17 things to know before starting to look for a job.

   17 things to know before starting to look for a job.

Believe you me Job hunting is a daily exercise. Whether you get a good job, you will be hunting another bigger job after a while. That is why I get shocked when people say they are comfortable where they are working  Like I said above, job hunting does not stop because you got a job, it makes it easier. Now you have resources and access to information (internet) and even interview experience.

If you are coming straight from college or university starting to look for a job is tricky but it can be very easy if you know what you are doing. If you have a job, I know by now you know various things you need to adhere to before starting to start looking for a job. But if you have forgotten, then here is a refresher.

1.   Tailor your resume to the position for which you are applying – include specific elements of the job description in your resume (make it easy for them to see that you are a good fit).

2.   Do not rely on a cover letter to explain why you are a fit. You may want to use it to explain reasons for relocation, but your skills and experience need to be evident within your customized resume. If anything, the cover letter may be used to weed you out.

3.   Do not apply for more than one position within one company: It creates the perception that you are not sure which position is best for you. We recommend applying to one but including a variety of skill sets on your resume so that you indicate you are qualified for more than one position.

4.   Keep everything positive in your resume and in your communication with the company. Don’t dwell on bad experiences, frustrations, or ineffective bosses. Talk about what you learned, why you are better for it and how you will leverage those experiences to make your new company successful.

5.   Honesty rules: Hiring managers and HR professionals will do informal reference checks with people they know at other firms and you do not want them to be surprised.

6.   Answer salary questions definitively and transparently: Do not try to circumvent these questions. Tell them specifically what you were making and what you are looking to make.

7.   Don’t be shy: let your personality come through in your answers. During an interview, you might be thrown some questions that are asked to assess how your brain works or to find out more about your personality.

8.   When accepting an offer, be enthusiastic: They want to hear the smile and excitement in your voice. This will lay the foundation of a very positive transition into your new company.

9.   Don’t engage in a counteroffer negotiations: You risk alienating yourself from the new hiring manager and your old company. Consider the offer and decide.

10. Being overqualified is a serious concern for companies, but the solution is not to remove things from your resume as it may create the perception of dishonesty.

11. End interviews with assertiveness and pro-activity: It is very appropriate to end interviews by asking “When would it be appropriate for me to follow-up?”

12. Be prepared for behavioral interview questions: Come to the interview prepared with several anecdotes about challenges you have faced before and how you dealt with them. Demonstrate a positive and measurable result whenever possible.

13. Do your best to incorporate the firm’s core values into your interview responses.

14. Keep up your knowledge: Companies understand that people may have been out of work for extended periods of time in this economy. However, you must demonstrate your ability to stay current (seminars, certifications, etc.) and to get up to speed quickly.

15. LinkedIn is a recognized tool, but they disregard most of what they see, including recommendations. Be prepared to provide a supplemental reference sheet during interviews.

16. Identify and ease their pain. Ask hiring managers about “gaps in their department” to find out where their pain is and suggest how you can help ease that pain. They need to be sure they are hiring someone who can help with their issues. Ask good questions. Like, “What does success look like 6 months into this position?” and “What obstacles might I run into?”

17. Be careful with Facebook: they review these pages and screen people out as a result!

If you look at all the above, they seem like warnings but in real sense they are just ways in which you can help yourself find the exercise of job hunting very easy. You do not want to experience a hard time finding a job. Some of you might already be doing this but if you are not, then have these like 17 commandments.

All the best.

 

The best way to apply for a job

 When applying for a job especially through email, you need to ask yourself two questions: "What's the best subject line for an email in response to a job ad?" and "Should you attach the cover letter to the email, or copy and paste it into the body of the email?"

I always wondered this myself, so I did some research and here's the consensus:

Best email subject line:

HARDLEY ZAVANI CV for Sales Manager Position

It's straightforward and informative. It tells the recipient who you are, what you're sending, and why you're sending it.

This isn't a concrete formula, however. Since some job ads require you mention a job reference ID number when you apply, you should substitute the name of the position with the number. Example: John Githinji CV for Sales Job REF #5527.

Best way to include your cover letter:

Copy and paste your cover letter into the body of the email.

Why is this preferred method?

Three reasons:

1.   It gives the recipient one less attachment to open, 

2.   It gets to the point faster than writing the awkward "here is my CV and cover letter" and

3.   It gives you the ability to make an impact as soon as the recipient opens your email.

Be sure to attach your CV to your email. And as always, refer to the company's job posting and apply, using whatever guidelines they specify. Adhering to the employer's guidelines will not only ensure your documents get to the right place at the right time, it will prove that you pay attention to details and follow instructions!

Now start applying for those jobs.

A TALE OFBROKEN MIRROWS AND BLURRED IMAGES.

  BROKEN MIRRORS AND BLURRED IMAGES TALE.

