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The essential guide to confidence in job interviews

Practice the potential questions at home

Before you’ve gotten to your job interview, practice at home with a friend or family member. Get a hint of what’s to come with some practice questions. Although they will likely focus their queries on nursing and the medical sector, there are still some all-rounders you can bet on being asked.

If you’ve prepared some general points in response to questions you’re certain you’ll get asked, you’ll be entering the interview with less nerves and a clearer mind. Have some solid answers prepared to impress your interviewer – the more practice you do, the better.

Back yourself up with a worthy CV

If your CV is good enough, you’ll have laid a foundation for your potential employer and already set yourself up as a viable candidate for the position. Part of your job is already done if your CV does a fraction of the work for you. this way, you can enter the room with the confidence of knowing you’ve already made a good impression.

Make sure to include all of your education and work experience, making it very clear what your previous roles entailed in order to give your potential employers a hint of how experienced you are in the nursing field. Hobbies, interests and other details should all set you up as a trustworthy candidate.

Be sure to present yourself as a desirable candidate

When it’s time for the interview itself, be sure to immediately present yourself as confident as soon as you arrive. Make sure you dress appropriately, looking smart and presentable – a must if you want to appear confident and prepared in the eyes of your potential employer.

Don’t slouch, be polite and positive and maintain a confident demeanour throughout the interview, and you’ll come off as a standout candidate without a doubt. Your confidence emanates from how exactly you present yourself, so you need to be conscious of this.

Talk yourself up – modesty isn’t the key

When you’re being asked questions about you as a person, make sure you’re talking yourself up to your fullest potential. There’s simply no point being modest – you don’t know what other candidates have said about themselves, and so it’s important you’re not falling behind.

Again, it’s important to be confident in this aspect and ensure you’re promoting yourself to your fullest potential – a lacklustre interview isn’t going to make you particularly memorable. Go all out and really talk yourself up in order to make a worthy impression.

Don’t have anything to hide

Last but not least, don’t hide anything from the employers. Be honest about things such as why you left your last job – they will appreciate the truth more than any cover-ups, and you’ll once again come across as a trustworthy individual.

It’s all about standing out and being genuine in your interview. Should you be timid and reserved, you’re unlikely to make much of an impression at all. Be confident, and you’ll have much more success. Good luck.

 

Scholarship Winner -Karla

Directional Motivation founder Russ Hovendick speaks with scholarship winner Karla.
Karla will be attending the University of California Los Angeles studying to become an occupational therapist.

If you would have an interest in applying for our scholarship please click here

Scholarship Winner -Namrata!

We are proud to announce our scholarship winner for August 2015 is…..Namrata.

Namrata will be attending Georgia Tech as a freshman in the fall, majoring in business administration and minoring in pre-health. She plans to fulfill all the requirements for occupational and physical therapy school after graduating successfully with a bachelors in business. Namrata’s hope is to someday be able to open her own rehabilitation clinic for pediatrics.

Santa Sighting!

Just had a visit by Santa and Mrs. Claus before they left to spread some Christmas cheer to the elderly in our community. Thank you Santa and Home Instead Senior Care! #homeinstead #Beasantatoasenior

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Be the Coach You’ve Always Wanted

Guest Blog
By: Morag Barrett

Morag Barrett

 

 

 

 

 

Coaching is normally thought of as something that is bought in. You need a coach? You go out and get one. Maybe you always wanted one; and maybe you could only watch as your peers received the advice that you wanted from one, but didn’t.

You know, there are likely to be people who work for you who feel the same way. While there may not be coaches within your company and which they have no access to, no doubt they have friends in other companies who are benefiting in this way.

Although external coaches can bring in outside expertise as well as a fresh perspective, you are in the best position to coach your people. You see them every day. Why not take advantage of that opportunity?

In order to understand how coaching fits into organizations today, we need to revisit traditional supervision.

