Career

Take Your Career to the Next Level

Tuesday, 10 April 2012 13:55

Even if no one else is taking the first step, you can be a leader among colleagues and prove to the business world that your skills are valuable and necessary for company growth. Take your work to the next level with innovative tactics that set you, and your company apart. Try these ways of ramping up innovation in your every day work life. Have a wide scope. Coming up with fresh ideas to increase business or productivity employs out-of-the-box thinking. Do something you've never tried before, take a risk, and aim to improve your exposure to consumers. Think like a… Read more...

Attract Great Employees

Tuesday, 03 April 2012 15:01

If you want to attract great employees, evaluate the employees you already have. Even if you’re a one-woman band, do the evaluation to determine what the strengths and weaknesses of your business are because you’ll want to add a candidate who brings talents that you don’t currently have. The biggest mistake employers make is hiring people that are like themselves. You would be surprised at how many companies have employees with the same personality type of the person who did the hiring. Choose someone to compliment your business. If you are confident in your marketing skills but not as keen… Read more...

Interview Practice Makes Perfect

Tuesday, 20 March 2012 15:12

Olympic champions wouldn't win medals without practice. The same can be said for job seekers. Preparing for interviews is one way to put your unemployed self ahead of the pack. Prepare for circumstances like these before you step foot in the HR office. More employers are inclined to ask situational questions, says Knoll HR Manager Kristen Goodemoot. "They've moved away from yes or no questions, and depending on the company, they're going to say, 'Tell me about a time when…'" While these types of questions are less specific and more difficult to prepare for, Kristen says you can have candid… Read more...

Building a Resume that Stands Out

Tuesday, 06 March 2012 09:09

First impressions are everything, and when applying for a new job, your resume is the first contact a potential employer will have with you, so make it good! Linda Groves works for Directions of Grand Rapids, and she goes through resumes with a fine tooth comb looking for common blunders, and making sure the unemployed get back to work. West Michigan Woman: How can someone applying for a job stand out among all other applicants?Linda Groves: The best way to explain it, is let's say you have a girlfriend having a fortieth birthday, and you need to buy her a… Read more...

When is it Time to Redesign Your Website?

Tuesday, 28 February 2012 09:54

Does your website need to be updated/changed to reflect the current needs of your business? If so, this type of change comes with looming feelings of anxiety, dread, and procrastination. So many questions need to be asked, and quite often it's just easier to put it off until you have more time. However, you will never have enough time to commit to this. You just need to make it happen. In the last year, we have re-designed/launched four new websites, and I can honestly say, it doesn’t need to be that overwhelming. If you follow a few simple steps, re-designing… Read more...

They Call Her Mom, Worker, Juggler

Tuesday, 21 February 2012 16:44

Organized chaos describes many women who work time and a half or more as mothers and career women. Make no mistake, homemaking is a full-time job, but for some who have mastered the art of the wall calendar/smartphone app planning, adding a career into the mix is natural fact of life. Starla McDermott (pictured with her three children) works as Field Organizer of Mom's Clean Air Force at the West Michigan office of the Michigan League of Conservation Voters. She has balanced a job in and outside of the home for twenty years, and after all that time, she's found… Read more...

So You Want to Start a Business?

Tuesday, 14 February 2012 16:36

A restaurant offering locally grown produce, a holistic health and supplement shop, a green cleaning service, a pottery gallery–all examples of entrepreneurial ventures in the West Michigan area. But starting a business requires time, research, and money, and if you're interested in making your unique skills and big dream into a lucrative venture, you have to take the right steps to get there. Nicole Nicolas is the director of marketing and communications at Grand Rapids Opportunities for Women (GROW). Though she has seen some business ideas fail, there are some tried and true steps to take in order to make… Read more...

Women are Going Back to School: A Second Chance at a Second Career

Tuesday, 07 February 2012 16:11

In 2006, when Beth Poe's youngest daughter started kindergarten full-time, she decided to go to school too, go back, that is. She enrolled in a nursing program at Kalamazoo Community College and picked up where she left off in 1986. "I decided I wanted to finish what I started twenty years ago. It never left my mind to be a nurse," Beth says. "People always say life is short, but life is long, there's time to have more than one career. Some people do both at the same time, I'm doing mine back to back." Like most women who go… Read more...

Ingredients for a Multigenerational Office

Tuesday, 31 January 2012 09:14

Salad ingredients sprinkle the lunch counter in many offices each afternoon. But have you ever thought about how that salad represents the workplace? The office is a salad bowl of different backgrounds, viewpoints and ages. Taking a workplace of multigenerational employees into consideration, it is important to find a balance between the ages in order to create a pleasing palate of flavor. Start with the most commonly known ends of the spectrum, the Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964) and Generation Y (born 1976-present). Everything from explanations of office procedures to employee relationships will vary for each of these groups. Furthermore, they… Read more...

Establishing a Business Begins with Goals

Tuesday, 24 January 2012 09:49

According to Nell Merlino, author of Stepping Out of Line and founder of Take Your Daughter to Work Day, the average woman is earning less than $50,000 annually. Setting proper goals is the first step in reaching earning potential for women, and writing down those goals and creating action plans will increase the probability of achieving them. Although perfecting a business's craft is crucial, what is also important is the need for improved infrastructure. Setting financial goals is the first step, but in order to reach the bar, set goals that can be realistically fulfilled. Financial goals, especially in an… Read more...

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