Melva Gifford

During one of my job seeking workshops, the class went through series resumes and evaluated what we liked and didn’t like about the resumes. The following are some observations

Things that people like:

–        Easy to see and peruse.

–        Put your name at the bottom of the page in case page 1 and to get separated

–        Short and sweet or less is more.

–        Nice formatting

–        Eye appealing and well formatted.

–        Concise

–        easy to consume

–        Bolded. Wow statements that told reviewer, but to concentrate on.

–        Use words well.

Things that people didn’t like:

–        Resume lacks specifics and just speaks too much generalization.

–        Lacks well statements.

–        Has no summary statement.

–        Lacks detail.

–        Lacks a job description

–        hard to point out key points

–        too much information crowded together, making it hard to read and not enough stand out

–        do more than job duties

–        resume lacks focus

–        typos, grammar and equal paraphrasing

Do you have something to add about resumes that helped you in your job search? Please share in the comment section of this blog.

I hope the following lessons can be of use to youth ministries, family counselors, family devotionals and home evenings.

Items for object lesson: Beads that have holes in them. One bead needs to be bigger and heavier than the others. We need string, a glass cup and vegetable oil. Tie strings through the holes of the smaller beads and connect them to the largest bead. Now use oil to lubricate the outside of the glass cup. Hang the heavy bead on one side of the cup and the lighter beads on the opposite side. The weight of the heavy bead should pull the lighter beads over the cup.

We can compare this to leadership. When someone shows through knowledge and communication skills that they should be followed, people will often follow them. Here are some additional ideas about leadership from Rudy Gilemdi who was the mayor of New York during the 9-11 attack on the twin towers. These comments re from notes I took at success 2013 success seminar.

–        Have to have a set of beliefs.

–        You need to know what you want to achieve.

–        Determine the goals for your company.

–        People can work together when they share goals.

–        You need to be a problem solver.

–        You need courage.

–        That there is something you learn from. How do you overcome the fear of speaking is by relentless preparation and practice.

–        If you can prepare for all your prepared for. You will be prepared for things unexpected.

–        A lot of the solutions of 9/11 were borrowed from solutions for other previous problems.

–        Teamwork: if you are ever a leader of something as yourself what you don’t do well. If you answer that you do everything well, that is a sign of arrogance and not being teachable.

–        Find people to work with you to have strains in areas that you are weak.

–        If you want to lead. Love the people you lead.

–        Be there when things go wrong.

This all sounds like good advice to me. Do you have advice, please feel free to share it in the comment section of this blog.

During the summer, I attend a two day workshop that presented several motivation speakers. I took notes. Here are some ideas by Kendra Todd. She was applicant in the TV show the apprentice.

–        She was one of the premises under the reality show the apprentice posted by Donald Trump.

–        The word win in relationship to business as three meanings

–        W is for why. Find out what is your big Why? This is the why is to apply your chosen the business that you have. Think of all the things you do during the day. The day just before vacation and you will see your ability of how much you can accomplish when properly motivated. Many people go into business to make an impact, create income to sustain the family and to the legacy. What is your big motivator?

–        I stands for innovate. Kendra gave an example in of innovation by the following story. A wealthy man comes into a bank and says that he would like to borrow $2000 for a business trip and for collateral; he will leave his Porsche until he pays back the money with the $50 interest. The bank says that is acceptable and they will put the Porsche in a secured vault in the basement. When he returned from his business trip the vault attendant at the bank said that they had checked into this at the man’s life and saw that he was a multimillionaire and the bank couldn’t understand why he would borrow $2000 for business trip. The businessman admitted that he says where else can I find a place to park my car with maximum-security for a week? This is an example of innovation.

There are two types of businesses factory and lab.

Factory business produces high quality and high quality products.

Lab is brand new stuff. Throw multiple things against the wall to see which will stick through customer acceptance.

–        N stands for. Never give up. Fear is false evidence that appears real. Quote by Zig Ziegler

–        Sometimes you may feel alone, during those times persevere.

–        90% of success is simply showing up Zig Ziegler

This all sounds like good advice to me. Do you have advice, please feel free to share it in the comment section of this blog.

Here is one way to remember this one. A BUreau conducts the BUsiness of government. A buREAu often involves plenty of REAsons yoU have to fill out multiple forms.

Please, if you have a better way on how I can remember this critter, share it. This word is a zinger!

These are notes I took while attending a CERT (certified emergency response team) fire side.

When you think about how to prepare yourself or your family for multiple emergency scenarios, keep these ideas in mind.

–        Different emergencies are influenced by the circumstances surrounding the catastrophe.

–        The earthquake in Chile occurred about 4 o’clock in the morning.

–        There is items falling off the shelves and the rumble of the ground shook beneath their feet.

–        The first introduced to check on the status of your family

–        There are no communications and no access to additional resources.

–        For parts of the country that is next to the notion the systems have to worry about tsunamis after the earthquake.

–        Roads are torn apart so people not able to travel

–        There was no means of communication because everyone was trying out once and was jamming the signals

–        With no electricity, there was no running water and little food.