It started life as close supervision. It’s still used to a certain extent today. Any place where the employee has comparatively little skill compared to what is needed at the moment. It’s been said that every new employee is incompetent for six months. That’s because it takes time to learn how the organization does things. Even within the same one, different locations have their idiosyncrasies. But close supervision shouldn’t last for very long. If it does, then there will be for just one of three reasons: you’re a micro-manager; you’re a poor teacher, or you hired the wrong person.

The second type and most popular type of supervision is what might be called laissez-faire. Instead of pointing out every step, as you do with close supervision, this type is more like “course correction.” In it, your goal is to get people up and running as quickly as possible, and then to let them get on with whatever it is that they need to do. Of course, you make yourself available for help. All they have to do is ask. But for the most part, you try to leave them alone. Most employees prefer this approach, too.

The third type is coaching. This could be called a strategy for excellence. It’s using the idea of “letting people get on with their jobs” as a means, rather than an end. The end is excellence in everything: To be the best they can be so that they can be promoted so that they can develop their career so that they can coach others. The end with laissez-faire is just to let people get on with their jobs; but there’s no goal beyond that.

You may be thinking, “So what’s wrong with that? Why bother to coach people? They’ll just leave anyway, and I’ll have to start all over again.”

You may even be thinking that there are a lot of people waiting in the wings who’d be all too happy to take the job of your employees, and that because of that you don’t need to coach anyone. If that’s what you’re thinking, then you need to be aware of something. There’s a shortage of people who are skilled to the level that you want them to be. There aren’t enough to go around. And if it really does take six months to bring someone who already knows for the most part what to do up to a level where they can contribute real value to your organization on their own, then you can see already that it’s essential for you to hold onto the people you have.

Most people don’t really want to leave their current place of employment. They want to be happy where they are. Moving is a hassle at the best of times. You have to sell the house, pack your stuff, move it yourself or give it to a moving company. You have to find a place to live at the other end, buy or rent, move your stuff in, and deal with the utility and internet companies. It’s a nightmare. If you have children in school, it’s worse.

The only reason that people will leave is if they feel that you’re holding them back. As long as they feel they’re being sufficiently challenged, that they’re advancing, that they’re being compensated fairly for what they do and that you respect and value them, they’ll stay with you. And that means that you need to be their coach. In fact, you should always be coaching them.

Close supervision is simply telling people what to do. At the other extreme is laissez-faire – hardly ever doing so.

Coaching is different. In it you’re tailoring your guidance according to the needs and abilities of the individual employee; not just the organization; and when you do that, both you and those you coach benefit more than if you did nothing.

Coaching demonstrates that you value your employees. There simply is no substitute for providing individual help and encouragement.

Do you think that you’re too busy to do this? This is the most important part of any day you care to name.

Whatever else you have to do, it won’t happen without the people in your charge. You can do it with them, or you can do it alone.

It’s up to you.

 

Morag Barrett is the best-selling author of Cultivate: The Power of Winning Relationships and CEO of SkyeTeam, an international HR consulting and leadership development company. Morag’s experience ranges from senior executive coaching to developing leaders and teams across Europe, America and Asia. SkyeTeam works with clients in a range of industries including: Healthcare, Telecoms, Mining, Manufacturing, Engineering, and Technology.

Landing Your Dream Job at Any Age

Guest Blog by
Nicole Abrahams 

dream job

Image credit: Atsuke, license Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) Image source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/atsuke/4613987073

 

These days, it is quite common to hear people complain about age discrimination in regards to seeking employment. Younger job seekers feel that they are brushed over by hiring managers because they lack experience. Older job applicants feel that they are disregarded because they are viewed as outdated. However, it is likely that many members of both groups are not being hired for reasons other than their birth dates. With this in mind, read the following for tips on how to land your dream job at any age.

Maintain the Right Image

Perhaps in a perfect world appearances wouldn’t matter. However, in today’s competitive business environment, they do. As such, whether you are young or old, you need to be aware of what the current trends in business dress are. If you are fresh out of college, make sure you don’t look like a kid pledging at a fraternity. Likewise, if you have a few more years under your belt ensure that your wardrobe is up to date and that you don’t appear to live in a retirement home. Regardless of your birth date, you should:

  • Get a modern, professional haircut
  • Professional accessories
  • Modern business attire

Read More →

Pope-As-CEO Leadership Lessons

Guest Blog
by Jone M. Bosworth, J.D.