 

 Like many superstitions, bad luck incurred from breaking a mirror has its roots in antiquity. The ancient Romans were the first to develop a method with which to create the reflective surface of a mirror. Their religious beliefs, condensed into Hesiod's Theogony, as well as their spiritual beliefs were the catalyst that propagated this superstition. Many societies throughout the world believe that a mirror possesses a kind of raw supernatural power, a window into the soul. These cultures hold that part of their soul is imparted to the mirror through their reflection. Should the mirror shatter or fragment, this could mean the corruption of that person's soul. Moreover, it would also mean that a portion of that individual's soul would be confined to the broken mirror. This ties into a spiritual belief known as spirit loss that many cultures still embody even today. In the absence of modern science to explain many such phenomena, ancient civilizations were left to address the question of existential ambiguity and spirituality in an arbitrary context, which is why many of these superstitions arise. While breaking a mirror is believed to herald seven years of bad luck, there are subsequent actions one can take to resolve this negative karma.Perhaps the most candid remedy for breaking a mirror is to grind up the fragments into a find powder and bury them. This destroys the reflection, restoring the soul to the individual who broke the mirror. Another antidote, which was taken from a number of other pagan superstitions is to throw salt over one's shoulder. One particular African spiritual belief holds that by immersing the broken pieces in a southern flowing stream, one find exoneration from the bad luck in a shy fraction of the time. Finally, burning the shattered pieces of the mirror is also said to remove the burden of seven years of bad luck

 If one looks in a mirror, one's image reverses (e.g., if one raises one's right hand, one's left hand will appear to go up in the mirror). However, a mirror does not "swap" left and right, any more than it swaps top and bottom. A mirror reverses the forward/backward axis, and we define left and right relative to front and back. Flipping front/back and left/right is equivalent to a rotation of 180 degrees about the vertical axis (in the same way that text which is back-to-front and upside-down simply looks like it has been rotated 180 degrees on the page). Therefore, looking at an image of oneself with the front/back axis flipped is the same as looking at an image with the left/right axis flipped and the whole figure rotated 180 degrees about the vertical axis, which is exactly whaI knocked a mirror on my bathroom floor and it cracked into pieces.

 Seven years bad luck, according to my grandmother. And here's the applicability to the contents of my blog: I do everything I can to steer away from superstition, but my worldview and the stories I've been told since birth are too powerful for me not to get a little freaked out. No matter how level headed I am, the story is under my skin. I'll be 32 before I can shake the bad luck. For seven years, a small part of me will wonder if, during a stroke of bad luck, I charted this course when I busted my mirror.

I pulled out my laptop and tried to stay a safe distance from anything that might harm me and qualify as the first in a string of bad luck instances one sees when standing in front of a mirror.

A friend of mine has been breaking so many mirrors recently that  he requested for intervention and advice from me .Being the all  knowing guy with Google at my disposal and high analyzing ability i got down to "business"  and realized that the guy had really broken many mirrors but it was the breakage of a special mirror that   got him into the limelight.The combat co loured mirror that was  deemed to posses powers to protect  and even  keep away bad luck.Yes the special mirror broke and broke in front of everyone`s eyes. The mirror that was made  to have special powers was finally deemed to be powerless how? Am yet to  find out how the mirror was able to deceive the people who used it that it protected and prevented bad luck yet it fell and broke into pieces.

My investigation shows that there were several people who knew about the fake mirror that has been in existence receiving special treatment  and nothing was done .Investigations are being done  to  how many such mirrors are out there and what the mirrors were really meant for.Mirrors all look the same and because they are meant to give you an impression there questions on  how many fake mirrors are out their giving people false ,unclear  blurred images and how can you  differentiate between the broken,fake or wrong mirror.

next time you look into a mirror be careful,do not believe what you see ,have the ability to question  every occurrence and  deed as you never know what kind of mirror you are looking into,it could turn out to be a broken or cracked  mirror!.