–        For the problems in Katrina it took five days to the mature arrive to help.

–        Security became a big issue for Chile. The poor citizens of the country went to the rich neighborhoods to steal people’s possessions.

–        It’s important for you to know your neighbors, so you can determine how they will respond in a circumstance and he didn’t trust them.

–        There’s usually a lack of leadership during catastrophe.

–        Martial law was installed to help prevent mobs and unruly citizens.

–        A man killed his own mother for water.

–        In an emergency, people will go crazy; we face the most negative aspects of human nature.

–        How many people know who their neighborhood captain is?

–        Who has three months of water or three months of food?

–        We’ve been warned by Scriptures that challenges are coming.

–        Medicines need to be taken and often run out.

–        In Chile, a car drove into a neighborhood during curfew. Someone shot at the car to protect the neighborhood and people later found out he was one family come in to find out the status of another family.

–        One family was in better condition in Chile, because they buy their food, a month at a time. They had just purchased their supplies, the day before the earthquake.

If you have suggestions to add to the list, please feel free to give them in the comment section of this blog. Thanks

Today’s lesson is going to take a little bit of turn from what I’ve done in the past. I hope this lesson can be of use to youth ministries, family counselors, parents and grandparents, plus, family devotionals or family home evenings.

In my neighborhood, and other neighborhoods, multiple homes were damaged by floodwater during the weekend. Much of this was due to city drains getting clogged and causing water to pour into people’s basements. I realize that many congregations helped their neighbors by helping distressed neighbors clean out damaged home. I thought this type of activity would be a useful topic for today’s presentation.

Many times the lessons touch upon us following Christ by performing acts of charity is. But I can also see the usefulness of things that are taught to youth who become involved in a workgroup that is helping a neighbor. Here are some ideas or additional fringe benefits outside learning how to be Christ like. Here are a few:

1. It is an educational opportunity to see men and women working together in labor they are not getting paid for. In history neighbors used to help each other raise a barn. That no longer happens nowadays. Nowadays, neighbors show compassion by helping others clean up a mess. These youths watch people of all abilities contribute in some way.
2. When the youth are exposed to working adults, they see successful cooperation and communication. Some individuals are more familiar with the construction of a house, and so can give advice about how to turn off the power to avoid being electrocuted when going to a basement full of water. Another point of advice might be how high drywall may need to be removed to later be replaced.
3. An observer to a group preforming charity sees how different jobs can be streamlined. Certain people will contribute with their own resources and tools. Others may divide up their tasks by ability. Some may cut away the carpet. Some will lift the saturated material and push it out through the window. Those waiting outside the window will transfer the trash into bags. At the signing time certain people are either vacuuming up the water or breaking damaged drywall, so the back area of a wall can be dried out.
4. By a young teen seeing drywall being torn away from a basement wall gives them an experience that they’ve never had before. It lets them see how things are built. In the past. I wondered how once the basement was flooded, how it could be used again. Now that I realize drywall can be removed and the water damage repaired. Then you add the drywall back again, and repaint so you can use the home.
5. Another silent lesson that is taught is how many hands make a lighter load. A job that would’ve taken 40 hours by one or two people was done by 20 in about two hours. This can teach the youth efficiency. It could also teach them that by working hard in the beginning can make the job shorter.
6. Working together in an act of charity, but when you see adults preforming it, it’s no longer just words. Its actions. Those adults become examples to emulate.
7. This can create a bonding opportunity by shared experiences. As a side note, just as young men are invited to come and help clean up the mess. I think it’s also a valuable experience for young women as well.

These may be just a few things aside from just be more Christ like that of benefits of having youth involved in acts of charity.

I’ve been receiving some wonderful advice from some employment specialists and thought I’d share some of my notes. If you are currently employed, you may not need this information. However, if you have family members or friends who are job searching, please feel free to share this information and other related blogs with them. If you think it can be of help.

Of the last few weeks the info had been posted on Tuesdays and Fridays.

–        During a job interview. Make decision-makers feel comfortable in considering you as a candidate

–        maintain eye contact

–        be user-friendly with voice and smile

–        Let them know that you can get the job done. Show them that you are able to fit into the organization

–        The more information you have on the company, the better you can present yourself

–        Show your knowledge and competence of their culture

–        You might ask them how they got their job. There turning negative into a positive

–        Don’t concentrate on the bad decision, show how you’ve changed to the more positive position. comment about the negative short and expand upon the success of the house and change the positive

–        When you asked why you left your last job, mention the negative only briefly and expand upon the positive

If you have items that you like to add to this list please feel free to add them in the comment section this blog.

I have a devil of a time remembering how to spell this word. I keep putting the letter L in the middle of the word. Maybe using a visual image will help on this one. The letters T and L are the highest letters in the word. They are also at opposite ends of the word. If I envision them as my arms using the towel to dry the body this may help me remember their positioning.

Bad: Towles

Good: towels

If you have a mnemonic a suggestion on how you remember the positioning of the L on this wonderful word, please feel free to share it. Thank you.