tips and tricks – Page 3 – My Freelance Academy

What Should You Do If You Dislike Your Job?

When Mondays become nightmares, and when the work deadlines consume your headspace, it’s time to accept that you don’t like your job.

Every weekend is about relief, but Sunday evenings turn melancholic as you have to visit that dreaded office again. Those faces, those files, that cubicle, every single aspect of your job seems to eat your happiness away.

You’re not alone. There are millions like you living helplessly trying to make sense of their jobs as they pay the bills. You can’t quit because there’s no Plan B at your disposal, so you just slog it off and try to make peace with your life, but all in vain.

So how do you make things easier for yourself? Quit and sit at home while living on welfare or facing the situation like the stoic hero you are? I guess the latter.

Here are some tips to help you tolerate that irritating job till you find something else.

1. Examine the scenario:

So what exactly bothers you at work? Is it the pay or the work environment? As soon as you’re able to analyze what truly is bothering you can easily address the problem and have a bearable stint at work.

You can work towards alleviating the cause of concern, so your life becomes much easier.

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2. Confrontations:

After analyzing the cause of your disinterest at work, you need to approach the problem head-on. Whether it’s an overwhelming workload or unfair wage, or an uncooperative co-worker, you need to communicate your struggles to a position of authority, so you no longer end up frustrated.

This is going to be difficult, but it is a necessary step. Nobody is going to automatically find out the cause of your frustration with the job. You have to go out there and communicate with your boss.

3. Switch Your Perspective:

Changing perspective about your job is something you must have heard like a thousand times now. But it is valuable advice and helps you in the long run.

Instead of being sour-hearted about your job all the time, just change your approach about that job and take it not as a tunnel of fire but a feat to accomplish.

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4. Express yourself:

It is important to vent about your job frustration else; you’ll just keep boiling with it all through your life. Share your concerns with your friends. This helps you get lighter.

But make sure you don’t rant on a social networking site or to a co-worker, as that can impact you negatively.

5. Give it your best shot:

Your frustration with your job will lead you to do the bare minimum, which will make your work suffer. So the better option to avail is to give your best efforts, and the resultant appreciation and incentive will motivate you to carry on with the job.

Mediocrity is a vice, and its presence will just dip your career graph. And any lackadaisical performance will just add to your hatred and frustration for the job. It might not change the work scenario but will make you a little happier and confident.

4 Ways You Can Boost Your Productivity And Achieve More

You often wonder why some people are so successful while you yourself are not. Despite your best efforts, you always seem to lack the productivity that makes these highly successful people tick. So what can you do to increase your productivity?

Here are four simple tips you can use and tear through those tasks:

1. Schedule

Scheduling may not seem like an interesting exercise, but it has its uses. Make a to-do list so that you can actually decide when you can do each task in the day. When you have carved out your timetable, stick to it: no distractions, social media, email, or any other activity.

No. Other. Tasks. Period.

You’d be surprised at your speed when you are able to concentrate on the tasks at hand.

2. Prioritize

It is very crucial that you rearrange your to-do list in the order of importance. That way, you know the essential thing you have to perform every day to get results in a timely fashion. If you keep the most important tasks at the end of your timetable, the chances are that you might procrastinate or not do them at all.

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3. Reduce Multitasking

Multitasking may be an essential skill for some, but in reality, it can be a productivity killer. When we try to do many things at once, our brain has to perform extra work processing all that information.

Not only that, but our memory can be overloaded, and we might not remember little, albeit important details. And more often than not, we fail at multiple things instead of succeeding at a single one. So try to do one thing at a time if you can.

4. Systems and processes

It may sound daft to you but remember or document how you actually work. You’ll soon realize the repetitive patterns and make them work for you. It then becomes stupidly easy to do those tasks again.

So with these four simple tricks, you can be as productive as ever and achieve more success than you can imagine. And then others will start asking you for tips. How’s that for success?

