1. You never stop learning
2. Simple ideas can trigger massive results
3. Life never stands still. If you’re not rising, you’re sinking.
4. Doing nothing is never the answer to a problem.
5. Some people work hard to get to the top of the tree but even when they reach it they will never achieve as much as if they had aimed for the stars but only got half way there.
6. Real entrepreneurs are always looking for new ideas.
7. It doesn’t matter how good your job is the only really successful person is the owner of the company. He is also the only one who can’t be sacked.
8. If at first you don’t succeed the only failure is the person who doesn’t pick himself up, dust himself down and start all over again.
9. If at first you don’t succeed but keep on trying you will eventually achieve your aims.
10. Being a success is a habit you want to cultivate. It gets easier every time you achieve it.

List compiled by Theodora Cochrane. She has been a successful entrepreneur for many years and is author Prospecting For Gold which is a business course designed to help budding entrepreneurs take the first steps to success and to offer helpful suggestions to established entrepreneurs looking for opportunities to climb a few more mountains.

Wherever we look upon this earth, the opportunities take shape within the problems.
Nelson A. Rockefeller

Open your eyes, ladies! Take a look at your surroundings! Don’t look at this slump economy as defeat, look at it as an opportunity! The beautiful thing about setbacks is that it is only temporary. Learn from it, see what you can do different and build upon that. For example, if you lost your job you have two choices either look for another one, but take it one day at a time OR start your own business. Look at the bigger picture especially if starting your own business is something that you’ve always wanted to do. Maybe you always wanted to go back to school! Take advantage of the situation! Refuse to look at it as a lost. Instead look at it as a door of opportunity opening for you!

Let’s look at an another example, relationships! Yes, he was the love your life. Maybe you can’t go on without him, but you will. Not only will you go on without him, but you will take this beautiful opportunity of being single and enjoy being by yourself. Think about it. Find out what attracted him to you in the first place? Take advantage of this alone time to take inventory and enjoy dating yourself. The opportunity you take now to further strengthen your self esteem will be pay off in the long run, especially in the next relationship you enter!

So ladies, don’t look at your problems as well problems…look at them as opportunities to catapult you into the next prosperous phase in your life.

The mood in the market is low and I hear “Days are tough. There are no jobs.” so often. I, both agree and disagree with the two statements. Days are tough – no doubt, but jobs are always there. Even in current economic conditions, hiring is happening. Question is whether you are getting the interview calls or not? On an average a recruiter spends 8  – 10 seconds on a resume before deciding if the candidate goes into next round. If your resume does not make the cut, chances are very little it will make the cut next time, even if it filed for future reference. Why do most candidates fail to get the call?

Professional recruiters are smart and savvy people. It is their job to read beyond the written word. Recruiters read in-between the lines.  And, this is what they read:
1. Self Confidence: This might sound odd, but a confident candidates’ resume has confidence written all over it. A confident candidate does not write ”Seeking a challenging position in your esteemed company…blah blah blah”. A confident candidate approaches the recruiter on an equal footing, realizing the fact that companies need good candidates as much as candidates need good companies. It is a two way street. It is not uncommon to find confident candidates’ starting their resume with a short summary of their personality and career which reads something like ”A self motivated, honest marketing professional with an exceptional track record of achieving all major objectives assigned in past 5 year…”.

2. Buzz Words, Technical Terms & Acronyms: Companies run on buzz words, technical terms and acronyms. These three are very different from one another and recruiters use all three differently while evaluating a resume.
Buzz Words: These words are the latest industry lingo that demonstrate candidates up-to-date knowledge of the industry. Example, in advertising industry the word “Account Planning” is getting successively replaced by “Insights generation”. Same job, just described in more contemporary words.
Technical Terms: Technical terms used by companies are more for being politically and legally correct. For example, when a company says “responsible for Accounts Payable” in job description, they are describing a fairly well defined and accepted job role. Recruiters often receive a copy of the job description and then use powerful data-mining tools to scan through thousands of resume scanning for technical terms mentioned in the job descriptions. This ensures best-fit in shortlisted candidates.
Acronyms: Every company has acronyms that are understood within the company, eg. SOP could stand for “Standard Operating Procedure” or “Social Orientation Protocol”. Recruiters hate acronyms and it reflects badly on the candidate because it indicates candidates’ assumptive nature.

3. Truth: It is a professional recruiters’ job to vet the truth from all the heap of achievements and responsibilities mentioned in a resume. Recruiters read thousands of resume in a year and meet hundreds of candidates. With experience, they can make out the difference between truth well told and truth oversold. Oversell yourself and you fall into the “Too good to be true” trap. Undersell yourself and you are not good enough.

4. Systematic Approach: Organized candidates have organized resume. Simple. It is a matter of attitude. It might be argued that a candidate can use professional resume writer to achieve good presentation and organization in a resume. Yes – it is possible, but professional writers do not finalize resume without the candidates’ approval. And, disorganized candidates can make even the most organized resume disorganized before submission.

5. Spelling and grammatical mistakes: “I was responsible for bulling clients on a hourly basis…blah blah blah”. There is a huge difference in the words “Bulling” and “Billing” and no one wants a candidates who bullies clients. Spelling mistakes indicate lack of attention towards finer points. If you cannot take care of your own resume, do not expect an employer to trust you with their business.

6. Self Image: Below is an excerpt from an actual resume that I saw ones
“I am responsible for writing cheques for suppliers, getting them signed from the boss, putting them in envelop, putting stamp on envelop, writing address and posting them to suppliers”
The above statement reflects one of the two things: the candidate thinks either too much of himself / herself or too little. Both are bad.
A good resume takes time to build. So put time and effort in writing it. Before the article is closed, I will share with you one secret of writing a good resume – write a resume and leave it. Revisit it a couple of days later and if like what you read, use it.

Article written by Sanjay O. Kumar is a Dubai based consultant whose career has spanned 5 nations and 3 continents.You can read more articles from him on his website What Are You Good At?.