These 7 Posts Will Help Your Job Search Pursuit

Your dream job is out there.

You can and will find it soon. How do we know this? Because you are driven, focused and have come to the right place for job-seeking advice. Grammarly is here to help.

Don’t be mistaken. Finding an ideal career path isn’t easy. Job interviews are tough. Plus, figuring out your perfect fit can be challenging. All of this is what makes the job-search process something most people dread.

Not you, though.

The necessary motivation, inspiration and practical tips on how to best position yourself to be successful and reach your long-term goals can be found here.

Grammarly’s blog has made it a priority to offer our readers actionable insights on how to approach a job search. Below you’ll find seven recent posts that cover the fundamental aspects of finding your ideal place of employment.

1 Organization is essential in beginning any job hunt.

Pro tip: Let technology be your friend. Spending endless hours searching is fine, even encouraged, but don’t be shy about using job sites to populate your inbox with relevant opportunities.

Now that you have an idea of what you’re looking for, you can start digging into job boards. Many will send you email alerts with new positions that match your skills.

Source: How to Get Organized During Your Job Search: 6 Helpful Tips

2 Your LinkedIn profile is becoming just as important as your resume.

Pro tip: Most job seekers overlook the value of a profile summary on LinkedIn. Use it wisely to add deeper context to your work experience.

The top of your LinkedIn profile is an opportunity to summarize what you’re about—to make an impression beyond the array of jobs you’ve held. You might try thinking of it as an opportunity to answer the question “What makes me an outstanding candidate for my next career move?”

Source: We Studied 750 Top LinkedIn Profiles. Here’s How to Write Yours Better.

3 Resumes, cover letters, and email correspondence will be the difference-maker in your dream-job pursuits.

Pro tip: In most cases, how and what you write is often the first interaction you’ll have with future employers. Make sure you spend extra time crafting your personal copy before applying for a new job.

In today’s competitive job market, how you communicate with potential employers can make your skills stand out. Making sure you effectively express yourself, accurately represent your abilities, and stay present throughout the process is what makes the difference in ultimately receiving a job offer.

Source: Red Flags to Avoid During Your Job Search in 2017

4 Once you’ve landed a job interview, what you say and how you say it will further demonstrate your abilities to perform the tasks required by a potential new company.

Pro tip: Don’t show up to an interview without any preparation. Thinking your way through potential interview questions ahead of time will give you comfort when having to talk about important topics like work experience and expected salary.

Taking the time to prepare can mean the difference between walking away from an interview with a sinking feeling and landing the sweet gig you’ve been hoping for.

Source: 10 Things You Should Avoid Saying in a Job Interview

5 The way you frame your skills is critical in the job-search process.

Pro tip: Demonstrate your enthusiasm for the position and explain why your experience aligns with the responsibilities that are needed by the company.

Remember that everybody starts somewhere, and hiring managers interview inexperienced candidates all the time. When you’re still growing in your career, there’s one positive quality you can emphasize to help you win over a potential employer—enthusiasm for learning. Show the employer that not only are you able to learn, but you’re excited by the possibilities.

Source: This Is How to Put a Positive Spin on Weaknesses in a Job Interview

6 Your professional-self and personal-self should be very much aligned during a job search.

Pro tip: Be cognizant of what you’ve posted on social media and how you present yourself in public forums, especially if your social-media activity is tied directly to the line of work you seek.

According to a CareerBuilder.com survey, 60 percent of employers research job candidates on social media, and over half are reluctant to hire candidates with no online presence. They’re mainly looking for professionalism, whether you’re a fit for the company, and proof of your qualifications. If your social media profiles show you in that light, you’re golden.

Source: 9 Things to Avoid on Social Media While Looking for a New Job

7. You’ve done everything correctly in the job search and now an offer is in your hands. What happens next?

Pro tip: Research the company you’re looking to join. Remember, you’re hiring them, too, in a sense. Sites like Glassdoor can show a glimpse into a company’s culture by offering candid reviews from current and former employees.

The important part when researching a company is to take into account themes you uncover from a variety of employees, and looking for reviews and details related to what’s important to you and your life in and out of work. What’s a bad review to one person may not be a bad review to someone else, so it depends on what’s most important to you.

Source: The Ultimate Guide to Analyzing a Company’s Glassdoor Page

How to Take Feedback, Even When It’s Hard

Getting feedback in the workplace can be a difficult experience. We each crave success, aspiring for praise from our leaders and peers that will, in turn, make us feel recognized and valuable at work. In reality, constructive criticism will be doled out more often and will play a more significant role in the dynamics of our relationships with co-workers and in our individual performance.

