"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle."  Steve Jobs

Whilst simply walking out of our jobs is not an option many of us can afford to take, few of us are exploring all of the options that are available.

Even fewer are actually investing in ourselves to gain a better chance of getting a job that is more suited to our skills.

Though many are happy to splash out on the latest smartphone or tablet to make both our personal and professional lives easier, there aren’t many of us that will actually invest in the most important thing of all: ourselves and our careers.

Whether you lack confidence, are unsure if you’re in the right position or want to take the next step-up in your career, it makes sense for you to seek the support you need to ensure that you’re fulfilling your potential.

And it makes sense to seek it now.

Many people who have had a change of career forced on them by redundancy often say that being made redundant was turned into a positive, because it meant they were able to switch to something that they enjoyed whilst using their skills more appropriately.

But why not seek training while you have the security – and finance – to do so?

Here at Recrion, we facilitate the Peak Performance Mentoring Programme (PPMP), which addresses all of the concerns you may have with your current working life.

Want to build your confidence, develop a positive mindset and, perhaps most importantly, find  the career that is best suited to your skills?

It’s all covered.

By taking the PPMP, you are not only taking the first step to progressing your career to the next level, you are also giving yourself the best possible chance of being happy at the prospect of going to work.

Wouldn't that be nice?

Find out more about the Peak Performance Mentoring Programme and see what it can do for your career.

Recrion is a specialist in career and people management helping you to move away from uncertainty towards clarity in your career - www.recrion.co.uk; +44 (0)1780 484910

Take the example of KPMG who have turned the doom and gloom surrounding increased tuition fees to their advantage.  In September 2011, around 75 students will be given the chance to start a 6 year programme with the firm, during which they will gain both a degree through Durham University and a professional chartered accountancy qualification funded by the company.

It is good to see academia and business working more closely together to create practical learning opportunities.

They need to.  The IOD recently published a report showing how skills shortages and a lack of relevant skills are hampering UK businesses' competitiveness.

The report is a stark reminder that Talent comes in many shapes and sizes.

At Recrion we are actively supporting Peterborough's Skills vision and will participate in Apprenticeship week which runs from 7 – 11 February.  Apprenticeship week will highlight the breadth of apprenticeships available from Law to Retail and Construction UK wide.

Improving skills is not solely the Government’s task. It is the responsibility of employers to give their employees the specific training they may need to do their jobs effectively and for employees to take control of their careers and focus on their own long term career development.

Recrion is a specialist in Career and Talent Management, and is facilitating a Response to Redundancy scheme in the East of England.  Contact 01780 484910 or visit www.recrion.co.uk/free for more information.

We are tired of hearing about spending cuts, tax rises, floods and blizzards.  How can we re-ignite our energy and passion for life and living?  My advice to you if you are holding out for the Royal Wedding in April to lift your spirits – don't wait that long.

Ariana Huffington on TED summarised our sentiments succinctly.  She advocates Sleeping your way to the Top! Enjoy and think about what it can do you for in 2011 …

Katherine Wiid is a Director of Recrion, People and Career Management Specialists. "Moving you away from uncertainty towards clarity in your career."

If you haven’t tweeted, LinkedIn to a network of professional groups and connections, got a wall on Facebook or downloaded a video on YouTube, it’s likely that you are not finding the career opportunities that are out there for you and are invisible to employers who might want to HIRE you!

Social media has become so main-stream that employers are adopting the likes of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube to raise their profile and employer brand to attract talent.  At a recent HR round table event I attended, corporate recruiters suggested that more than 25% of their time and budget was spent using social media to attract candidates with job boards, recruitment agencies and printed advertisements at the back of the queue.

The beauty of social media is that you can start getting to know your target employers more intimately before you even approach them.

Here’s a quick overview of the main social media sites and how they are used in recruitment:

LinkedIn is a great way to start using social media as a career management tool. It has 80 million users across 200 countries.

Users are able to create a CV on their profile page, summarise their skills and achievements, get testimonials to prove they have achieved what they say they have (external validation), personalise their profile with a photo and "link-in" to colleagues, recruiters and mutual contacts.  As with Facebook and Twitter, users can follow different employers and get notified when they have vacancies available.

Facebook - the most popular social media site with an estimated 500 million users – nearly one in 14 people of the world's population!

Facebook allows users to keep in touch with friends and colleagues by posting status updates, writing on their "wall", emailing or even giving them a "poke" to say hello.  And it allows companies to raise their brand and communicate directly with would – be “fans” or employees.
Take a look at how management consultancy KPMG runs a thriving graduate fan page for potential recruits.

