• While a minor typo may seem acceptable (or even expected) by job seekers creating their resume, a single typo can potentially be enough to remove you from the job race. In a competition between two similarly qualified individuals, the one with the flawless resume will win. A typo-free resume also shows an attention to detail that any employer wants in an employee. Don’t just write your resume and send out the first draft in the name of expediency. Use a spell checker, proofread the document multiple times, and allow others to examine it for errors.
• As with typos, many job hunters feel that adding a little resume padding is a perfectly acceptable tactic. After all, it’s not as if you are actually lying, right? The truth of the matter is even a small deception, if discovered, can immediately disqualify your application from further consideration. And with about 97 percent of employers running background and reference checks as part of the hiring process, exaggeration and embellishment can lead to a serious mark on your perceived integrity. Look what happened to Yahoo’s CEO recently!
• While interviews are perhaps the most nerve-wracking part of the application process and it is normal to practice your performance beforehand, it can actually be damaging to your cause to appear as though you are reading from a script. Employers are looking for a glimpse of the person they will see each day at work, not to be presented with an over-rehearsed collection of canned responses. While you do want to emphasize your abilities and value to a company’s bottom line, it is equally important to demonstrate the traits of our personality that make you a great person to work with.
• In an interview situation, what you say is important, but so is how you say it. Demonstrating your adeptness at speaking rote and robotic responses, or showing off all of your nervous ticks is not the best way to engage a hiring manager. Instead, prepare to exude confidence, smile, stand up straight, and look everyone you meet in the eye. Don’t make the mistake of undervaluing the role of peers and subordinates in the decision making process – be friendly and engaging to everyone!
• Finding the perfect professional references can play a prominent role in landing you a job offer, but simply identifying your references on a resume is only part of the job. Your references need to be periodically updated about the jobs for which you are applying so that they can prepare to portray you in the best light within the context of specific responsibilities. Keep them informed of resume changes and make sure they understand how your skills will help you in your new job. The more your references know about you the more helpful they can be to you as contacts.

By Joshua Bjerke  - http://www.recruiter.com/i/avoid-the-small-mistakes-of-job-search/

We all know the pace of change in employment is accelerating and for this reason,continuous career management is more essential than ever. Rapid changes in the working world have seen steadily decreased opportunities for job tenure, increased fluidity in the job market and have drastically altered the types of jobs that are available.

Graduating from University with a degree is no longer guaranteed to land you a great job or successful career and so regardless of your level or situation; you need to ensure you’re consistently managing your career to put yourself ahead of the game.

9 minutes a day

9 minutes a day is a short window of time which can easily be slotted into your busy day – by making your 9 minutes a continuous habit and part of your daily routine, there will be no added stress or pressure to your existing schedule or ‘To Do’ list.

9 minutes gives you complete focus – a time away to focus on you – to reflect on your current career status and more importantly, your career aspirations.

How to spend the 9 minute windows Here are some suggested activities you can easily slot into your 9 minute window and LinkedIn clearly provides a perfect platform to facilitate a wide number of these:

1. Build your network: building and maintaining relationships is a major component of a successful career. 
2. Maintain relationships by recommending and congratulating others in their careers – everyone enjoys being recognized
3. Request recommendations from your networks as credibility is critical
4. Document achievements and wins on LinkedIn to stay current and relevant
5. Update your status every day and make sure your profile and photo s are current
6. Expand on your thought leadership; lead a forum or LinkedIn group; publish an article; start a blog; speak publicly, recommend a book on the Amazon Linkedin app.
7. Use the power of video and create a video bio of yourself for your Linkedin profile.
8. Source staff – one of a manager’s hardest jobs.  If you build your brand community, you’ll create fans who want to work for you.
9. Research.  Make an effort to get to know more about your clients or partners and competitors – LinkedIn is a great place to start

Sticking to 9 minutes in a world of distraction

These days, everyone is busy and time poor and so it’s easy to get distracted and lose focus on your 9 minute ritual.  To avoid this set a specific time of day for your 9 minutes of continuous career management. This could be during your lunch break, whilst commuting using the Linkedin App on your mobile device or whilst enjoying your morning coffee. Try to prioritise your actions for the 9 minutes so you are truly focused – build a calendar each month with your 9 minute actions to help keep you on track.