Things to Know While Hiring Interns

Interns are indispensable to any organization. They form the crux of your establishment, ensuring the flow of fresh ideas and talent and also serving as future employees if they make the cut. This is why companies start hunting for interns the moment the intern season starts.

But there are a lot of factors that come into play when you think of hiring interns for your organization. From compensation to protecting their interests and credit requirements, everything is important.

Here is a list of things you should know before hiring the next batch of interns for your company.

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

This act formulated in 1938 clearly mentions a federal minimum wage, an 8-hour daily work limit, a 40 hour per week limit, and overtime pay to be included for interns.

You need to be well versed with all these regulations and also be sure not to incorporate deductions in the name of uniforms, merchandise shortages, or any other factors.

Non-compliance with these laws can lead to penalties of up to 10000 dollars.

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Wage and Hour Division Guidelines.

In April 2010, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division formulated a new set of regulations to be followed for unpaid internship programs in the wake of abuse by private firms.

The first guideline states that internship, if unpaid, has to be provided in an educational environment and many more. This includes workshops and software training programs as requirements for the internship programs.

You need to keep them engaged.

Don’t hire interns if you don’t have something edgy and creative for them to do. Fresh talent requires to be subjected to challenging and quirky tasks and projects to harness their potential.

If your interns get bored at work, the productivity of your organization will be impacted. This is fresh, young talent, and their skills and fresh ideas need to be utilized to the best capacities.

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Focus on the basics

For your interns, this is the first exposure to a professional environment, so give them a heads up on the basics of working on an organization, equip them with the essential skills and protocols so that it is easier to work with all of them. You can organize a special orientation program for the same.

Give something valuable

Don’t use interns to run the office errands or fill up coffee machines. If you hire interns, make sure they take away something valuable from your organization.

6 Things to Know if You Work in Retail

The retail sector is booming with job opportunities and avenues. It is a great opportunity to learn a set of skills that would prove to be extremely useful for young people in the future and also offers a chance to earn a quick buck.

And the best part is that you don’t require experience to sign up for this sector. But yes, there are certain qualities you require like communication skills, emotional and social intelligence, digital literacy, knowledge of finances, and teamwork qualities. Here are some of them.

Reliability and Flexibility

There will be times when your manager requires you to put in an extra hour at work or work extra for a busy workday. You need to know that extra efforts never go futile. Extra allowance and a good impression in front of the manager is the bonus you get. Be ready for all kinds of tasks, even the tedious ones.

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Communication Skills

A job in retail might not be a permanent bet for you, but the skills you learn here will teach you a lot about people. The interpersonal and communication skills you learn here will be handy at any work setup, whether it’s a startup or a big corporate firm. Your speaking skills and confidence will get a boost.

Your financial prowess will also improve.

Apply at the right time

The holiday season has the maximum amount of customers coming in, so this is the best time for you to apply as you will be able to serve more people and learn much more. Also, vacancies are the maximum at this time.

Your personality is key

When you go for a walk-in and personalized interview, your colleagues and employers will get to know you through your body language and behavior. So you need to be well versed with the brand and also be culturally fit the workforce there. Everyone is looking at you the moment you step in.

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This is going to be laborious

The physical work and moving around is too much in retail. You have to be on your feet all day, unpacking boxes, sorting racks, cleaning shelves, hanging clothes, and hustling around trial rooms, shop front, and storerooms. So have comfortable shoes, take rest breaks in between, and be aware of your entitlements and fair pay guidelines.

Teamwork is important

Retail is all about being around people for your entire shift, and you need to be friendly, helpful, and focused at all times. A people-oriented and team-oriented approach are important. Be supportive of your team members and divide your responsibilities fairly. Don’t be too offended by criticism, and be easy to work with.

5 Reasons Why Competitiveness is an Asset

Life is full of competition. Although everybody wants to win, if one wins, the other will definitely be losing. We should take this as a step in the learning process. We can learn from animals and insects who may fall plenty of times but ultimately succeed.