Trust me, I know how hard it can be to receive feedback. When I was working in my first job out of college, my manager sat in on one of my calls with a client. After the call ended, she told me that I needed to do a better job of conveying confidence by being less apologetic and not heightening my pitch as I ended sentences. I took her input horribly. I thought she believed that I was not cut out for the job and that I was one strike away from being let go.

Over time, I’ve learned to build thicker skin and use constructive criticism as a means to become more competent in my responsibilites. Here are a few of the key takeaways that have helped me in shifting my mindset:

Accept Your Imperfections

Receiving input can be uncomfortable. If you take it personally, or take it as a sign that you’re bad at your job, it will quickly affect your performance.

For example, when my manager told me that I needed to project more confidence with clients, I took the feedback as a reflection of my personality and generalized it as how others normally perceive me in most settings. This made me increasingly self-conscious and self-critical as I engaged with customers, colleagues, friends and family.

To get over this hump, I decided to acknowledge negative thoughts when they came up, but instead of believing them, I’d come up with positive alternatives. Instead of “I don’t think I’m coming across as intelligent or experienced,” I began telling myself “I believe in my training and knowledge, I can help this client.”

Another mental shift is to accept that you are not perfect. Perhaps you occasionally lose your confidence or get anxious when speaking with more experienced, older professionals. Whatever the case may be, it is important to embrace your imperfections and accept consultation so that you give yourself an opportunity to mature both professionally and personally.

Ask for Help

Is there a certain role that you’re aiming for? What are your goals for the next five years?

To ensure that you are on track to hit your objectives over time, feedback from colleagues who either work closely with you or are in roles that you desire will be critical. (A combination of both would be even better!) This will allow you to get a better idea of the skills that are required to be successful in those target roles and understand where you need to improve in order to get there.

If the peers and superiors you hope to seek feedback from are currently silent, there may be numerous reasons that explain why. They may be shy or perhaps feel like you’ll take it the wrong way. Whatever their hesitation is, your aim should be to unravel the feedback they have to offer. To do this, you need to be honest and give a good reason for why you’d like their input.

For example, you can say something along the lines of, “I’m really eager to improve in this role. What is one thing that you think I can do to get better?”

If you frame your question with a reason, your colleague will feel more comfortable in opening up and giving you their honest thoughts.

You are also helping the colleague that you’re seeking advice from. Not only does their willingness to help make them look good in front of their boss, but it also gives them the chance to feel important and valuable.

Follow Through

Feedback carries no value if you never follow up on it.

Your first step should be to investigate it further. Ask your colleague for specific examples. Review documents, recordings, or any other relevant materials for the areas that you need to improve on.

Once you fully understand what you need to work on, you can form a plan for improving and monitoring your development over time.

It’s also worth considering that people who took the time to help you will more likely begin to pay more attention to you as a result. Out of curiosity (and their own self-interest) they will want to see whether you implemented their advice and how it improves your performance.

If you ignore your colleagues, you risk coming across as someone who is not seriously considering their opinions. As a result, the likelihood of them helping you in the future will be compromised.

Feedback is a constant in the working environment. Your approach to receiving and acting on feedback will define your professional development, relationships with colleagues, and outlook on life. My feedback for you is to take action and ensure that you are in a position to receive and process constructive criticism effectively!

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Jon Gitlin is a Customer Success professional at a start-up in the East Bay Area. During his free time, he loves to watch the Warriors, go on runs, and listen to podcasts.

What Does Meta- Mean?

Meta is a word which, like so many other things, we have the ancient Greeks to thank for. When they used it, meta meant “beyond,” “after,” or “behind.” The “beyond” sense of meta still lingers in words like metaphysics or meta-economy. But that’s still not the meta most of us come across today.

One of the more popular uses of meta today is for the meaning best described by the formula “meta-X equals X about X.” So, if we take the word “data” for our X, and add the prefix meta- to it, we get metadata, or “data about data.” A meta-text is a text about texts, metacognition is thinking about thinking, and a meta-joke is a joke about jokes. The self-reflection sense of meta has also given rise to the use of the word as a standalone adjective, where meta is used to describe something that’s self-reflective or self-referencing.

The self-referencing sense of meta seems especially popular in art. In its simplest form, a book in which a character is writing a book or a movie in which a character is making a movie can be described as meta. Some works are more meta than others—the movie Birdman, for example, is a movie about an actor who played a superhero in a movie and who now tries to rekindle his career in theater, and that actor is played by an actor who really did play a superhero in a movie and is now trying to rekindle his career in a movie that looks more like a play than a movie.