Jone biz cropped

Jone M. Bosworth, J.D.

Visiting a dear friend in Omaha recently, she shared something one of her Catholic priests mentioned to her: “He said that he was walking out of a restaurant one night, wearing his collar, and an apparently homeless woman stopped him and said, hey, I like your Pope.”

Once I got past the sense that this embodies the makings of a good joke, and consternated about whether the priest had done something immediately to assist the woman (he didn’t, at least according to the second-hand story), I realized that I was in radical agreement with the homeless woman: I like Pope Francis’ leadership thus far too.

I’m not Catholic but I do recognize that popes are incredibly important global CEOs. Because how they lead matters to so many, it also matters to me. According to the Vatican, there are 1.2 Billion Catholics in the world today. In the U.S., 72.8 people self-identify as Catholics.

When His Holiness Pope Francis presented the vision for his papacy, he showed who he is as a leader. He called on Catholics to battle the “globalization of indifference” and challenged the church to be more compassionate, to champion the poor and work to achieve social justice.

Five Francis-Catalyzed Leadership Reflections

  1. As CEOs, the sheer volume of followers makes leading as Pope tricky. It is pretty hard to make 1.2 Billion people comfortable that you’re leading them how they want to be led.

Leadership, however, isn’t really about popularity but about influence, integrity — using your ‘whole person,’ your skills, knowledge, your gut and heart instincts—to do the right thing. Impressively, Pope Francis sent out a survey to gain followers’ perspectives—that’s leading.

Read More →

Another 150 books given to our military heroes!

We are very happy to have partnered with the South Dakota Department of Labor in providing 150 books for a recent military job fair is Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The books “Deployment to Employment: A guide for military veterans transitioning to civilian employment” and “How to interview: What employers want to hear in today’s competitive job market” were distributed to our military veterans to assist in their job search.

Pictured below is Jim Prostrollo, Employment Specialist – Veteran’s Services and Wylla Satterness, Employment Specialist – Business Outreach along with Directional Motivation Founder and Author Russ Hovendick

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SDDVA Staff host booth at Sioux Falls Job Fair

Article Credit South Dakota Department of the Military South Dakota Department of Veterans Affairs

The South Dakota Department of Veterans Affairs was one of over 100 vendors at the Sioux Falls Job Fair held at the Elmen Center at Augustana College Wednesday.
Deputy Secretary Aaron Pollard, Field Officer Steven Lund and Veterans Service Officer Regina Boeve were on hand to answer questions regarding veterans benefits and services.
Sioux Falls Mayor Mike Huether kicked off the event by reading a proclamation proclaiming Wednesday, August 6, as Veterans and Spouses Job Fair Day in Sioux Falls.
This is the eighth annual job fair offered to assist veterans, military personnel readjust to their civilian life.
Recently, SDDVA provided all CTVSOs with the book “Deployment to Employment,” a guide for military veterans transitioning to civilian employment. The book provides a step-by-stepguide to success in landing civilian employment. SDDVA Secretary Zimmerman believes that the book is a great resource for veterans to use in developing their resume, preparing for interviews and landing a job.

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Directional Motivation Scholarship Winner -Jason Hsieh

The winner of our Directional Motivation Scholarship is Jason Hsieh. Jason is currently an undergraduate student studying at the University of Southern California, aspiring to become a pediatrician. He works with children after school to educate them on numerous areas of health such as eating well and anti-bullying. At the same time, he is also a researcher at the Keck School of Medicine Stem Cell Center learning about the regenerative abilities of periosteums surrounding the bone. When he needs to step away from science and academics, he says he likes to focus on dance – letting his emotions and stress escape through his body as he surrounds himself with music. Congratulations Jason!

Jason Hsieh