By: William Arruda

 http://blog.linkedin.com/2012/05/14/nineaday-blog-post/trackback/

You may hear a lot of complaints about the youngest members of the workforce today, but thanks to Generation Y, there’s never been a better time for small businesses that are hoping to attract top talent away from big companies, says Roberta Matuson, president of Human Resource Solutions and author of “Suddenly in Charge: Managing Up, Managing Down, Succeeding All Around,” in this video from the Monster Resource Center.

Gen Y, also known as the Millennials, is  “much more concerned with finding a workplace where there is a mission,” said Matuson. “They really want to do good things in the world and if your organization happens to be doing that, you’ll have a much better chance of getting them than one of the Fortune 500 companies.”

That doesn’t mean your company needs an ambitious mission to save the world, end hunger or cure cancer, though. More modest commitments such as contributing to revitalizing your city, providing the best customer service in town or helping people save time in their busy lives also count. The important thing is that you stand for a purpose that’s larger than just growing larger and making more money.

Gen Y also cares a great deal about making connections and that includes connecting with the organization where they work, says Matuson. “Just because you’re a small employer doesn’t mean you can’t provide these connections.”

“When I work with my small-business clients to help them create environments that are attractive” to this demographic of workers, says Matuson, the focus is on creating small social groups around people’s interests, such as a foodie group, a book club or a walking group. That’s something even a business with about 15 employees can do.

Even if you don’t have enough people or interest to form small groups like those Matuson suggests, you can still do things to create strong connections among your employees. Try a regular lunch out, happy hour or outing to somewhere fun. Shared experiences such as going to a movie, attending a baseball game or playing miniature golf give employees something to talk about besides work and give them a chance to get to know their co-workers better.

‘Career temps’ can carve a niche for themselves by focusing on areas with significant skills shortages, ensuring they are a vital cog in business needs and allowing for contract negotiation and financial gains.

The experience gained over short periods of time allows ‘career temps’ to move up the ladder often quicker than permanent equivalents. Employers recognise the experience temporary agency workers bring, meaning they require minimal training and can ‘hit the ground running’, saving on initial employment costs.

Source: http://depoel.wordpress.com/

This is great news for our team and we are excited about the future opportunities yet to come!

The event featured a presentation by a captivating speaker Dan Gregory, acclaimed creative and brand specialist, who spoke about  how to lead with engagement, alignment and attraction.

Leona and Karen

This time the most dedicated and diligent employee is Donna, who  consistently performs well and even worked on her weekend! For her continuous effort Donna receives two Gold Class movie tickets to relax after a working week!

Congratulations to Donna - Temp of The Month

Knowing and acknowledging when you’re actually procrastinating, and knowing what’s likely to trigger it, is probably your best defense against the monster that makes you feel busy without feeling productive. Here’s a few thoughts on acknowledging your misspent moments and not letting it bring you down.

Clutter is procrastination, so deal with it

Your inbox can be empty, your to-do list entirely reasonable, but clutter gives away your latent procrastination. Whether it’s actual papers and books everywhere you look around your workspace, or a browser stuffed with check-this-out bookmarks, clutter accumulates because “you’ve deferred making a decision about what to do with it,” writes Maura Nevel Thomas in Personal Productivity Secrets, due out May 1. “Maybe you think making a decision is going to take more time than you have to devote, or you’re afraid you might need it later, or perhaps you just don’t feel like dealing with it.”

Thomas’ book recommends some techniques that should be familiar to anyone who’s looked into the Getting Things Done system, including the “two-minute rule”: whatever you can process or deal with in two minutes, do it as soon as it pops up. But the real solution to procrastinating your cleanliness comes from actually wanting to deal with all that useless paper and unwanted emails and the like.

