MyJobSearcher.com

On my first day at a new job, I found two co-workers in the mailroom, arms linked, gushing to each other about an upcoming night out.  I hastily found the item I was looking for (a pair of scissors) and rushed out of the room to leave the two in their private moment.

I have known many people who’ve met their best friends at work.  Many of us spend nearly a third of our lives on the job, so we create a comforting social environment to shelter us.  For instance, your boss has admonished you, and your deadlines are menacing.  Who do you call?  Your best co-worker, of course, for a quick sigh in the lounge room, or a shared snack at the vending machines.

My opinion is that you simply shouldn’t let friendships with co-workers get in the way of your performance, and you should keep repeating that like a cockatoo, because it’s tempting to break that rule.  Some people are very good about drawing these boundaries; they can meet their deadlines, and still manage to establish a robust social life for themselves at work, widening their network of friends.  There is a bit of an art in establishing the ideal compromise.

I have found that fraternizing at work distracts me from completing my tasks, so when I do make friends on the job (which can’t always be avoided, and shouldn’t, necessarily), I steer clear of personal matters in the office.  I feel that leaving my trail of sentimentality where other people are considering practical matters is a nuisance.  A good friend will understand your need for personal and professional divisions, and he/she will make time for your private chats in a more appropriate environment.

There have been co-workers and bosses with whom I just wasn’t comfortable establishing intimate friendships, so I satisfied my social requirements through other means: via friends of friends, volunteer work, clubs, and fitness classes. At the same time, I did not want to seem rude or unfit for the company by ignoring all their attempts at socialization, so every once in a while I would join them for lunch or a happy hour to keep my place in the company.

It’s important to know whether your employer has any specific codes of etiquette, and beyond that, you establish your own boundaries with the communal objective of fulfilling both the demands of your position and your social drive.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… I: wait… L: wait… C: wait… SD: wait…

On October 21, 2008 MyJobSearcher.com participated in the American Staffing Association Annual Convention. The American Staffing Association (ASA) was founded to promote flexible employment opportunities and ensure the quality of staffing services. ASA has been the voice of the U.S. staffing industry since 1966.  Members of the ASA provide a wide range of employment services and solutions, including temporary and contract staffing, recruiting and permanent placement, outplacement and outsourcing, training, and human resource consulting. ASA and its affiliated chapters promote the interests of the industry through legal and legislative advocacy, public relations, education, and the establishment of high standards of ethical conduct.

Being a first time exhibitor at the American Staffing World Expo was quite the experience. As a recruiter, I understand that the staffing industry is a very significant part of today’s workforce; I just didn’t realize how great of an event the Staffing World Expo truly was. The beauty of being at the expo was not only did I get a chance to meet and network with recruiters from across the nation, but amongst various countries like Brazil, Canada, Denmark, and Sweden to name a few. It is always exciting to learn new and innovative techniques a recruiter is using in their office and how it can be implemented by others in their current staffing methodologies.

Having a booth at the expo and being an exhibitor was truly a new and invigorating experience. I was able to understand where recruiters like myself were experiencing obstacles in today’s industry. As the staffing world is changing, we must adapt to the needs of our clients and the industry itself. What stuck me and how I was able to value this experience, is that I had a chance to connect with a lot of the recruiters to discover a majority of the problems that they were facing and how we can transform these problems to solutions.

With some years of experience in the staffing industry, it was nice to relate to fellow staffers on the challenges we face and to be able to offer them a service that will truly assist in their staffing needs.

The ASA annual convention in San Diego was a great way for MyJobSearcher.com to introduce its product to staffers. Not only was the convention fun for the MyJobSearcher.com staff, but for the attendees also, especially since they had the opportunity to win a free iPod from MyJobSearcher.com! MyJobSearcher.com really looks forward to next year’s event.

A title such as supervisor, manager, or president demands respect, because it suggests expertise in a field, extensive training, and potentially, a higher level of education.

There are natural divisions of power in the sense that some people oversee others.  However, the most efficient and amicable companies foster an environment that recognizes the necessity of every worker in the grander scheme of the business. The best way to illustrate this is to give an example of an office environment I enjoyed.

I was working as a temporary assistant in the sales department of a large corporation, taping boxes, and labeling shipments. I began to feel dejected that the work I did seemed unimportant compared to the duties of some of my other co-workers and supervisors. However, after major projects were completed, some of the co-workers thanked me for my help, emphasizing that they couldn’t have finished so quickly if it hadn’t been for me.

What was going on here?  It wasn’t my birthday for another 6 months.  It was rare for me to receive such exceptional treatment at work in entry-level positions.

