Summer jobs can be Fun

Standing on the threshold of the summer most of you might have thought about checking in for a great job filled with adventure. Yes, summer jobs can be fun and adventurous. I remember when I was a kid (not that I’m old now) I could hardly wait the school to be over  to join my friends for a job filled with adventures. Let me write you down a few facts which I consider to be useful to see summer jobs as less hazardous but exciting activity, the exploration of unknown territory of fun.

Exploring the land of sunshine

In my point of view the Greek island is the land of sunshine. Fancy working in the sun? If yes, follow the road paved with yellow bricks.
In Greece most of the summer jobs are tourist related services so don’t worry if you aren't in the possession of the Greek language. You have a great advantage if you are a native English speaker or have good communication skills. But of course YOU already have this advantage (because you can actually read my blog :) ). There are many potential working places like: car rental offices, taverns  travel agencies, hotels, restaurants, bars, clubs, and beach. Swimming like a dolphin? Have big muscles like David Hasselhoff (for girls Pamela Anderson)? Become a lifeguard who patrols the beaches of Greece. These have a lots of benefit like getting a sun kissed skin, meet new friends after pulling them out from the shark’s sharp teeth. Ok, i was just joking, there are no sharks in Greece :).  

Start looking for vacant jobs

Find job aggregator agencies in your town, join Greek forums (hopefully they will chat in English) or a newspaper would do either. Your search might be easier if you could ask your friends’ help, they might even join you for a great seasonal job. 
 

Want more excitement?

You might even go to one of the islands for a 2 week trial period and start searching for ‘become a member of our staff ’ signs on restaurants, taverns, hotels, clubs etc. If you get tired of searching the suitable job go to the beach to have a nice bath and convince your friends to join you in scuba diving or to rent a paddle boat.

Always make sure to have enough money to feel safe. Be prepared if something goes wrong you can go home any time.

Meet your prospective employer

If you have chosen to visit Greece, here are a few tips to find the suitable employer and workplace.
Visit a few of your targeted workplace and set up a good relationship with the owner and the staff. They might give you some hints about bars, restaurants hiring for seasonal jobs.
Take the advantage of looking up for a job in person. You can feel more secure if you see whom you work for and where.

Start working

Working is never easy but a beautiful environment can highly influence your desire to work. Try to enjoy the beautiful surroundings and the whole general ambiance of the place.

Have you worked in Greece before? Are you planning to undertake a seasonal job in Greece?
Share your ideas and experience that you have encountered with.

(Image Source Digmlm.com)

Make money out of your phone-chat-addiction!

You dream with a cell phone in hand?

Then why don’t you make money out of your telephone-chat-addiction? Apply for a job in the telecommunication – sales industry!

Image Source Mobile Weblog

How to squeeze money out of your phone-chat-addiction?

Some of the applicants of this profession may say that this is an easy job, and there is nothing special about selling known products by phone. 
Well they are right … you shouldn't worry if you have a cute and friendly nature, in order to tolerate the hassled customers who refuse to buy from you, or might send you away in a rude manner.

Most of the companies offer this job with pay plus commission. Practically speaking, you get a base salary for your everyday work, but you get a commission as well. So this means the more sales you make, the more money you earn in addition to your previously negotiated salary. 
So you are highly motivated to sell as many products as you can. But of course, this motivation method depends on the    company itself. But if you have luck you might get hired to a company which uses this kind of motivation strategy.

How to demonstrate your knowledge through a phone-interview?

Your future employer might want to interview you by the phone-line. Hurray!!! You've made the first step. You have been asked to demonstrate that you are the suitable applicant for this job. This will be a defining moment because the employer will develop your profile. The future employer may evaluate your personality, communication-, and negotiation skills.

Body language isn't important, unless the phone call is accompanied by a camera through which the employer may evaluate your body language and professional appearance as well.

If the employer might get interested, you should mention your previous experiences with some difficult customers along your sales journey through the telephone line. You've got a chance to show how well  prepared you are for this job. Speak about how your previous workplace has helped you develop your problem solving skills and personal interest in selling goods.

How to impress your potential employer?

We all know that different skills, talents or appearance are needed to impress your potential employer. There are also a few things that you may consider less important but still essential to success. For instance:

Have a positive attitude!

You are selling yourself for your future employer, and  if you obtain the job you will be selling yourself each and every day, for your clients as well.

Get serious!

Treat the interview as if it were your last chance to convince the employer that you are the proficient person for this job.

You might learn something useful from the funny episode below.

There is a movie where Danny DeVito played the main character of a salesman at a car dealership.  He just started his job when his colleagues decided to trick him by betting him that he is unable to sell a car exposed in the parking lot. Danny accepted the bet and flounced out from the shop, to a man who was looking over the tire of a car. A few minutes later the guy entered the shop completely stunned, saying: “I just bought one of my own cars!”

I wrote this funny episode just to emphasize that if you have the talent to sell a person’s car to himself there won’t be recruiters who will reject you.

What to do next? Find a job, of course. 
For instance visit job aggregator

Locksmiths - future profession?

Living the world of computer science and technology, sooner or later everything will be automated. While robots start to take over the production process, human power gets less important and by that the number of unemployed persons starts to increase. Why do I write about a perspiring blue-collar work, now? You might ask.

I do believe that locksmiths have high potential to become the profession of the future.

