How to Quit a Job

Even with the current state of joblessness, it becomes sometimes too hard to continue the existing job. According to Forbes, there are 3 major reasons why you should leave your current job. Firstly, you may consider quitting a job if your professional development is stagnating, not just at risk of doing so. You will know you are in such a situation if you are constantly feeling restless, or “stuck” It could also be the time to call a quit if you feel that you are so mentally, physically and emotionally drained to continue. Additionally, if you find a better place, you can always call it quits. However, which is the best way to make this big step?

Whether you have landed a better job, or are simply tired of your current state, leaving the relationship workable even after quitting is the priority. It does not matter whether you are leaving some nice friends or enemies at the workplace. It is advisable to be careful not to burn bridges as such actions could haunt in future.

Inform your boss before anybody else

Quitting a job is not always a pleasant experience and you might be tempted to act badly towards either your boss or co-workers. The way you report your intentions matters a lot. With the current state of technology, it is tempting to say it all via social media or text messages. This is very wrong! Your boss should be the first person to know of your intentions. You would not wish for a situation where you go to tell the boss of your intentions only to find that he already learned about that from another party.

A Physical meeting is always the best

Technology may also enable you to inform the boss or co-workers that you are quitting even without going to the office. However, do not rely on this method too much. News about quitting is best relayed during a one-on-one meeting. Talking about this matter over the phone should only come as a last option.

Ensure a smooth transition 

Now that, you are sure you are leaving and has informed everyone, it is important to make sure your roles are left in good hands. This is why it is necessary to give a resignation notice to your current boss. Most organizations talk of a two weeks’ notice. The point is to give the employer sufficient time to find your replacement. When the replacement comes, it is advisable to train them and ensure everything runs smoothly when you leave. This creates a good picture in the eyes of the employer and colleagues that you want the group to succeed.

Bid everyone farewell and quit

Talking of success, showing that you care about the progress of co-workers is a truly effective characteristic. During your last moments on your job, dedicate your time to wish everyone well in their endeavors. In fact, this is the best time to bury the hatchet even with that the person you hate so much.

Quitting is always marred by emotions and doing it in the right way could make the process more manageable. By handling it professionally, you not only help the company has a smooth transition, but you also a lasting legacy.

How to avoid blunders during Walk-in Interview

On hearing about walking interviews, the first image in your mind will appear is of “mass interview”, many people sitting in a queue.  There are many people who can easily face scheduled interview, but when same people asked to face the walking interview they become nervous and fumble.  To avoid this fumble, here are simple tips, which can boost your confidence before facing walking interviews.

Tips for preparing walking interviews

1)      Be calm and poised

The first thing is to remain calm and poised, no matter how many people are there for the interview.  This will help you to focus on the questions asked and answer them precisely. While facing the interviewer, you have to make eye contact with them and try to keep your answer short unless your interviewer asks you more detail on it.

2)      Organize your documents

Always keep your documents in an organized manner.  So when you are asked for documents, you can easily hand over to interviewer without shuffling and juggling into the files, in such tense condition. It will also save your time.

3)      Prepare well

Before going for walking interview, make sure that you read the walking advertisement carefully and get familiarize with the company’s requirement. Also, do enough research about the company’s detail like their mission, vision and working culture.

4)      Update your resume

Always carry with you an updated copy of resume, and only mention those skills in it which you are confident about.  Also be prepared with the common questions in an interview like “Why should we hire you?”

5)      Be honest

It always works “Honesty is the Policy”.  No person in this world has infinite knowledge of everything. So when you are not sure of your answer or you don’t know, then politely say, “NO” to the questions.

6)      Be confident but not arrogant

Sometimes to check your confidence, interviewer can twist questions or put you with wrong questions, while answering them you have to be careful.  Answer only those questions for which you are confident.

7)      Know whom you are meeting with

While going for walking interview always make sure whom you are going to meet. Remember the name of the person who has called you for an interview or carry the business card of an interviewer. And don’t forget rule number one, always reach at time and dress well.

8)      Avoid personal remarks

Do not criticize your previous or current colleagues, friends, manager etc. during interview. Also, do not bring financial aspects into a discussion; it might give wrong impression about you to your employer, at least try to avoid at the initial rounds of interview. At last make a smooth exit, with a nice greeting.

