Be all that you can be

Every interview is nerve racking especially your first ever one as you don’t know what to expect and what questions are going to be fired at you.

I have come up with questions that tend to come up in every single interview so you can prepare yourself beforehand.

Tell me about yourself and your strengths and weaknesses

Assess yourself

Sell yourself experiences

How would you perform as part of a team

How do you deal under pressure

If you have just left a job you may get asked why

What could you offer to the company

Why do you want this job

How do you organise your work

If you need answers or advice for any interview that you are going to be attending let me know and I will be happy to help!

You have found the job of your dreams and you are up against a dozen of other candidates, one rule: Make your CV stand out against the competition!

A CV or curriculum vitae is a marketing took and its you chance of promoting yourself.

Your employer to be will on average spend only 7 seconds to make a visual impression! Yikes! That is why YOUR CV will be the best!

Follow the below tips to make sure that your CV is pretty god damn amazing:

Quality paper – white = boring, think magnolia with a faint border.

Do not write to much – your CV has to be easy on the eye and the poor person reading it does not want to be yawning and bored.

Highlight the sections in your CV that relate to the job you are going for.

Put who you are now at the beginning of your CV (make it interesting! A few white lies do no harm!)  and leave qualifications and education for the end.

A short statement about what you are seeking.

All you need to do now is post your CV feeling positive knowing that this document rests your hopes and dreams for the future.

It can be pretty daunting when planning out your future and deciding what career path you want to go down, that’s why it is extremely important that you think things through and do what you want to do.

If your friends or family are trying to push you into a job sector that you are going to be unhappy in then already this is a big No No! If you want to succeed in life you have to discover the right career path for yourself.

If you focus on your skills before you uncover your passions, you limit yourself to jobs that utilise your currently recognised skills.

Follow the below tips for ways to discover what is best for you:

When you are looking for a job if you come across one that makes you excite your imagination it means that you are interested and could picture yourself in this kind of sector, so always look out for clues!

Pay attention to activities that make you happy and ask yourself why you are happy doing this?

Don’t feel like a failure before you apply for a job and have a negative attitude of “i could NEVER do that”, never say never and consider them as real possibilities.

Then there are the major questions that you need to ask yourself:

How much money do you want to earn?
Location?
Do you need further education?

Following on from my recent post about ‘The Apprentice’, the BBC have announced that Sir Alan Sugar is now on the hunt for a Junior Apprentice. Sir Alan announced on ‘The Apprentice - You’re Hired’ that there are plans in place to launch a Junior Apprentice, aimed an grooming 16-17 year olds into budding entrepreneurs.

The series is set to feature 5 girls and 5 boys who will be set a variety of tasks with a prize in the region of £25K up for grabs for the winner. Obviously the select few will not have the business experience of the ‘older generation’ on the usual show but the prize money will be tailored towards the winners career prospects. The key aim behind the show is to look at providing entrepreneurs of the future to aid the British economy.

So if you’ve had enough of revision and exams and feel that you have a chance, then why not go for it! Applicants can apply through The Apprentice Website - The series is due to be shown in 2010.

This post is all about ensuring that you have a happy and positive outlook on life. As I write this it’s Monday afternoon and the sun is shining so I’m already in a positive mood. I think that happiness breeds happiness and here are my 5 tips to ensure that you continue to be happy in work and play:

1. Think Positive - try and be optimistic, or a least be realistic about things during your time at work and outside work.
2. Eat Healthy - a good diet will help give you energy to last the course of the day. Eat your 5-a-day and be happy in mind and body.
3. Exercise - simple but true. Exercise regularly to give you energy. Exercise will help ensure you look good and feel attractive.
4. Drink Plenty of Water - Drinking lots of water will help detoxify your body.
5. Kick your bad habits into touch - Try to cut out all your vices - smoking, drinking alcohol to excess, eating take-aways 3 days a week, and not getting enough sleep. This will help ensure that your brain and mental health is in top working order.

If you can’t do all the above straight away then try doing one at a time…good luck…and let me know how it goes.

I have been glued to my seats most nights watching the Apprentice and I was overjoyed when Sir Alan Sugar pointed at Yasmina Siadatan and told her that she was hired!

