A-Plus Career and Resume, LLC
Giving Professionals the Competitive Edge!
  • Home
    • FAQ
  • Resume Services
  • Career Coaching Services
  • Business Services
  • Online Resources
  • Events
  • Free Consultation
  • About Us
    • Client Testimonials
  • Blog

Archive for career coaching

Positive Self-Talk Can Increase Women’s Career and Personal Achievement

February 17th, 2021

The article link below discusses the “labeling” women often use to describe themselves. I commented on the article on LinkedIn, and thought you might find the content useful.

“I believe this is a real issue for women. From “I am just a stay at home mom,” to stating “I am just” and inserting a job title, there is a lot of minimization of value and skill. Ladies, you are never “just” anything, and we must encourage our fellow female friends, colleagues and clients to embrace their talents, education/training, and most importantly, value to the world! Take the word “just” and other limiting words out of your self-description vocabulary. Do the same when describing others – build yourself and others up and watch your world blossom into something amazing!” #coaching #personalbranding #success #leadership, #motivation #personaldevelopment #inspiration #mindset #careers #womenbusinessowners 

Article link:  https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/view-the-mist/201604/caution-using-self-labels-can-be-hazardous-your-health

Categories Business Coaching, Career Coaching, Career Management, Job Search
Comments (0)

Time Chunking for Time Management Success

January 17th, 2021
Time Management and Time Chunking

I recently commented on the article link below shared on LinkedIn, and thought I would share those comments on my blog:

“I call this “time chunking” with my clients, and use the technique myself in my personal life and business. It is great for decreasing project/task overwhelm and helping clients see immediate success. When you get something done without distractions, even in short spurts of time, the feelings of satisfaction will typically spur you on to another “time chunk” and ultimately, completion of the project or task. Take things in chunks of time – 10-30 minutes, and see your To-Do list shrink!”

https://www.success.com/7-shortcuts-to-work-smarter-not-harder/

Categories Business Coaching, Career Coaching, Job Search
Comments (0)

View Challenges as Opportunities!

November 30th, 2019
View Challenges as Opportunities

Challenges and mistakes are opportunities for learning.  Instead of seeing an issue, error or new software as a pain, see it as learning – an ability to expand your mind, obtain a new skill, or to ensure you don’t make the same mistake a second time.  Your resistance is usually fear of the unknown, or that people will know you were inaccurate or made a misstep.  Welcome to everyone’s life, as we all make mistakes and are called on to learn new things. 

Start small, and chunk your learning into short blocks of time, creating far less stress and far more success.  That seemingly unending maze of difficulty will become shorter and easier to tackle. Embrace anything learning/training as a chance to expand your abilities, career and life, and watch your fear disappear.

Categories Business Coaching, Career Coaching, Career Management, Career Transition, Inspiration, Job Search, Life Coaching
Comments (0)

What is Capacity?

June 6th, 2019
Freedom

I have recently gone on an interesting journey. One that was unexpected and quite enlightening. If you already know me, then it is obvious I have more certifications than I need, but I love learning. So, when I saw a new certification called Certified Capacity Coach, I was intrigued. My certs all surround resume writing, career coaching, interview coaching and assessments. What would I do with a Capacity Coaching cert, and what the heck did that mean? I will answer those questions throughout this article.

Admittedly, at first, I was a bit dubious. My coaching is definitely outcome focused and I border between coach and consultant. There is no “get the crystals out, light the candles, and sing Kum Ba Yah” in Karen. Regardless, I just dove in and gave it a shot. The first three weeks were rough, and I was still not sold. It felt a little “hippy dippy” and that was not my style at all. But when I allowed myself to see past my bias in my feelings, I discovered a very unique skillset I was about to add to my coaching. 

