🎆 How to make New Year’s financial resolutions that stick

by Alex Funkhouser

Here’s how you can make money resolutions for 2024 that will improve your finances all year long.

Improving finances is a common resolution for the New Year. In 2023, 53% of Americans who set resolutions wanted to prioritize getting their finances in order. While that figure has dropped to 38% for 2024, it is still the second-most popular resolution after improving fitness.

Unfortunately, most resolutions are abandoned before February rolls around. In fact, studies have found that only 9% of Americans who make resolutions actually complete them.

Habit and productivity expert James Clear offers a solution to this common goal-setting problem. Instead of creating a measurable goal with a specific time frame, Clear recommends creating identity-based habits in order to meet your goals.

It almost makes you want to just resign yourself to bad money habits for life.

But rather than give up on the idea of self-improvement, why not change how you make your financial resolutions? Here are three ways to create New Year’s money resolutions that you can keep.

Read the complete Fast Company article BY EMILY GUY BIRKEN: https://www.fastcompany.com/91001007/how-to-make-new-years-financial-resolutions-that-stick

📺 The secret to a successful job interview: Self-awareness!

by Alex Funkhouser

Emotional intelligence expert Harvey Deutschendorf details how self-awareness can help even the most nervous interviewer.

Self-awareness is not only the basis of both professional and personal growth but a crucial ingredient in any job interview. 

Traditionally, as job seekers, we spend much of our time and effort perfecting our resumes to showcase and highlight our skills, as well as thinking about how we will respond to questions such as “Tell me about yourself.” While the focus is on technical skills and past experience, the fact that we are being interviewed tells us that employers have already decided that we have the necessary skills for the position. What hiring managers want to learn during the interview process is how we will fit into their organization and whether we have the personal attributes to excel in the job.

“an interview in the most basic sense is a set of questions about you, the more you know yourself the better you’ll do.”

This is where self-awareness can help us stand out from the other applicants. Being self-aware can allow us to show self-confidence, authenticity, and adaptability. It helps us show our strengths in the optimal light and talk about our weaknesses in a manner that will not turn the interviewers off. 

Read the complete Fast Company article BY HARVEY DEUTSCHENDORF: https://www.fastcompany.com/90986294/why-self-awareness-is-the-secret-to-a-successful-job-interview

📃 looking for a Job? Use this Simple Template!

by Alex Funkhouser

With this four-part script, you’ll know what to say at every part of the job search and hiring process.

One of the biggest challenges for job seekers is communicating successfully at every stage of the search process: networking, interviewing, crafting a résumé, providing a cover letter, and writing a thank-you note.

How do you make sure you are speaking with clear and confident messages? My new book, The Job Seeker’s Script, provides a single template for crafting every script you’ll deliver. It enables you to structure each conversation and written document, so you won’t find yourself wondering what to say next.

In a résumé, your inspiring message is the summary statement you place at the top of the page just after your name and address. For example: “[I am] a senior manager with a decade of experience overseeing information security.”

You can use this template to prepare all of your pitches, whether you’re speaking or writing. This template has four elements, represented by the acronym H-I-R-E. Use it to draft what you want to communicate and you will come across as a persuasive job candidate.

Read the complete Fast Company article BY JUDITH HUMPHREY: https://www.fastcompany.com/90919171/looking-for-job-use-this-simple-template