Archive for the ‘career coaching’ Category
|Book Review: The Optimized Woman
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
As I’ve got older I have become more aware of the role of hormones in how I feel. I’m particularly interested in the changes I have experienced personally, and seen in others, after having children as it seems to unleash creativity in women.
And have you ever let rip in the week before your period? Some people may call that PMT, but it can also be a useful way of addressing lurking issues and clearing the air.
You may or may not feel that your hormones change the way you work but I’d certainly recommend The Optimized Woman: Using Your Menstrual Cycle to Achieve Success and Fulfillment: If You Want to Get Ahead, Get a Cycle
I spoke to Miranda Grey about her personal experiences which lead her to write this book. Miranda says, “After doing a science degree at university I did an illustration course and half way through it I set up as a freelance illustrator. It was very obvious to me, painting 24/7, that my creativity changed with the phases of my cycle. Also I found it easier to do some things towards running the business at certain times of the month than others. From discussing these experiences with other women and looking for images of women from the past to find a system to relate to, I wrote my fist book Red Moon: Understanding and Using the Gifts of the Menstrual Cycle back in 1994. It was very successful, translated into 5 languages, and I gave talks and workshops on the contents. It is about to be reprinted too.
Miranda then moved on from traditional illustration into electronic graphic design and set up a multimedia company with her husband. She explains, “Over the last 15 years I have worked for clients ranging from large international corporates to small startup businesses. A few years ago it occured to me that although I work to my strengths in my cycle that there was no knowledge of this practice in mainstream work and the menstrual cycle is still as much of a taboo in mainstream society as it was back in the early 1990s. Also, having finished a course on life-coaching and having tested a range of different success and goal achievement methods, it became obvious to me that they were based on a consistency of experience, motivation and ability that women do not have, making it difficult for women to use them to achieve their full potential.”
This moved Miranda to develop The Optimized Woman . She says, ” The Optimized Woman is designed to show women how to recognise their Optimum Time abilities and to apply them practically to three main areas of their lives: well-being, goal-achievement and work enhancement. It answers the question ‘What use is my menstrual cycle?’ and shows it as a powerful resource when we adapt activities, expectations, motivation, and success and goal-achievement methods, in line with our changing phases.
Miranda is in her 40s and lives in Southampton, England, in a scheduled ancient monument. As well as running a multimedia business with her husband, she paints children’s book illustrations, teaches Reiki, runs women’s workshops and facilitates an online women’s course. She has a degree in Geophysics and has written a correspondence course on using crystals for well-being. Find out more about the Optimized Woman at www.optimizedwoman.com/ or buy The Optimized Woman book for £10.79
Posted in book reviews, career coaching, time management | No Comments »
Executive Coach Profile: Aryanne Oade
Sunday, June 28th, 2009
In April, I reviewed Starting and Running a Coaching Business: The Complete Guide to Setting Up and Managing a Coaching Practice
Name of Business: Oade Associates
Your Name and Age: My name is Aryanne Oade and I am 42 years old.
Tell us about yourself: I live and work from my farm just outside a small village in Yorkshire. I keep a flock of 22 pet sheep and run my business from the farm. (more…)
Posted in Mumpreneur Profiles, career coaching, coaching mums | No Comments »
Will Your CV Get You The Job?
Monday, June 22nd, 2009
There is a huge skill base and a wealth of experience that exists with mums returning to work but the reality is that it very difficult for many to get back into the world of employment. The good news is that this is often down to the way you present your CV, which is easy to improve if you follow some simple tips:
Identify what you’re good at.
Based on the assumption that you have been out of the work place for a while, the first thing you need to do is to identify what skill and experience you have. This should include your previous work career; any relevant activities you got involved in at schools or other places such as social clubs. Maybe you have managed projects, events, school trips. Combine it with other skills such as computer skills, admin skills, finance skills. The list is probably endless but you should write it all down and structure your CV around this list.
Do not apply for the wrong jobs
You need to identify the jobs that utilise the skill and experience you have. Applying for jobs that require skill or experience that you don’t have is a waste of your time. Too many people apply for the wrong jobs and wonder why they don’t get them. All any employer wants is to find a good candidate who can do the job they are hiring for, so make sure you only apply for jobs that are relevant to your skill and experience.
The purpose of your CV is not to get you the job.
Do not write a generic CV and then send the same copy to every job you apply for. Your CV needs to be tailored for each position and company and remember this: The purpose of your CV is NOT to get you the job. It is to get you the interview. The purpose of the interview is to get you the job. If your CV is not good enough to get you the interview, you can forget about getting the job so tailor it for the interview.
Tell them what you can do for them.
The employer is not interested in you. They are interested in what you can do for them so tell them and include what benefits they get if they employ you. Will they be better off from employing you? If so tell them why and how. If not, they will not employ you.
Your CV must stand out
Your CV must stand out from the rest. Most employers only glance at CVs and if there is nothing to grab their attention, they will put it back down. Your CV is your sales brochure so make sure that when they read it, they want to meet you. Give them enough information to get their interest but don’t write your life history. Keep the information relevant to the position and the company you are applying for.
Summary
Keep your CV relevant, make sure it stands out and will make them want to meet you. The biggest question you should ask yourself when looking at your CV is this: Would you be interested in your CV if you were the employer?
Anthony Haley is a global headhunter and author of The Invisible Candidate www.theinvisiblecandidate.com
If you’ve got a question about CVs, post it in the comments below, and Antony or I will see if we can help.
Posted in CVs, career coaching, work | No Comments »
Real help for young mumpreneurs
Monday, April 27th, 2009
If you’re a young mother who’s wondering about starting a new business then you may come up against two questions that seem huge:
- ¨ Where will I get the money to get started?
