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September 12, 2014 0 Comments

Manage Your Image Prior to the Big Job Interview

Not that long ago, employers relied on interviews, reference checks and resumes to determine whether or not they wanted to hire someone. These days, business owners use a variety of other methods to decide if someone is hire-worthy. Some business owners will look into your background as part of the screening process; this may include asking you information about your educational background, any criminal records, your financial history, and the way in which you use social media, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission notes. Potential employers may also do a background check, which can include looking up a credit report and any past criminal activity, and they will probably spend some time online learning what they can about you and your activities.

Here are some interview tips to prepare for the background screening and help ensure that your image is as upstanding, responsible and professional as possible.

Research yourself

Since employers often use a search engine like Google to learn more about you, beat them to the proverbial punch and research yourself, Lifehacker suggests. Hopefully what pops up will be a pretty accurate representation of who you are, including recent achievements and awards, articles that may have mentioned your name, and social media profiles. If your name is fairly common or if you are in the unfortunate situation where your name is the same or close to some notorious individual, you may want to go ahead and mention this during the interview. You could even add links and URLs to accurate articles about you to your resume.

Make sure your driving record is spotless — or close to it

Many employers will want or even require that you have a clean driving record. In addition to being a good indicator of responsibility and competency, a lack of tickets and other moving violations can show your future boss that you are capable of good decision making. Of course, this is especially important if the job involves any kind of driving. If your license has expired or if you have recently moved to a new state and you have not been down to the MVD yet, do everything you can before your interview to make sure your driving records are up-to-date. For example, if you just moved and you need to get your driver’s license, you can prepare for your exam by taking the permit practice test online at DrivingTests.org.

Clean up your social media act

Chances are good the person who will be interviewing you will look you up on social media sites. Take the time and go through all of your pages and remove anything that might be remotely questionable. This includes those fun pictures taken of you at that party on your Facebook page — you may not have been doing anything wrong, but it’s probably best to err on the side of caution.

Also, as Wisconsin Job Center notes, never speak poorly of your last boss in a job interview. If you ever did any complaining about your job, boss or co-workers on social media sites, take those comments off, pronto. Assume that your potential future boss will scroll through some of your Tweets, so go back and remove any that make you look less than positive. In addition, if you have a page on LinkedIn, make sure your profile is up to date with your latest job history and references.

Take these interview tips to heart — do anything you can to make sure that whatever someone learns about you online will increase, and not decrease, your chances of being hired.

Check out these other great articles about job search tips as a work from home professional. Also check out our current job postings for mom professionals.

 

 

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January 3, 2014 0 Comments

Hiring a Virtual Assistant Will Help You Grow Your Business

What VAs Provide their Clients and How it Has Helped Their Business

As a home based entrepreneur, most of us look forward to getting to the point where we need to outsource work. If we are outsourcing, we must be busier than we can handle and looking to lighten our load. If that’s the case, you’ll want to take a look inside the opportunities available to home business owners in hiring a virtual assistant (VA).

What is a Virtual Assistant?

If you have not heard of a Virtual Assistant, they are “highly skilled professionals who excel in their given area of expertise. They provide extensive marketing solutions, administrative support, proofing, editing, website design, bookkeeping and many other specialized services for entrepreneurs, small businesses, authors, and others who want to bring their business to a new level. VAs work globally taking advantage of all the many benefits the Internet offers,” Diana Ennen, author of Virtual Assistant – The Series: Become a Highly Successful, Sought After VA, says.

Ways A Virtual Assistant Will Grow Your Business

“A VA can help a client’s business grow in so many ways.  One of the main reasons a person hires a VA is to just take over the daily administrative tasks so they can focus more on their clients and customers, thus making more money and growing their business.  But once the immediate tasks are taken over by the VA, they can start to move into more of a partnership.  A VA can become the second in command for the client.  When the trust grows over time, the VA starts to work with the client’s customers, also helping to make even more money and allowing for their business to grow,” Carolyn Berg, Virtual Assistant/Owner of CyberOffice Solutions, LLC says.

Another way a VA can help a client’s business grow is research.  Most business owners do not have time to do research on the internet or make updates to databases, etc. A VA can handle research as well as help search new business alliances and opportunities.

“Carolyn Berg has been my Virtual Assistant since December 2006. She handles many responsibilities that allow me to develop and market my business. She maintains my online newsletter, creates campaigns, makes calls to clients, creates marketing packages with desktop publishing and overall, keeps me on track. She is always willing to assist me, and she has made some great suggestions toward building the business,” Tom O’Brien, owner of Tom O’Brien Productions, in Washington, CT shares.

A Virtual Assistant is a Business Owner

A virtual assistant is not only an assistant to other business owners, they are business owners themselves. They understand the ins and outs of running a business and know what is involved in owning a home based business. “VAs have a unique way of looking at problems from a business standpoint. Many of them have had their own growing pains and dealt with them which is a big advantage to businesses who use our services,” Candy Beauchamp, CVA, CRESS OffAssist says.

“I use three VAs in my business. I have my main VA who performs administrative tasks for me, another who does my accounting and a variety of others I bring in for special projects such as designing a brochure or doing research.  If I was doing all of this work, I would never have time to see the number of clients that I am able to see and consequently wouldn’t be able to achieve the income that I now can.  Beyond that, they have added capabilities to offer services to my clients that I either don’t have the skills to do or don’t have the motivation or time to do. VAs have given me back time and created a broader range of services that I can offer to clients,” Brad Farris, Anchor Advisors, Ltd, in Chicago, IL, adds.

In today’s world, you don’t have to be in a big office building to have an assistant. You simply need to look online for the many talented VAs out there. I’ve found hiring a Virtual Assistant to be a great way to help manage and grow my business.

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Lesley Pyle is the founder and president of HBWM.com Inc. which includes the national association of Home-Based Working Moms helping moms network, learn and grow in their role as a Home-Based Working Mom and HireMyMom.com connecting at-home Mom Professionals with home-based jobs and projects in virtually every career field.  Pyle has been featured in numerous publications including Forbes, Entrepreneur, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Home Office Computing, and many others.  Twitter @lesleypyle and @hiremymom

Check out these other great articles about tips for mom as a work from home professional.Also check out our current job postings for mom professionals.

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