Twitter has 100 million users since it launched in 2006.

It enables users to send and read "tweets": text-based posts of up to 140 characters. Users can then follow other subscribers' tweets.  Job postings follow the same format as any other tweet using no more than 140 characters (for example, senior IT Developer, Cambridge, UK)

YouTube is another media stream that has become popular with companies – Cisco recruits top technical specialists using video.

So if you want to get different results and find a well-paying job in a time of economic uncertainty, you have to do something different. Rather than merely applying for jobs in the same way as the rest of the herd, market yourself differently and become VISIBLE online.

If you would like to develop a powerful career management strategy and credible online visibility, contact Katherine Wiid, Career Management Coach on +44 (0)1780 484910 or visit www.recrion.co.uk.

So how do you deal with these career blocks and still get noticed and promoted?

It’s easy – just start acting like an Owner of a business and your Boss will not only sit up and notice that you are doing your job effectively; they will be impressed that you are also worrying about the bigger picture. It will make you look better and it will also change your perspective on your job.

So where should you start? By putting yourself in their shoes you will realise that CEOs and Business Owners are juggling some or all of the following every day:

• Employee demands
• The future of the company
• The revenue
• The competitors
• How to lower costs
• How to increase profits

Fortunately, you don't have to worry about these things because you're not in charge (YET!), but it doesn't mean you shouldn't. The good thing is that CEOs and business owners have so much to worry about that you could pick any one of these "problems" and figure out a way to improve on them:

• Costs
• Employee morale
• Competitors
• Office politics
• Technology solutions
• Efficiency

The bottom line is that if you really want to stand out and get ahead at work, you should look around and model yourself on someone who has already made it.

For help and guidance on managing your career strategically, contact Katherine Wiid, Career Management Coach on 01780 484910 or visit www.recrion.co.uk.

• The “yawn” category – these are the bland, templated, no personality 2 pages that would do an M15 agent proud

• The ego centric CV – these tell your audience What's In it For Me (the Candidate) and not What's In it For Them (the Employer).

The tricky thing about a CV is that it is a mixture of an autobiography and a marketing tool.  In fact most people don’t even know what CV stands for – Curriculum Vitae is Latin for “Book of Life”. Using the Book analogy – if the flyer is not interesting (the top half of the first page), then why should the reader bother to read further?

I could go on, but I'd rather spend more time suggesting ways to make your CV relevant and interesting to the person reading it.

Here are 7 tips on writing a CV that hits all the buttons:

• Personal Branding Statement – Create a clear, concise personal branding statement or elevator pitch that describes the position you want, and a single subject matter expertise (out of the many you have) that solves the biggest problem that the company and hiring manager has

• Achievements - Select Achievements that demonstrate the problems you've solved and their effect on the company's bottom line. Don't list all the problems you've solved – just choose examples that are relevant to the problems the company, department, and manager currently have

• Customise your CV – Customise your CV with Achievements and keywords that are relevant to the company to make your CV A "MUST READ".  Build rapport by using the company's own language to describe your accomplishments, rather than the language of your prior company. Use plain English and avoid using acronyms and jargon that only people in your prior company would understand.

• Address employer and hiring manager problems – Before you can address them, you have to understand what they are to begin with. Start your research before you even send a CV, to make it relevant.

• Include "nice to have's" – Hiring managers typically short list interviewed candidates to a final three to choose between. While most of the interviewed candidates are all qualified to do the job, a few usually stand out from the pack because of a "nice to have."  This could be a skill, quality or experience that the hiring manager didn't even think of when listing job criteria, but recognised its importance when discovered on a CV or in an interview. These "nice to have's" can often make the difference between getting the offer and just being one of the pack. Voluntary work or examples of professional development are two of the differentiators.

• Demonstrate Subject Matter Expertise – Listing your general skills or what you did on a day to day basis is not exciting. It's not likely to be as important to your future employer, since no two jobs have the same needs and no two companies have the same day to day responsibilities. Your future employer is interested in what problems you can solve for them. The best way to demonstrate this is to understand your target's current problems, giving specific examples of your expertise in solving these (or very similar) problems, and branding yourself as a subject matter expert.

• Why you want the job – If you haven't conveyed to the hiring manager why you want that specific job at that specific company in a way that is beneficial to them, you haven’t got a chance! A hiring manager isn't interested in the fact that you want to move ahead in your career, that you want specific experiences, or that you'll take just about any job to keep paying your mortgage. A hiring manager is only interested in the fact that you want the job because you have demonstrated expertise to solve their specific problems.

