Your Profession Puzzles Parents Bring them Round the Office!

Your Profession Puzzles Parents Bring them Round the Office! LinkedIn, daughter company of  Microsoft,  has released research today revealing that half of parents in the UK believe they wouldn’t be able to do their child’s job for a day, and over a fifth (22 percent) think they would be fired if they tried to â€" which could be down to 71 percent not fully understanding what their child does for a living. Anyone shocked yet? I dont think you have to be a parent to not know what  some people fill their days with. How many times have you heard what does a social media manager actually do, spend all day on Facebook? And hey,  some days I even ask myself what I do and Im pretty sure Im not the only one. Am I? Hello? Anyway, to help bridge parent-child-job-blank-spot this gap, LinkedIn is today holding its fourth annual  Bring In Your Parents Day  initiative, where hundreds of companies across the UK, and the world, open their doors to their employees’ parents on Friday. To mark this year’s initiative, LinkedIn today released a new global study looking at the relationship between professionals and their parents, showing there is a significant disconnect and lack of communication between parents and their children when it comes to work. Parents don’t understand some of today’s top jobs The study also showed that parents in the UK don’t understand some of the top jobs available today: UI designer (93%) Data scientist (82%) Actuary (77%) Social media manager (75%) Sub editor (71%) Sociologist (71%) Investment banker (64%) Radio producer (61%) PR manager (61%) Software developer (59%) Eileen Gregory, Head of International People at Adroll: For an Ad Tech company like us, where many of the roles did not exist a generation ago, it’s a great opportunity to shine a light on what it is we do, and share that with the friends and families of our Rollers. It’s also an opportunity to experience the unique culture we have here at AdRoll and something we pride ourselves on. In that respect, I would encourage any company who can facilitate this to get involved. Parents put off by today’s workplace Only 12 percent of parents in the UK would like to do their child’s job, compared to nearly half (46 percent) of parents in Singapore, a third in Ireland, over half (54 percent) in Sweden and 48 percent in Hong Kong. In fact, over a fifth (22 percent) of British parents think they would be fired if they tried to do their child’s job. This could be down to changes in the workplace, with 15 percent of parents being put off doing their child’s job because of the long working hours, two-fifths (41 percent) feeling they wouldn’t have the right skills and over half (53 percent) feeling there is too much jargon in the workplace today. Michael Brunt, CMO, The Economist: Employees from across our business units will be bringing in their parents on November 4th to show them around our headquarters in central London. We will also participate on our social media channels by sharing views on how an ageing global population will affect societies and economic growth. Brit parents don’t shout about their kids’ achievements UK parents are some of the most modest in the world when it comes to talking about their children’s achievements. Just six percent say they brag all the time about their child’s professional achievements, compared to a fifth of parents in the US and India, and a massive two-fifths (39 percent) in Sweden. Over a third (36 percent) of UK parents say they would never brag about their child’s achievements to others, second only to parents in the Netherlands where 47 percent say they never do this. Holly Middlemiss, Talent Brand Engagement Partner at ASOS: Bring In Your Parents’ is a great initiative for us here at ASOS. Being an online-only global company, we have such a huge variation of different roles across our business and often create new positions which didn’t exist a few years ago to cater to the quickly evolving industry. When chatting to our ASOSers about family they often say ‘my parents or loved ones have no idea what I do’, so BIYP is a great opportunity to show the most important people in our lives what we do every day. Parents vs. their children UK parents believe their children have more opportunities in the workplace than they did, with over half (52 percent) of mothers feeling their daughter has more opportunity to progress in their career than they did, compared to a massive 77 percent of parents in India. Two-thirds (58%) of British parents feel their kids make more money than they did at the same age, 39 percent think they have more opportunity to learn new skills, and a third (31 percent) feel their children are on track to be more successful than they were in their career. Judith Everett, Chief Operating Officer for The Crown Estate: Really successful businesses want to go further than shaping a high performing culture, they want to be known as great places to work and thrive to attract and retain the best talent. ‘Bring In Your Parents Day’ is an excellent opportunity for our employees to show their parents what they do every day, as well as bring together different parts of our business.