Messing with your tools is slick self-delusion

“It’s easy to always be getting ready to get ready.” That’s how Vaden summarizes one of his key concepts around procrastination, “Creative Avoidance.” Rather than do the things that seem far more emotionally draining than they are actually, physically demanding, we talk about projects with people, or mess with the tools we have to do them–find the right add-on, tweak the settings, add more contacts to LinkedIn. In other words, we avoid necessary, intimidating things, and busywork rushes in, like that lesson you still remember about gases from high school chemistry.

“The amount of busywork always expands to fill whatever attention we allow to be available,” Vaden said. “You have to cultivate the habit of action … by demanding to yourself that you make progress, but freeing yourself from the demand for perfection. People wait to start until they have the perfect amount of time, the perfect set of resources, the perfect timing, but it never comes. You have to want to make progress.”

Do the heavy stuff earlier

If procrastination is the art of avoiding decisions in favor of something, anything else, then you should know how decision after decision saps your willpower. So if you need to clear out a whole bunch of messages, items on your desk, or other nuggets requiring your snap judgement, do them early in the morning, or after you’ve had a good bit of rest from the other pressures of your work.

Be honest with yourself about the actual effort involved in doing your tasks, but be realistic about needing to space them out.

“Priority Dilution” is something even the boss’ favorite suffers from

Why do email inboxes always sort themselves in reverse chronological order? And why do you answer your emails that way? It’s because it’s easy to fall victim to the latest and loudest stuff, and because it feels great to dash off responses and knock messages down. It’s “incredible work, but that doesn’t mean it’s effective,” Vaden said.

That’s the easiest example of what Vaden calls “Priority Dilution,” a kind of unconscious procrastination (as opposed to conscious procrastination, which is, basically, choosing what you want to do). It’s why even after you label something as a High Priority, put a flag on it, and color it red, you don’t get it done, because you keep waiting for the right time to do it.

“Managers and high-performing employees suffer from this a lot, almost more than anyone,” Vaden said. “We know which things are important, but we feel they need to rise to a level of convenience.”

“But on any day, you can schedule things, move things so you’ve got 30 minutes available. Now that you’ve got those 30 minutes, you can ignore the small stuff while you work on the big stuff. Just as important, capture the small stuff that comes in while you’re working on the big stuff.”

TELL THEM EVERYTHING:
When building a relationship with a recruiter, this is no time to be shy. Recruiters need to know everything there is to know about you and what you are looking for in your career, i.e. salary, perks, specific employers, etc. Building an effective relationship with a professional recruiter starts with trust and honesty, so be forthcoming with your requests.

FIND OUT EVERYTHING:
Relationships are a two way street. When working with a professional recruiter you need to know as much about them as it relates to their capabilities and ability to help you secure employment. Do a thorough background check on the recruiter and/or the company. Review all the social networking sites where the recruiter does business and if they do not recruit via these new mediums, be aware; it might mean that they are not keeping up with workforce trends and new recruiting practices.

COMMUNICATE OFTEN:
Unfortunately securing a recruitment professional does not mean you will secure employment immediately. There can be a lot of waiting involved. Sitting still and waiting for the phone to ring is not an option for you. You are part of the communication equation and you must take an active role in all aspects of your career.

Approach your job hunt like you already have a job. If you see something online, hear about it on a website, see it on the news – contact your recruitment professional and collaborate with them on a game plan. Good recruiters are savvy and well connected, like real estate agents. They tend to know where all the hot properties are. However, they can not be everywhere, so the more hands they can have working in your favor the better.

BE REALISTIC: 
Understand that you are not the recruiters’ only client. Schedule standing meetings no matter how short; just get them on the calendar. Recruiters understand your urgency however they have other clients asking for the same things. Work with your recruitment professional to set realistic goals that are effective and actionable.

Source: http://www.recruiter.com/career-advice/

The Cameby Downs Mine is located near the small southern Queensland town of Chinchilla in the Surat Basin, it is an open cut operation using conventional truck and shovel mining equipment and is operated by a contractor.