Three things leaders do before work May 6, 2014 High achievers make the most of the quiet early hours to read, reflect, and exercise By the time most of us wake up (around 6.40am, according to a 2010 study on average sleep times by technology company Philips), many highly successful people have already responded to dozens of emails, calls, and started planning out the [...]
Three ways to get more from LinkedIn May 5, 2014 While you’ll have to put more work into your account, you can also easily monitor your success WHEN LinkedIn announced it had surpassed 15m UK members in March, the accompanying statistical breakdown put a new perspective on what passes for professional in Britain. Although the biggest UK employers represented included RBS and Lloyds, 146 chimney [...]
How to use body language better in the workplace May 1, 2014 Adopting a “power pose” will give you a confidence burst LEGENDARY US entertainer Mae West said she spoke two languages – “English, and Body”. And while the oft-repeated line about communication being “93 per cent non-verbal” is now widely debunked, body language can make or break presentations and negotiations in business. A 2011 poll of [...]
Is a foreign language worth the investment? April 30, 2014 English may be a lingua franca, but another tongue could boost your job prospects AN INCREASING number of foreign multinationals – from Airbus to Samsung – now mandate English as the common corporate language. In 2010, Japanese services firm Rakuten hit headlines when it announced it would become an English-only organisation. “English is the only [...]
Do you need to learn how to code? April 28, 2014 Programming has reached the mainstream but is unlikely to boost your career prospects CODING has become so mainstream that even basketball legend Chris Bosh is telling you to do it. Forget footballers, it’s now tech entrepreneurs (like teenager Nick D’Aloisio, who sold his company Summly to Yahoo for a reported £20m last year) that today’s [...]
Four new rules for writing your CV April 27, 2014 While perfection is impossible, there are simple ways to improve your career prospects YOU’LL never have a perfect CV. Should it fit on a single page, include a list of objectives, should you tell a potential employer why you have gaps in your employment history? These are contentious issues, even among recruiters. And given the [...]
Don’t fear the quantified workplace April 24, 2014 While it has shades of Big Brother, personal analytics could make your job happier and easier SELF-KNOWLEDGE is the first step towards self-improvement for the personal analytics evangelists. If you can use wearable sensors to acquire data about yourself, and then analyse your performance over tasks, you can deploy this information to change your behaviour [...]
Three ways you can bounce back after being fired April 23, 2014 Having an explanation ready for any abrupt departure is vital THE LATE Steve Jobs said that being fired from Apple in 1985 was the best thing that could have ever happened to him. “The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me [...]
Hate meetings? There are solutions April 22, 2014 You can’t escape the corporate meeting boom, but you can stop wasting so much time OVER a third start late, we lose the equivalent of 31 hours a month each because they’re unproductive, and many people hate them anyway. Meetings are the bête noire of corporate life and, according to one survey, 39 per cent [...]
Three steps for a pleasant commute April 21, 2014 Beat the back-to-work blues by grabbing a seat and keeping a lid on your anger LET’S face it – commuting is the worst part of the day. Swedish researchers found that a journey in excess of 45 minutes for just one partner in a marriage made the couple 40 per cent more likely to divorce. [...]