, , ,

How a Growth Mindset Can Boost Your Confidence and Career

We all know it. You set yourself a goal, work hard for it and, despite your best efforts, experience a setback. But it is precisely in such situations that the question arises; How do I handle this? The right mindset is essential here. We mainly speak of two types: the fixed mindset and the growth mindset.

 

The first question is to what extent the two mindsets differ. The American psychologist Carol Dweck has put forward an interesting thesis. She roughly defines the two approaches as follows:

 

Fixed mindset:

 

  • Innate talent and intelligence determine whether you can do something or not.
  • You learn to get positive feedback and to please others.
  • Mistakes and defeats are viewed as lack of talent and ability.

 

Growth Mindset:

 

  • You are convinced that you can develop skills further.
  • You learn to understand things better through experiences.
  • Mistakes are seen as an opportunity to learn from them and to try new things.

 

In order to gain insight about the kind of mindset that we act on, you have to ask yourself: What kind of mindset do I have? It is helpful to think about fairly recent situations that are still fresh in your memory. Was personal growth in the foreground, or did you act to please others? When a stressful situation or challenging task occurred – did you face it openly or did you try to avoid it? Addressing these kinds of questions can help you determine how you approach challenges and what is your default mindset that you operate with. 

 

Changing your mindset is a process. These are small steps you can start with to help you cultivate a growth mindset and leave old patterns and limiting beliefs behind you:

 

Question your own mindset.

Are you standing in your own way with a restrictive (fixed) mindset? Reorient yourself, because the growth mindset can open doors for you and help you move forward. Having a growth mindset can be trained and strengthened through building awareness.

 

Be open to new ideas and challenges.

Take on new challenges and try to approach failure with a different attitude. Making mistakes is part of life, and so are setbacks. You’ve probably heard how many successful people failed before they were able to reach their goal. Sometimes setbacks are important and can help you refine your direction and make you more determined. Setbacks can become important stepping stones towards your goal, as long as you approach them in this way. 

 

Be patient.

Be acutely aware of the voice in your head. Sometimes we are our worst critic and play negative scripts in our minds over and over again. It took a long time to identify with the negative thought patterns. It might take some time to rewrite the affirmations towards a growth mindset. It is possible to change the script through mindfulness and patience. Every time we become aware of a negative thought pattern, we can actively go through affirmations in our head that are empowering. It will not seem authentic in the beginning, but the more you actively change the story you tell yourself, the more you will start believing in your potential.  

 

Write down positive messages.

Write down a few messages in line with the growth mindset, for example on post-it notes, and stick them somewhere where you can often see them. The more we repeat thoughts, the more likely we are to believe them. Write things like, “I can do xy if I work hard enough.” “Failure is only one step on the way to realizing my goals.”

 

Be realistic.

Try to let go of any perfectionism that you would normally approach things with. There will always be something that can be improved. Rather than focusing on a specific end result, try to approach this mindset change as a practice. Focusing on the process will allow you to grow your confidence steadily. This confidence will transfer into all areas of your life.   

 

Celebrate your achievements.

Not just the big ones, but also the small ones. You work your way forward step by step and you should acknowledge that. There will always be challenges, obstacles, but also a sense of achievement. Accept that and it will be easier to take on challenges with all the uncertainties.

Go your way at your own pace. Learn what works and what doesn’t for you. As long as you don’t stand still, you are heading towards success.

 

The right attitude is the cornerstone of a successful career and life. That is why it is important to find out what attitude you have, how you can change it, if necessary, and how you strengthen it and raise your awareness on a daily basis. Having a “growth mindset” will open many doors for you. We have to believe that with enough practice and perseverance, we can get better and better and achieve our goals. The good news is that the way we think can be changed. Our life can be different if we learn to look at it from the growth mindset perspective.

 

A fixed mindset makes us think that talent and intelligence are static. The growth mindset, on the other hand, means that we believe that we can continuously develop our skills if we only put enough effort into it. That is empowering.

 

/by

11 TED Talks That Will Inspire You to Kickstart Your Career in 2021

There are two more weeks left of this year and it seems that a lot of businesses are winding down for the holidays. There are alot of transitions ahead of us that are carrying a significant load of uncertainty. The transition to a brand new year, a new administration in the US, the possibility of returning to a normal life with the distribution of the Covid19 vaccine. In order to inspire a more positive outlook on your career and the new year, we put together a few motivational videos. A good place for this type of inspirational content is TED Talk. TED is a not-for-profit organization that deals with ideas that are worth spreading. And a lot of those ideas come in the form of career advice.

New Perspectives For Your Career

 

How to Get Back to Work After a Career Break

In this talk, hear about Carol Cohen’s own experience returning to work after a career break, her work championing the success of “relaunchers” and how employers are changing how they engage with return-to-work talent.

