How to Create the Perfect LinkedIn Profile

How to Create the Perfect LinkedIn Profile Got a LinkedIn profile? Congrats. Now you’re only competing for attention with another 500+ million users. By putting some time into building your profile, you can stand out from the crowd and we’ve put some of our tips into the infographic below. You may or may not reach perfection but hopefully you’ll get some ideas. Takeaways: Start with a good picture. People like visuals on your profile and your professional photo is the most important one. The profile headline is prime real estate on your profile, make the most of it. People outside your network can’t see your contact details so make sure to put them in your summary. Keep things fresh by doing regular status updates, share interesting and useful content. Customising the website links and especially your profile URL is crucial for optimising your profile. Make sure you speak directly to your target audience and make it relevant to their needs. Join groups and follow companies to get relevant content. Do you  follow us  by the way? RELATED: Top 5 Reasons Recruiters Wont Click On Your LinkedIn Profile

5 Ways to Gain Financial Breathing Room While Building Your Business

5 Ways to Gain Financial Breathing Room While Building Your Business There’s quite a bit of debate over the true business failure rate.    Some estimates peg the five-year failure rate as high as 90%. Others are much more conservative. Business broker Ryan Jorden cites data that pegs the five-year rate around 50%. Either way, it’s a given that not every business will survive until its fifth birthday â€" or its first, for that matter. That’s why it’s so important for early-stage entrepreneurs to control their personal and business expenses during those first months, especially if they’re wholly self-funded. Here are six steps you can take this week to cut expenses or earn extra income and gain crucial financial breathing room while building your business. Cut the Cord (Finally) Have you cut the cable cord yet? If not, what the heck are you waiting for? There are more viable alternatives to cable than ever before. Most cost substantially less than a standard-issue cable-phone-Internet package, even when combined in DIY packages. Besides, you’re building your own business here. Do you really have time to watch TV? Apply for a Balance Transfer Credit Card Millions of Americans struggle with some degree of credit card debt. If you’re having trouble paying down older, high-interest credit card debts, you might want to start fresh with a balance transfer credit card that offers a low- or no-interest teaser rate. Choose from among the best balance transfer cards and put together an actionable plan to zero out your balance before the regular rate kicks in. De-Clutter Your Storage Space Does your attic, basement, or storage unit look like the aftermath of a tornado? You and everyone else. Set aside your next free evening or weekend to organizing and de-cluttering the space. Throw out the junkiest stuff, keep the nicest or most sentimental items, and sell everything else at a yard sale or online auction. Then, plow the proceeds into your nascent business. Make Low-Stakes Sustainability Moves What do turning down the heat, turning off the lights when you leave the room, and taking shorter showers all have in common? They’re all really boring, really effective ways to reduce utility costs and help the environment in the process. And they don’t cost a dime upfront. If you have cash to invest now, you can go a step further and install water-saving fixtures, smart thermostats, and motion-controlled lighting. Use Freelancing Platforms for Side Income and Business Development Most budding entrepreneurs face a disquieting period during which they’re earning little to no money. They’ve quit their previous jobs, but have yet to attract clients, finalize contracts or partnerships, and/or bring their products or solutions to market. That’s a scary feeling. If your skills align, and they probably do, you can counteract it by picking up side gigs on freelance platforms such as Upwork. Who knows? Play your cards right and you might just find your first serious clients there too. More Growth, More Problems Growth is good. Right?    Let’s say, “mostly.” Growth means more revenue, more income, more exposure, more opportunities for further growth.    It also means more headaches. As the saying goes: “more money, more problems.” As your small business grows, you’ll need to keep a close eye on your bottom line. Sure, you’ll take in more revenue, but you’ll have more expenses: labor, overhead, supplies, services, taxes. You’ll need to use a host of cost-cutting tactics to keep them under control and ensure that, well, more of your hard-earned money stays where it belongs: on your personal balance sheet.

Stop thinking youll get by on your high I.Q.