Some things were inherent to my coaching style already, but I never thought about them as part of my “style” until this coaching class. I learned to ask myself the question “what is it like when you don’t have all the answers?” Certainly, I knew this in dealing with coaching clients and in my own life, and was willing to admit it and go looking for answers. However, I never thought about various situations where it may have led me to feel inadequate or worried as to my qualifications – or as I call it – the Imposter Syndrome. This is where my classmates came in, coaching me to see the worth in feeling those emotions, and how to leverage them with my clients. While I have never been afraid to admit to a client that I have weaknesses to bolster their trust, in my personal self-assessment, I probably made it “less than” it was or used it to bash myself depending upon the situation.

Now I am set free to say, yep, I screwed that up, and here is what I learned from it, and that is just fine. After all, mistakes aren’t there to create problems, but to teach us, expand us, and better us going forward. Giving myself more compassion in my personal life will enrich my coaching and my writing, as I am probably hardest on myself with my writing of blog posts for my own site. Meanwhile, I have truly engaged my “Controller” to clear all the clutter, both in my home/office and mind, cleaning up and clearing out excess paper and stuff. With the help of my fellow coaches I have developed a more targeted set of goals, combined with compassion that doesn’t allow the Controller in me to sabotage my forward motion, and won’t allow “fight or flight” to constrain my progress.

So, what does capacity mean? It means FREEDOM. The freedom to be more connected with clients.  The freedom to be compassionate to myself and not just my clients.  The freedom to always frame failure as learning.  And the freedom to go after loftier goals that can actually create more capacity (or freedom) in my life. FREEDOM means peace, it means being more productive, it means more clarity, and most importantly it means a more abundant life. 

Oh, and as a side note, I write articles and then make myself crazy with rewriting, rereading and sometimes not posting for months (or ever). I challenged myself to write this new post on the subject of Capacity in one morning, did so in 45 minutes, didn’t initially review it, just wrote it and sent it out to my class. I even read it back to my class as well the same day (again without reviewing). Now comes the goal of only reviewing once prior to posting on my blog. Update: I only reviewed once, a couple of months later, and posted. Freedom is a blessing!

Karen Silins is a multi-certified, award winning resume writer, career, business and personal branding coach working with individuals and small businesses. After graduating with degrees in education and vocal performance, she made her own career transition into the Human Resources realm. Karen left Human Resources to become an entrepreneur and help jobseekers, executives and fellow entrepreneurs achieve their goals. She keeps current regarding trends in the resume writing, coaching, HR, small business and marketing industries by working daily with individual clients on resume development and career coaching, executive/career management coaching, consulting for small businesses in business plan development, marketing, blogging, hiring and overall HR processes, and providing 20-50+ seminars and workshops annually to a variety of organizations in the greater Kansas City area. She can be reached via her website at www.careerandresume.com.

Categories Business Coaching, Career Coaching, Career Management, Inspiration, Life Coaching, Opinion
Comments (0)

A Worthy New Year’s Resolution: Invest in YOU!

December 26th, 2018
A Worthy New Year's Resolution: 
 Invest In You

Now is the time we all make that New Year’s resolutions list.  My question to you is how often list includes investing in your personal and professional development?  I’m not talking about buying yourself a present or an espresso, losing weight, exercising more, or the myriad of typical resolutions.  I mean true investment in your career and life?  While many in the workforce claim they want this benefit from an organization they work for, when offered it is often not utilized unless companies force the issue and require training.  This article is to steer you towards investing in yourself for 2019. 

Just like you lose money and essentially work for free a part of each day if your company offers a 401K with a match and you do not take advantage of the “free money,” the same goes for personal and professional development. From taking a cooking or photography course to Business Writing, Microsoft Excel or Stephen Covey’s Seven Habit’s course, you gain insight into you, learn something new, expand personal or professional horizons, and, if professional development, bolster career potential, possibly preserving your job in difficult times.

