The Sun Never Sets on You

The Sun Never Sets on YouThe Sun Never Sets on YouLast week, the worrisome truth that all jobs, all skills, all advantages, fade away, was our focus.This week, lets sharpen our sights on how to never become a victim of the changing times nor tides.First, a truthThe only effective response to a world which steadily commoditizes the value of todays skills is to keep learning new ones.If you know that your talents today will be taken-for-granted tomorrow, it seems you oughta, gotta, hafta, get new and better skills.Becoming a better version of you is the only way to make sure you dont become an obsolete version of you.Three stories this week caught my eyeLou Reed passed away without many of the advantages youd expect of a verfallen rock star - good looks, an enormous fan base, a huge catalog of hits - Reed kept his career alive and thriving over five decades.How?A good helping of native talent combined with the desire to always try something new.Reed followed up successful albums with weird, quixotically strange efforts. Triumphant global tours would be succeeded by tottering efforts in a new medium, or with new collaborators, or with new instrumentation.Most of the new things he did fell flat on their face.But the important thing is he kept trying. He knew intuitively that personal growth and exploration was the only way to keep his audience growing and evolving.The successful person at the peak of their game, who decides they dont want to expend the effort to learn any more, ends up like most of Lou Reeds peers from the 60s forgotten long ago.Its the same whether its an audience, a customer base, or future bosses - growth and development are attractive. Stagnation scares em away.My barber in New York City, Clark, has a great coming to New York story.Growing up in Utah, attending barber school out there, he remembers seeing photos during class of the best barbershops in the country - many of which were in New York. And he said to himself some day, Id love to get to New York and work at one of those.But it seemed a pipe dream.Heres the important thing - he kept trying new stuff hed try out new haircuts, learn about new styles, and even, on a bit of a whim, decided to learn about Instagram and start posting photos of his cuts thereAt jclarkwalker at Instagram.Well, and before you know it, he got that New York itch again.So he decided to send those Instagram shots to some of the top barbers in New York, including the finest barber shop in downtown Manhattan, Fellow Barber on Crosby Street. Where he is happily snipping away at his dream today.Now when Clark got started on Instagram, he didnt know where it would take him. He didnt think of it as a strange new type of resume. Didnt consider that getting better at this clever new communication medium was actually a means to achieve dramatic professional growth.No, he didnt need to have it all figured out in advance.Because he did the important thing - he kept trying new stuff.He kept learnin g.And that learning, which turned into a new way to promote himself, led him on a fun, new adventure for him and his young family.And thats an inspiration for all of us.Which got me thinking about this article on the practice of practising . (Yes, thats the British spelling.)Concert pianist Stephen Hough writes that the purpose of practising is so that we (offstage as engineers) make sure that we (onstage as pilots) are completely free to fly to the destination of our choice.Similarly, the purpose of learning outside of your day-to-day tasks at work is so that you can achieve new, and grander, ambitions in your day-to-day career.It is the offstage effort that makes your onstage performance possible.By applying yourself and picking up new skills, you make it so that, in the moment - at the meeting, on the client call, during the debugging - you can make the right choice, apply the right method, instantly, effortlessly.We all learn differently. All the various learning methods - v ideos, in-person classes, books, audiobooks in the car, one-on-one instruction - are more or less effective for different people. (For me, its always books I couldnt sit still through a learning video for more than a minute no matter how Hollywood and high gloss the production).But however you learn, the important thing is to keep learningLearning about your industry, learning about other industries.Learning practical skills, or learning completely impractical skills that simply expand your mind.Learning history and art, or learning more about Gmail, Twitter, and Whatsapp.You groe nachfrage and you run to catch up with the sun, but its sinking. If you are not learning new skills in your profession, you are guaranteeing yourself a future pay cut, or, worse, a pink slip. Dont be that victim, dont end up on the dark side of the moon.Learning new skills exploring new avenues are the only ways to ensure that youll keep ahead of that fat old sun.Well, I hope thats helpful as you think a bout staying ahead in your career Have a great week in the search

American kids would rather be youtube blogger

American kids would rather be youtube bloggerAmerican kids would rather be youtube bloggerImagine the guts, the glory, and finally the awe of floating in space after years of studying and training.But according to a recent survey, American kids today have no interest in being an astronaut. Theyd rather be a YouTuber or a vlogger.A Harris Poll survey commissioned by LEGO surveyed 3,000 children in the United States, UK, and China about their future .Follow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moreThe children were asked what they wanted to be when they grew up and given five professions to choose from astronaut, professional athlete, teacher, musician, or Youtuber/blogger.Twenty-nine percent of Americans and 30% of those in the UK wanted to be a YouTuber/vlogger at three times the rate they did an astronaut. For American kids, astronaut was the least-popular future profession.Meanwhile, 56% of k ids in China wanted to be an astronaut, with Youtuber/vlogger coming in last on the list.Still, kids showed that they were nevertheless imaginative about our future in space. Almost all of those surveyed (90%) said theyd like to learn more about space exploration.When asked if they would like to travel into space, 95% of Chinese kids said they would, and nearly 70% of U.S. kids and 63% of British children did.Nearly all kids from every country surveyed China (97%), the UK (87%), and the US (88%) believe that humans will travel to Mars in the future. A quarter (24%) of kids who think humans will travel to Mars think it will happen either this year or next. Thats a pretty fast timeframeThree-quarters of kids believe that humans will live in outer space or on a different planet, though kids from China fervently believe so, (96%) at a much higher rate than kids from the US (66%) and UK (62%).Perhaps by the time that happens, some of todays American and English kids will be broadcasting their YouTube channels straight from space.