- ¨ Who’s going to help me with advice and support?
You can get answers by joining the thousands of other people who’ve been helped by the Prince’s Trust. For some odd reason, many people don’t know about the Trust and how it can give you that vital helping hand. (more…)
Posted in business opportunities, career coaching, run your own business, start ups | No Comments »
Portfolio Careers or ‘Giganomics’?
Thursday, April 16th, 2009
According to the Telegraph, more and more people are making a living from a series of freelance gigs – coining the phrase Giganomics. Read here to find out how different people do it – I’m included at the end of the article too.
Antonia
Posted in career coaching, flexible work, freelancing, work | No Comments »
Retraining: Have you Thought of Becoming a Complementary Therapist?
Tuesday, April 14th, 2009
Image by D Sharon Pruitt
Complementary therapies are popular, and therapists usually are self employed, working the hours that they choose. More people are making a second career as a complementary therapist just because of the freedom and flexibility offered. It is a career which offers the chance to make a difference too, with many therapists training in a discipline that has worked well for them.
Jo Lunn offers training in Bowen Technique. She believes that Bowen provides the perfect opportunity for people to build a new career, create a second income or simply have a fresh start and try something new. “Courses are easily affordable and provide people with an ideal opportunity to add a further skill to their CV and even start a new business”.
Sarah Worne practises as a homeopath in Hastings. She describes why she retrained, “When my children were around six and eight years old, I decided I wanted a change of direction in my work-life. Up until that point, I had worked from home as a freelance journalist. After helping out with some PR work for a new self-help cancer centre in Hastings, my eyes were opened to the amazing and fascinating world of alternative health therapies that were being used to support those patients. My own experience of Homoeopathy generated a keen interest to learn more and become a practitioner myself. It was an enormous step but a decision I took, which has given me so much pleasure in helping others and I hope will continue to do so for many years to come.”
Almost all complementary career courses can be studied part time, and with many there is a choice over whether you learn at weekends, evenings or during the day. Most therapists are registered with a professional body now: there are a selection below to contact if you want to find out more about qualifying. The Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council is the new national voluntary regulator for complementary healthcare practitioners in the UK www.cnhc.org.uk
- General Osteopathic Council 0 207 357 6655 www.osteopathy.org.uk
- General Chiropractic Council 020 7713 5155 www.gcc-uk.org
- The British Acupuncture Council 020 8735 0400 www.acupuncture.org.uk
- The National Institute of Medical Herbalists 01392 426022 www.nimh.org.uk
Posted in career coaching, flexible work, retraining, run your own business, training | No Comments »
Book Review: The Ultimate Mumpreneur’s Guide to Online Business Success
Monday, April 13th, 2009
Do you hope to start an online business? If you’re one of the many potential mumpreneurs around at the moment, Mel McGee’s book, The Ultimate Mumpreneur’s Guide to Online Business Success, is a good buy.
Mel McGee is a NLP master and offers business coaching through www.supermummy.com. She has used her coaching experience to write this motivating book, which is packed with handy lists and tools to help you examine your motivation and develop a business.
I liked ideas like the ‘7 Steps to Mumpreneur Success’. The book has lots of handy hints, Supermummy tips, and little cartoons to help you focus and refine your ideas. One essential idea that Mel McGee gets spot on is about how to decide on what your business will offer. It is all too easy to decide what you would like to sell, without looking at whether this is what people want to buy. Mel suggests identifying your ‘hot’ target market, and looking at the products and services that will address their biggest concerns. The next key tip is about tasking a good hard look at your potential idea and seeing if there is money in it.
The first part of the book will work whatever type of business you want to create, but Mel goes more in depth for mums wanting to get involved in online marketing, and in particular information marketing. An online business is ideal for mums and dads because it can run from home at times of day to suit you. Getting your online marketing right is essential, and Mel guides you through the use of incentives to collect contact details and turn them into paying customers.
Watch out for a competition to win copies of this book next month.
£15, available from Amazon. 188 Pages. ISBN-13: 978-1905430512 or download from Bookshaker.
Posted in business planning, career coaching, mumpreneurs, online mums | 6 Comments »
Where have you got to? How to get Unstuck and Move On
Thursday, March 26th, 2009
Sometimes it is easy to feel stuck. Maybe your business has hit a blockage or your search for work that fits with the family seems fruitless. This is the second article from Sandy Mann for Family Friendly Working and it will help you idenitfy where you are and move on. Good Luck!
People who’ve realised their dreams talk about going through different stages and roller-coasting up and down before they make things happen. Have a think about where you are and how you can move on.
Uneasy
This is that uncomfortable feeling when you’re starting to think that all’s not well with your life, that various things are going wrong for you and that maybe you ought to do something about all this. But you don’t quite start, because there are other things you need to do. The uneasy feeling goes grumbling on, though. (more…)
Posted in career coaching, run your own business, time management | No Comments »
Want to Change Your Life? Three good ways to get started from Sandy McMillan
Thursday, February 26th, 2009
If you are keen to find a flexible way to work, or want to start a new business but just can’t get going, here is some great business advice. It is the first contribution to Family Friendly Working from Sandy McMillan who helps people work out what to do. You’ll find him at www.careersolutions.co.uk. Watch out for a new article from Sandy at the end of each month.
Get a special book
You may already have noticed that it’s really difficult to sort something out in your head (and can be very depressing!). Writing things down is magic, though, because:
- ¨ Being able to see what you think makes it easier to understand (“How do I know what I think till I see what I say?” wrote E M Forster)
- ¨ Things can get muddled in your head but can be separated on paper
- ¨ Writing gives you a record so that you can see where you’ve been
- ¨ Returning to something you’ve written often triggers new thoughts
Posted in business, career coaching, run your own business, start ups, time management | No Comments »