Once the walking interview is done, the next step is finalizing the candidates.  Few walking interviews finalize their candidates on the spot, while few left over their decision for second round or inform the candidate later on after scrutinizing every bit of short-listed candidates.

Finding Work from Home

As an alternative to working from the office or any other outside location, some people are now looking for opportunities where they can work from home. Most of these jobs will only require a PC with internet connection, a telephone and relevant skills. However, there are some jobs that will require periodic on-site visits. Among the people who work from home include moms, retirees and people with disabilities.In this tutorial, we will discuss

1. Types of Work from Home Jobs
2. Where to find Work from Home Jobs
3. Scams to Avoid

 Types Of Work From Home Jobs

Some of the options that you will have when finding work from home include:

Virtual Assistant: Instead of hiring permanent employees, companies or even businesses are now going for temporary specialists who can help them in fields like secretarial, clerical support and administrative support among others. As a newcomer, you may find it challenging trying to break into the virtual assistance, but you can make this easier by networking through social media websites like Twitter or business groups.

Customer service representative: You will find a number of companies today hiring customer service agents instead of having an internal call center. As a customer service representative, you will be charged with some duties like answering incoming calls, completing forms and then lodging complaints in line with some agreed protocol. As a full time worker, you can even benefit from paid vacation or medical insurance.

Technical support agent: This is another great opportunity for those finding work from home but as the title suggests, one will need to have some technical skills. Generally, such an agent will be dealing directly with customers looking for assistance in troubleshooting equipment or appliances like laptops, stereos and servers among others. Most establishments will require you to provide professional certification.

Online tutor: With a bachelor’s degree, you can venture into online tutoring where you can be providing teaching lessons or assisting students with their homework. Some websites will hire you as a part-time employee but others will consider you on a freelance basis, and it is, therefore, up to you to find your perfect match. Examples of these sites aretutor.com and Get Educated.com and among others.

Freelance writing: This is all about creating technical documents or blogging where you can specialize in some fields like sports, entertainment, health and politics among others. If you are good in researching, freelance writing can be your best bet when finding work from home, but you will need to create informative and unique documents without plagiarism. In this field, you can also help students work on assignments and academic projects.

Translator: If you well understand a number of languages, you can become a home-based online translator for business documents, academic papers, computer software or consumer websites among others. Most translating positions are available on freelance basis, but they will be varying benefits depending on the company you choose. Some of these firms are SDL and Argo Translations among others.

Other jobs that you can consider including:

• Programing or Software Development
• Travel agent
• Medical transcription among others

Places to look for jobs where you can work from home

Job Boards: Finding work from home sounds easy but this can be pretty challenging if you don’t have the right details in your fingertips. Today, you can make use of job boards and these are websites that post available employment opportunities. With these, you can refine your search by picking categories like business, law, education and beauty among others. Examples of job boards are Career builder, Cool Works and Indeed.

Discussion forums There are many websites today that act as discussion forums and some of these list employment opportunities that can help people work from home. You will also find online hiring companies posting on these forums and they provide links where people can click to access their websites. You can also depend on referrals or local newspapers to find jobs where you can work from home.

Hiring companies: There are many companies today hiring people to work from home where the beauty of this is that they can get labor when needed and dismiss some employees when demand is low. Some of the jobs that you can get with these companies include sales, customer service, technical jobs, scheduling, telemarketing and writing among others. You will find some jobs that are commission based while others may be paid per project.

Referrals: In your efforts to find work from home, you can rely on referrals from close friends or family members. This is so because there are many people today making a handsome income while working from home and they can give you an idea on where to start. Such people will also hold your hand whether with tips or ideas on how to rise the ladder and become successful in a short time.

Local Newspapers: There are very many people who can’t do without a newspaper everyday and employers or hiring companies usually use this media to advertise for job opportunities including those where people can work from home. You can, therefore, grab your local newspaper and check in the employment section to see whether you can find some open opportunities where you can fit.

Watch out for scams

There are pretty high chances of falling for internet scams when finding work from home, and this calls for great caution. Some things that should raise your eyebrows include getting a job offer where you never placed an application, being asked to make some upfront payments, promise of huge paychecks for very little work and unclear salary terms.

As a way of avoiding these scams, you should pay close attention where you are asked to pay any charges whether as registration fees, processing fees or training charges among others. Be extra careful in providing some personal details like social security number or your driver’s license number among others. Ensure that the promised salary relates to the services that you will be providing.

