Melissa is getting married

Melissa is getting married I confess that she got engaged way earlier than just now. I had to get used to the idea. Its a big change and of course Im happy for her, but Im nervous about the change. I like the guy. Okay, of course I like the guy. Melissa is very good at setting a goal and meeting it. He is smart and interesting and loves Melissa and he is maybe the only person in the world who is as obsessed with gaming airline miles as she is. But back to me. I notice that Ive been thinking in analogies lately. My professor in grad school told us that writers use analogies to keep distance. Like the ants in Farewell to Arms. Hemingway cant watch all his minor characters blow up at the end of the book. So he sets the ants on fire. But recently I read that  people do that as a way to form consensus. In my mind, consensus is railroading, to my own end. (And that is a metaphor, not an analogy.) But I think my analogistic fervor comes from wanting to have consensus with me and Melissa about what our next phase will be. Here is an analogy Ive been using lately. Deciding to have kids is like deciding to have spaghetti. If the only option for dinner is spaghetti, then thats what youre eating. You can only pick something that is not spaghetti if you have something else to eat. It wont work to say, There are a lot of really good things I could eat. Thats irrelevant. Those things are not in your kitchen. You will starve. So it is true that spaghetti is mostly carbs, and stains your clothes, and probably you only have crappy canned sauce for the pasta. There are lots of bad things about spaghetti, but if there are no other choices then its irrelevant that there are things you dont like about spaghetti. Which is to say that if you have a choice between having kids and nothing else specific enough to evaluate then you dont have a choice. All you have is kids. If you dont know if you want kids, but you have nothing else you want, then you want kids. Sometimes I think if I talk enough people will give in. They will say Im right. Sometimes this tactic has worked with Melissa, but that phase is over. G. I guess we will use this name for him. G will not put up with that. He has very good boundaries. I do not have good boundaries. Thats why you read my posts. One of my favorite things about G is that he doesnt mind when Melissa and I talk late at night. I told Melissa I have PTSD from her last boyfriend not letting us talk. She says she does too. But I think its worse for me because I couldnt dump him. So I was really touched that G not only lets us talk, but he joins in. Every time. Hes always there on speaker phone. I always look forward to our late-night talks and thats pretty much the nicest thing I could ask for from the guy Melissa chooses. I have a new business plan every night. Its a coping mechanism. Like some parents drink wine after the kids go to bed. I spout business ideas. Well, and my kids never go to bed. I tell G and Melissa I met someone who wants to overhaul the pro beach volleyball system. G asked how Ill make money. Hes all about money, which will not surprise you if you have heard my tirades about how women should marry someone who can support them. I just realized that I use analogies to entertain myself. Do you allow yourself to marry a felon? No. Because conjugal visits are annoying. So you make a rule for yourself, no felons, and then you work around the restriction. You can do the same thing with partners who cannot support a family. Or maybe I make analogies to pontificate when Im a hypocrite. Because its not like I ever chose someone who could support me. So G asks how Ill make money. Thats usually my role. To tell someone their business idea sucks because it wont make money. I like that he can be that role for me. People think when someone tells them the flaw with their business that its mean, but actually, when someone takes the time to consider the business and come up with the flaw, thats a gift. I feel cared about each night when G dropkicks my ideas. Another night I was telling Melissa that I dont know what my role is in her life now. Im the Velveteen Rabbit.  People like metaphors because its a sensory way to present a complicated idea. I am hoping this is not true in this particular case because it is so pathetic for me to say Im Melissas Velveteen Rabbit. I better be something better than that. I could not have written this post without the distraction of metaphors and analogies. I dont want to write about this topic. I dont like this topic. I cried at my brothers wedding. And it wasnt from joy. I told Melissa this post will have to stand in for tears at her wedding because now Im too old to have mascara streaming down my face.

Why Your Teachers Aide Resume Must Be One of the Best?

Why Your Teachers Aide Resume Must Be One of the Best?If you are applying for a teacher's aide job, it is important to have a teacher's aide resume. This is one of the most essential tools that you can have when searching for a teaching position. Here are a few ways you can use a teacher's aide resume.The first way you can use a teacher's aide resume is to determine what your strengths and weaknesses are. Do you excel in certain areas of the job such as math or art? Then you will want to focus on those particular skills.Teachers aides also have some career options such as one-on-one teaching. So when writing your resume, you should also include this area of the field. You may also be working with other teaching assistants and you may want to include this in your resume. In this case, you can work on areas like differentiating yourself from others, your professionalism, and your adaptability to other areas of the job.You also need to consider the schools you would like to work in. If you want to work in an elementary school, it is helpful to highlight areas that match these schools. You may want to highlight your knowledge of teachers and your understanding of the classroom. For example, you might want to highlight teaching specific subjects such as foreign languages, physical education, and math.It is also helpful to look at the companies that are looking for teachers and the types of aid jobs that they are offering. Often times, it can be helpful to highlight your experience with a certain company. This will help you get better job offers and show potential employers that you can be successful in their industry.Finally, your resume should be well organized. You should keep all of your information in chronological order so that you will have the most relevant information. This is one of the best ways to organize your resume because you are getting all of the information that you need at a glance. However, you should also look at all of your other documents to m ake sure that you do not leave anything out.Just like any job search, your teacher's aide resume should consist of only the best and relevant information. This includes information about your education, as well as the schools you have worked for, and any other information that is pertinent to your current profession. Make sure that all of your information is accurate, well researched, and comes from a reputable source.By doing all of your professional research and preparing a resume that you can easily send out, you will find that it is much easier to land that teaching position that you are after. Take advantage of your resume and send it off today!