When characters in a work of fiction act as if they are aware that they are in a work of fiction, this technique is called meta-referencing. It is often employed in metafiction, a work of fiction in which the author breaks with conventions in order to show that the work is, in fact, fiction.

In the world of gaming, meta is used in two ways. Meta can be used as an acronym for “most effective tactics available,” and calling something “meta” means that it’s an effective way to achieve the goal of the game, whether it’s to beat other players or beat the game itself. Meta can also be short for metagame, which is using information about the game, derived from the world beyond the game or its rules, to influence the outcome of the game or gain a competitive edge.

3 Trends That Will Dominate English Writing in 2017

Any way you slice it, 2016 has been a tough year.

We lost beloved novelists like Harper Lee and Gloria Naylor; lyricists like David Bowie, Prince, and Leonard Cohen; and book-character-embodying actors like Alan Rickman and Gene Wilder.

We expressed a dip in mood in our writing online. One study by social media analytics company Crimson Hexagon showed that popular retail holidays like Black Friday experienced a rise in negative sentiment in 2016, despite rosy predictions. Similarly, sentiment analysis of the 2016 American election showed more negative emotions than ever before. One study published by the National Academy of Sciences in November even suggests that a well-known linguistic phenomenon, the tendency to use positive descriptors instead of negative ones, could be affected by this year’s political and cultural conditions. This means that, as negative as 2016 was, we could be feeling the linguistic effects for years to come.

We even chose decidedly negative words to represent this year. The first two dictionaries to announce their “Words of the Year,” Dictionary.com and the Oxford English Dictionary, both explained that this year’s picks were far more somber than last year. The OED has named “post-truth” as 2016’s Word of the Year, while Dictionary.com chose “xenophobia.” Not to be confused for a positive choice, Dictionary.com’s announcement blog opines, “Despite being chosen as the 2016 Word of the Year, xenophobia is not to be celebrated.” Ouch.

But instead of focusing on the doom and gloom that was expressed in 2016 online, it’s time we looked to the positive. Some great things happened in English this year, from the recognition of the singular they as an standard English to Christopher Marlowe finally gaining credit as Shakespeare’s coauthor. We wrote more than ever before, and we even added “squee” to the OED!

So, in the vein of these positive achievements in writing, here is an intentionally constructive list of trends we think writers will see in English-language writing next year. As it has done for centuries, English will only get better with age, and we’re very excited for these three trends to continue in 2017.

1 Fake News . . . and Real Fact-Checking One of the most surprising discussions about writing in 2016 revolved around so-called “fake news” and the idea of a “post-truth” society. Major American publications’ sourcing and writing tactics were called into question, and many op-eds were penned on the importance of well-researched writing. We predict that this discussion will continue in 2017, but hopefully with more actionable discussions of citation, sources, and plagiarism than ever before. Google has already added a fact-check tag to its news services, and we expect that others will soon follow suit.

2 Informality Meets Function By now, some of our followers are probably tired of hearing about text speak, slang, and emojis, and for good reason. The English language is constantly evolving, and in 2016, we observed a startling amount of informal language being accepted by our users. And we weren’t the only ones! The scientific community made a massive shift toward less complicated language, while discussion of informal means of communication at work soared.

Of course, some can take this opportunity to decry the “destruction” of the English language, but we don’t have to see it that way. As we saw in our trendy language study, slang does not necessarily mean shortening language, but it clearly is helping some of our users communicate in ways that make them feel more comfortable. We’re excited to see which grammar rules become myths in 2017, and which rules (like the Oxford comma) are here to stay.

3 More Writing in More Places Grammarly checked over 31 billion words in 2016. To give you a sense of what this number means: if every person on earth wrote four words in Grammarly, we’d still be 3 billion words short! Clearly, error-free digital writing was a force to be reckoned with in 2016, and we believe that our users will continue to pound on the keys at record-high numbers next year. Why do we think the amount of writing will increase? Check out these stats for more context on how digital writing grew this year:

• The number of indexed web pages grew by almost five billion from 2015 to 2016. Since the average web page contains 1,600 words, this represents a vast amount of written material.
• Over 2.3 million blogs are published every day, according to WordPress.com. The average blog post in 2016 was 1,054 words, meaning that over 2.4 billion words were written on blogs alone this year!
• At the time of writing, over 321 million tweets were being tweeted per day. Even if the average tweet is only 28 characters and only half are in English, this still represents almost 5 billion characters tweeted every day.

Even if 2016 was a tough year for online writing, we think 2017 will bring an exciting new chapter for the English language. To quote the authors of the previously mentioned LPB study, “previous research has neglected an essential dimension of language: time.” Language has never existed in a vacuum, and we are excited to see the ways in which English will grow and change in the coming year.

