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Everyone has those memories of aimlessly trawling through job sites and careers pages hoping for something to jump out at them and literally say, “Hey! This is the perfect job for you!” And on the rare occasions when that does happen, we then have the trauma of putting together a flawless application that will guarantee us an invite to meet someone that might like us and decide to offer us the job. Job hunting is no walk in the park, and it feels like a full-time job on its own by the time you rack up the hours on the following process:          Searching          Researching         Writing         Editing          Sending         Praying. Usually it comes in that order. When you do reach the moment of hitting submit, confident you have crafted an excellent application, you then have the waiting game of finding o...

We'll start with a short conversation:            “How’s your day been?       “Meh”       “What do you mean?”       “You know… Just ‘meh’”        “I’m not sure I follow…”       “Meh”      “It sounds like you’re saying nothing.”      “Exactly.” This word has formed part of my vocabulary for some time and has successfully satisfied when I’ve needed a description for a ‘nothing’ moment. When something is average or so-so or not-really-worth-going-into-detail-about. An alternative I’ve also used is Blah. “How’s life treating you?!”  “Blah.” I have recently discovered that ‘meh’ is in fact a real word. For so long I saw Meh as a sound more than a word. And yet whenever I’ve used it people have understood exactly what I meant. Imagine my surprise when Cambridge dictionary popped up among many other respected wo...

Before we get started on the topic of conversation ‘outs’, it’s worth perusing the Networking article first to get in the zone of networking success. Now that you’ve done just that, this is a key part of successful networking: knowing how to move on from conversations without offending your fellow conversationalist or making things awkward. You can picture the scene: you’re at an event and it’s the ‘networking over refreshments’ part after the main speech or activity, you’ve got about half an hour until you want to be on your way home but there a few connections you need to make before you can go – maybe this was your goal for the evening. You spy a professional and friendly looking person perched by a table looking thoughtfully around and there’s your next chat victim. You introduce yourselves and find out they are nothing to do with the industry you’re in, but you politely continue the talk with a series of questions that are met with short answers equivalent to ...

This might seem an ‘odd one out’ in the four articles focused around Top Tips for a Successful Career, but reflection is a key part of success. Staying motivated is essential to drive your career forward and often we find ourselves at a dead-end wandering what we’ve done and what we have actually achieved on the journey so far. Part 4 of 4: Reflecting on Progress  Taking time to look at the bigger picture will also help to bring you back on track with the goals you have set and identify where you may have veered off in another direction. On the other hand, you might be making loads of progress and when you achieve a milestone or a reach a goal you power on straight into the next challenge without looking back. While it’s great that you might be making some strong progress, taking the time to reflect of your achievements is as important as reflecting on where you might be struggling. Those small wins that are leading you to that ‘end goal’ (if there is one) need ...

You can probably remember a time when an opportunity presented itself to you and you ran with it; maybe a new job, a promotion, a new hobby or some sort of adventure.  We are often on the ‘lookout’ for something to come our way and a chance for us to seize the moment. Carpe Diem and all. But why do we often wait for these things to crop up?  Part 3 of 4:  Create Your Own Opportunities Everything moves so fast and before we know it someone else might have seized that moment before us and we’re back to playing the waiting game for the next opportunity to arise. It’s time we created opportunities ourselves and made progress happen, rather than wait for it to potentially pop up in front of our faces. Continuing with the series of top tips to bring more success to your career, creating your own opportunities is key to making the progress you want. Here are some ideas that might bring about new opportunities with you in the driving seat:   ...