15 contestants and 12 tasks later this girl deserved to win from day one, I loved Yasmina’s approach to business and that fierce look she gives, she means business and you would not mess with her. Everyone on the Apprentice inspires me and hundreds of other people as they all come from different backgrounds and work ethics and all have one goal to push them self to the highest limit and become Sir Alan’s next apprentice.

Yasmini, only 27 owns her own restaurant in Reading, Berks with her brother and still she has gone on to win this years Apprentice showing that she never gives up and always wants to better and challenge herself in life.

A quote she made recently sums her up and many people who think like this will go far:

“Business is about a simple formula. Make more than you spend. That’s what I do, I keep business simple and it works. I’m good at it.”

I also think that the Apprentice is flying the flag for female women to go into business. This year it was an all-female finalist proving that it is not just men who think business women are equally as talented and successful.

I know 4 people who have gone on to open small businesses in the past 2 years by watching the Apprentice and being inspired by the individuals who take part in the show.

Are you a fan of the Apprentice? If so has the programme inspired you to go in to business or become an entrepreneur?

With all the doom and gloom recently its hard to stay happy about anything, so why not put a little excitement back in to your life, there seems to be more and more of these turning up all around the country from a relaxing day in the spa, to a white knuckle ride round a race track and from a Hot air balloon flight to scuba diving lessons. so why keep in the boring 9 to 5. I myself have just been on a rally driving experience and absolutely loved it, a great day at a great price and an awesome experience.

As we all know time are very hard and money is extremely tight, and we are all having to cut back on the luxuries in life, everyone is staying home more and the house swap game has come to a halt, so now would be the perfect time to enjoy what we already have, decorate the kitchen or have you ever thought about something so simple as Towel Warmers for the bathroom or maybe a new sofa, there are some great deals about that will still allow you to purchase some of the luxuries in life, but dont forget to set a budget and dont go over the top.

Following on from our last article, once you have got yourself a clear list of all the things that you think have been holding you back you need to start tackling them so that you can finally move onward and upward!

Bear in mind that if these things are things that you can’t physically change, like the fact that you have some sort of physical disability (perhaps you have recently become bound to wheelchair use), then the point isn’t to rail against them or just wish for miracles. Aim to tackle those things that you CAN alter with a bit of motivation and courage.

For instance, if you need to clear the air with an old friend or a family member whom you haven’t spoken to for a while, just do it! If you ever meant to keep in touch with someone and then never got around to it and then felt that it would be weird to contact them after all this time even though you often wonder about them – again, just call or write to them. Explain what happened in an honest and light-hearted way, then tell them you’d like to keep in touch properly now.

Resolving, or at least letting go of all those if’s and maybe’s from your past will lighten you more than you might expect. Even if you don’t feel weighed down by them particularly be aware that you may well have just got used to the weight. Getting rid of them will still make you feel more free and lighter within.

Try it…!

Today!

If you are carrying around a lot of emotional baggage that you feel is holding you back from achieving your ambitions, you need to let them go if you want to forge inward with your life.

You are only young once and you only live once, so there’s little point allowing yourself to be stuck in a rut because of things that are fully within your capacity to change.

Carrying around disappointments or problems without dealing with them is ultimately destructive to our emotional wellbeing, and if our emotional wellbeing is shot to ribbons then there will invariably be negative knock on effects throughout the rest of our lives, even if it is just to our confidence and self esteem.

Take a long hard look at your life and you can start getting rid of this baggage by asking yourself a series of personal questions. In effect, what you need to do is identify those things that you feel have been holding you back, draw a line under them and then start moving on. You can even clear your mind by getting away from it all. Get away from your work, from society and get back to urban life. Perhaps one of the many camping holidays in Italy, or a backpacking tour of France?

Here follow a list of questions to get you started. You can either do them all at once or over a few days, but DO them! Also, write them out, don’t just leave them in your head along with the answers to them. You’d be surprised the difference putting problems onto paper can make, even if it is only to make things seem a bit clearer.

What do you feel you are ‘putting up’ with rather than living contentedly with?

- Make a list of ten things that you feel you are putting up with at home.
- Do the same with work.
- Do the same with any other area of your life that you feel might be relevant.

Once done, you need to start considering what sort of action plan you need to wrap up these issues and make them at least tolerable if not wholly rectified. Take them slowly. Don’t rush. The point here is to clear up for yourself exactly what is holding you back and why.