Do you need a new job? According to the U.S. Department of Labor, people change careers an average of six to seven times during the course of a lifetime. Finding a new job or career can be a daunting task, but there are some steps you can take to ease the stress of changing jobs. If you need a new job, consider taking the following steps to make the transitions easier.

1. Prepare for Change

Before transitioning into a new job it is important to prepare yourself for a major change. Factors you should consider include your savings, health insurance, retirement benefits, and monthly expenses. A common mistake many people make is leaving one job without being truly prepared for a new job. If you plan on being without employment for a period of time, you will first need to ensure that you have the financial reserves to take such as step. Plan out your monthly budget needs and determine if you have enough money saved to cover these expenses. Experts also warn that job searches often take considerably longer than expected, so you should consider remaining at your current job until you find a new one.

2. Conduct a Career Assessment

Before you move on, you need to take the time to consider exactly why you need a new job. Is it due to factors specific to your current employer? Or is it because you have realized that you are unhappy or unsatisfied with your career? If your reason for change comes from within, conducting a career assessment can help ensure that your next job will be an ideal match for your personality, interests, talents, and skills.

3. Utilize Your Networking Contacts

Networking is often the single most important means of learning about new job opportunities. When you need a new job, contact individuals in your network to discuss potential job opportunities or to ask for suggestions about your job search. Your networking contacts can often provide details on job openings that you might not have access to through other means, so be sure to utilize this important resource.

4. Sell Yourself

Once you have located a potential new job, it is important to demonstrate that you have the credentials, skills, and experience that make you uniquely qualified for the job. Improve your resume to ensure that it is current and well written. It is important to modify your resume to make it specific for each individual job that you apply for. Other important steps include preparing yourself for an interview, dressing appropriately when meeting potential employers, and sending thank you notes after each interview.

5. Make the Change

Your work is done once you have been hired for a new position, right? Well, not exactly. Making the transition into a new job can take several weeks and can lead to significant amount of stress. During this time, you may experience feelings of regret for leaving your old job, especially now that you have been forced out of your comfort zone and might be experience insecurity about succeeding at your new job. One way of easing this initial stress is to find a mentor who can guide you through the learning curve in your new role. Talk to co-workers and start to build relationships and contacts with those around you. These interactions can help ease the transition into your new job.

Summary: If you need a new job, it is important to take steps that will make your job search easier. Preparing for change, assessing your career needs, networking, and self-promotion can help pave the path towards a successful and satisfying new job.

financial, Job Search, Success, you

Earning a graduate degree is perhaps one of the most time intensive yet rewarding challenges that a seeker of knowledge can undertake. Few people, however, consider the big picture when it comes to the entire financial aspect of earning a master’s degree. Tuition will undoubtedly be one of the biggest expenses, but there are other things to consider as well. Does your degree program allow you to work while you attend school or will the schedule be too demanding? If you cannot work, one needs to consider living expenses and funds for emergencies.

The cost of tuition for a master’s level degree ranges from $12,000 at smaller colleges to in excess of $80,000 at some of the Ivy League schools. On average, at a state university, a student can expect a total cost of about $40,000. Be aware that these are just tuition costs. Traditionally, there are also costs for each book, registration fees, and application fees as well as possible fees for parking depending on your school.

Then, there is also the cost of living. You know more about your unique financial situation than anyone else. So, it is up to you to decide how you will handle this. Be sure to interview people in the academics department, career services office as well as current students if you can. This way, you will get a more accurate portrayal of life at the school. You can then determine whether or not you will need to work full time, part time or not work at all. If you are in a financial situation that does not require you to work during your degree, you may consider volunteering at a company that operates in your chosen field of study. Or, the career services office may be able to help find an internship near your school. True, these options may add a part time job to your schedule, but you will be better off in the long run for a couple of different reasons. First, internships allow you a place to network among peers in the industry. I am sure you are aware of the old adage, it is not what you know, but who you know. If you play your cards right, you might just find yourself a job before you have completed your degree. Second, even if you do not find a job with the company you volunteer at or intern with, you will gain valuable insight into the industry while providing yourself with professional references and experience.

Finally, you should always have money set aside for emergencies as well as health insurance. Too often, people fail to plan in these areas and end up making a costly mistake because of an unforeseen circumstance.

So, you need to decide how much it will cost you to live every month. Do not be afraid to put yourself on a budget and adhere to it! Outside of that, planning ahead is the best action that you can take to ensure your success in school.

financial, future, grad student

When searching for the things that set you apart from others in your field, it is important to remember that your skills, talents, and experience make you one of a kind. As many human resources managers can attest, people often share similar educational background and qualifications, but each individual is very different. Your personality, motivations, and talents what will set you apart from similar job applicants and provide you with a career edge. The key is to discover the things that make you unique and then build on these strengths.

How can you learn more about your own unique strengths? The following are some helpful methods that can reveal your special talents, interests, and motivations. Try out several different methods in order to find out more about yourself.

1. Think about some of your past experiences. Have there been any significant events that helped shape you into who you are now? How did you deal with these experiences? The way you cope with different life events can reveal a great deal about your unique strengths. Write down how you reacted to each experience and then list the skills and abilities that you relied on. These methods of dealing with each experience are talents that form an important part of your personality and self-image.

