CLASSES & JOBS

Learning a language can be very useful, but it also can be a waste of time. It is pointless to learn a language you will never use again, so don’t waste your time. However, if you do pick a second language, here are some things to consider. First, consider all your options and try to imagine which will be the most useful.

For instance, I live in Utah where there is a surprisingly large amount of Hispanics. Knowing Spanish is a great asset here because I can communicate with people I see daily.

If you cannot think which language would be most useful where you live, then consider what you could use this language for in the future. If you are looking to go into business, knowing a language like Mandarin Chinese or Japanese could be very useful. If you already know a language, use it to your advantage.

If you are applying for an international job and you speak French, mention you could help that company expand into France over time, or that you could help them with their current French operations. Knowing a language can be pointless if you do not use it actively, but you can find ways to leverage a second language for your own benefits.

For college students, internships are an invaluable way to gain experience and learn what life is like in the professional world. Many college degrees give students the choice of pursuing an internship for credit. To all college students: Take that opportunity!

It is a win-win situation for all parties involved. The student will gain hands on experience in their desired profession and will also create connections in their field for future employment. These two things are gold when it comes to finding a job right out of college. The employer also gets multiple benefits from an internship, the biggest being money. Most college internships are unpaid. That means an employer can take on a new short term employee for free. If the student excels at his or her position with the company, their employer may want to add them to their staff.

I remember the first big job interview I had after I graduated college. It was with an international corporation and I was applying for a writing position. As I sat in the lobby waiting to meet with the interviewer, I realized it was slowly getting very warm. I glanced over at the digital thermostat and saw that it registered a cool 65 degrees. That’s when I realized the room wasn’t getting hotter, I was. I was beginning to sweat in places I didn’t know had sweat glands.

I started to panic. What if I don’t get the job because I’m glistening like fresh snow on Christmas morning? I’m doomed. Then it dawned on me: It would take gallons of sweat to seep through my suit coat. There’s no way they could tell how much I was sweating if I just kept my suit jacket on. I pulled out my handkerchief, wiped my face and walked into my interview. Three days later I was hired. The moral of the story? Always wear a suit jacket; you may never know what you need to cover up. Other tips: Be prepared with a copy of your resume, practice answering questions with a friend, prepare a list of questions to ask the interviewer, and be as confident as you can, even if you are sweating profusely.

Everyone at one point in their life has searched for a job, and everyone know it’s not fun. It can be a long and arduous task finding the type of job you want for the pay you need. Luckily, with the advent of the Internet and job search sites like monster.com and careerbuilder.com, finding a job is a little bit easier.

There are some basics with which everyone needs to become familiar; things like how to create a resume, interviewing techniques, even down to proper dress attire. I’ve had multiple jobs over the years in various fields all in an attempt to find out exactly what I want to do. Perhaps this is why I can crank out a new resume in 2.3 minutes flat or can navigate most job search engines with one hand tied between my back. My advice: Keep your resume updated, make sure to network whenever you can, including attending job fairs and talking to friends and family members to get contacts for your next job, and make sure never to leave a job on a bad note.

Personal care is really important for our health. It seems simple to us, but for some people it’s not. If you’ve seen the movie Big Daddy you probably remember the scene where the teacher tells Adam Sandler that his boy is the “smelly kid” is class. We all remember the smelly kid from elementary school. The one who it seemed like never showered or washed his clothes. While what we all were concerned about in elementary school was this smelly kid’s stench, there’s more that goes along with it. Personal care includes not only being clean, but also eating well, getting enough sleep, and exercising.

There are plenty of ways to make sure you are keeping up with your personal care. There are personal care products at every grocery store and beauty salon, including haircare products, vitamins, soaps and lotions, and more. Also, you can hire a personal trainer at a gym to help you exercise and get in shape. Keeping up with your personal care and hygiene is important for your career also; the more professional you look, the more seriously you’ll be taken.

Facebook vs MySpace. It’s the battle of the century. OK, well, battle of the decade. Social networking has become the latest communication fad. At any gathering at least two people will exchange MySpace or Facebook pages. Why get to know someone in person when you can read all about them on their blog?

These sites are so popular that employers are actually looking up potential employees’ pages to see what type of people they really are. Which reminds me, I should really take down some pictures from Halloween; I did not make a good Sarah Palin! These social networking sites have changed the way we communicate. Couples are now breaking up by posting a comment on their significant other’s page. Employers are hiring people based on their pages. People are meeting their future spouses through the sites. Musicians and artists are becoming famous because of their pages. What does yours say about you?

A friend once said to me, “Resumes have about as much truth to them as a Harry Potter book.” I asked him what he meant and he told me that, for him, resumes are just telling the employer what he or she wants to hear. What do you think?

So why are they such a crucial aspect of getting a job? It’s the format. You can actually tell a lot from a person based on the writing in their resume. If their format is precise and uniform throughout, you can tell they pay attention to detail. If the grammar and syntax is well planned and clearly executed, it is obvious they have the ability to write well. These qualities are important to most employers. A resume is the first opportunity you have to make an impression on a future employer; make sure you represent yourself well.

I came across a recent study that ranked the top 10 fears of Americans. Guess what was number one? Nope, not spiders; they were number three. Wrong again: Fear of heights was number two. The number one fear of Americans is public speaking. That’s right, public speaking. Death was number six on the list; six! That means Americans would rather die than have to speak in public.

I personally don’t have a problem with public speaking. I mean, in what other circumstance do people encourage you to imagine others in their underwear? Doctors say the best way to get over a fear is to experience it in a controlled environment. If you’re afraid of snakes, meet with a snake handler and touch a snake. If you have a fear of heights, conquer it by sky diving with an expert. If you have a fear of public speaking, try giving a small memorized statement in front of friends and family. They’ll love you regardless of your performance. While being afraid of snakes or of heights probably won’t affect your job performance, being unable to speak in public might. You can conquer it with some work…and maybe you’ll even one day add public speaking to your list of strengths on your resume.

My friend once went into an employment agency in need of immediate work. He handed over his resume and list of skills and after a three minute glance at it, the woman informed him that all she had available was a job being a personal marketing tool.

“What is that?” my friend asked, and she proceeded to give him a very long speech about the high demand companies have for personal marketing tools. When my friend was still unclear as to the actual description of job, she pointed out the window. Across the street at a local pizza place a man stood outside holding a sign that read: “Oven Ready Pizza To Go $5.” While this was not the ideal immediate work my friend was looking for, it was something. And after he stood holding his own sign for a few days, he decided to enroll in marketing classes and began looking for the jobs he really wanted.

We all have strengths and weaknesses. Each of us knows people who have amazing talents we wish we could master. It is easy to compare our weakness with their strengths, and find ourselves wanting. For some reason, the more visible the difference from the perceived “norm,” the more likely it is to be labeled a “disability.”

I’ve never understood this insistence on pigeon-holing others–or ourselves. I know we need to make sense of our world, but why do we insist on smacking labels on everyone and everything? Does it start in grade school as sides are chosen, or much much earlier? Whatever it spawns from, it seems wrong to me to put others down for being different. Why can’t focus on the strengths we each possess rather than pointing to the differences? I can not say it better than the Greek philosopher, Plato: “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”