How to Find Work you Love

Scott Dinsmore quit a job that made him miserable, and spent the next four years wondering how to find work that was joyful and meaningful. He shares what he learned in this deceptively simple talk about finding out what matters to you — and then getting started doing it.

Smash Fear, Learn Anything

Productivity guru Tim Ferriss’ fun, encouraging anecdotes show how one simple question — “What’s the worst that could happen?” — is all you need to learn to do anything.

Looking For a Job? Highlight Your Ability, Not Your Experience. 

In this quick, insightful talk about human potential, Jason Shen shares some new thinking on how job seekers can make themselves more attractive — and why employers should look for ability over credentials.

 

How to Get Into a Work-From-Home Mindset

 

How to Make Work-Life Balance Work

Work-life balance, says Nigel Marsh, is too important to be left in the hands of your employer. Nigel Marsh lays out an ideal day balanced between family time, personal time and productivity — and offers some stirring encouragement to make it happen.

As Work Gets More Complex, 6 Rules to Simplify

Why do people feel so miserable and disengaged at work? Because today’s businesses are increasingly and dizzyingly complex — and traditional pillars of management are obsolete, says Yves Morieux. In this energetic talk, Morieux offers six rules for “smart simplicity.” 

Why Working From Home Is Good For Business

As the popularity of remote working continues to spread, workers today can collaborate across cities, countries and even multiple time zones. How does this change office dynamics? Matt Mullenweg, cofounder of WordPress and CEO of Automattic (which has a 100 percent distributed workforce), shares his secrets.

 

Leadership

 

How to Lead in a Crisis?

Humility, transparency and urgency are the keys to successfully steering an organization — big or small — through the challenges that come your way. Leadership expert Amy C. Edmondson provides clear advice and examples to help any leader rise to the occasion.

How to Get Serious About Diversity And Inclusion in the Workplace

How do we get there? In this candid talk, inclusion advocate Janet Stovall shares a three-part action plan for creating workplaces where people feel safe and expected to be their unassimilated, authentic selves.

5 Ways to Lead in an Era of Constant Change

Who says change needs to be hard? Organizational change expert Jim Hemerling thinks adapting your business in today’s constantly-evolving world can be invigorating instead of exhausting. 

How Great Leaders Inspire Action

Simon Sinek has a simple but powerful model for inspirational leadership — starting with a golden circle and the question: “Why?” His examples include Apple, Martin Luther King Jr. and the Wright brothers …

 

Summary

 

These great ideas and new perspectives can give you the motivation you might need to start off the new year on a good note, in your professional as well as personal life. If you are looking for further inspirational content, check out our other articles on the ESG Consulting Blog.

/by

13 Steps to a Better LinkedIn Profile

For many people, the Internet is an important platform for presenting themselves to others – also from a professional perspective. LinkedIn is one of the most important social business networks. More and more people trust LinkedIn when looking for a job and when networking; on the other hand, recruiters and HR managers use the site to find and contact interesting candidates. Therefore, the better you design your LinkedIn profile, the higher the chance that recruiters or HR professionals will notice you. If you apply proactively to companies via LinkedIn, your profile should also convey a competent impression. Many users create their profile once and do not change it afterwards. Follow these tips to optimize and refresh your LinkedIn profile.

 

Profile Headline

After your name field – which should really only contain your first and last name – the headline of your LinkedIn profile plays an important role. Make sure you have a meaningful, but concise text that highlights your strengths and focus. Formulating this can take some time, but you should take this time as the headline/title is crucial for the first impression of your profile.

 

Image

As in other social networks, the same applies to LinkedIn: A professional, personable and appealing image has a significant impact on your profile. Make sure that your picture suits you, both in terms of color scheme and appearance and that it conveys the effect you want.

 

Contact information

If you want to make contacts and build relationships, you should of course offer appropriate contact options. You do not necessarily have to provide all possible contact information. Rather concentrate on the channels that you are actively using and through which you can really be reached.

 

Profile URL

LinkedIn offers you the option of adapting your profile URL to make it more readable – and easier to remember. Make sure to use this option and be sure to choose a URL that is easily identifiable to you or your primary website. This not only increases the chance of being found by others, the links with your profile URL also look nicer and more elegant.

 

Add Value

In order to attract other members’ attention and to create real added value in the network, you should ideally share interesting content on a daily basis. These can be your own articles as well as articles and contributions from other sites and users. If you repeatedly share the content of certain authors in a targeted manner, you can also attract their attention.

 

Keywords

The online business network works in a similar way to Google. This means that LinkedIn also needs information from your profile and your behavior in order to be able to suggest topics, people, companies, content, etc. The better LinkedIn can assess who your profile might be suitable for, the better for you! This happens through the algorithm at LinkedIn, that has to be “fed” with key terms. Therefore your profile should contain keywords that someone would use to search for new employees or interesting contacts to connect with.

