Business Corner

The news on job creation continues to be dim. The latest unemployment report shows that 9.1% of Americans are still without work. This number doesn’t capture the unemployed who have become discouraged and have stopped looking for employment. Like most Professionals reading this article you have prepared your resume and submitted it to many job postings. And just like most Professionals you are waiting for a response to your resume submission. This is where I want to share with you four steps that will improve your job search efforts.
1. Target your search: This is a plug and play economy. That means hiring managers are looking for people to take care of very specific problems. So target your search to hiring managers who need what you love to do. If you are a candidate who has a passion for Non- Profit work consider targeting your search to companies and facilities that serve the Elderly, Youth Organizations and the Arts. What is your expertise or passion? This is the time to pursue it.
2. Social Media/Networking: Professionals should be registered with Linkedin™. You should strive to have a minimum of 250 Connections in order to optimize your use of this site. Start working this list. Be specific in your requests. Example: if you want to work in HR for a company in the Telecommunication Industry – ask your Connections about contacts and their experience in connecting with Professionals in this area. You’ll be surprised by who your Connections know; unless you ask.
3. Prepare a Value Proposition Statement – those who know me will tell you that I believe every resume should contain a value proposition statement. What will you bring to the company that will solve problems of interest for the Hiring Manager? In other words why should he hire you?
4. Volunteering – What better way to keep your marketable skills sharp than to volunteer. This is also a great way to avoid employment gaps on your resume. If you are a candidate who is talented in Project Management you may want to consider checking with the local school systems to volunteer. Volunteering with your School System will allow you to do something that you are already extremely knowledgeable of. Let them know what you’re passionate about and how you want to make a living.
Getting a job in the plug and play economy is all about leverage. Use what you have to get what you want while providing something of value to others. I find a lot of unemployed Professionals stuck in their search unable to answer the most basic of questions because they haven’t done their homework. Understand that your job search is a full time job. There are many qualified candidates with skills and qualifications equal to or more impressive than yours. How you go about your job search is the differentiator. Yes you will face rejection from time to time; but continue to be persistent in your search and you will land that satisfying new job.

Have a book you’re dying to share with the world? Sigil is an open source program available for free online that will allow you to quickly and easily convert your book to the.epub format for submission to Kindle ebooks and elsewhere.

Publishing options for ebooks abound, but if you’ve honed in on the opportunity to self-publish your ebook with Amazon – for the Kindle – or elsewhere and need an.epub format file, you probably need some words of encouragement, a pat on the back for writing a worthy and unique book, and a little help converting your book to the proper format for publication. I’m here for ya! I’ll walk you through the wonderful Sigil Program .epub formatting process.

Alright, the first thing you’re going to want to do is open your document in whatever program you’ve created it in and use the ‘Save As’ feature to save the document as HTML. Then go online and grab a free program called Sigil (see program download link in article resource box below) and install it on your computer. Open your .HTML document in Sigil and immediately use the ‘Save As’ feature to save your document with an .epub extension (It’s the only option available in the program.). Now you have a document that is in the correct file type for submission to Amazon’s Kindle ebooks, but don’t stop now; your book still needs to be properly formatted – this is where you’re going to fall in love with Sigil! **

Here are the 6 steps to follow to convert your document using Sigil:

1) Separate Your Book into Sections: Scroll down your document until you find the your first ‘Chapter’ break and use the Sigil squiggle button (fifteenth option from the left on the top panel of screen) to create a break in the document. Repeat this process throughout your document wherever you want a separation in the document. (Save your work.)  Read more... (947 words, estimated 3:47 mins reading time)