What do you think will happen in digital writing next year? Has your writing changed significantly in 2016? We’d love to hear your thoughts about effective writing in the comments below.

Monday Motivation Hack: Get Your Mind Right

When you picture someone meditating, what do you see? A yoga class? A person of South Asian descent in a religious context? A random businessperson in a stock photo?

Messages about mindfulness have been muddled, messy, and largely unhelpful since its rise to popularity. In the last few years, mindfulness has moved from hippie-and-yogi buzzword to bonified productivity skill lauded by the likes of The Harvard Business Review and Tim Ferriss. Since its appropriation by leadership seminars and tech giant conferences, mindfulness seems to have lost some of its meaning. So what does it mean, anyway? Here’s a simple definition:

Now, if that makes sense, let’s talk about how mindfulness can help you hack Monday mornings. We mentioned mindfulness as a practice when we talked about morning routines, but this productivity-producing mental habit deserves more attention.

Why practice mindfulness in the morning? As Dr. Laura Maciuika puts it in Psychology Today, “Your routine first thing in the morning sets the tone for the entire day. Before breakfast is generally a good time to meditate.” Even if you’re hungry and little groggy, taking a moment for yourself before tackling the day can help you to remember to remain calm and grounded, no matter what happens later.

The Twenty-Minute Version: Full Meditation

If you want the deep dive version, consider taking up a full meditation practice in the morning. If you have the time, this practice can help your days, weeks, and months run smoother than they have before.

To start, you should probably work with one of the guided meditation options below, starting with a ten-minute-long session. After a week (or whenever you feel comfortable), you can try focusing on your breath and your thoughts for ten minutes independently.

When you branch out on your own, choose a comfortable seat on the floor—or in a chair! There’s a misconception that you have to sit in a bendy yoga-esque position to meditate, and this is simply not true. Also, make sure you’re alone in a quiet space, where distractions are minimal. On the emotional side, be sure to enter a fully judgment-free zone when you attempt your first meditation. There’s no “right” way to meditate (no matter what the Internet says), and this is your first time flying solo, so be gentle with yourself. Also, a practical note: to keep your session on track without staring at a clock, be sure to set a timer with a gentle, non-intrusive beep. Close your eyes, start to notice your breath, and follow the instructions you’ve learned through guided meditation. Next thing you know, you’ll hear the beep and find yourself starting the day as a calmer, more centered human.

As you become more acclimated to this type of grounding in this space, you’ll be able to increase your meditation sessions from ten to fifteen to twenty minutes. If you have a full half hour, go for it! If possible, try to keep your meditation in the same physical space, so your mind associates that chair, room, or pillow in the closet with centering and focus. And have fun with it!

The Ten-Minute Variation: Guided Visualization

When we talk about mindfulness, we often equate it with quiet, sit-on-the-floor-by-yourself meditation. But that doesn’t have to be the case! You can just as easily sit in a chair, throw on your headphones, and have someone else guide you to a state of mindfulness.

There are few options to make this happen, from paid services to apps to podcasts to the old, reliable YouTube video. Try these three, and see which one suits you. Then you can check out this larger list of options. And remember, this is about your feels, so there is no “right” way to move through guided meditation!

1 The Classic YouTube Video

Male Voice, With Nature Imagery and Music

Female Voice, With Cats (and Cat Sounds)

2 The Podcast

3 The App

The Two-Minute Option: Mindfulness on the Move

You know what the great thing about mindfulness is? You don’t have to be meditating to practice it! You can apply the principles of mindfulness to anything you do.

Let that sink in. Anything.

So, if your morning routine is already hectic because of limited time or extra people to get ready for the day, you don’t have to carve out dedicated time to meditate. Instead, you can choose a mundane, repetitive activity you do every morning, and apply meditation principles to it. Some great candidates include:

• Walking to work (if you’re one of the lucky ones who can)
• Eating breakfast (if you won’t be interrupted)
• Showering (if you won’t be interrupted)
• Commuting (if you’re not driving)

If you choose one of these activities to do mindfully, you will need to ensure you can do it for five to ten minutes without interruption. It doesn’t necessarily need to be quiet where you are, but you’ll need headphones and a dedicated app if it’s loud. Just use the same principles as above, and do the activity as you normally would. But remember, pay attention to yourself without getting caught in your own feelings web.

Between vs. Among—What’s the Difference?

• Use between when referring to one-to-one relationships.
• Use among when referring to indistinct or nonspecific relationships.

