My HR Buddy

Dear Boss, I Quit! Are you currently unsatisfied with your job or the company you are working for?  If you have thought your decision over and over again and decided that seeking employment elsewhere is best for you, you will need to resign from your current position.   Unfortunately for many individuals, this is a lot easier said than done. If this is the first time you are attempting to hand in your resignation, you may be unsure how you should proceed. Perhaps, the best way to go about  tendering your resignation , in the most appropriate matter, is to familiarize yourself with what you shouldn’t do. A few tips are outlined below to guide you. 1. Do not act on impulse : One of the worst things you can do when looking to resign from your job is quitting on impulse.  This most commonly occurs after receiving discipline or when a work-related conflict arises.  No matter how upset or frustrated you are, you will want to try, at all costs, not t...

CV-Resume “Please, help me check. What is wrong with my CV?” I have received this request time and again from job seekers who are damn frustrated with the dearth of interview invites, talk more of nicking the job. And of course, you have to understand their plight and feel sorry for them. How can they even get a job when they are not afforded the opportunity to be assessed and interviewed in the first place? (I digress briefly – Your CV is a live document. It grows as you grow. It changes as you change. It should be flexible enough to suit the requirements of a particular job opening. I have seen applications for sales roles where the career objective of the applicant reads that (s)he is “seeking an entry-level position in Finance”! Your CV is a response to an organization’s need. Therefore, before you apply for that next job, read the requirements of role and then go through your CV to see if it sufficiently addresses the recruiting organization’s needs. So, it is advisabl...

Interviewers, being (well…) interviewers, do not always need to struggle to get on your nerves, do they? It comes naturally with the territory. I am a human resource practitioner with a couple of years’ experience and I have heard many stories from the other side. To be honest, I am not oblivious of the fact that sometimes, we ask some weird questions that will leave a candidate dumbstruck and static for seconds like someone that has been struck by lightening. You begin to wonder what business we have asking the questions we ask and more importantly why. Like I said before, I have been on both ends of the table and can relate to what job seekers face at interviews. You spend the few days drilling yourself and practicing several possible questions; under intense tension, sweating in the air-conditioned room and barely keeping your heart from beating out of your chest. You think you are doing great… until one interviewer who knows nothing about the struggle just asks one question th...

Being a life coach can be one of the most fulfilling jobs in the world. You can help people with their lives and make money at the same time. But being a life coach is not an easy job. A person aspiring to be a life coach needs to have proper training as well as the heart and determination to help people. For those who want to be a life coach, here are some tips and pieces of advice on how to be a life coach. Definition of Life Coach and Life Coaching You may already have some personal ideas of what a life coach is and what he or she does. Some information of this may be true and some may be not. To remove any misconceptions of the job of being a life coach, it would be good to learn what a life coach and what life coaching really is all about. Life coaching is rooted in the methods of executive coaching which were derived from techniques that were develop in leadership training and management consulting. It also forged its principles from different disciplines like...

It does not matter what project you are going to undertake.  It is not important what industry you are going to be assessing.  What is important is you know what you are going to do.  You must ask questions.  You must find what it is the client wants. Presented is a list of obvious questions every good business analyst should know the answer to when starting a project. 1. What problem is this business having that you hope to solve by developing this project? It should be obvious as to why you would ask that question.  If you do not understand what the problem is then you can not help to solve it.  Also, when reading the project program it may not be clear as to what the client actually wants.  The scope may only tell you what they would like to see happen.  It could and often times is not focused on what the true issues are. 2. What is the business doing at present to alleviate or solve the issue?  What has been tried in the pas...

Advice For Would Be Whistleblowers Advice For Would Be Whistleblowers By: Darcy O'Neil They say no good deed goes unpunished and sadly that is the truth in the world of the whistleblower. The theory on 'whistle blowing' is that the individual is helping the community, and following their ethics, by reporting the offending person or company. The risk of recrimination is very high and usually results in a long and difficult fight for the whistleblower. This battle will likely including legal threats and character assassination. So what can you do to protect yourself when you do blow the whistle? Having been through this process I have gain some insight on how best to handle the situation. 1. Documentation :: Once you suspect that something is wrong you should begin documenting. Start by taking notes in a log book or note pad. This information will be helpful when you need to tell your story and will provide the detail needed to track down further evidence of w...

If you are human, you have done it. You compare yourself to other people. The good news is that people out there compare themselves to you and the not-so-good news is that you do it, as well. While neither is benefit of the other, it is simply part of human nature. It’s how we grow, it’s how we strive, but sometimes, unfortunately, it’s sometimes an excuse to give up, as well.  A Fixed Mindset If we don’t have something to compare ourselves to, you might reason, then how will we learn to achieve and grow? Sometimes, when we compare ourselves to others, we have something to gauge our success and failure with and, therefore, a measure of where we can do better and achieve more. However, unfortunately, for those with a fixed mindset, this does not occur at all. There is actually a reverse method of thinking. That reverse method tells us, since we are not as good as the other person, we might as well just quit. That doesn’t work in the world of intelligence, however. It is ineffe...

Dreams have been studied throughout history, and dream interpretation has tried to make sense of these nighttime visitations for as long as there have been people to dream.  People who could interpret dreams and those whose dreams were particularly vivid, were often thought to be imbued with divine powers and they were given a special place in the society.  Even today, dream interpretation remains a highly sought after art and science is continuing to focus on dream interpretation as a way to deal with all kinds of anxieties and other underlying psychological issues. There are some interesting facts about dreaming that you may not be aware of.  These facts include: 1. One third of most people’s lives is spent asleep and a good portion of that time is spent in dream sleep. 2. In the average lifetime, a person will have spent approximately six years in dream sleep, equivalent to more than 2,100 days of dreaming. 3. Dreams have existed as lo...

If you have ever been responsible for planning a very large event, then most likely you already know most of the stressful feelings that come along with it. Indeed, there is much to be stressful about when event planning for several hundred people, but chances are that you probably already knew about the event a great deal of time before it was actually here. This is the case in many situations, though, as large events will usually be scheduled weeks, months, if not years ahead of the scheduled date. Depending on how large the scheduled event is then there should be ample time to have everything completed. But if you need a little bit of advice and help, one suggestion that many people use is to actually use an event planning checklist for all the things that need to be accomplished. Some of the things that should be on your event planning checklist that need to be done well in advance of the actual date of the event include: Choosing the Theme : If you are creating this ...

It’s just a matter of time before it happens. Your car engine begins to have a mind of its own just around that time your adorable little girl falls ill and your washing machine decides to call it quits. All of these are unexpected expenses and something we need to deal with throughout life. Being prepared as much as you can is your best bet when life throws you a financial curve ball. Do your best to anticipate upcoming expenses? If you’re driving an older car, or your television set has seen better days, start saving up to replace them. You may also want to start keeping an eye out for good deals on the replacement. An even better strategy is to have an emergency savings fund. Set up a savings account and add to it monthly. Use it only for completely unexpected expenses . Make sure you know what’s in the account. And once you have to take money out of it, replace it as quickly as possible. This brings us to a good point. Here’s how to recover quickly after that purchas...