CV mistakes you really don't want to make

Writing your CV can be a difficult task, but it's always important not to lie or make silly mistakes that will ensure you get overlooked for that precious job.

Despite it being a career no-no some workers do make silly errors - and even try to get away with some quite audacious lies.

Jobs site Careerbuilder has collected examples of the most ridiculous embellishments and mistakes  found on resumes.

The 15 best are below...

• Applicant claimed to be a former CEO of the company to which they were applying
  
• Applicant claimed to be fluent in two languages - one of which was pig Latin
  
• Applicant wrote "whorehouse" instead of "warehouse" when listing work history
  
• Applicant's personal website linked to a porn site
  
• Applicant introduced himself [in the cover letter] by saying "Hey you"
  
• Applicant vying for a customer service position gave "didn't like dealing with angry customers" as the reason for leaving her last job
  
• User name of applicant's email address was "2poopy4mypants"
  
• Applicant claimed to be a Nobel Prize winner
  
• Applicant claimed to have worked in a jail when they were really in there serving time
  
• Applicant who claimed to be HVAC certified later asked the hiring manager what "HVAC" meant
  
• Applicant said to have gotten fired "on accident"
  
• Applicant claimed to have attended a college that didn't exist
  
• Applicant for a driver position claimed to have 10 years of experience but had only had a driver's license for four years
  
• Applicant's reference was an employer from whom they had embezzled money and had an arrest warrant out for the applicant
  
• Applicant's stated job history had him in three different companies and three different cities simultaneously

Trainer Bubble provide training course materials for trainers on the topic of, 'Writing a CV'. Visit our website at www.trainerbubble.com to find out more.

Motivation? See what you think...

Mentoring Relationship Stages

A mentoring relationship has four definable stages within its life cycle:

 

1. Getting to know each other – establishes expectations of a mentoring relationship. In the early stages, a large part of the mentor’s role involves being supportive and creating a reassuring environment for the mentee. Initial meeting agendas might include:

• getting to know each other personally
• identifying the mentee’s learning needs for career and professional development

 

2. Goal setting – establishes expectations of learning by:

 

• identifying potential learning opportunities at work and the technical and theoretical learning that might result (e.g. brainstorm possible areas of learning that relate to the development or profession as a whole, suggest useful contacts, check for other training opportunities, etc.)
• agreeing meeting schedules and ways to arrange meetings by writing a Mentoring Agreement

3. Progress and maturation – the longest stage. At this stage, the emphasis of the mentor’s role should change to that of a challenger and stimulator to encourage deeper learning and reflection. A balance needs to be reached so that mentees continually explore their limits but not to the extent that they feel overwhelmed. Emphasis should be on issues of professional development. Later meeting agendas might include:

 

• reviewing general progress and achievements to date and giving guidance on ways to improve performance and progress
• reviewing any work-based learning

 

4. End – a final meeting is essential. For many mentors it can be tempting to avoid defining the end or separation stage and to regard it as unnecessary. However, a final review session is crucial to provide closure on the relationship for both the mentee and the mentor. The mentee and the mentor are jointly responsible for providing a proper ending to the relationship.

 

This structure provides a clearly defined approach to the mentoring process. It will ensure you are both clear on the progress of the mentoring relationship and allow you to consistently review and support development.

This article is a short excerpt from the Trainer Bubble training course materials for Mentor Training, which are available for purchase from our website www.trainerbubble.com

Influencing in Groups

Influencing people can sometimes be a difficult and demanding process. People respond in different, sometimes unpredictable, ways when others are trying to influence their thoughts and actions. This is true enough in one to one situations but is particularly so in group situations. The following ideas will help you overcome difficulties when trying to influence groups.


• Setting a positive tone and modelling positive influencing behaviours


• Being yourself, without defensiveness or hidden agendas, and sharing your experiences and feelings to establish empathy.


• Describing what you see rather than being judgemental, e.g. “on the basis of what you’ve said, you don’t look to be supportive…”


• Being empathetic – showing you understand people’s situation, needs and feelings, i.e. trying not to give advice, judgements or interpretations.