I noticed that all the employees were treated this way-there were exchanges of personal thanks all around, so that these natural divisions that come as a result of education or title were minimized.

This is not to say that I did not follow the orders of my supervisors or respect their seniority in the field. In fact, I was more likely to be cooperative and respectful, because they treated me with the same esteem.  In general, I felt that I belonged to a team of appreciative people.  Each employee possessed a set of skills essential to his/her role, and these skills were recognized through gratitude and encouragement. While I cannot account for anything that went on secretively, I did not witness any office politics in my time there.  

Being thanked for doing work in addition to being paid is something I find immensely satisfying.  The repetitiveness of daily tasks can sometimes take a toll on a person’s self-esteem.  I’ve often wondered: is what I’m doing worth anything?  Am I a valuable employee?  The affirmations I received in this particular environment suggested to me that not only was I a valuable employee, I was a valuable person.

My office was on the fourth floor. But everyday I’d get stuck in the lobby, eyes drawn to a suite that reminded me of a quiet meadow with a flowing stream in it.  The company sold office furniture, and the suite itself was abandoned, besides the pleasing arrangement of mahogany oak desks, swivel chairs, and glass vases filled with polished rocks and willow stems. I wondered what it would feel like to swivel in those chairs and look up at the vases as I finished writing a report.

I worked in a stockroom stuffed with boxes, papers, and dust.  When I drew in a breath, it was not a sigh of relief, it was a sneeze.  When I wasn’t shipping and handling, I retreated to an ordinary cubicle, and while I was generally happy with my job and co-workers, some days felt dreary because of my surroundings. I knew I couldn’t make my office look like the safe haven in the lobby, but there were a few things I could do to spice up the place, make it feel more like my home.

I got approval from my supervisor to play some of my own music when I was working in the back room, given I wasn’t disturbing any of my co-workers. I also did a quick cleaning of the stockroom - I eyed the place for obvious junk, such as half-finished bottles of coke that had been sitting there for weeks, and wads of tape, which had no use on the floor sticking to my shoes. I organized the papers and boxes as well as I could, and got permission to put a plant on the window sill.  This confirmed that life existed in this room, and it was thriving. It made me feel a little happier.

I don’t know why I had never decorated my cubicle, like my co-workers had, but I guess I thought the idea of being comfortable at work was off limits. I owned a framed drawing of birds that seemed too small to put on my walls at home.  I reserved this image for my cubicle, as well as a reading lamp, subtly shaped like a flower petal.  This lamp of course was not there for practical reasons, since the room itself was well-lit.  It was an image that inspired me-I feel more industrious and lively in the company of certain things. 

Just like a friend of mine who is always adjusting the thermostat when he visits me, I started making myself at home when I was away from home, and saw my productivity and spirits rise.

There have been a few jobs that I’ve liked, some that I’ve tolerated, and a couple of others we can’t talk about, because I’ve selectively suppressed the memories. I think finding an ideal career is dependent on knowing yourself; being honest about your interests, capabilities, and tolerance, despite a prevailing belief that we should all feel comfortable in the same environments.

When I graduated from college four years ago, I thought it was necessary to make huge sacrifices for financial independence. I worked in the field of psychology, with which I was fascinated. However, some of the demands of the field drained me, left me feeling too worn out to be creative, a characteristic I value as part of my identity. Many people who worked with me liked their jobs. They were resilient to the daily friction I experienced, which reveals that one field isn’t inherently better over another. A career in psychology was simply not a good fit for me. It was as if I’d been wearing a quality dress with dimensions different than mine; the sleeves were cramped, and I just couldn’t move the way I wanted to in this dress, though it was such a pretty thing. I’d leave it for someone else to slip into.

When I left my job for an aspiring career in journalism, I didn’t have a steady source of income. For months I worked for very little or no compensation, but the stress of manipulating my mind and body in ways that did not suit me, was gone. Since the transition, I’ve had some good prospects and felt comfortable with my work. I’ve recently made a significant geographical move and had to start from scratch in some respects, but I am keeping a steady pace. The suggestions I offer are approaches I’ve learned from my particular experiences, which involve transition, travel, and a slew of temporary work that helped me get by. I hope some of it resonates.

My perception of MyJobSearcher.com is that it allows us to explore our options efficiently. Once you have a vision of your ideal work environment, it accelerates the process of securing it. Certainly, your enjoyment is a pressing matter. It seems selfish to believe that, doesn’t it, when we’ve been conditioned to make such automatic compromises? But it isn’t selfish any more than is human and productive, I am convinced.

-Nadia Broun

Plenty of people decide to go back to school to finish the degree they started years ago. It’s no doubt that a college degree will help you in the future. You may even decide to study a subject completely different than your current career. Here are a few tips on how to juggle a job with school.

