LinkedIn: Focus on Your Strengths

Having worked with hundreds of clients to improve their profiles, expand their networks, and leverage their connections, I have noticed that many people are nervous talking about their strengths. When we reach the summary section, skills section, or experience descriptions, many clients immediately cringe from my suggestion of expanding the verbiage to include more strengths. Generally speaking, individuals fall into two camps: they either say they “don’t want to brag” or they “don’t have any strengths.” For those who don’t want to brag, my response is fairly simple: it isn’t bragging, it’s...

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The Best (and Worst) Ways to Ask For a Raise

Asking for a raise is one of the more nerve-wracking things you can do in a job. If you phrase your request poorly, or react poorly to a denial, that can have ramifications for your position as a whole. However, if you ask for a raise in the right way, and at the right time, it can have big benefits for you. You’ll either be granted the raise you request, or you’ll make it known that you’re tuned into the company, that you’re assertive in your professional desires, and that you have the initiative to pursue your career goals. Before we dive into how to ask for a raise, however, I’d like to...

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Creating a Killer LinkedIn Headline

Is your LinkedIn headline less than it could be? The LinkedIn headline is a surprisingly important part of the networking site. It’s one of the key pieces of information used in the search algorithm, and it is the first information someone will get upon doing a search. Yet many people leave the LinkedIn headline as-is with the basic LinkedIn formatting: your current position AT your current company. This is a perfectly fine starting point, but to have a really good LinkedIn headline, you must change it up. Your headline is a snapshot of who you are and what skills you have to offer. It...

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Career Research: Online and Off

It is difficult to know what to expect going into a new field. Every industry has its own standards, practices, terminology, and work expectations. When you decide to try a new career path, it can be difficult to orient your skills to seem attractive in that industry, let alone actually know what you’ll be getting yourself into. However, we at Career Solutions Group are big fans of career research, and there are a few different ways to do it. Career research means proactively seeking out information about your field of interest and using it to determine an appropriate career path. It can be...

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Climbing in the Right Direction

Career progression as a process has changed significantly in the past few decades. It used to be that employees would stay with the same company for decades, and possibly for their entire career. When this was the case, companies had a vested interested in developing an employee, helping them to climb their career ladder with promotions and career development. Today, however, with turnover being much higher, companies won’t usually actively invest in an employee’s career progression. What this means is an employee often has to embark on career development by themselves. When you decide to...

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