• Maintaining your assertiveness, but avoiding displays of unnecessary emotion (weakness or aggression) and unhelpful behaviours, immediate counter-attacks and talking over the top of people.


• Keeping people and problems separate, i.e. recognise that in many cases other people are not just ‘being difficult’ – real and valid differences can lie behind conflicting positions. By separating the problem from the person, real issues can be debated without damaging working relationships.


• Exploring options together, i.e. being open to the idea that a third position may exist and that you can get to this idea in collaboration with others.


• Listening first and talking second – to stand any chance of influencing others you must first understand where other people are coming from before feeling you must ‘defend’ your own position.


• Focusing on getting the support of the ‘early adopters’, i.e. there will usually be a proportion of people in any group who are open to new ideas or new ways of doing things. Their support can often be influential in encouraging the more resistant to come forward, over time, in support of your views or action plans.


Recognising that people often behave differently in groups can help you, tactically, to be more effective in influencing others. Much of this is about watching and listening to group behaviour and exercising your own judgement about when to be assertive and intervene and when to sit back as discussions unfold and people exchange views or come into conflict.


This article is a short excerpt from the training material, 'Influencing Skills' provided by Trainer Bubble at www.trainerbubble.com

Train the Trainer - Our Incredible Brains

We've developed a new video to accompany our Train the Trainer training course materials. This video demonstrates the capacity for learning that our brain has and how this means we should find different methods of training people to ensure they get the most out of the learning. - It supports and is a key part of Train the Trainer course materials By Trainer Bubble. www.trainerbubble.com

We hope you like it!

Digital Camera Inventor - Steven Sasson

How to get people to buy into a new idea...

Building a Virtual Team

A good process to follow if you are building a virtual team (or refocusing an existing virtual team) is to set up an agreed approach to ways of working. In order to do this, we must first look at what makes up an effective virtual team.

Shared objectives

The virtual team must understand what it is they are trying to achieve as a team. This means highlighting the team goals and objectives and linking this to organisational strategy wherever possible.

Knowledge of what to do

Further than knowing what their objectives are, they should also have clarity around how they should do their job and what you expect of them in the role. This might include processes and procedures and any plans they must follow.

Tools to do it

If there are certain ways of working, what are they? Are their preferred tools, technology, and guidelines they can use to achieve their goals?

Ability to do it

Do they have the ability and knowledge to use the tools of their job. If not, what can be done to help them develop?

Desire to do it

Are they motivated and inspired to perform their jobs well and to the ways you have agreed?

So, if you are aiming to move your virtual team to a position where they feel that all of the above questions are answered for them, you will need to establish ground rules with the team and ensure they are clear on what you are trying to achieve together.

 

Virtual team managers set ground rules during the initial team meeting. During this meeting, they must:

• Articulate team goals and objectives

• List roles and responsibilities 
  
• Determine when and how the team will communicate both formally and informally

         - Team meetings
         - Information sharing
         - Guidelines and rules for using different technologies
         - External communication

• Determine standards for when and how to coordinate team tasks

         - Communicating status to manager, team members, client
         - Tracking tasks
         - Risk management

• Set guidelines for collaboration

         - Brainstorming
         - Sharing documents
         - Making decisions

• Devise a strategy for relationship and trust building from a distance

         - Virtual community
         - Reliability
         - Conflict management

• Determine when and how to execute best practices for performance management

         - One-on-one meetings
         - Motivational and formative feedback


Working on these key ground rules and guidelines as a team will help ensure you begin from a starting point of trust. You may have a good idea of how you want to approach each of the elements that you include in your initial meeting, but if your virtual team feels that these are being thrust upon them rather than decided as a group, you may find that they rebel against them and your efforts will have been wasted.


There will of course be elements of the discussion that are not up for debate, perhaps where policy or process are important, and in these cases you should make it very clear why you have made the decisions you have so that there is no confusion or opportunity for dissent.