Top 20 Most ReTweetable Words and Phrases - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Top 20 Most ReTweetable Words and Phrases - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career We all know that Twitter is a great Personal Branding tool but have you ever wondered what are the most retweetable words and phrases on Twitter? Well, if you have ever wondered how to make your Tweets go further, faster, this post is for you. The 20 Most Retweetable Words and Phrases on Twitter 1.) You 2.) Twitter 3.) Please 4.) Retweet 5.) Post 6.) Blog 7.) Social 8.) Free 9.) Media 10.) Help 11.) Please ReTweet 12.) Great 13.) Social Media 14.) 10 15.) Follow 16.) How to 17.) Top 18.) Blog Post 19.) Check Out 20.) New Blog Post Now that you know the most popular words and phrases what about tracking your tweets? Try using bit.ly a simple url shortener that makes tracking your Twitter links easier than ever. How about a test run? Please ReTweet this post using the most popular words and phrases with bit.ly and see what kind of response you get. Let me know how it works for you @chadalevitt. This list was originally researched and compiled by @DanZarella Inbound Marketing Manager at Hubspot. Happy New Year and I wish you all a happy and healthy 2010! Author: Chad Levitt is the author of the New Sales Economy blog, which focuses on how Sales 2.0 Social Media can help you connect, create more opportunities and increase your business. Chad is also the featured Sales 2.0 blogger at SalesGravy.com, the number one web portal for sales pros, the professional athletes of the business world. Make sure to connect with him on Twitter @chadalevitt.

Why Cant We Be Friends

Why Can’t We Be Friends Friendship… has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival. C. S. Lewis You may be one of the people who claim not to need friends at work. “We don’t need to be best friends; we just need to be able to work together,” you mutter after leaving an unproductive or uncomfortable meeting. That may be true, but having people around you that you like and trust can make your career much more successful. Keep in mind that coworkers are rarely completely neutral in their opinions of people.   If you have a strong personality, you may have more people in your negative opinion column than your positive. There are many reasons to build relationships and trust in the workplace. No one can perform in an office environment in complete isolation; we need other people. Even if you’re a soloist in your actual job duties, you’ll eventually need IT support, payroll questions answered, or your meeting room scheduled. Friendship may be optional, but good working relationships are essential. Here’s are the factors that influence how likely you are to have a good relationship with someone at work (based on Enlightened Office Politics by Michael and Deborah Dobson.) Trust: Past behavior is the best indicator of how someone will act. You can’t demand trust; it must be earned, especially after a hiccup in the relationship. Trust is a very emotionally loaded word, and should be used judiciously when dealing with other people. Saying “I trust you to handle this” implies more than simply “I think you’re competent.” It means that I think you are a good person and that you have my interests at heart. On the other end of the spectrum, starting any sentence with “I don’t trust you to…” is a HUGE deal, no matter how trivial the rest of the sentence is. There are people who claim to like people they don’t trust, but I almost never believe them. For me, the word “like” implies a relaxed relationship, and I can’t relax around people I don’t trust. I suspect that you really believe you’re far enough down their enemies list to escape any negative behavior splash. (Good luck with that.) Common Interests: Whether it’s personal interests or career goals, knowing that you care about the same things helps a relationship grow and prosper. That’s why small talk was invented. The more often you have a “me, too” moment with someone, the likelier you are to feel like friends. “You love ‘The Walking Dead?’ Me, too!” That small connection causes both parties to light up, and the feeling carries over to your next connection.   Finding things that you have in common give you a basis for pleasant interactions, and may even lead to real friendship. Common Goals: If you share an interest in a project or a company objective, you can also form bonds with team members. In other words, your common interests can be professional rather than personal.   You may share a specialty skill set, be assigned to a team or project together, or share a passion for the company’s customers or products. Factions: Almost everyone in a company is part of a team, but they may also be perceived as part of a faction (which can be defined as “a small, organized, dissenting group within a larger one, especially in politics.”) Just as tribes have always formed alliances or made war, tribes within a company may have long histories of cooperation or enmity. Your perceived alliances may override any of your personal behavior or attempts at friendship. You can see examples of factions in the most cohesive of teams. Recently, I was speaking to a group of veterans from the U.S. Navy, and I referred to one of them as a “Brown Shoe.” It got a big laugh at the time, but the division between the “Black Shoe” and “Brown Shoe” Navy is a real issue that has been contentious throughout history. For those of you who have never served, here is the origin of these terms. U.S. Navy sailors traditionally wore black boots aboard naval ships, which burned coal (and made black a great choice for hiding soot.) When the first naval aviator volunteers came to San Diego in 1911 to be trained on the newly invented “flying machines,” they had a real problem with dust on their standard issue black shoes.   They solved the problem by making brown shoes a part of an aviator’s official uniform, and naval aviators have been wearing them ever since.   Even something as simple as shoe color became a visible tribal badge distinguishing the aviators (the glamorous “fly boys”) from the blue collar shipboard sailors. The tradition is over 100 years old, but can still be a sore point for some personnel. (Full disclosure: I married a brown shoe and traveled with him throughout his career. I know Brown Shoes.) Do you have factions in your company culture? How do they impact relationships/ Next: Mapping Relationships at work