Thoughts about starting out with a startup

Thoughts about starting out with a startup 1 Flares 1 Flares This is a guest post from Scott Hale.  Scott blogs over at Highway to Hale, a blog about community building and creative problem solving.  You can find Scott on Twitter @sjhalestorm and catch him as a Co-Moderator of the popular Twitter chat, #u30pro. Alluring Possibilities in Muddy Waters Let me start with my story. It’s no secret that my graduating class of 2009 was entering a piss-poor job market. After a summer of job searching, my refusal to send out a blanket of standard resumes was starting to pay off. I was seeing some interest. One option was a startup agency. I hadn’t considered working for a startup straight out of college, but I came into contact with a new company that was looking to grow quickly. They were very honest that they wanted to make me their first hired employee and hit the ground running with some help from investors. To make a long story short, the company offered me a salary and benefits and I accepted. But things are rarely set in stone with startup companies. After six months, full-time is a distant dream and benefits haven’t even entered the atmosphere of thought. In other words, they jumped the gun by making an offer. Silver Lining in Stormy Clouds I know it doesn’t sound like a dreamy situation, but there are some serious perks to working in a startup. Experience: Working with a startup is as close as it gets to a baptism by fire, because experience flies at you fast. I’ve been forced to learn new skills and broaden my professional repertoire (which is awesome). With so few people on a team, you aren’t likely to have an expert on every project. It’s an opportunity and a necessity to become an expert, or at least a jack-of-all-trades. You’re also going to need to dedicate a chunk of your personal time to learn these new skills that won’t be asked, but demanded of you. Networking: It takes some time for a startup to get some traction, and during that time, employees often have the opportunity to build their personal network and focus on their personal community. As personal brands for employees grow, the company’s visibility can tag along. Not to be a pessimist, but if the startup doesn’t work out, your personal network is a great way to get back into a heavy job search. Options: As noted above, I don’t always have a ton of work to do with the startup â€" My free time has allowed me to work with some incredible people in my industry. I’m like a Social Media Mercenary of sorts. I’m learning more than I could ask for and picking up some extra income at the same time (big thanks to everybody that has taken me in). Make sure you clear this up with your employers before you go out and get projects with outside employers. A final note about startups as a thank you and shout-out to Rich for having me as a guest on COTJ: Hiring at a startup is unique. Without HR and recruiters involved, your network is more important than anywhere else. Creativity and connectivity are your ticket to trust and impressing the right people. Startups aren’t the first places that come to mind during a job search, but they are definitely worth checking out. Just be careful and understand what you are getting into.