 

Language

The “About Me” section on LinkedIn may require some creativity and well chosen language. This is not a resume, but your chance to present yourself to visitors to your profile in a summary. Therefore, you should write from a first-person perspective and address your target group and readers directly. In this way you create a personal connection to your readers and can specifically point out who you are and what sets you apart.

 

Video / Media

LinkedIn offers you the opportunity to incorporate videos, slideshows or other media into the various stages of your professional career. Make use of this option and include meaningful videos or media here that give visitors to your profile an impression of your work or philosophy.

 

Experience

In addition to the “About me” area, the experience section on your profile gives you the opportunity to include your keywords and address potential employers and network partners. Take advantage of this opportunity and choose the experiences that you want to publish carefully while keeping your target group and objectives in mind.

 

Accomplishments

Some profiles display dozens of accomplishments. This may seem impressive at first, but it might turn into a disadvantage. When choosing your accomplishments for your profile, you should concentrate on only the relevant ones that underline your competence and tie in with the overall picture of the profile and the goals you have. If you list too many random skills and projects, it becomes unnecessarily difficult for HR and recruiters to filter out what your strengths are. Present your professional successes and achievements in a targeted manner. Include projects that you have led or worked on, highlight specific skills, and make it clear what skills and knowledge you have that set you apart.

 

Recommendations

Recommendations not only show that you are really active on LinkedIn, they also give visitors of your profile an impression of your professional network. If you give a lot of recommendations, make sure that the recommendations are visible on your profile by adjusting your settings.

 

Linkedin Contacts

With a well-designed profile, you are already doing a lot right on LinkedIn. An important factor on LinkedIn are also contacts that should be maintained. A profile with only a few contacts does not give recruiters the impression of a strong network. So add contacts to your profile! Network with all people in whom you see a benefit or who are potentially on your customer list. Maintaining contacts on LinkedIn means that you have to sort out names every now and then. Some contacts are out of date and might no longer fit your current situation. A smaller but active and useful network is better than simply collecting a large number of followers.

 

Participate in groups and discussions

One of the most important activities to become more visible on LinkedIn is participation in groups and discussions. Become a member of groups that are related to your industry or job and participate in topics that fit your specialty, your experience and your career aspirations. HR managers from companies are also active here and read along – whoever participates here has a good chance of being noticed. Pay particular attention to the quality of your contributions.

 

It is important to regularly update your LinkedIn profile. As your career evolves, so should your profile. Our recruiters at ESG Consulting, a provider of IT staffing, Engineering and consulting services can support you when it comes to optimizing your social media presence. Our expertise not only includes help in finding the right job for a candidate, but also advice on all stages of the application process and beyond. Let’s connect.

 

/0 Comments/by

3 Tips for Recruiting and Retaining Millennial Talent

Millennials have changed the face of recruiting and retaining. If you want to hire top millennial talent, you’ll have to know how to target the younger generation.

Ready to find, hire and retain younger recruits for your team?

Here are 3 tips for successful millennial recruitment and retainment.

1. Use Social Media

If you want to recruit young workers, social media is the prime location. Millions of people use social media each day.

Social media is used for more than just sharing pictures and chatting with friends. In fact, 86% of working people in their first 10 years of employment use social media to find a job.

This means that your company must be heavily involved in social media. When using social media, be sure to:

  • Have an active presence on popular platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn
  • Represent your company in a positive light
  • Be responsive to questions and concerns
  • Build relationships and network often

2. Provide Flexibility and Work-Life-Balance

Growing up with technology, millennials in particular understand that they no longer need to be in the office for the work that is required of them. With the demand for more flexible work, millennials want to work during the hours they are most productive. Not every employer is able to accommodate this kind of flexibility. However, working with your employees’ schedule can go a long way. Remote work opportunities and flexible working hours help recruit and retain top millennial talent. 

Especially during the year 2020, the pandemic forced a lot of employers to rethink flexible, remote work opportunities. Many employers even went a few steps further and offer perks for your work-at-home environment such as:

  • Offering sit/stand desks for the home office
  • Offering a voucher for exercise equipment to encourage physical activity

3. Use Existing Employees to Help with Recruitment

Who can better recruit millennials than a millennial? If you already have younger employees on your team, use them to your advantage!

No one matters networking as well as the younger generation. Ask your younger employees to help with company recruiting.

Encourage them to share news about your company. Ask them to spread the word of open positions within the organization. To make recruitment more interesting, offer recruitment incentives.

Business Consulting You Can Trust

Do you have a recruitment plan? Do you know the ins and outs of retaining employees? If not, ESG Consulting can help.

We have the expert knowledge you need to make your business a success. You can count on us for anything and everything business related.

Contact us today to get started on growing your company.

 

/0 Comments/by