In a situation where you are in doubt, take time to carry out a background check on the company or individual in question. Check whether they have functional websites and try confirming their contact details. It is also wise to scan through posted reviews, if any, and check out the ratings by people who earlier tried out similar offers. All this should tell you whether the offers are legitimate or not.

With the right details, finding work from home should be real easy where you can go forfull time or part time employment. The list of companies you can choose from is pretty huge, and you can boost the chances of submitting successful applications by picking a field that perfectly matches your qualifications, skills and experience.

How to cope with hostile work environment

A hostile work environment is created when an employee feels scared, threatened and uncomfortable in his or her work place due to the offensive behavior, intimidation or abuse by a colleagues or superior.

What factors defines a hostile work environment

• Whether the conduct was physical or verbal or both
• Whether the conduct was hostile or simply offensive
• Whether the alleged harasser was a colleague or supervisor
• Does anyone else involved in harassment
• Whether the harassment had interfered the work performance of an employee or not

Role of EEOC

EOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) is a federal law enforcement agency that enforces laws against workplace discriminations.  It adopts an investigative compliance policy, according to which if employers or respondent fails to turn over requested information about employee’s harassment or hostile condition, then they are subjected to legal procedure.

Behaviors that may contribute to an unlawful hostile environment

• Commenting on physical attributes or disabilities
• Discussing sexual activities and un-necessary touching
• Depicting racially insensitive pictures
• Showing indecent gestures
• Using absurd language
• Sabotaging victim’s work
• Engaging in hostile physical conduct
• Using inappropriate terms or epithets
• Over-bearing supervision or misuse of position

How to deal with Hostile Work environment

• Standup for yourself: Do not stay silent about your hostility, defend your activities and speak for yourself. Do whatever you can to avoid such situation
• Address the issue directly with the offender: On your first encounter of offensive behavior from you colleague or supervisor, it’s always better to bring their attention on their behavior. Stop them before it get worse
• If it still continues: If the harassment still continues from your colleagues, give him a warning telling further harassment will be referred to HR and management. By this time, you should document all the conversation made between you and the offender
• Inform Management and Human Resources (HR): When there is no option left, rather than approaching HR and Management, then make sure you have all evidence against offender. Stay calm and address your problem to Management, and let management handle the problem in their own way rather than you asking to fire the employee or take against the offender
• If it still Continuous: After you have addressed to management chances are that the offender was left with a formal warning. And if offender still continues ignoring management warning then you have a ground for a legal action and take the issue to a higher management level
• EEO Complaint: If you are in U.S.A, the federal govt. give you right to complain against hostile environment if the offender is bothering you at work place, the employee might be entitled to personal relief such as restoration of leave or other appropriate compensation. EEO complaint will give an unbiased judgment to plaintiff. EEOC will consider harassment complaint when the complainant is discriminated on the basis of religion, age, gender, disability, nationality, sexual harassment, race or color, pregnancy, and equal wages.
• Filing a Lawsuit: You can file a lawsuit against the offender if you are not convinced with the management actions or if the offender keep abusing you. But before filing lawsuit, you must go through all norms and conditions like after how many days you can file a lawsuit after your formal complain to authorize body.
• Don’t quit job: Don’t quit the job due to hostile environment unless you think the situation remains persistent and you are not satisfied by the action of management or if it is affecting the productivity of your work. It sounds easy to quit the job to cope with such situation but usually it is not, setting yourself from one company to another will draw ample energy and time.

How employee can avoid such situation

• Draw the boundary: Draw the boundary between your professional life and your work life. Sometimes unnecessary socialization expose your weakness or soft corner to the offender.
• Be professional: While working in a hostile environment, make sure that all your action should be professional, ensuring that is not offending anyone personally. This approach will shield you from any kind of bullying or harassment.
• Remind yourself why you at job: Hostile environment can easily avoidable if you are focused on your work and keep reminding yourself what is the purpose of you being there or your goal. This will bring strength to survive in such condition.
• Stay calm and focus on work not workplace: If you build this two quality in you and dedicated to your work, other things will hardly affect you. Even if they still exist it will fade away soon with your mindfulness and positive approach.