So, do I follow this rule. Yes, I practice what I preach and hold 17 separate certifications, take several webcasts annually, and I am about to hold gain another certification. Do I advertise all of them? No, as many are antiquated and no longer apply, but I do certainly maintain several of them, and look to strengthen my skillset when possible with new training. Before you think, wow, she is addicted to training. I have been in business over 19 years and some of the certifications took six to eight weeks and some six months, so I don’t spend all my time obtaining them. I do however understand several things very important to coaching. One, I must realize I don’t have all the answers. Two, I must be willing to constantly challenge myself and learn new techniques, assessment types, ways of viewing a client issue, etc. Third, I must be willing to be coached and critiqued if I am to be an effective coach and writer to others. This means professional and personal development and having a coach. Soon, I will be participating in a mastermind group, and look forward to seeing how that might strengthen my business as well.  Of course, that will probably prompt another article.

Where do I find the time? Well, to put it simply, I make the time, and so can you. We choose what we make time for in our lives. I will give you a couple of examples of friends who do this effectively. I have a friend who has four children, all very engaged in a variety of school and personal activities, she takes care of an elderly relative in her home, has a husband who works a great deal of overtime, works a full-time job herself, and is going to back to school to get her masters. Oh, and by the way, she is setting the grade curve in all her classes with her awesomeness. I am, needless to say, truly proud of her.  Where does she get the time?  She decided to make the time.

The second friend is a business woman, has two young children, a husband who runs his own successful business, is highly involved in volunteer activities, and she trains others in her business as well. Both ladies are more than full time, and both make it work because they made a decision.

We are the “excusitis” crowd in this day and age (yes, I made up the word), a multi-generational group constantly saying we don’t have time. Yet, we watch too much television, sit on iPhones and digital devices wasting hours of time, and run ourselves (and our children) ragged with excess activities we have no need to do. Whether it is just hard for you to say no to something or you are someone who simply cannot have downtime, you have created this situation! Stop saying you don’t have time for something as important as your career and personal development. Make time, it will pay huge dividends. That television show you miss, phone or digital device time you give up, or extra activity you should never have said yes to in the first place will not suffer, but if you don’t make time to improve yourself, your life and career will be impaired.

So, I ask, will you make the decision/resolution to create a little extra time in your schedule to be a better you in 2019, both in your career and personal life?  To paraphrase a popular commercial – are you worth it?

Karen Silins is a multi-certified, award winning resume writer, career, business and personal branding coach working with individuals and small businesses. After graduating with degrees in education and vocal performance, she made her own career transition into the Human Resources realm. Karen left Human Resources to become an entrepreneur and help jobseekers, executives and fellow entrepreneurs achieve their goals. She keeps current regarding trends in the resume writing, coaching, HR, small business and marketing industries by working daily with individual clients on resume development and career coaching, executive/career management coaching, consulting for small businesses in business plan development, marketing, blogging, hiring and overall HR processes, and providing 30-70+ seminars and workshops annually to a variety of organizations in the greater Kansas City area. She can be reached via her website at www.careerandresume.com.

Categories Business Coaching, Career Management, Career Transition, Careers, Job Search
Comments (0)

Recent Posts

  • Positive Self-Talk Can Increase Women’s Career and Personal Achievement
  • Time Chunking for Time Management Success
  • The New Candidate Profiles and Their Impact on Your Job Search or Business

Categories

  • Business Coaching
  • Career Coaching
  • Career Exploration
  • Career Management
  • Career Transition
  • Careers
  • Human Resources
  • Inspiration
  • Interviews
  • Job Search
  • Life Coaching
  • Networking
  • Opinion
  • Personal Branding
  • Resume Writing
  • Talent Management
  • Uncategorized

Archives

Tags

career career advancement career coaching career management careers career search corporate america Employee Engagement hiring HR Human Resources interview interviewing interviews job job candidate Job Hunt job interview jobs job search job searches job searching jobseeker job seeker jobseekers LinkedIn networking online job search online job searching personal brand Personal Branding professional development Recruiters recruiting resume resume development resumes Resume Writers resume writing social media social media profiles social networking training unemployed unemployment

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries RSS
  • Comments RSS
  • WordPress.org
A-Plus Career and Resume, LLC
Copyright © 2021 All Rights Reserved
iThemes Builder by iThemes
Powered by WordPress