The competition gives us the motivation to achieve a goal; we work with determination, creativity, and perseverance to overcome challenges; and to understand that hard work and commitment lead to a greater chance of success.

In all situations of life, there are winners and losers: getting a job, bidding on a contract, not getting into the desired college, and so on.

Children need to learn how to cope with defeat and disappointment and to be able to genuinely appreciate the good fortune, talents, and abilities of the “winner” and then look forward to the next opportunity to try again.

Our life is a learning platform, and competition is the Warfield. We have to fight with ourselves to achieve success; our heart starts jumping when we win, but we should not lose our heart in case we lose. We should again make better efforts to achieve our goal.

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Think over where we were wrong and where there is room for improvement? We try to find out the reasons for failure and explore new ways for getting success.

We have to mold our children in such a way that they understand the importance of teamwork and give them such an atmosphere where they easily learn and be positive as regards winning. They should be told that “ winning isn’t everything,” and if a team wins, it is the win for the whole team and not any individual.

By doing this, we are stripping away the hunger to win over challenges and to value excellence and hard work. In our efforts to ensure our children have good self-esteem, we create adults who have a sense of entitlement and do not know the meaning of hard work and commitment, nor the joy and sense of the accomplishment of overcoming a challenge or solving a problem and achieving success.

For gaining success, one has to develop “the killing instinct.“ This gives a person the winning attitude and ultimately the victory. That means one has to make efforts by body, soul, and heart. One has to make up the mind that I have to win, and this is my future.

We need to instill a winning attitude: A drive for excellence and victory. Instilling this winning attitude is one of the goals of a good coach. When a child learns that given the right attitude, they can succeed at whatever they set their hearts and mind to, it can have an overwhelmingly positive impact on their self-esteem and on their future.

5 Tips to Decorate Your Office

You spend more than half of your day at the office. So your workplace environment has to be ideal and conducive to let the creative juices flow to generate maximum productivity for your organization.

Moreover, when clients visit, you’d like to have a classy, contemporary interior so as to create a good first impression. Follow these five tips for making your office look like a dream job destination.

1. Branding

Make every single article in your office a statement of your brand, from the napkins to the cutlery to the stationary and everything.

Every single thing you use at work should serve as a billboard. This helps propagate your brand and also helps you make an easier choice when selecting office décor.

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2. Change your décor as per the season

Break the monotony. Change your office décor when the seasons change. You need to evolve the workplace as you spend the entire year there. This creates an exciting vibe for your employees, and they would look forward to coming to work every day.

3. Quirky designs steal the show

From catchy slogans, Grafitti to interesting pictures, cartoons, or caricatures, make your workplace your creative haven. You can also share the pictures of these creations on social media to create a brand image.

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4. Culture is key

Infusion of a cultural vibe into your office creates uniqueness at the workplace. From designing murals at the conference room to creating a monotone scheme for the entrance will create an exclusive vibe at your workplace.

5. Personalization

Just like everything else at your office is unique enough, even the workers at your office need to feel unique.

Make your employees have an individualistic approach by giving them the freedom to decorate their cubicles according to their own tastes and an inclusive environment by introducing individual dress codes and freedom of expression.

This makes for an excellent decoration choice as your employees are the biggest assets of your office.

Top Things To Do For Beating Unemployment And Staying Productive

Unemployment is not a crime and certainly not a belittling demeanor on your part. Your situation largely depends on your immediate situation. And it is usually this situation that forces you to make decisions that lead to unemployment.

It is completely natural to feel uncertain and worry about the future in these circumstances. You may think no one will employ you because of your unemployed status. And you will remain unemployed because nobody will hire you.

It is perfectly normal to feel this way and find yourself in this loop. So what can you do to get out? Here’s what:

First things first. Do not panic. It is logical to scoff at this advice, but your willpower is the only thing preventing you from panicking. A panicked mind does not allow productive or positive thoughts to appear in our minds, and it becomes a sure shot way to lose yourself in self-disparage.

