MANDATORY TEA TIME.

Oh how I love quoting bad lyrics. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, peep this. I wonder what Scott Stapp from Creed is doing at this very minute. Watching Family Guy? Picking up a 3-pack of wife beaters? Snapping into a Slim Jim?

Maybe his song was inspired after a long day on the job with no recongition. Hey, it could have happened. Do you know that 52 percent of workers today feel that they are not being recongnized for their efforts? Instead of getting all bummed about it, maybe Scotty Stappy put it in a song? Maybe.

But it’s sad. It’s sad that so many of us feel we are not receiving adequate recognition on the job—especially since it’s really pretty painless (and FUN) to give accolades to our fellow workers and employees. And there are so many different ways we can do this.

WorkSimple has a poll happening here on their Facebook page where you can answer the question:  How do you thank your employees for exceeding expectations in the workplace? Send a short email? Present a plaque? A payment of ten thousand dollars? (I wish.) At my husband’s place of work, they give out bobbleheads for people who go above and beyond in their jobs. As you might imagine, that makes the place pretty colorful. I like it.

WorkSimple also has an awesome new praise app where, amongst other positive engagement, you can “Congratulate” a co-worker on a job being done well.  I like that, too. 

What do you do to thank your employees or how are you thanked at your job? Let’s get some ideas going on how we can take each other higher! He he. Laaaame. 

Cheers m’ dears! 

This weekend was beautiful out.

Here in the Bay Area, we get an Indian Summer. I’m not sure where the term comes from, but I know that it means the summer sticks around for a while and it’s awesome. I literally watched the sun set from my window last night with my 20 month old daughter who must have said “pink sky” at least a dozen times, the warm wind dancing across our faces.

California rules. But that’s not what this post is about.

This post is about what I was doing prior to that sunset — about all those godforsaken hours I spent cleaning space off the hard drive of my computer just so I could update my software. UGH! And why was there no space on my computer? I had clogged it up with videos and photos of said daughter.

“Hi my name is Jocelyn and I’m a first time Mom and a first time clogger.”

I let this one catch up to me. I knew the day would come when I’d be stuck with the consequences of pulling out that camera every time my kid did something I thought was cute. (keyword “I.”) Bad habits die hard.

And since I’m done with confession time, let’s talk about some good habits I have…like, in the work place. Okay, here are a few:

Create!  I hate my right brain most of the time. It generally makes living in the world difficult. But in terms of being an effective member at work, being right brained kicks ass. Effective people are the content creators. (Steve Jobs, holler atcher girl!) Ineffective people are gluttons. They are lurkers. They just want to consume. Consumers aren’t the ones making a difference.

Turn off distractions!  I haven’t found anyone or anything that says it better than Miranda July in this clip from her new movie, The Future. If your phone or books or -gasp- your computer is going to distract you, do away with them. Just do it. My best ideas come when I’m lying in bed at night. Or on the toilet. TMI, I know. For work, I have to grab a pen and paper and go to a quite place to brainstorm, like a bench outside. Do what works for you. 

Excuse me, please!   I stole this one from the WorkSimple blog. As Community Manager there, I have to say the tips we give are right on. And this one came from Mr. Co-founder, Morgan Norman, himself and I love it. We are busy people, are we not? But if we can learn to identify meetings where we will not contribute or learn from, why not speak up and tell our supervisors we are trying to get a project done and would rather work through the meeting? Surely that would be music to our supervisors ears! Yay work!

What about YOU? What habits do you have that make you an effective lil’ worker bee or all-around winner at life?  Share your secrets, m’ dears! 

Halloween is around the corner.  Want to know how to be TRULY scary?  Why not be a resume?  Ha!  Okay, I know that in reality being a piece of paper with some writing on it is not all that scary but honestly, as far as the job search goes on both the side of the person looking for the job and the person hiring for one, resumes are NIGHTMARES.  Can I get an “AMEN”?  

If you’re the one looking for the job, to add to your nightmare in many cases is this thing called an ATS.  In plainer words, it’s a tracking system that among other functions, helps screen and rank resumes based on keywords within your application or resume.  This system is used to help companies weed through the thousands of resumes—to reduce the size of their nightmare while in some cases, making yours bigger. If your resume ain’t built to snuff, it’s gonna get snuffed out. So, as was so eloquently asked in the Double Rainbow video.  WHAT DOES THIS MEEEAN???

Here’s some tipperoos I snagged over at WorkSimple:  

• Submitting your application to databases means you must format your resume a certain way to stand out to the system. You can do this by including certain keywords in accordance with your job position (be sure to check out the position description for keywords to add to your resume) and leaving out abbreviations, as ATS programs are not always equipped to decipher “Mgr.” vs “Manager.” Other ATS tricks also include uploading your resume instead of copying-and-pasting it, as the software will save your application in a more favorable format.

• Another way to get creative with resumes is to create one in the form of an infographic. Infographic resumes have unique formats and are graphic-heavy. They add some color and can be a breath of fresh air from a standard resume. While creating one on your own can be extremely time-consuming and may require additional Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop knowledge, websites such as Vizualize.me, Re.vu, and Kinzaa will generate your own infographic resume based on your LinkedIn profile. All you have to do is sign into your LinkedIn account, hit “generate,” and you will have your own infographic resume within second.

• An online work portfolio is also a great way to show off your accomplishments. For creatives, sites like Carbonmade provide a great platform to upload work samples and share the link to your work with employers.

• Ask for recommendations from your coworkers. Don’t wait until you’ve left the company to ask for recommendations — instead, get them as they happen. After you’ve done a rock star job on a project, ask a coworker to recommend your work. Set a realistic goal for getting recommendations in real-time, such as aiming for two per quarter.

Good tips, yeah?  So if you didn’t watch the Double Rainbow video, go do that, wipe the tears from your eyes, and then let me know what you do to build the best resume in real-time.  

Cheers m’dears!