Job Searching Website Australia: ADVANCE YOUR CAREER

Moving Up the Ladder

There are many ways to advance your career. It may be that you choose to work your way up the ladder in your workplace, or maybe move to join another company. Here are some strategies to achieve your goal.


BUILD AN IMAGE

• Dress like a professional. Suits and ties for men may suit some professions, but a well-ironed shirt, clean shoes and a good haircut can achieve a corporate look. The same goes for women: revealing singlet tops or mini-skirts do not mark a person as serious. They also interfere with the image of someone who can handle serious responsibilities.

• Keep up with the latest technology and software.

• Show up at all company meetings, presentations and events.

• Be punctual at all times.

• Be professional. Ensure that your spelling, grammar and presentations are all correct.

• Answer the phone with your name in a pleasant voice.

• Before handing in work ensure that you have edited it. Use SWOT analysis* (google how to do it if you don’t know) critically analysing your work.

• Do not use big words that you do not understand. Spend time learning about the words that your trade uses, management words and read lots about new developments in your field.

• Ask your boss for advice, ensuring that you thank him.

• Show respect to others, and choose your words very carefully if there are mean people around you. Dignity rather than fighting will get you further. Keep away from office politics.

• Continuous Friday night drinks with the boys/girls and raunchy Christmas parties may not be good for your career development. You have a goal. Drink with its consequent loose talk may get in the way of your ambitions. Separate yourself from the rabble.

• Don’t use words such as “whatever” or “like.” It may be common to use the word “youz” as a plural of you, but not only is it incorrect it does drop your value down by many degrees.  “Youz” is not used by educated persons.

NETWORKING

• Always have your business cards with your name in your pocket ready to hand out with a short description of what you do. Keep your description short and sweet. The test is when someone in the lift asks you where you work and what you do, be ready to do it in less than ten seconds.

• Go to professional associations where you will get to know others in your field. Again, hand out your card.

• Ask your company if they have any educational opportunities for you. If you don’t ask this will not happen. Many companies send their best and brightest employees to study new developments in their field, MBA’s at university and sometimes even overseas to other parts of that company. It is a paying proposition for a company to upgrade the skills of existing employees rather than hire new ones with those qualifications.

RECRUITMENT AGENCIES

• Can you imagine being headhunted? Yes, but only if you put yourself in that position. Drop in on your RDO to see a recruitment agent whilst ensuring that they sign a confidentiality agreement that they will not contact your company. Then you are on their books for when opportunities come up.

AND LASTLY, IF YOU ARE A NEW AUSTRALIAN

• Moving upward does require clear communication skills. You may know your job back-to-front, but one can always improve.

• If your spoken English is not as good as you want it to be consider taking elocution lessons which straighten out pronunciation issues. This will also improve your image. Remember that some of the most successful career people in Australia came from non-English speaking countries, and that a little work on personal communication skills does work wonders.

• Be proud of your original name. Some people do choose to change it, but Australia is officially multicultural and the land of a fair go. What really matters are your skills, your image, your ability to communicate and if possible, your connections and your references.

GOOD LUCK!

• A SWOT analysis assesses Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

 Search for your dream job now! Visit Jobstar.net.au

How To Juggle Work And Family

If you really believe that you can juggle work and family successfully you should realise that technically this is an impossibility! 

Here are some tips to make it easier: 

  

AT HOME 

• Go to sleep early, definitely before 10 pm. A fresh early morning start works wonders. That includes putting your mobile on silent until your wakeup alarm time, and not touching it as you read the news, scan your emails or watch a movie.  If you do you could find yourself losing valuable hours of sleep. 

• Write a (long) list of things that have to be done in the family. They have to include cleaning in detail, being up at night with children, making lunches, cooking, shopping, taking children to activities, responsibility for bills, waking up children in the morning, putting them to sleep at night, showering them, feeding them, clothing and shoe shopping,  visits to doctors/dentists/baby health care, taking them to parties, collecting the mail, putting out the rubbish, laundry, visiting grandparents, holiday planning and the other thousand and one things that go into making a home. 

• Sit down with your husband/partner and split the list up fairly. 

• If the budget allows it bring in a cleaner as often as possible to take the load of both of you. If the budget does not review it carefully to see if there is waste anywhere. 

• Prepare your work clothing before you go to sleep, and allow an extra fifteen minutes in the morning for yourself to dress and prepare yourself patiently. 

• Have all schoolbags and work briefcases packed and ready to go near the front door. 

• Train your older children to guide the younger ones, which includes dressing them in the morning, including them in teeth brushing sessions and making their own beds. Older children are very good at listening to younger ones read, and can often help them with their homework. 

• There is no good reason to have things thrown around or left on the floor or on the kitchen bench. Children should be trained to put everything back where it belongs and to be responsible for their own clothes and dishes. Mothers are not slaves to pick up after their offspring. 

• Try to find a job close to home to minimize transportation time to give you more hours in the day. 

IF YOU ARE A SOLE PARENT: 

• Use the weekends to do as much as possible. 

• Allocate part of your budget to bringing in a cleaner, even if it is only two hours a week. Trying to do it all by yourself can end up with you sick and possibly in hospital which can be a severe financial loss. Give the cleaner the hardest jobs, such as cleaning the cook top, the oven and scrubbing toilets.  Picking up scattered toys and clothes should be the children’s job, as is making their beds and hanging up their towels. The cleaner should concentrate on removing dirt, not on tidiness. 

• If grandparents are available they may be prepared to help, even occasionally.  

            Remember that you are the first priority. 

  

AT WORK 

• If you are asked to stay after working hours explain to your boss about the importance of work-life balance and that your input and dedication to your work is more productive when you have this balance. 

• Always request permission before using the work computer for private needs, using it only during your lunch break or after hours with consent. 