This article is a short excerpt from the Trainer Bubble training course materials for 'Managing a Virtual Team', which can be purchased from our website at www.trainerbubble.com

 

Networking - Increase Your Business Presence

Central to your networking strategy is the effect you have on those around you. Developing a strong business presence that ensures you leave an engaging impression on people you come into contact with will provide a cornerstone to your networking plan. This means that developing your business presence is critical if you want to guarantee that you consistently generate networking opportunities. However, understanding what makes up a strong business presence can often be difficult to grasp.

To make this process easier, we’ve split the idea of business presence into four key ingredients, which help you to focus on the necessary skills, behaviour and attitudes required to succeed.

Credibility

Delivering what you say you will and meeting promises. People are unlikely to risk their own reputation in recommending you if they do not feel you have a strong track record. They want to be confident that you will do what you say you will, meet targets achieve results and be consistently effective.

Personal Brand

Your image and how ‘marketable’ you are. A personal brand is about your values, attitudes and beliefs. It’s about showing people what makes you special and different and promoting that to people around you. It’s a statement of what you can do and how well you will do it.

Visibility

How aware of you your target market is. This is about making people think of you whenever they think of an opportunity that is linked to your skillset. It’s about ‘putting yourself out there’ and keeping yourself in the mind of others. After all, if people have never heard of you, they can never promote you.

Social Capital

Your influence and reach within your network. This is about being the person in your field of interest that is seen as being ‘useful’ and able to support the needs of others. Being someone who builds up social goodwill helps give you influence and puts you in demand. Social capital is built by aligning with key influencers and becoming one yourself. It’s about building strong relationships and personal goodwill.

This article is a short excerpt from the Trainer Bubble classroom training course materials, 'Business Networking', which can be purchased from our website at www.trainerbubble.com

Effective Business Presentations

A common misconception about presentations is that they are there to inform the audience. When you are making a business presentation your key aim should not be to inform, but to encourage your listeners to agree to the proposition and concept behind the idea you are presenting to them. This could be a solution to a problem, a reason to purchase a product, a new way of approaching a topic or just to accept your way of seeing an issue. You should leave your audience with a sense that they should change their attitude, behaviour or thinking as a result of what you have presented to them. All this means that you need to persuade your audience and to do that you will need to make the presentation relevant to them while making them like you and accept what you are saying.


Now you could put together a very impressive presentation that makes people laugh and gets them clapping at the end. However, if there is no supported action following the presentation, then much as they will be impressed by your delivery, they still might not do anything different as a result and therefore your business presentation has not been a success. That doesn’t mean that presentations shouldn’t impress people or make them laugh; it’s just that this shouldn’t be your main aim. Too many presentations focus on providing information rather than getting action and results. What you should focus on can be summarised by the following points…


Emotional buy-in - It’s important to make the audience want what you are offering, which means you have to get their emotional buy-in. The best method of achieving this is to demonstrate the benefits of your offering and appeal to their needs and wants.


Aim for change - You want your audience to think, feel or do something different as a result of your presentation. Without some form of change, there’s not much point in making the presentation at all. You might argue that some presentations are ‘just for information’. If this is the case, perhaps you should just send an email or find another way to get the information across.


Show the benefit - Every person sitting in the audience is thinking ‘What’s in it for me?’ If you can’t answer this question then you are aiming to fail. Don’t describe what your offering is, but rather what it does…for your audience.


Ask for action - Your business presentation will be successful if the people in your audience do something differently as a result. This makes it important to be clear about the actions people can take to benefit from what you have said.


You will notice that all of the points shown here focus on the audience rather than you. This shows how important it is to write a presentation that appeals to the people you are presenting to, rather than focusing on things you think you want to get across.


This article is a short excerpt from the Trainer Bubble training course materials for Business Presentations, which you can purchase from our website at www.trainerbubble.com

How to learn anything in 20 hours

Josh Kaufman does a fantastic TED Talks presentation on how to learn anything in 20 hours.