Finding a Job You Love

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Ken Lear here.

A famous Confucius quote reads, “Choose a job you’ll love and you’ll never have to work another day.” This is something that most people believe in, but don’t take the steps to make it a reality. No job is worth it if you’re not happy or satisfied with the work. It can be difficult to find and lock down a job that you will love, but it is also very worth the effort. To find that job, you must be able to have a sense of where you want to be headed in the future. Finding meaning in a career is of utmost importance to a happy life. Here are three things you can do today to find a job that you can have a real passion for:

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Find a Company with Similar Values

It’s tough to love your job when the company you work for does not practice the same values as you do. From environmental awareness to employee appreciation, finding a company that does the things you think a company should is significant. This is imperative: no one can be happy with a job when they are aware they heavily disagree on the values the company presents.

Look to the Future

When taking a new job, think five years down the line. Is this a job you will be satisfied with? Will it keep you motivated? Will it help you get where you need to get?  Looking down the line with your job is a great way to see if it will be worth your time. If this job is not going to get you where you need (and want) to go, you may have to look elsewhere.

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Talk with People Who've Figure It Out

It doesn’t hurt to ask those who love their jobs how they were able to do it. Most will tell you that they figured out what they were passionate about and pursued it. This is the underlining fate that you must understand to get a job you love: passion will always triumph money or power. Talking with others will allow you to see that its possible to find a job you love. You just need to put in the effort and time to find out what your passions truly are.

The 5 Best Fictional Entrepreneurs

My name is Ken Lear and I’m an expert on all things leadership, business, and entrepreneurship.

As a film and novel buff, I have been able to see as many movies regarding entrepreneurship as I can. The subject of entrepreneurship is great inspiration for a story that can be fascinating as well as thought provoking. The following are my favorite fictional entrepreneurs, and why they are memorable.

Daniel Plainview – There Will Be Blood

There Will Be Blood tells the dark tale of an oil businessman’s rise to power and success. Plainview was able to see the potential in the oil business, and capitalized by finding the best land for digging and how to distribute it. His methods may have been a little too harsh for some, but his business skills and expertise would make any entrepreneur jealous.

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Tony Stark – Iron Man

Being a super hero is a tough job to do, but underneath the iron mask is a man that is your classic entrepreneur. As Tony Stark takes over his father’s weapons company, he keeps the success going and becomes a billionaire. He also realizes the errors of the weapons business, and vows to help stop criminals from arming up. It’s nice to see a self-made man that condemns the bad things his business does to help make the world a better place.

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The Ghostbusters – Ghostbusters

This might be a goofy choice, but what the Ghostbusters were able to achieve should inspire all entrepreneurs. By providing a service that was in demand (catching ghosts), the Ghostbusters were able to create a successful business that people could recall with ease. Even their logo was recognizable, and is still known in real life twenty years later.

Charles Foster Kane – Citizen Kane

Considered one of the greatest movies of all time, Citizen Kane tells the story of a man that turns a newspaper into a media empire. A tragic story, Kane realizes at the end of the film that the power and the money didn’t make him happy: it was his childhood memories such as his sled Rosebud. Still, his business prowess inspired many.

Walter White – Breaking Bad

Breaking Bad may tell the story of drug kingpin, but in reality the entrepreneurial knack of Walter White should be admired. Walter finds something he’s good at and sticks with it, even though it is highly illegal and dangerous. Cooking drugs should never be an option for entrepreneurs, but the idea that doing things you enjoy and are good at is what your business should be focused on.

3 Tips for Job Seeking New Grads

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I'm Ken Lear, a business professional with expertise in leadership, management, and entrepreneurship.

Getting a first job can be a lot of work, especially if you have never worked before. In a competitive economy, sometimes it can seem tempting to take the first job that comes your way, even if you lack interest in it. But new job seekers have more control over their situation than they might realize. Below are some things to keep in mind during any job search:

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Apply for the Right Jobs

Don’t waste time applying for positions that are not right for you; instead use your time and energy to personalize and target the jobs you have a chance to land and are interested in. Study a job description and highlight the parts that you feel describe you to see if it is a good fit.

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Create and Cultivate a Professional Online Presence

Over 89% of companies report they will use social networks as part of their hiring plans this year. Many recruiters utilize LinkedIn to scout out and recruit new employees. Employers will also scan Twitter, Facebook and any other social presence job seekers have to screen and see if they are a good fit for the company. Consider creating and maintaining your own professional website so you can curate what companies are seeing. Always delete anything from social media that you wouldn’t want an employer to see. But you have to maintain your online presence, update your status, reach out to people you want to know and demonstrate your expertise online.