Stop thinking youll get by on your high I.Q. My sons I.Q. is in the top .05% of all preschoolers, but he attended preschool in a special education classroom. He has Aspergers Syndrome, a form of autism typified by a distinctly high I.Q. and a notable lack of emotional intelligence. Aspergers is thought to be genetic, and it is surging among kids in places like Silicon Valley, that attract math and tech geniuses who often have sub-par social skills. We know one boy with Aspergers who taught himself to read books when he was two years old. Scientists surmise that learning to read books so fast consumes the part of his brain that should be learning to read social cues. My sons special education classroom was full of kids like that one who used to pass through the education system labeled eccentric geniuses, only to graduate having never learned social skills and consequently falter in adulthood. Today, educators take a childs lack of social skills seriously. Parents should also. For educators, any nonverbal learning disability (like not being able to tell if someone cares about what you are talking about) is treated as significantly as a verbal learning disability (like not being able to speak.) Yet I am stunned by how many parents brush aside recommendations from educators to get help for their children by saying to themselves, My child is so smart. Smart is not an endgame. Even in a toddler. To understand why, look to the workplace. After where you go to school, social skills are the most important factor in whether you succeed or fail. I link to this research all the time, but frankly, if you need research to understand that the people who are best at office politics succeed at the office, then you are missing basic social cues already. But heres more evidence: Nine out of ten business schools consider communication and interpersonal skills highly underrated as a differentiating factor for students, according to CareerJournal. And Jeff Puzas at PRTM echos a cacophony of workplace voices when he says, Most of what I do every day as a management consultant has to do with interpersonal skills, not my I.Q. And when you think about someone finding his way to success in the real world, consider the Wall St. Journals list of the traits that recruiters look for in business school candidates: Communication and interpersonal skills Original and visionary thinking Leadership potential Ability to work well within a team Analytical and problem-solving skills Notice that most of these skills are independent of intelligence. Smart is even less of an endgame for adults than children-and the standard for ability to work well with others is only getting higher, not lower: Generation Y is more team-oriented than prior generations. So, its time for us to stop making excuses for poor social skills and start taking the problem as seriously as educators do. Its painful for both children and adults who cannot navigate social settings. Kids sit on the sidelines on the playground; adults cant maintain close relationships. Its a limited life and its limited in the area where people have an inherent need to thrive. I sense that people are going to argue with me here, but please consider that all the positive psychology research points to the fact that work does not make people happy. Relationships do. But we see the history of people with Aspergers Einstein, Mozart, John Forbes Nash they did amazing work but could not maintain stable, intimate relationships. Parents: Stop pretending that your childs I.Q. matters more than their social skills. Get treatment for your child as soon as a professional recommends it. Respect that the risk of not being able to transition to the work world is significant, and so is the risk of waiting to see if your child will fail despite being brilliant. Human beings learn social skills best at a very young age, when their brain is still forming. So celebrate that the government provides free training for children lacking social skills by using it. Start studying the playground. Respect what often seems insignificant to parents with small children-diagnoses of speech delay or disorder, and diagnoses of sensory integration, for example. Those issues threaten future development of social skills. As an adult, one of the hardest parts of having low emotional intelligence is that you dont realize it. People who are missing the cues have no idea they are missing them. So the most unable often have the least understanding of where they fall in the spectrum. Im going to tell you something harsh: If your career is stuck, its probably because of poor social skills. People who dont know what they want to do with themselves but have good social skills dont feel stuck, they feel unsure. People who are lacking social skills feel like they have nowhere to go. Lost people feel possibilities. Stuck people do not feel possibilities. Ask yourself which you are. And if you feel suck, stop looking outside yourself to solve the problem. You need to change how you interact with people. Another idea for how to figure out where you fall in the social skills spectrum is to take a self-diagnostic test. Here is one at Wired magazine about Apergers, and here is one about emotional intelligence. Or give a test to the people you work with a 360-degree review will tell you in no uncertain terms if you are being held back because people dont like you. Hold it. Did you just say, If people dont like me maybe its their fault! Forget it. People with good social skills can get along with just about everyone. So help your kids to form intimate relationships with peers, and help yourself, too. In fact, as an adult you can learn how to compensate for lack of social skills by watching how schools are teaching the kids to do it. Pay attention. Because when it comes to our job no matter what our job is its the relationships that make us happy, not the work. Thats why I.Q. doesnt matter.