The dismissal of hiring unemployed but skilled individuals is passé. Many employers can overlook this gap on your resume. But there is a conditional clause in there. You should not sit idle while unemployed.

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Develop yourself, acquire new skills, or update your existing ones to enter the level playing field. The more initiative you show, the more desirable you will be to the employer looking at your resume.

Your next question would, of course, be how you would do that. You can accomplish an upgrade by attending skill classes or taking up voluntary work.

If it is money you are worried about, you can also take short-term contracts. Those will propel your chances even higher because you can then get a recommendation from your temporary employer about the great work you will have done for them.

Last but not least, keep applying for open positions in your field. You had better not show the employers that you don’t need a job!

Career Fairs And You – Top Tips To Increase Your Chances

If you are a student who has just graduated, then you must have attended career fairs or at least be aware of one. If you want to get noticed and increase your chances of being hired, here are some tips to get you started.

Professional Attire

Formal wear shows that you are serious about your job hunt, and it makes you look great too. Make sure to polish your shoes properly as well. This is your first ticket to get the hiring managers to notice you.

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Hard copies of your resume

Granted, this is a digital world, but hiring managers will not sit with an excel sheet to keep track of students they meet. Hand over your resume print-out to let them take notes.

Practice your approach

The spontaneous approach may well work in some situations where initiative and creativity are essential. But practice listing out your skills and strengths and how they relate to the job requirements for the employers’ benefits.

Knowledge is power

Research the employers before approaching the hiring managers. It shows your interest in a career there rather than drowning yourself out among a million other generic candidates.

First impressions

Enthusiasm, forward attitude, eye contact, and a pleasant smile are more likely to get you noticed than shying away and having second doubts.

Show interest

Enquire about the job, process, company ethics, company projects, and more information about the job and the working environment. They’ll show an interest only if you show yours.

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Suitable carry-on

A suitable case to hold on to business cards, your resumes and notebooks or tablets, and a smartphone or a laptop is sure to help you keep organized.

Networking

Meet people and talk to as many of them about relevant things, but do not overdo it. You never know when you can discover an opportunity.

Follow-ups

Always send a follow-up letter or an email thanking the hiring managers for their time. Chances are, you are the only one to do that. And it’ll make it easier for them to pick you over others!

The 4 Tips to Help You Settle Down in a New Place

Settling in a new country isn’t as difficult as it was earlier. You have daily flights and so many job opportunities.

People settle in a different country to have a better life, earn more, and as an opportunity to travel around. You should know that the entire process of settling involves a lot of anxiety and stress.

Here are four tips that will help you settle in a foreign country easily:

Understand the process well

Anything that you get easily isn’t worth much. You have to struggle for something that you want eagerly. You should know the process thoroughly and the duration it takes during each step. If you know anyone who has settled in a foreign country, ask him about the procedure, and he will surely help you out.

Learning the local language

Most ex-pats choose a country where English is the primary language. If English isn’t the country’s primary language, you are going to learn it. You don’t have to be an expert in the language, but should know enough to engage in a conversation with a local out there. It also increases your chances of getting a high-paying job and permanent residency in the future.

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Meet local people

Now that you have decided you want to settle in a foreign country, it is time you should meet local people. Go around and meet your neighbors and ask them about things around. The more local people you meet, the more easily you will gel into your environment. Many neighbors will approach you, so make sure you make them feel comfortable.

Be prepared

You would’ve obviously gone to the country you plan to settle in for a couple of times before. If you haven’t, then you should visit it once. Get to know the things around and arrange for basic amenities like internet, electricity. Check for local shops, restaurants, and distance from your residence to the nearest supermarket.

5 Career Options in Chemistry & Sound Engineering

Chemistry is one of the basis of mankind. Every minuscule reaction, every single process on this planet requires a thorough understanding of the laws and theories of chemistry.