Investing time in getting your CV right pays dividends down the line.  For more information on CV writing and Career Management Strategies, contact Katherine Wiid of Recrion at 01780 484910 or visit www.recrion.co.uk.

If you don't have a schedule that varies your day that it means that you start every day not knowing what you want to achieve. So how YOU spend YOUR time is a key strategic decision. That's why it's a good idea to create a to do list and an ignore list. The hardest attention to focus is your own.

But even with those lists, the challenge is the execution. How can you stick to a plan when so many things threaten to derail it? A recruiter calls out of the blue and tells you how perfect you are for a job you have never even thought of doing – they just need you to make changes to your CV …

How can you focus on a few important things when so many things require your attention?

Ritual.

Managing your time needs to become a ritual. Not simply a list or a vague sense of your priorities. That's not consistent or deliberate. It needs to be an ongoing process you follow no matter what to keep you focused on your priorities throughout the day.

Try this 3 step job search programme

Plan for the Day (5 Minutes) . Before turning on your computer, sit down with a blank piece of paper and decide what will make the day highly successful.

• What can you realistically accomplish that will further your goals and allow you to leave at the end of the day feeling like you've been productive and successful? Write those things down.
• Now, most importantly, take your calendar and schedule those things into time slots, placing the hardest and most important items at the beginning of the day (yes, that call or decision you have been putting off will eat away at you if you don't tackle it first thing!)
• If your entire list does not fit into your calendar, reprioritise your list. If you want to get something done, decide when and where you're going to do it. Otherwise, take it off your list.

Refocus for 1 minute every hour. Set your watch, phone, or computer to ring every hour.

• When it rings, take a deep breath, look at your list and ask yourself if you spent your last hour productively.
• Then look at your calendar and deliberately recommit to how you are going to use the next hour. Manage your day hour by hour. Don't let the hours manage you.

Review your Day (5 minutes). Shut off your computer and review your day.

• What worked?
• Where did you focus?
• Where did you get distracted?
• What did you learn that will help you be more productive tomorrow?

The power of rituals is their predictability. You do the same thing in the same way over and over again. And so the outcome of a ritual is predictable too. If you choose your focus deliberately and wisely and consistently remind yourself of that focus, you will stay focused. It's simple.

This particular ritual may not get you a job tomorrow. But it may just help you feel productive and successful.

Recrion is a specialist in People and Career Management.  Our coaches are actively working with people affected by redundancy.  See if you qualify for free support through the Response to Redundancy scheme or call us on 01780 484910 for a confidential discussion.

Before embarking on a new career that might be just as unfulfilling as the one your are in or have just left, think about these 4 things.

Do you have the right skill sets?

In order to make an easy transition, you need to consider whether you have the qualifications or at least the skills required in the new vocation. Considering that there are many who are in that job or profession, how do you compare to them? If you find something lacking in your abilities, go and seek training to compensate for it. You could do this while you are still at your old job via evening classes or online courses.

Do you have adequate financial resources?

By making a new career change you will be taking a risk that may or may not give you the expected returns. In the event that you have a setback in your career transition, you need to ensure that you have adequate financial support. In light of the recent recession you need to be guaranteed that your family and your debts are covered while you take your leap of faith. But this is not to say that you should not seek change if you don't have the money. In such a case however you do need to be prepared for all eventualities and the fact that you might suffer from the stress of strained finances.

What kind of routine are you comfortable with?

Before making a career change you need to assess the alterations to your routine that your new career will entail. If you are a parent with a family to look after, or someone who enjoys a busy social life, then taking this into consideration will hold you in good stead. Not being able to have time for friends and family is one of the leading causes of dissatisfaction at work. And since you are already seeking some change in your life, you definitely need to take this into account. Working from home, or on weekends, flexi-time and holiday entitlement should also be carefully thought through.

Do you want to be the employer or employee?

Some people are built to work for others while some prefer to run their own business – which is not to say that one is inferior to the other. Both are different types of people and you may also move between the two throughout your career. For a number of reasons you might also prefer to freelance and work from the comfort of your home. This gives you your independence while allowing you to work on projects that stimulate you. But each of these have their pros and cons which you need to consider carefully while toying with the idea of a career change.

Once you have answered these questions satisfactorily, you will have developed at least some clarity on what you are willing to compromise on. Since considering the economy and the market at the moment won't be an adequate yardstick, it would probably be beneficial to also speak to the professionals in the field.

Recrion is a specialist in people and career management and has helped many individuals to make positive careers decisions through career coaching and career evaluation workshops.  Take a look at how we do this on www.recrion.co.uk/career or call us on 01780 484910 for more information.