How to document a hostile work environment

• Create an accurate record of the information and evidence that will support your case and make sure your employer takes you seriously
• Gather all policy and document that tells about hostile work environment and action against the offender
• Simply records the facts as they occurred- somewhere in word document or notepad and attach to your mail address
• When addressing manager about harassment through e-mail, always keep your manager or higher authority in CC so they should be aware of the situation
• If you receives any e-mail from manager or higher body addressing your problem, print them out with dates also forward a “bcc” to your home e-mail
• While taking print out any of the document in regards the hostile environment, always mention date on top of it
• Try to communicate with the offender in writing like conversation through e-mail so that you have an evidence of it

Steps taken by Company’s Owner or Manager to avoid hostile work-place

• Create a strict policy for harassment specifically addressing hostile work environment
• Select an appropriate person to oversee the policy
• Send a circular to all employees regarding hostile work environment and action taken against
• Reach out and inquire if a problem is suspected
• Aware employees what all things in work place will fall under hostile work environment
• Always keep a close eye on employees unusual or suspicious behavior in an organization
• Look into complaints and procedures immediately, and address the offender on immediate basis
• Take each report and complaint seriously, evaluate the evidence and determine if the policy rules are violated
• Document all information gathered in the investigation of a claim
• Ensure employee compliance with safety and security policies
• Develop plans for dealing with violence if it occurs
• Follow up on any recommended disciplinary action and make sure it does not repeat in future
  

How to Get a Raise Successfully

People say the best part of a job is always in the beginning when they are in the process of getting acquainted to the work environment. Meeting new colleagues and that professional feeling is something which is certainly a new experience. However, can it really be termed as the best phase of a job? Or shall we say promotion or pay-raise is something which beats it. A pay hike is certainly the best phase of a job since during that time; you are rewarded for your active contribution towards the uplifting of the corporation which you have been working for. This reward comes in the form of promotion.

Nevertheless, for a promotion, you definitely need to give your blood and bone to the job as it is tough to please your superiors as they are the ones who hold the key to your promotion. Mentioned below are some constructive, which will help you to get a raise successfully.

Points to Ponder

1. Make sure your annual review succeeds: – This is the part where most of the people commit blunders. Annual review is a time when people should throw the proposal for a pay hike as it would be a loss to keep mum during that time. To err is human. No man can be perfect in their deeds as there is always some sort of compromise involved with every work. For these mistakes, your boss might coax you during the annual reviews and might say that your small blunders put a constraint on the progress of the corporation. This is the time when you have to prove yourself. In case if you have committed blunders over the course of the fiscal, you have to make your boss understand that this experience has enlightened you regarding your mistakes and that such mistakes will not be repeated in the project of the following years. Add the point that your blunders actually gave you a quite clear insight of the upcoming projects and the changes that you are planning to make in it.

1. Stay Optimistic For Your Annual Reviews: – You need to make your superiors understand how ambitious you are for the next projects. Also, give them an idea regarding a few strategies which you will take into account for the next fiscal so that there can be no scope for any form of gaffes in your work.There might be instances where your superiors will express their disagreement in giving you a promotion. This is the point where you can actually bring out the dynamic visionary side of yourself and propose an action plan for the progress of the company over the next few years. Talk to them about future goals and how you propose to achieve them efficiently. If this plan of yours strikes a chord with your boss, then the chances of your promotion escalate. Once you have given them a clear insight of your plan, propose another meeting six months from then.

Steamroll your superiors by ascertaining your value to the company

A successful project and ample experience definitely escalates the chances of promotion but what if your superiors are still reluctant to give in? Then this might be high time for you to stand up and make your superiors realize your value to the company.

• You can give them an insight into the projects which you handled and the way you contributed towards the positive outcomes. If you got more clients on board than your fellow colleagues, then make sure that you have it documented properly. Furthermore, if your solutions have found value to the company, then you ought to list them appropriately so that your capability can be recognized well by your superiors.
• Finally as icing on the cake, tell them that you have bagged an offer from another firm which is willing to pay you a higher salary than yours. This trick might just intimidate your superiors and incline them towards your demands. However, for this trick to work, you need to have an array of successful projects up your sleeve which you can rely upon.
• Let us say your boss agrees to give you an increase of 5%. Will that be suitable for you? Or, can you bring some of your counter-negotiation methods into play? You can also emphasize on tuition reimbursement. Perhaps, a long time for vacations is also something which you can propose to your boss. Therefore, make sure that you put up the right arguments with your boss so that he does not have any second thoughts while giving you an increment in salary.