This is why every field from engineering to space sciences, healthcare, and many more is constantly on the lookout for Chemistry majors and postgraduates. Here are some career options you can opt for if you love Chemistry.

Analytical chemistry

Here you will be dealing with the composition of matter and particles. Analytical Chemistry is an extremely versatile field. Many industries employ analytical chemists for seamless manufacturing processes of their product, and a good knowledge of component properties and weaknesses helps them accomplish the task well.

Healthcare scientist, clinical biochemistry

This field deals with the analysis of bodily fluids for medical and health examinations and is also involved in the diagnosis of disorders like diabetes mellitus, jaundice, gout, etc.

These disorders can be ascertained by judging the levels of certain fluids in the body. The healthcare sector is constantly on the lookout for healthcare scientists, and they are also in demand in various labs and diagnostic centers.

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Forensic scientist

Crime scenes are replete with pieces of evidence, and these areas have all the clues for solving cases; this is where Chemistry comes into play.

Crime scenes need highly trained and experienced forensic scientists to examine crime scenes for chemicals, body fluids and their differentiation, DNA and fingerprint analysis, and blood analysis. This field is very lucrative.

Pharmacologist

Pharmacology is defined as the study of the composition mechanism and action of medicines. These professionals are in high demand in the health and pharma sector.

Toxicologist

Toxicologists deal with the effects and actions of certain drugs, chemicals, and agents on the somatic cells and human systems. This field is very research-intensive and is indispensable in today’s times of chemical exposures in the environment due to the high amount of industries mushrooming today.

5 Career Options in Sound Engineering

Sound engineering is the most happening career option today. Especially for music lovers who also have prowess in engineering and hold technology degrees, this field can be an opportunity to play with various sounds and musical and acoustic variations and create something out of the ordinary.

Sound engineers have traditionally been a part of fields like Motion Picture, Video Industries, Sound Recording Industries, Radio, Television Broadcasting, Performing Arts Companies and work with Independent Artists, Writers, and Performers.

But now, due to cut-throat competition, sound engineers are looking for new avenues other than the conventional ones. Previous designations for sound engineers included Live Concert Engineer, Studio Engineer, Sound Designer, Mastering Engineer, Remixing Engineer, Music Producer, Audiovisual Technician, Audio Freelancer, and so on.

Now, due to the diversification of the job market, here is the new set of vocations sound engineers can pick up and excel.

App development

With more updates in mobile technology and operating systems like Android and IOS, sound engineers have come into so much demand for sound-based and voice-based applications like OK Google, google now, and Microsoft Cortana. More sound engineers are now being engaged to develop sound and voice-based apps.

Location Recording Engineer

The film and television industry now works on the principle of live recording, and dubbing is passe.

Sync Sound is a new technology where live recording is used, and sound engineers are now in demand for job profiles of location recording and recording engineers. You need technical expertise as a lot of details have to be looked into while live recording sound.

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System Tuner / Consultant

Firms have permanent audio equipment for various processes, and they are constantly on the lookout for system tuners to fine-tune the audio system and produce quality output. This requires knowledge and expertise in the room as well as environmental acoustics. You also need to be well versed with sound reinforcement products and their installation.

Gaming Industry

Video Games are no longer amateur bike rides in video parlors or joystick-operated arcade ones. New games with refined video quality and sound backup are now in vogue.

Sound is a primary component of entertainment, and the gaming industry henceforth looks for sound professionals who can design creative portions for the games they develop. Audio engineers produce sound designs apt for the game, and this involves composing, scoring, and recording music.

Studio Designer / Acoustic Consultant

This is a diverse job profile and requires expertise in multiple disciplines. You need to be well versed with the basics of audio engineering, and noise cancellation is a must too.

This field involves managing and controlling noises in the environment to enable people to lead a comfortable life. This needs a lot of experience, pragmatism, expertise, and creativity.