How To Interview Like A CEO - Pathfinder Careers

How To Interview Like A CEO - Pathfinder Careers How To Interview Like A CEO Do you absolutely loathe job interviews? Does the word “interview’ send a decidedly ugly chill down your spine? Do you experience a complete mind freeze when prospective employers start asking questions? Most people put job interviewing on the top of their ‘not-so-favorite’ list of things that we all have to do. It’s a necessary evil in a career, and for most, it becomes a much-feared process. The secret to nailing successful interviews has everything to do with attitude. If you let fear rule you, it will. Candidates who have the best results in this arena are those that have the right mindset when they approach the interviewing process. Can you imagine a successful CEO going into an interview with sagging confidence levels, worried about their credentials, and being stressed about how they might answer a question? Certainly not! Being confident and having a positive attitude should make you actually anticipate interviews…this is the point in the job search process where a person should be the most excited about a prospective position and show why they are the best fit. In short, this is when you get to ‘rock and roll’! Instead, most job searchers get caught in the possibility of “What if I do a bad job interviewing?” or “What if I don’t have the skills they need?” which initiates feelings of fear and self-doubt, and can effectively lead to a less-than-stellar interview performance. This, in turn, impacts your answers. Many job seekers end up feeling like they are defending themselves in an interview, rather than showing how their career assets can benefit a prospective employer. This is the wrong approach â€" it’s all about the attitude adjustment. Here are a few secrets taken from the CEO interview rule book on how to portray yourself as the top candidate in this part of the job search process: 1) Engineer a completely different mindset on how you approach interviews. Believe it or not, I am one of those crazy people who absolutely LOVES the interviewing process. My attitude is: “Hit me with your best shot.” I see this as a learning experience on how I can think on my feet while under fire. There is no such thing as a BAD interview experience; it is what you do with it that determines how the next one goes. How many times have you realized afterwards that there were some questions that you could have answered better? The key is to write that question down and add it to your interviewing arsenal so you nail it the next time. This has proven to be an invaluable way of gaining insight into the answers I provided, and assessing how strong and relevant they were to the interviewer’s questions. Learning from your previous mistakes are very powerful lessons indeed. 2) Know your value. To get started in reshaping your interview attitude, you need to understand and be centered on your value. What is it that you offer that beats out the competition? Why should the employer hire you over the next person standing in line behind you? The résumé development process is a good way to work this out. Building value statements and showing action then results really provides a hiring manager a good roadmap of what you are able to accomplish. The critical part is to get those value statements on paper and then ingrain them into your psyche, allowing yourself the opportunity to really feel and understand what you have to offer to prospective employers. Once completed, you are now ready to go sit in the interview hot seat. After all, this is about selling yourself. The best sales people are ones who believe in what they are selling. If you don’t believe in yourself or know your value, you sure as heck aren’t going to sell employer on yourself as a candidate! 3) Do the research. Doing your research about a company is another way to gain confidence in the interview process. The more knowledge you have about a company, the more literate you are in their corporate culture and background. Understanding employer viewpoints, concerns, challenges, and opportunities will help shape your answers. Some employers have outright asked me, “What do you know about us?” or “Why do you want this job?” The more detail you can provide about the employer in answering these types of questions, the more resourceful you come across as being by having done your homework. This plays to your competence and gives you the boost of self-assurance that can propel you to being the top candidate. Plus, it feels pretty awesome to knock an employer’s socks off with some obscure fact about their company they would’ve never guessed that you knew! 4) Tell a story to make a point. Being a master storyteller is also part of the magic formula for knocking the interview out of the proverbial ball park. If you are providing static, robotic, and formulaic answers to questions, that doesn’t give employers any insight to your approach, experience, resourcefulness, or expertise. Responding to interview questions and providing concrete, highly relevant answers that demonstrate your ability to execute job duties in the form of a story are probably the most convincing way to win over employers. Gather up potential interview questions and then quiz yourself on how you would answer each. Then think about a specific story that you can cite that demonstrates how you solved problems or made a difference in the company. These are your story points, and are critical to painting the picture of how your skill sets and experience can benefit the potential employer. 5) Practice public speaking. Does the mere thought of getting in front of an interview panel make you break out into a sweat? Toastmasters International is a phenomenal proving ground where you can grow your public speaking skills in a welcoming, supportive environment. If you are not comfortable presenting to others, this is an imperative skill to master before heading off to an interview. Toastmasters International is a great place to take some of the sting out of public speaking and grow your comfort zone within an interview setting. By getting more experience speaking on the fly and talking in front of groups, this will improve your abilities to come across as extremely succinct and polished in interviews. Overall, when it comes down to reality, CEOs walk into interviews brimming with confidence, ideas and optimism, and you can too! The truth is, you are the CEO of Yourself, Inc. You are a unique sum of your experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities, and shifting your whole mindset about job interviews can radically change this from a scary, distasteful process to an uplifting, fun experience. Now go knock your next interview out of the ball park!

Networking Myths vs. the Reality

Networking Myths vs. the Reality In spite of the demonstrated value of networking as a primary job search technique, many people have a very hard time grasping the concept. They may recognize its value for other people, yet they do not think that they have the personal characteristics to put it all together. If you consider yourself one of the “nervous networkers”, you also probably think of yourself as a shy person, or at least around people that you do not know well, but you could find yourself under one or more incorrect myths surrounding networking. Myth â€" Networking only works for outgoing brown-nosers. Fact â€" People who are more inclined to strike up a conversation may feel more comfortable using networking than their more introverted counterparts, but this doesnt necessarily mean that they are any better. Introverted people typically have very valuable gifts at their disposal â€" such as the capacity to listen well, ask thorough questions and succeed at follow-ups. Plus, networking becomes much easier the more you work at it. Like many emotional or mental challenges, it takes some time before youre completely comfortable. Most of the energy is spent at the beginning â€" making the first couple of phone calls and setting up your initial meetings. But, as you gather momentum, it becomes much easier. Your networking  may start off as a snowball, but once it gets rolling, it turns into an avalanche. Before contacting anyone, remind yourself that networking is an essential part of finding a job in todays America. Myth â€" Only desperate and under-qualified people have to network. People who are good at their jobs can get them the traditional way, through only job boards or job listing ads. Fact â€" Everyone has to look for employment throughout their careers. When you start off you did not immediately have a job, you had to look around and ask friends if they knew of anything. Many people go through this process several times. Smart and savvy jobseekers know that many of the best positions are not actively advertised and that highly qualified applicants put a lot more of their energy into networking than browsing the want ads. Networking is a smart way to find a job. Myth â€" Its embarrassing to go around asking people for a job. Fact â€" Everyone has done it. It may be embarrassing at the moment, but it wont be when you get that first pay check. The purpose of networking is not to beg. Its not even to ask for a job. You dont start networking expecting a job just to fall in your lap. You go in to learn about the position, the people and the company in your area. Myth â€" Networkers are imposing on the people they ask. Fact â€" If everyone was imposed on when they were asked for a job, no one would ever volunteer a position to their friends and colleagues. Many people that you will ask got their job through networking. They may have felt like they were imposing but they did what they had to do to find a job, just like you should. Dont count  networking out as a viable job search technique. It may put you in the right spot at the right time.