Network in Person

Join professional organizations and attend events where you can meet prospective hiring managers and mentors. The more people you can meet and impress in person, the more likely someone is to remember you and refer you for an opportunity.

Creating the Perfect Resume

Ken Lear's Resume Workshop

Hi, I'm Ken Lear, an expert in all things business, leadership, and entrepreneurship.

Crafting a perfect resume is an essential skill that any job seeker should continually be improving upon. Like you, your resume is a living and breathing document that will evolve and follow you throughout your career. As such it is important to revisit it and revise it to reflect your life’s trajectory.

Here are a few tips and techniques designed to help you along the way:

·               Create Your Own Template: You can use the pre-made templates found in word processing programs or online to serve as a foundation for your formatting but it’s often best to develop your own template that is appropriate for the industry you are applying for.

·               Don’t Include Irrelevant Information: Keep your list of hobbies and references out of the resume because they simply waste valuable space. You should locate your education history at the bottom of the page and only include the relevant details (organization, degree, and graduation year).

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·               Experience Should Determine Page Length: Your resume should only contain professional experience that you are proud of. Generally speaking it should remain at one page for ease of use but if you’ve acquired more than 10 years of experience in your field, adding a second page is perfectly reasonable.

·               Format the Page to Organize Your Data: By breaking up blocks of text with bolded and italicized words you can emphasize the inherent strengths found within your resume. Additionally, using bulleted lists to organize your key responsibilities and accomplishments will help improve the readability of the page.

·               Have A Creative Objective or None At All: There is some debate over whether or not to include an Objective on your resume. If you include one it can pigeon hole you into a narrow focus, if you don’t it can leave your resume feeling directionless. Ideally your Objective should emulate your elevator pitch by remaining clear and concise.

·               Highlight Your Name & Contact Info: Many resumes push the applicants contact info to the bottom or to the side. It should be front and center (so to speak) and aligned at the top of the page in bold.

·               Quantify Your Accomplishments: Whenever possible, stay clear of subjective and abstract language – instead opt to include real and manageable numbers that give your experience grounding within the company.

·               Tailor Your Resume for the Position: By molding your resume to reflect what the employer is looking for you maximize the potential of a single sheet of paper. Research the company to identify key words, phrases, and the company’s overarching philosophy. You should also research the position itself to determine which work experience you should include.

·               White Space is Key: If you’re resume contains too much information it can quickly overwhelm the tired recruiter that is reading it alongside a hundred others. By using negative space to draw the eye you can highlight the key information on the page in an intuitive manner.

Remember that your resume should be designed to get you the interview. It is there that you can elaborate on the information that you left out. By having an up to date resume on file at all times you will be more equipped to handle opportunity or hardship when it happens. In these moments it will provide you with a sense of professionalism and also relief.

Good luck!

Tips to Better Business Decision Making

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My name is Ken Lear, and I’m an entrepreneur, businessman, and leadership expert.

Learning to make good decisions in business is a requirement for being a great manager. Through using built-up experience and solid logic, better choices can be made that can help a company be more successful. Utilizing tactics that decision makers us can make a tough decision be easier than ever before. Decisions making does not come out of nowhere, it takes years of experience and practice to make the tough choices. Here are a few tips that I follow to make great decisions:

Remove Emotion

Many times when we are evaluating a decision, emotion can play a relative factor. We are all human beings with passion and tend to follow the way our heart tells us to go. For smart decisions to be made in business, we must never allow our emotional ties to cloud our judgment. Tap developing true judgment, and utilize facts to see the consequences of each action taken. Eliminating emotion from decision-making will give you a real sense of the implications the choice will create.

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Utilize the Opinions of Others

Although we may want to make decisions all on our own, outside insight can help greatly when we are at a crossroads. Asking other peers or friends for their opinion can give you more information, and lead you to the right path. See what they believe is the right way , and going from there. They make choose a path that you might not want to follow, but at least you can see a viewpoint of someone else. Gaining their opinion of the right decision will allow you to develop a better hindsight of decision-making.

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Clear Your Mind

The right path comes to us when we least expect it. Typically, we are so enthralled over a predicament that we tend to lose focus on the right answer. By doing things that can clear your mind, you will allow your brain to find the right answer all on its own. Exercising or even meditating can focus your mind on something else for the time being, and let the correct choice come to you. Never spend hours on end worrying over a decision. You have gotten yourself this far to succeed; trust yourself that you will figure it out on your own.

If Your Have A Feeling…

Although I think you should remove emotion from decision-making, you should also take in account your instincts and intuition. There will be times where you will make a decision that people disagree with. However, it is important to take risks and chances once in a while to truly succeed. A great path to success is to do things that no one else has done. Use facts and research to make a decision, but if you’re hesitant to go one way, always go with your gut feeling.