my life as it is

NEW RULES,BUT SAME OLD TRICKS

NEW RULES,BUT  SAME OLD TRICKS

picture from mwakilishi.com

Do not drink and drive,as i sip a concentration of my favorite drink,one thing is for sure ,if i were to  blow air in the alcoblow right now the thing would  immediately  malfunction as  the drink am filling in my stomach has a rippling effect on my system that  i keep my self how did  the damn drink get a good a clean bill of health when i can barely tell the difference between my glass and my bottle,Yes Mr.Mututho today is a weekend and  i started mututhorizing myself  at noon .Yes,the same law that prohibits me from taking my `mututho`` gives me an okay to soak my liver  at noon.All if not most of you know Mututho Law  and how people panicked and bar owners complained  about how bad the laws would affect their businesses?commercial sex workers even went to court to block the new law,that is Kenya for you,innovator survive and the rigid loose.That  is a story for another day but recently the introduction of the traffic amendment act into law  caused ripples,anxiety ,fear and untold suffering to many people in Kenya..Stories of people walking to work because of the Matatu strike were reported in the mass Media and i was a victim of triple circumstances.First as a  driver,passenger and  fourth estate member .Many people view the laws as draconian but have you ever been obstructed and the person committing the crime brushes u off?well this happened to me in Nairobi  on Tom mboya street,can you imagine this driver of an old bus  literally blocked my way and told me  to fold the road and go with it home,if you are a kikuyu you can imagine how it sounded!.Then it happened that i wanted to board a matatu and then co mes the matatu strike,i paid triple the amount just to  reach  my destination.The other day  last week being sunday  i decided to  take my car and drive my wife and daughter for lunch.Just a few minutes later am stopped by  police and am not carrying  my diving License  and Yes  I paid for it dearly  and my plans for lunch were  changed.Then another time am on the streets taking photographs of an accident scene,a pedestrian had just been hit by an  overspeeding Matatu  and it was so funny,there was a road block 100metres away from the scene.That is kenya for you,Everybody is under pressure  to produce so we must all change  our altitude for the better.

THE POWER OF FAITH.

 THE POWER OF FAITH.

Yes ,HAPPY NEW YEAR 2013 FOLKS!,Welcome to the jubilee year .life is a journey  that is full of ups and downs  and we all have our good and bad experiences ,yes we are not the same.We are born with different destinies and my parents always talk of per-destination  of a person.No wonder brothers and sisters born of the same mother and father cannot   do the same work and have the same character,talk of genetics . I believe that we are all born naked and nobody is born wearing anything and that makes us equal at birth,The holy book says God made us in his own image and likeness and yes it is very true Life.Nobody knows    about tomorrow and fate and destiny cannot be changed no wonder anybody who  says he has the ability  to foresee the future or change certain phenomenon are  feared or worshiped  be it witchdoctors,psychics,prophets e.t.c

Many of these native doctors make millions making people believe that they will make them rich,happy or make them find love or solve their problems.Pastors and prophets who perform miracles get more  people in their church and this being an election year we are yet to see politicians praying,visit medicine men and  churches just to interceded on their behalf .I always ask myself if these medicine men claim to have the ability to do what they claim to to why cant they make themselves rich and successful?

Life is like a Newspaper which has pages aimed at satisfying different   target audience and  yes like the obituary pages ,life sometimes throws lemons at us and depending on how  we use the lemons  that makes the whole difference.Sometimes we pray to God to give us  money or a job,when a Job opportunity comes up we sulk  and complain that that is not the job we wanted next time an opportunity comes your way  don't sulk and complain use the opportunity well and that might just be your break through

Never do something without faith,yes faith can  move  mountains and   believe in whatever you are doing        .when our  Lord Jesus Christ  wanted to heal the blind man he moved him away from the people and mixed saliva with mud and applied on his eyes and told him to wash several  times in the  pond and the man was able to see .Moral of the story faith can move mountains,the blind man had so much believe in the power of the pond ,Jesus knew this and he used the pond in line with the believe of the person and he was able to see.

WHEN THE DEAL IS SWEETER THAN SWEET THINK TWICE.

                           

In my ups an downs I  window shopped at  tuskys  supermarket in Kakamega and realized oh my God! Christmas is here again and  everybody is giving offers,discounts and vouchers all in the name of Christmas.

one thing is for sure,marketers and advertises are doing what they do best convincing you to buy what you dint want to buy.Personally I don't have a problem with them doing their job  after all they keep the industry rolling! but i must admit  that one digital pay station are duping customers.look at the article below courtesy of CIO EAST AFRICA

Star Times media slashes decoder pricing by 33% in Christmas offer 

Star Times Media, a digital Pay Television company has today announced a significant drop in the price of its DVB T2 approved digital decoders that will see the company sell the decoders at just Ksh 1,999 up from Ksh 2,999 reflecting a 33% discount for Kenyans aimed at giving them a Christmas offer that will run from 1st of November to the 31st of December. The decoders which will have a 1 year warranty will be available at all Star Times outlets across Kenya.

From the above   information nothing seems fishy but my investigation revealed a calculative  move by the company to reap maximum from unsuspecting buyers.here is the truth:

an offer has a period and once over   you pay as usual

The company only wants to entice people to buy the decoder then increase the price of subscription

The current decoders are not durable and may not last long without having issues.

The price of the decoder is KSHS 1999/- but what you are not told is that the actual price of the decoder is 2500/- as 500/- is the fee you  MUST pay  as minimum subscription fee.

So my dear friends as we approach Christmas to celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ remember to  get full information from an offer that seems too good to be true ,be it a mobile phone,TV,radio or holiday offer just  remember the devil lies in the details!.