•  Use technology to save time.  Call your children’s school and request a Skype interview with teachers instead of having to physically attend parent-teacher meetings.Use technology for paying bills, reminders and a host of other applications to save time. 

• Discuss salary packages with administration which can be an effective way of minimizing tax.  The extra dollars can enable you and your family to have a well-earned holiday, employ a cleaner in the home or save towards a worthwhile purpose. 

• Differentiate between home and work.  Work-mates may not appreciate your thrill about that first baby tooth or your son’s winning the hundred meters race.  You are at work to fulfill your role not to overwhelm people about your private life.  At work you are one person, and at home another.  In fact the two different roles can fulfill both your need for intellectual stimulation, different activities and the wonderful experience of building a home.

For more information about Employment Opportunities In Australia Click Here

Jobs in Australia - How To Lose $80,000

You are twenty-one years old and are sitting there after completing an apprenticeship or a university degree planning to take a year off to see the world. Will it be South America, Europe or maybe even a round-the-world trip? Your choice is to live at home and go to work, or to escape!

The banks make it so easy, throwing money at your feet in the form of a credit card or a personal loan.

Maybe you have even saved up part of what you will need. But whoa – stop there: what will be the real cost? It will be the grand sum at least $80,000. You don’t believe this? Well, start counting.

There is a concept called “opportunity cost” which is defined as “the money or other benefits lost when pursuing a particular course of action instead of a mutually-exclusive alternative ” which means that you have a choice to work instead of traveling.

If you would be earning the average Australian wage for the year your take-home pay would be about $47,603 after tax plus superannuation of $5,500 that gives you a total of over $53,103. That is money that you will not be earning.

Then you have to fork out cash for airfares, buses, hiking boots, travel immunization and medications, a good backpack, a passport, visas, insurance, backpacker accommodation, mobile phone cards, a camera, food and seeing the sights for the whole year. $20,000 for all of this is a conservative figure.

If you have borrowed this from the bank there will be an interest cost of twenty percent or so for every year that you have not paid it all back. Obviously you will not be able to pay it when you are away, so you now have to add another $8,000 which is effectively forty percent interest, which rounds out to a total of above $80,000.

Do you really want to go backwards by that amount in one year? And suffer for the next couple of years paying back the bank? Yes, you can still see the world at a tiny percentage of this! Get that job and go during your four weeks’ paid annual leave. Way to go!

 GET THAT JOB 

 www.jobstar.net.au

WHEN THE BOSS IS A PIG

To put it simply:  the boss is a horrible person.

She makes your life miserable as well as everyone else’s on your floor.  What should you do? This is not the time to walk out, because another job might be hard to get.  There should to be a way to fix things without rocking the boat, however sometimes you can and sometimes you can’t.

1.     Identify what he or she is doing: Is he being demanding, keeping you on your toes and giving you a very difficult work-load?  Or could it possibly be abuse?  If it is abuse then tie down exactly what is happening.  Sexual abuse at work used to be very common.  Today most people are aware that this is just not OK.  Unwarranted touching or kissing, brushing up against another person on purpose, exposing private parts are a no-no.  Or maybe the boss is throwing things around the office which can be dangerous.  Filthy or suggestive language or emails by the boss or even work colleagues fall into the category of abuse.

Remedy:  In the case of abuse be insistent that you do not accept this kind of behavior.  If it does not stop immediately report it to his superior, if he has one.  In extreme cases such abuse can be a legal matter.  Send him an email that you do not welcome his advances and that you only wish to carry out your work.  Print that out and keep a copy at home in case the situation deteriorates and keep any threatening, rude or nasty emails from him or anyone else in your company if you lose your job you may have to sue him in court or he may be answerable to a Fair Work Tribunal. Report such intrusions into your privacy to the boss if it is another staff member, preferably in writing.   

2.    The boss is always angry:   This boss might be getting out of bed on the wrong side every morning. She may have a sour face, never being happy with your work and swearing. 

Remedy:  Work on your relationship with your boss, smiling pleasantly when you see her.  If you have the opportunity find a few jokes that are related to your work, tell her as you submit work to her.  That may break the ice.  Always, but always be pleasant and remember that most people are a mirror of yourself and your efforts, even if it takes time to get there. Believe that there is something upsetting her life; it may be a sick child or a difficult personal circumstances. 

3.     The boss who gives out impossible amounts of work:  No matter how hard you try it is never enough for her.  She snarls when you have to catch your train home and leave before the impossible amount is finished. 

Remedy:    First measure yourself against others at work.  Is everyone complaining or is it just you?  Check that you skills are up-to-date and if necessary improve them.  You may also be pedantic in ensuring that every little thing is perfect, spending too much time on every task when you should not.  If she is really overloading you then pick a good time to have a heart-to-heart talk with her, maybe bringing her a bunch of flowers from your garden, explaining that it may be possible that one person cannot physically do that amount of work in the time given. 

General tips for handling difficult bosses:

•    Are you inviting trouble?  There are issues such as coming late to work, slacking off, not putting in your best or the issue of your personal appearance. Dressing respectfully encourages respect; turning up in a single-top or a mini-skirt downgrades the seriousness of your actual work and encourages bad behaviour in others.

•    Is there a power struggle going on at your workplace and could you be part of it?  Does your boss or other colleagues feel that you are threatening their progression at work or can possibly replace or overtake them?  Use your brains for this one and be smart in impressing your boss, planning to be his ally.

 WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS
Sometimes there comes a point when you have to realize that it is not in your best interests to be pushed around.  If you have done whatever is possible to better your situation and could not, then as a last resort begin looking for another job but do it whilst you are employed.  Walking out first may leave you unemployed for a long time.

To check out for all of the available jobs in Australia Visit us here: https://www.jobstar.net.au/