The Writer Bussiness

The Writer BussinessWriting Business Closed on Resume is not easy at all. You will find yourself so invested in writing this resume that your productivity will suffer and you will probably forget it all. When I first started writing business, I had to adapt to the writing style and format of the major Bussiness companies.The most common step is the need to check with your supervisor before you submit. Usually, this would be you and the recruitment department of the company to whom you are submitting. The resume of the person who has passed through the Corporate program will give you the option to describe the position and the experience of the person.You must list down your experiences in the description of the job of your qualification in business Bussiness. If you have worked in a company and you wish to apply for a promotion, then it is also required that you mention it in the summary of your experiences.Moreover, in a marketing promotion, you should be keen on establishing a good record with your future employees and so in an advertisement or recruiting advertisement, you should detail how you performed in your previous roles. You can always get the customer testimonials of your past work.Copy writing for copy writing is very important in completing a resume. Copywriting helps you write, but it is not only copywriting that is the best thing to do. It is a combination of all things.Any effective business resume is formed from an amalgamation of all these aspects. It is by combining all that you should have in your resume, that will form the most powerful combination of all.As a writer bussiness, it is your responsibility to get to know the skills and knowledge that you have about the job that you are applying for. Write in detail about the skills that you have and why you are thinking of applying for the particular job.

Resume . - a Short Introduction

Resume . - a Short Introduction Writing a resume for employment in the art industry can be difficult. There are a few things that don't belong on a resume for work. To begin with, you can examine the job posting that the business creating to determine just what is necessary for the position. Of course you may also be on the lookout for a different job because of personal factors. Resume. - the Conspiracy Our resume builder is the quickest approach to create a resume that can help you get your fantasy job. There are lots of standard forms of resumes used to make an application for job openings. For making positive effect on the recruiter, it's important to get a unique resume portraying your job certain details. So long as you dream high, you will undoubtedly land on an ideal job. How to Get Started with Resume.? Resumes may be used for a number of reasons, but most often they're utilized to secure new employment. They may be organized in different ways. They are gener ally not read completely by the employers and they may often miss out the important information in your CV that can help you stand apart from the crowd. They come in different forms and formats. There are plenty of statements one can utilize to make an effective resume. Writing a strong application is a difficult procedure and we would like to make it simpler. Learn about the three sorts of skills you may highlight and the way it is possible to incorporate them into your resume. Accounting and finance managers are going to want to see your technical understanding. Resume writing is an intimidating job for everyone. Resume writing objective is a significant portion of the resume, without it resume won't leave its effect on the recruiter. Resume writing is daunting work for those who write a resume once per year, or once a decade sometimes. Understanding how to tailor your resume will obviously provide you an advantage. Ok, I Think I Understand Resume., Now Tell Me About R esume.! Make sure your resume writing provides the impression you would like it to make! When you have written and organized your information according to the sort of resume you've chosen, make sure to format it according to typical professional standards. Streamlining your resume writing emphasizes the information that is quite relevant to the particular opportunity when making certain essential facts aren't buried in the text. Your resume should be formatted in an easy, professional method. Top Resume. Choices Sales managers and recruiters are incredibly busy folks, and the job of reading resumes is an essential evil on their road to success. Possessing a very clear and professional resume is vital in the health care field. Unique kinds of work in the food service industry require resumes with lots of the exact skills. Starting an online resume business is truly fast and simple. What You Should Do to Find Out About Resume. Before You're Left Behind In that case, then yo u were cross-trained, and you may consider yourself flexible. Sales is much like customer service as salespeople can be effective in a variety of industries. Remember you would like to sell yourself, your experience and any contribution you need to offer the business. Keep in mind, the business may be called to confirm your employment.