2. Think about your past accomplishments. How did you achieve these things? Write down the steps you took to pull off each accomplishment. Your ability to set goals, your motivation to accomplish these goals, and your continued resolve to complete future goals are an important component of your unique self. Also consider why these goals were so important to you.

3. Challenge yourself to try new things. Sometimes it’s easy to fall into a pattern where we only try the things we are comfortable with. Testing yourself to try new things can reveal a great deal about your unique strengths and abilities. Even if you completely successful, you will learn a great deal about how you deal with the unknown and how you respond to a challenge.

4. Take a career assessment to learn more about your unique abilities. Career assessments are a great way to get to the heart of your unique strengths, interests, and experiences. A career assessment involves taking stock of your career satisfaction, your individual passions, and your personality. A career assessment often involves taking personality and aptitude tests or filling out an interest inventory. These career-planning tools can provide excellent feedback on your unique talents and strengths.

5. Allow others to see your unique talents. Take advantage of opportunities to shine in your career. If you have a knack for public speaking, volunteer to give a presentation to clients. Any chance you have to use your unique abilities is a chance for others to notice and give credit to your strengths. Building on your one of a kind talent, interests, and experiences is the surest path to career success.

financial, future, Interview, Job Search, you

Getting a part time job while still in college can help plan for the future. Often college students are required to get a part time job as part of a work-study financial aid package. The student will work on or off campus and begin paying off student loans. This can be difficult to add to the normal college workload, but it looks great on a resume.

Employers like candidates who have worked in the past—especially those who have managed to both work and study at the same time. Even if you aren’t required to work your way through college, it is not a bad idea to get an outside part time job on or off campus. You should think about building up your resume very early on.

The problem with hiring students right out of college is that they may have limited work experience. Certainly, working towards completing a major takes an intensive amount of work, but this is not the same as true work experience. If an employer is looking at a resume of someone with hands-on work experience and one without, the first candidate has a much better chance.

While getting a part time job in a restaurant isn’t quite as impressive as an office job, it still exhibits a degree or diligence and resourcefulness. Ideally, you will find a job that has a direct correlation with your major. Some college programs will even have internships for academic credit.

Remember also that it’s not all about getting hired after you get out of college—though of course that’s a major consideration. It’s also about learning what it is you want to do. At an office job you’ll learn the ins and outs of a particular industry. You’ll get a sense of what a job entails day in, day out. While we all want to have something great to put on our resumes, part time work is also an important educational experience.

The idea is not just to get a job, but do it well. A part time job is like a second education. Once you have real office experience, you can then bring this knowledge into your job interviews at offices or job fairs. It looks very impressive if you can reference some real life experience, rather than books you read in Business 101.

While it’s still possible to get a job without part-time work experience, it is highly recommended. Keep in mind that you may have to apply for these jobs through the college, rather than through the traditional route of online job listings or classified ads. If you apply for a job and say that you can only work so many hours a week, due to classes, you might not get the job. When applying for part time work in college, you must find a job with a flexible schedule—one that can fit your normal college work schedule.

financial, Job Search, you

When applying for financial aid for undergraduate, graduate or professional degree programs, you’ll likely hear a lot about scholarships touted as being renewable for a year or two at a time.

While scholarships and other forms of non-loan financial aid do have the ability in some cases to renew, student loans generally do not. At least, not in the conventional understanding of the term “automatically renew.”

Meaning, you will probably not receive the exact amount every year, and it will require at least a cursory update of information to the lender, whether it’s the federal government or a private lender.

Starting with federal student loans: the aid definitely does not automatically renew every year. It does not simply replenish every year because the amount you receive depends on your family’s current financial situation and updated government legislation.

So, a renewal of your FAFSA (Free Application For Student Aid) every year is necessary. An online personal identification number will be sent to returning students each year for online applications, or a student will be required to fill out a paper renewal to make the changes.

Private loans may require a less rigorous change process each year or semester, but there will still be some, for many of the same reasons a federal loan does, minus the federal guidelines.

Financial aid need needs to be evaluated each year or semester to account for a student’s evolving circumstances, as well as that of the economic and legislative environment, to make sure there is fairness in distribution of the aid.

A student’s tuition, housing or expenses might go up one year or semester, making it necessary to increase their aid amount. He or she might have become eligible or non-eligible for scholarships, grant programs or work-study situations that might impact the amount of money needed.

Additionally, his or her family finances could alter slightly or dramatically, making adjustments in the FAFSA or private loan calculation necessary.

Academic progress is an important factor in determining a student’s aid package each year, especially with regard to federal loans. If a student does not maintain a satisfactory grade point average, course load or has some disciplinary actions taken against him or her, aid could be restructured.

Funding and allowances from state, federal and university endowments might change, making the amount of funding from these sources fluctuate and the need to pull money from other private or federal sources necessary.

So, when considering your financial aid needs, remember that they are not automatically renewed each year, although major pieces of information (name, social security number, credit history, tax history) remain on your permanent file and the bulk of your initial information will probably not have to be redone.

Be sure to stay organized and aware of any “new” or “renewal” application dates, and submit all your paperwork on time. This will ensure a smooth financial aid transition throughout all the years you are in school, and be as close to an “automatic renewal” as possible.

Admissions, financial, future, paying for college