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We already touched on the difference between between and among when we talked about the difference between among and amongst. But let’s take a closer look at these two commonly confused words. We might even dispel a grammar myth in the process.

When to Use Between

There’s a common and oddly persistent belief that between should be used only when there are two elements, and among should be used when there are more than two elements. But this rule is a myth—or, to be more charitable, it’s a great oversimplification. You can use between when there are more than two elements involved:

He had to choose between a bicycle, a train set, a pair of sneakers, and a new backpack for his birthday present.

In fact, you can use between for any number of elements, as long as all the elements are separate and distinct. According to The Chicago Manual of Style, you can even use between when “multiple one-to-one relationships are understood from the context”:

Negotiations between the member states collapsed last night.

When describing spatial relationships, between usually means in the middle of something, or in the space restricted by something:

He drove too quickly between the cars.

When to Use Among

Among is used when talking about people or things that are not distinct and are viewed as a group:

There wasn’t much unity among the council members.

Among could indicate that something belongs to a group:

She only ever felt comfortable when she was among her friends.

When referring to spatial relationships, among tells us that something is surrounded by something else:

Paula always wanted to go swimming among dolphins.

Examples

Palumbo Group is planning on creating an offshore hub between Malta and Tenerife and strengthening collaboration between the two islands following talks it had with Tenerife’s port authority president this week.

Times of Malta

In my last article I wrote about the difference between AI and Machine Learning (ML).

Forbes

The 59th Annual Grammy nominees were announced Tuesday morning, and while familiar names appeared among the five Latin music categories, there were also some nice surprises.

NPR

Among the big-ticket items, one that is set to put a spell on buyers is that of Walt Disney’s last will and testament.

CNBC

How to Spell 40: Forty or Fourty?

40 (forty) is the number that follows 39 and precedes 41. Though it’s related to the number “four” (4), the modern spelling of 40 is “forty.” The older form, “fourty,” is treated as a misspelling today. The modern spelling could reflect a historical pronunciation change.

If you catch yourself misspelling the name of this number as fourty, you’re not alone. It’s a common mistake, both in print and online:

Female grey whales are fighting for their life. Fourty-three female whales are breeding in the group in 2015, a big increase from the 27 female whales in 2004.

—Nature World News

Fourty years ago when the mayor of Elkhorn was Bill Bartley, he and his council members saw the need for a village seniors complex and residence that would keep area seniors in the community as active members.

—Empire Advance

Nevertheless, the correct spelling, forty, prevails.

Forty state legislators oppose a plan to legalize casinos in three Arkansas counties, a group hoping to block votes on the measure announced Monday.

—Hot Springs Sentinel Record

The staff got the surprise of their lives when the note in question came out without ‘forty’ being censored to ‘fourty’. . . This time the collector stood up and said, “I’m sorry, Mr Pati. I checked the spelling of ‘forty’ in the dictionary. You are correct.”

—New Indian Express

The second quote from the New Indian Express helps demonstrate how to get to the bottom of the issue. Check a dictionary! You will find that the correct spelling is definitely forty. Dictionaries usually provide any accepted alternative spellings of words, but there is no acceptable variant spelling of forty.

Why are there so many instances of fourty on the Internet? Well, it’s kind of a tricky spelling, especially in compound numbers such as forty-four. Forty actually deviates from a pattern if you think about it. There’s four, fourteen, and then forty. Afterward there’s four hundred, four thousand, and so on.

What about related terms? Fortieth relates to forty, so there’s no U. On the other hand, fourth refers to four, so it is spelled with a U. In fact, that’s a good memory aid to help you differentiate the two.

Here’s a tip: The U is associated with four and related words, but forty and its derivatives don’t have a U.

Why Is Forty So Different?

Forty is unique, but how did it get that way? The Online Etymology Dictionary traces forty to Old English from a Northumbrian word that compounded terms meaning “four” and “group of ten.” As early as 1821, its modern spelling appeared in expressions such as forty winks and forty-niners. Just in case you’re wondering, forty winks refers to a short nap and a forty-niner is a person who migrated to California in 1849 to prospect gold. A San Francisco football team, the 49ers, currently bears the name (although they tend to use numerals and thereby avoid the forty/fourty problem altogether). You can easily find references to these iconic “forty” terms in literature. Here’s one:

If she’ll just stay around the house for a few days and take forty winks of sleep she’ll be as fit as ever.

—F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gretchen’s Forty Winks

Don’t be too hard on yourself or others who add that extraneous U to forty. It’s really not intuitive, and there are so many instances of fourty online that you might think it’s right. Avoid being fooled by remembering that forty does not have a U.