Why a Candidates Brand is Important

Why a Candidates Brand is Important How do you define your personal brand as a job seeker? How do you as an employer assess whether a candidate epitomises your company’s brand?  What is your personal brand? Do you have one? And is it important to have one, given our very “brand aware” society, to actually have a personal marketing strategy? As an employer, what do you look for when considering potential employees for your company. Someone who will embrace your own company’s brand and values? How easy is it to hire in this format? Let’s take Innocent Drinks. A recognisable brand in the congested drinks markets. Their values are natural, responsible, commercial, entrepreneurial, generous. Their “work for us” section really talks to potential employees in their distinguishable and colloquial tone. Those candidates applying for live or speculative roles are encouraged to shout about how they are different and show innovation in their application. You can carry your personal brand from beyond your CV with your social media presence. It is not new news that a potential employer is definitely going to look at you across all channels. Not just LinkedIn, but those pics of you in your bikini or getting horridly drunk at a party, are going to form part of their assessment of your brand perception. It is a risky strategy to behave without awareness unless you are working (or hoping to) for a brand like Diageo possibly! What does an employer look for when considering a person’s brand? Values:  Shared principles and values such as integrity and passion are important, but how do you assess whether a candidate has this? Assess this during face to face interviews by asking them to demonstrate where these values have been prominent in their current or previous roles. In any action a candidate takes, in everything they say, you are assessing their brand value. Experience:  What is the commercial value of the candidate’s professional and personal expertise and how does this elevate your brand further? Of course, if someone has worked for a competitor, this could give a new employer a distinct advantage but this is a short term fix. In a cumulative assessment, what does their entire work experience present to you and is this to your benefit? The person:  If you took the DNA of your brand and understood what that looks like, does the potential candidate presented to you possess these qualities? Are they your brand ambassador? If the answer is “no”, think very hard about whether they are the right hire. Potential:  A brand is ever evolving and is not set in stone so does this person represent where the brand is heading on its journey? This for me is where a good partnership-led recruiter is worth their weight in gold as they will be the best insights into who is out there in the market looking for this next career move. How do recruiters help brand perception? As an employer- allow your recruiter to come and meet the key stakeholders in the business so that they can understand where the business is at currently and what the growth plans and strategy are. The recruiter you partner with, and develop this relationship with, then becomes YOUR brand ambassador in the market on-going. As a job seeker, a good recruiter should build up a knowledge of your current skills and motivations to assist you in developing your personal brand. A simple strategy I advise my candidates is quite old school; what is your elevator pitch? Think about this for a minute. A 20 second overview of who you are, what you do and what you want.  A brand should be unique: it is how you differentiate yourself from your competition and if you remember that, then your personal or company brand will stand out.

How to Use Breaks to Be More Productive

How to Use Breaks to Be More Productive Climbing the career ladder doesn’t require mindless hard work and Herculean stamina: it benefits, rather, from working smart and taking care of yourself. Whatever your industry and career path, your fundamental tool is yourself: respect it and keep it tuned, and you will achieve far more with this complex instrument than if you were to batter away with it day in, day out.One of the best ‘maintenance’ techniques you can apply is to ensure you take proper breaks as you work. Breaks are a great opportunity to re-fuel your body, to sharpen your mind and to rest your soul. The first step is to figure out what kind of break regularity fits you best: do you respond well to taking five every half an hour, or do you prefer to get in a flow for 90 minutes and then take 20 minutes downtime?Whichever you go for, find an app such as Be Prepared to regulate your breaks with a timer, to ensure you don’t run over either your work or break time.evalNow you know when to rest, what is the optim um way to do so? It depends what you want from your break, but it’s good to swap it up with each rest period. In the morning, you might concentrate on stimulating your mind by reading, doing puzzles, or watching a TED talk online.In the afternoon, you might prefer to jog your body back to life by stretching at your desk or going for a walk. And it’s never a bad time to make a healthy, energy-infused snack, such as mixed fruits or nuts.For the full lowdown on how to smarten up your working day with productive breaks, work through this new infographic from QuidCorner. Look after yourself at work, and the results will manifest in the blossoming of your career.Infographic Credit â€" quickquid.co.uk