7 Resume Points That Immediately Grab a Recruiters Attention

7 Resume Points That Immediately Grab a Recruiters Attention7 Resume Points That Immediately Grab a Recruiters Attention Did you know that- on average- recruiters and hiring managers spend only seven seconds reading yur resume before signing you up for an interview- or tossing that precious piece of paper in the trash? Thats not a lot of time to impress a potential employer. But the slush pile doesnt have to be yur job-search fate. Dawn Rasmussen, certified resume writer and founder of Pathfinder Writing and Career Services , along with Glassdoors own tips from its Ultimate Guide to Resumes , will help you craft a resume thatll bestattungs a recruiters attention.You may think that adding graphics or other infographic elements will make your resume stand out. But before your resume makes it to a recruiter, it will most likely have to pass through a computer scanning program, and those fancy shapes and symbols can confuse a computer. If youre sending your resume a s an online submission, Rasmussen explains, those sexy graphics wont make it through the software system that is set to scan through your document. In that case, it is important to have a graphic-less document so you can get through the software. Another tip to get your resume into the right hands, literally? Scan the job description for keywords you can add to your resume, our guide instructs. If the job calls for a self-starter, a leader, or someone eager to learn, be aya to add those in.According to Rasmussen, ask any recruiter or someone tasked with looking at resumes day after day, and theyd say that most people do a horrible job organizing information. By organizing your resume in a clear way, youll already be steps ahead of the competition. There are many ways to organize a resume , but two good formats suggested by our guide are the chronological resume and the functional resume. In a chronological resume, you focus on your recent work history above all, our guide instructs . List your positions in reverse chronological order, with the most recent positions at the top and the oldest ones at the bottom. In a functional resume, your aim is to emphasize the relevance of your experience, according to our guide. To create a functional resume, youll prominentlyfeature your professional summary, your skills, and a work experience section organized by how closely the positions relate to the one youre applying to. This format is best for those who want to minimize resume gaps, or are transitioning into a new industry. You can also do a mixture of these styles, which is called- surprise- a combination resume.No matter what kind of resume you decide to create, whether a chronological or functional resume, you will want to make sure each section is defined. Guiding the reader through what you are going to discuss next is key, Rasmussen explains. They dont want to be left guessing what you are discussing. Mark each section of your resume in bold, she suggests.Dont just say you increased your companys sales- show how much you increased those sales with numbers, our guide instructs. Use your resume to explain concrete accomplishments, it says. Make sure your statistics are consistent, percentages are properly placed and business jargon is used appropriately based on the industry. Whats more, you may want to bold those numbers and accomplishments. Bold and front-load your notable accomplishment stories underneath each employment record, Rasmussen suggests. Want to get to the point even more? When you are talking about your on-the-job wins underneath each employer, bold the numbers and outcomes from each story. That makes them pop- especially when recruiters are doing the quick once-through on their initial review of your document. Numbers and results bolded at the front of each sentence make it easy for them to see to what degree you are getting stuff done.If you go on and on and on in your resume, you may lose your reader- and the opportuni ty for an interview. Being efficient in how you move the reader through the document makes it cleaner and easier to understand, Rasmussen says. We are now in a skimming economy, so getting right to the point cleanly is critical. So, try this tip if you have held multiple positions at the same company, stack your job titles and dates worked, starting with your most recent and going down to the oldest, instead of having a separate job entry for each position. This stacking maneuver attracts hiring manager attention because by putting the positions underneath each other, it demonstrates that you were progressively promoted.One way to keep your resume short and to-the-point is to only include the skills that trulymake an impact- not ones that are basic requirements such as Microsoft Word or an ability to use email or irrelevant to the job youre applying to, according to our guide.Guess what? Everyone is a hard worker on their resume. So our guide advises you to ditch the generic and vague descriptors you might be apt to use, such as hard-working and self-motivated, which are a dime a dozen, and use more specific phrases. Focus on the skills and accomplishments that set you apart from the competition, the guide advises. One thing every recruiter will want to see on your resume is reliability. If you frequently change companies without changing levels or positions, it can be a red flag to recruiters that you are unsure or unreliable, our guide warns. So that youre not flagged as a flaky employee, consider only listing the companies that best align with your desired industry. If you do that, our guide adds, you can always add a foot-note that reads like prior work experience in a different field, more information available upon request.