8 Surprising Skills Every Worker Should Have

8 Surprising Skills Every Worker Should Have8 Surprising Skills Every Worker Should Have Weve all heard the run of the mill career advice . Dress for the job you want. Show up early. Stay late. Be tenacious and work harder than everyone else at the office. Find a mentor. Network, network, network.Its elend that this sort of advice is bad. Its still relevant and important to keep in mind. But heres the thing. The world of geschftlicher umgang has always been ever-evolving, but now its evolving at an exponentially faster pace. Decades ago, workers were able to home in on a skill or profession, and master that skill over the course of years and years. This concept is outdated.Keeping up with the rapid evolution of technology in the workplace is difficult enough. Throw in the goal of setting yourself apart from the rest of the pack, and you might start to feel like youre chasing your tail. What gives? Adaptation. Workers must learn to adapt to the rapid change of pace i n business technology and evolve with that pace.These days, the most valuable of skills may leid be taught in the classroom. Instead, being open to change and not resisting the flow could elevate your career path more than just showing up early and leaving late.Here are the eight skills every worker really needs to build a successful career.But really, bear hug it. There is beauty in being open to lifelong learning in both your personal and professional life. When it comes to your career, you must be open to learning more. As author of Thank You for Being Late and New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman says, When you have an accelerated pace of change, the single most competitive advantage is to be a lifelong learner.Take advantage of your employers continuing education fund. Find relevant classes or workshops that will enable and empower your passion for lifelong learning.In a world where everything is moving at an insanely quick pace, communication is more valuable than ev er. Because weve become so reliant on email and text message, proper verbal face-to-face or phone communication isnt easy for everyone. Realize that the words you speak have power. Articulating yourself is important, but there are two sides of communication - speaking and listening. Learning to listen is just as important as communicating your message.Do you ever feel like you just need to step away from a project for a while? Thats a good thing. Pause. Take a break. And revisit. Allowing your creativity to blossom through hitting the pause button is a valuable skill. Sometimes, simply walking through the park, meditating or stretching is the outlet you need. Hitting pause every now and then will allow you to approach a project from a different (and usually better) angle.Everyone has a workflow of sorts. The question at hand - is your workflow sustainable and productive? Workers have been known to spend an uncanny amount of time trying to organize themselves and get their duck s in a row. Get out of that habit. If youre spending a ridiculous amount of time shuffling through emails all day, youre probably a person who would benefit from creating a more sustainable workflow.Tim Ferris, author of The 4-Hour Work Week , suggests checking emails at set times every day. This method allows for increased productivity on projects that would otherwise be interrupted by incessant email alerts. Setting an auto-responder to inform your colleagues of your new method probably wouldnt hurt. Furthermore, use your calendar to stay abreast of all the deadlines and goals youve set for the week.One steadfast way to annihilate your career growth? Your ego. Everyone has an ego. Its the natural sense of self-esteem and self-importance. The problem lies in not keeping that ego in check. A know-it-all, arrogant, entitled attitude stems from a persons ego, and its ugly. Just because you may have a higher level of education or more experience in the field does not give you the gr een light to be a jerk.An out-of-hand ego will typically take you right out of the running for that promotion you think you deserve. So how does a person keep their ego in check? For starters, realize that you are merely a small speck in comparison to the universe. Everyone is absolutely just as important as you think you are. Be humble.Believe it or not, failure is a beautiful thing. From failure comes learning and growth. The key is to fail upward . Look at failure as the opportunity to improve. It may sound ridiculous, but its true. For many successful business people, failing is merely a means to an end. That end being a better solution, a better idea and a better awareness of what does and does not work.Use your failures as leverage to make something better.The importance of staying current has never been more apparent than it is now. The ramifications of being out of the loop could cost you the promotion youve been vying for. Beyond the promotion, its important to know what the heck is going on in the world. We are more interdependent and interconnected than ever in the world of business, and being privy to whats happening on a global level will benefit you tremendously. Stay in the loop and up-to-date on new technologies and relevant news.Embracing the evolution and change in the workplace is crucial to being identified as an asset. Its common for workplace change to not be well-received. Once a worker becomes accustomed to the way things operate, they may find it annoying to change it up. You see, embracing the change demonstrates your flexibility as an employee. Just make koranvers to keep a positive attitude through it all. Youll benefit greatly when it comes time for promotions.This article was originally published on The Cheat Sheet . It is reprinted with permission.

