 1st year.”
State experiences & skills
Show that you understand the nature of the job you are applying for. Your writing skills must be beyond reproach as employers want to see if you are good at it as most jobs involve writing reports.
Any other skills and researches that might add value to the job applied for should be highlighted as it might be what will set you apart from other candidates.
Instead of stating the obvious responsibilities the job entails, focus on your past experiences and achievements and how they benefited the organization you were working for, and relate how the same can help benefit the company you are applying to now.
Think of a challenging situation where you were required to use effective communication and exercised your problem-solving skills.
Customize applications for different jobs
Some people don’t update their cover pages but recycle the same letter to apply for different jobs forgetting that each job has its own merits. Focus on perfecting your letter each time you need to write one, and you will be surprised by how good you actually are. Remember that your main goal is to impress the employer, and every one of them is different.
Length of the letter
Ensure the letter is neither too long nor too short. At least a one-page letter with about 3-4 paragraphs is enough as anything longer than this could be boring to readers considering they have several applications to review.
- Be brief but direct to the point.
- To maximize your space, skip putting company’s contact details as this practice is slowly becoming outdated. Just indicate advert details and the recipient’s name.
Structuring your cover letter
To ensure your page is properly structured, review several professional applications and come up with a standard template which you can be using every time you apply for a job.
Even though you may find samples matching the vacancy you are applying for, don’t be tempted to use them as they may contain plagiarized content. Instead, personalize it to suit your case. Your cover letter should reflect no-one else except you.
Proofreading & formatting
Well-designed and written cover letters are fascinating. One may be highly qualified but if the letter is poorly done and has glaring syntax mistakes, the application is deemed to reflect your character, and since that is the only picture they have about you, you may be rejected on that basis. Always proofread your work before submitting.
To avoid this problem, check the following:
- Format – ensure your formatting is appropriate and consistent.
- The page is well-spaced to make it readable.
- Font type and size: use an easy to read font type and size with the basic size being 12 and the common types being Calibri and Arial.
- Use bullets to highlight key points.
- Web-links – if you include websites, social profiles such as LinkedIn and blogs, use hyperlinks for easier accessibility.
- Grammar – statistics show about 76% of executives do not shortlist applications with glaring typing errors, punctuation errors and uses wrong tenses.
Since you may not see your own mistakes, ask someone to do it for you rather than relying on computer’s spell checker.
Request for an interview opportunity
Although the decision to invite one for an interview or not remains with the company, you can take a more pro-active approach by asking for an interview thus showing your decisiveness and desire to work.
You can state something like this:
“I will be grateful if you accord me an interview to discuss how my previous job experience and background can help your company realize its objectives.”
This shows confidence in the job, and most likely you will be given a chance to appear before the interviewing panel.
Even if you don’t get an invitation to the interview, but only a regret letter, appreciate it as some companies don’t even bother to send those. A negative answer is still an answer. But maybe, the company that rejected you is not the right one.
Application mode
Recently, print media has seen a decrease in popularity. People are now expected to apply online, which is more convenient, and you’d be lying if you didn’t agree. But, of course, even though the mode of application has changed, job hunting techniques have remained the same. Whether you hand-deliver application or do it via email, if your cover letter is unimpressive, you won’t even get a chance to meet the recruiters in person. Therefore, when writing a cover letter, pay keen interest to little details as this might be the only opportunity you have to clarify what you’ve mentioned in your application form or resume.
If you are sending hard copies, put your documents in an A4 envelope and seal it. And if you are sending them online, ensure you have attached your documents and that you have sent them to the correct email address, as you want to get that job offer, right?