Expect school and work to require large amounts of your time, so register for classes slowly for your first semester. If you haven’t been in college for a while, then you will need time to adjust. Remember, college is not just showing up to a class and taking notes. College will require daily studying, and I guarantee you won’t feel like opening books after a long work day.

The lunch hour might be your best study time. Some people work through lunch and others have social lunches. If you have an exam that day, studying during lunch can be the difference between an ‘A’ and a ‘B’. If lunch is your time to socialize with co-workers, you may have to give up some of your social life to foster your academic career.

Some classes require you to be there at odd times during the day. At first, the core classes like English, History, and Math are available before or after the typical 9am-5pm work day. The classes will be easily worked into your job schedule. However, future classes will require your time at various points in the day. You might only be able to attend a required degree class in the later morning or early afternoon. This is a huge consideration since your job and manager will need to be flexible with your time.

College is incredibly satisfying to those who can juggle its schedule. It can boost your existing career opportunities, or it can bring you a whole new career after graduation. No matter what age, college is full of advantages for a future job seeker.

How are you doing at managing stress? Are you exhausted at the end of the work day?

It is not uncommon to put in a good day’s work, feel good about what you have done, and though maybe a bit tired, overall you are not so tired that you cannot enjoy your off hours.

It is also not uncommon to put in a good day’s work and walk away utterly, totally and completely exhausted, feeling like the only thing you live for is to work and then rest up for more work.

There are many times when this type of exhaustion is caused by how you are managing your work load. Conversely, those who leave work still feeling like they have adequate energy to enjoy their non-working hours can also attribute this to the same factor: how they are managing their work load.

Stress management is a term we hear often enough in the work place. However, it may be more appropriate to identify the stress we feel we need to manage a bit more specifically. Unbeknownst to many people, the management of stress is actually the management of their daily workload – which becomes the management of those work- related factors that can cause exhaustion.

Multi-tasking is one of the primary areas that can cause exhaustion. There is an art to multi-tasking. Jobs that have an incorrect balance and correlation in their multi-tasking functions typically leave a person feeling exhausted. Especially when the individual is unable to routinely complete the tasks they have been multi-tasking.

Case in point: a receptionist multi-tasks with database entry. Every time the phone rings, she must put the data base record aside, answer the telephone, address the needs of the person on the phone (message taking, routing of call, tracking down the person, etc.). Once that is done, then she has to return to the database record, re-orient herself, which may mean returning to the beginning, and then complete the record. If the phones are particularly busy, she may feel that she cannot complete the database entry in an efficient manner. As the day goes by, she may begin to feel more and more mentally and physically drained. As her tiredness grows, so does her ability to manage her workload. Again, her phone rings, and now because she has been interrupted so many times on the other task, she is “stressed” by how much the phone rings.

The problem here is the absence of a symmetry in her multi-tasking function. If she is also in an environment where she has two different bosses to report to, the “stress” can be compounded. One boss is most pleased with her work as she has demonstrated her competence and efficiency. She may even begin to hope for a raise. The other boss, however, is displeased because he needed his database entry completed by the end of her day. More “stress” for the receptionist. She stops thinking about that raise. Her bosses can even become stressed because as her troubles grow, so do theirs.

The correct action in this scenario is to review the tasks that the receptionist is asked to multi-task for harmony and symmetry. If they do not compliment each other, she and her bosses will continue to feel the stress of her multi-tasking incongruence.

The company would be correct in this instance to send the database entry to another department, and provide the receptionist with a more harmonious group of tasks. Once this is done, then the receptionist will immediately feel a drop in her stress levels, a raise in her energy levels, and become an even more valuable employee as she no longer feels a sense of exhaustion.

The MyJobSearcher website is now on Linkedin.

For you job seekers who are not signed up on linkedin or do not know what linked in is, here is a description form the website.

LinkedIn is an online network of more than 25 million experienced professionals from around the world, representing 150 industries.

When you join, you create a profile that summarizes your professional accomplishments. Your profile helps you find and be found by former colleagues, clients, and partners. You can add more connections by inviting trusted contacts to join LinkedIn and connect to you.

Your network consists of your connections, your connections’ connections, and the people they know, linking you to thousands of qualified professionals.

Linked in is a great networking tool which allows you a way to get in contact with many different industry professionals.

Myjobsearcher has created a group on linkedin and is another great tool that gives you a way to give us feedback about the site. You can go directly to our group by going Here .

I am sure you have heard about the studies they have been doing for years with 100 people who either graduated at the same time from high school or college, even 100 people born and raised at the same time in the same town.

Here is what has been discovered year after year:

60% are living…..

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