Reality TV Jobs and Careers

Reality TV Jobs and CareersReality TV Jobs and CareersIf your dream is to work in reality television, then there are some hard truths you should come to terms with before deciding to set your career course in that direction. There are numerous differences between working in reality TV and television in general. For the purposes of this piece, when we refer to reality television, we are referencing those shows such as Survivor or Naked and Afraid and the like. Talk shows and variety shows would fall under a different category. Here are just a few of the things youll want to know The Hours The hours in just about any television and film production job are often brutal, especially if youre working in non-union conditions where the guidelines the production companies would need to follow are often obscure and rarely followed. The productions needs come before those of the crew. Luckily, most major reality programs are closely monitored to make sure that labor laws and guidelines are followed. However, that doesnt make the job that much easier to digest. In terms of hours spent working, you might find yourself routinely working 12- to 18-hour days (sometimes longer) depending on the shoot, production company, and demands of the subject matter. Because reality television is unpredictable, you never know what could happen, or when. So, you are constantly on notice that the particular subject matter youre exploiting might demand your attention at any point during the production process. Needless to say, when youre working on a reality production shoot, consider your social and dating life to be on hold. The Money Until youve proven yourself on set, in a writers room, or wherever you might end up, the money youve heard so much about in Hollywood rarely makes its way to the crew. Salaries are often extremely low because of budgetary restrictions and a high demand for production jobs. Meaning, if youre not willing to work for X amount of dollars, there are dozens if not hundreds behind you in line who will. Be realistic about your expectations when youre first starting out. One day, you might find yourself generating great wealth from the entertainment industry, but when working on a reality program from the ground up, you wont see much green in your wallet. The Subject Matter The thing that makes reality televisionso great is exactly the thing that keeps a lot of people from being able to work in it. Objectivity. As a crew member of a reality show, you might be exposed to people suffering the ??direst of consequences. Although its menschenwrdig nature to want to reach out and help these people through their situations, its also your job to help capture these moments for a nationwide (or worldwide) audience.? Thats not to say you have to deny your human side, but you have to understand going in that you might see the absolute worst happen to a person, but that your only job is not to help counsel them through it, but to capture it on fil m. The Reputation Unfortunately, there is a stigma to working in reality television. Even within the entertainment industry itself. Its a relatively ugly occupation, and because your job is to stand idly by while real people go through sometimes traumatic situations, people might start to judge you. One way or another, you will have to work through this on your own. The thick skin youve been hearing so much about as you start your career in Hollywood starts developing on shows like these. Reality television has its unique challenges. But if you can manage to work your way through them, you greatly enhance your chances of success and developing a potentially lucrative career.

Freelancers Monitor Your Personal Brand on Social Media

Freelancers Monitor Your Personal Brand on Social MediaFreelancers Monitor Your Personal Brand on Social Media2Youre a freelancer, bedrngnis a big company. Why do you need to monitor your personal brand on social media? Why do you need a personal brand to begin with?On a very basic level, the answer is this with the level of competition in the freelancing world, one of the most important things you need to build is your personal brand. You need to present yourself as a distinct identity that stands out so you can draw prospective clients and retain existing ones.Having established the need for personal branding, it is not difficult to come up with compelling reasons to monitor your brand, particularly to know what people are saying about you on social media.Here is why you should monitor your personal brand on social media, and tools you can use to do itWhy you should monitor your personal brand on social mediaThe main reason is this to know what your clients are saying about you.Its not that different from what the social media teams of big companies do. They monitor what their customers are saying about them on Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms.Knowledge is power, and in this case, that knowledge is the feedback that you discover by monitoring your brand on social media.Knowing, on its own, does not mean anything unless you act on what you discover. If, for example, you read a negative tweet about your service, then you can promptly reply to that tweet in a manner that will address the issue.On the other hand, if you find a positive tweet, then you can engage that person by saying thanks and/or retweeting. Additionally, if you see that your work has been retweeted by others- whether they are influential or not- you can build relationships by replying.All these lead to building an even more credible personal brand, which, in turn, can lead to more clients.Tools to monitor your personal brand on social mediaWith Twitter and Facebook, it is rather easy to d iscover ()mentions, retweets, replies, and tags. But what if you are mentioned in such a way that you are not made aware of it?Thats where tools for social media monitoring come into play. There are a lot of these tools, but if youre a freelancer, you probably want to spend as little as you can. Here are some free tools that will help you monitor your personal brand on social media.Google Alerts Google Alerts is one of the easiest ways to discover any mention about you or your brand. You simply have to sign up using your Google account- which I assume you already have- and select keywords (your personal name/brand in this case) for Google to monitor. Whenever there is a mention of those keywords, Google will send them to your inbox.Social Mention This listening tool gives you a lot of information about what people are saying about you online, from Twitter to Facebook to blogs to other platforms. All you need to do is to enter your personal brand (or any other keyword you want to s earch for), and youll get tons of results where it has been mentioned. On top of that, you can see other information such as top keywords, sentiment, sources, hashtags, etc.Meltwater IceRocket Similar to Social Mention, this tool is an easy way to find out what people are saying about your brand. You may opt to search for mentions of your brand on different platforms blogs, Twitter, and Facebook. The results that are shown include the links that people used when mentioning your brand, giving you further opportunity to act on the information.Readers, do you monitor your personal brand online? What tools do you use? Share with us belowNoemi Tasarra-Twigg is the editor of BloggingPro, a site that offers news, plugins, and themes related to blogging. She also writes about tech, geek, and freelance writing. You can find her on Twitter.Ready to start searching for freelance jobs? Start here Let us help you stay motivatedGet Freelance Jobs blog posts emailed to youor have them delivered t o your favorite feed reader.Sign up now