Now I can imagine the faces of my favourite readers, rolling their eyes and thinking: "Come on Sparrow! Locksmiths can be so pushy and annoying. No one likes them. Why should I become a locksmith?"

Annoying or respectable?

I know what you are talking about. I’m an internet geek. I’m surfing the net sixteen hours per day, mostly looking for new ideas and odd things to write about. I've visited tons of directories, online newspapers in which most of the entries were about handyman guys like locksmiths. It can become annoying when you type in a word like ‘key curriculum’ and the result page gets filled with locksmith entries with ‘key cutting services’. Even though it angers me, I must say these guys are doing a great job.

Why? The reason is obvious, because of the high competition. It’s a cruel world we’re living in. They are trying to overrun the competitors in order to remain on the market. They are willing to face everyday challenges with the high competition. Truly giving their best to advertise themselves even if they have to pass hundreds of captchas and wait until business directories or other advertising platforms grant them access. These people do care about their business. As a message for those enterprises who aren't willing to turn a few hours on finding (free) advertising platforms, no worries, you will do a favour for these little guys.

When and why do we need locksmiths?

Most of the times one hires a locksmith for two common reasons.

First when you lock yourself out from your house (like I did, in the middle of a cold winter) and no one’s home to open the door only your hungry dog is barking inside the house, disturbing your totally frustrated neighbours. After a couple of minutes you may realise that you have no choice, time to ask for a professional locksman to unlock your door.

            The second when you purchase a house and for security reasons you change the door lock. Additionally you may claim for a key cutting service as well.

These guys are really sweating to give their clients the best service possible. Most of them are accessible in twenty four hours a day. You might think - "So what? . . . I’m a waiter/waitress working in 24/7." Yes you may be right, but imagine these guys are working in the security field, if they go wrong, you might become a victim of a robbery. Each one of us needs security, this isn't a desire it’s a necessity, so show them some respect.

Where and how to find a job as a locksmith?

Most of the handyman companies offer courses for locksmith-to-be’s. All you have to do is to find a reliable locksmith company. Sounds easy enough?

I know your time is precious so I will write down some hints just to save your time and energy.

Media

Dare to attend locksmith courses. Look up in your local newspaper for advertisements. If you are impatient you can also add an advertisement where you mention that you are looking for a locksmith job or you would like to join the upcoming courses.

Internet

Post your CV on job portals. Visit some of your local business directories in order to look up for possible hiring companies. Most of them are advertising their vacant jobs on business directories as well. For instance you could look up in this Job Portal.

 Drink a coffee with your friends

You would be surprised how many job seekers find a job with the help of  a few whispered words:  "I think i saw a job advertisement that you might be interested in . . . "

This is the profession that was and will remain vital in the era of information technology.

There will always be a need of locksmith jobs, because there are things that cannot be automated. You may acquire a Japanese housemaid robot to open the door if you locked yourself out, but this presumption is highly unlikely. Or do you have one already?

I hope you will have more luck than these guys . . . :)

Image Source Weblearn

Need a job? Clean up your social media profile!

Infographic 

Employers say they don’t care what you do online . . . you shouldn't believe them regarding this matter. They are looking. In the past few years social media has become a powerful tool in the hands of employers. Nowadays employers use social media to meet their prospective employees before interviewing them.

Why do employers choose social media as an information source?

Companies have long used screening methods, searches on the internet to probe the previous lives of prospective employees.
In the infographic below I’m visualizing some of the facts that made companies believe internet is a great source of information. Because it gives access to information that mostly cannot be revealed on traditional interviews.
Each day Facebook users from the United Kingdom spend 26m 27s online on the social network.
24% of Americans and 28% of Brits admitted to lying or exaggerating on a social network about what they had done and/or who they had met.
How many employers use social media and what they want to find out?

Employers want to make sure that the person they're going to hire is representing their organisation to the best. According to Careerbuilder, a study made in 2009, shows that 45% of the employers were using social media sites to screen potential hires.
86% of the employers say that candidates should make their profiles more employer-friendly

3 key information what employers want to find out from prospective employees

Is the candidate comprehensively developed?
Will the candidate fit into the company's culture?
Which are the candidate’s professional skills

6 things employers surely don’t want to see

Bad mouthing about previous employer or acquaintance
References to drugs
Online evidence of racist remarks
Flagrant displays of weapons or bombs
Clearly identifiable violent activity
Sexually explicit photos, text messages or videos

Summary

Don't let your social media profile to be used you. Be careful what you post or share. Messy social media profiles can badly hurt your reputation. Make your profile employer-friendly before sending out your resume to your future employer.

 

Sources:

http://goo.gl/GEfvh
http://www.careerbuilder.com
http://www.vault.com
http://searchenginewatch.com
http://goo.gl/K9yNo
http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/world-map-of-social-media-june-2012_b23912

Pool tester

Probably a Dream job: Pool tester

Previously I’ve written about my hair getting a grass green colour after swimming in the pool's water. Being optimistic and believing that every bad situation has to have some kind of benefit as well, I tried to think about the advantage I can get from that situation. Soon the question arose in me: what if the swimming facility would have had an employee to test the pool’s water? Preferably one with dyed-blonde hair :) Probably this situation wouldn’t occur.

So I rubbed my lamp for the genie (idea) to come out.

‘One pool tester job coming up!’

Wouldn’t be nice to have job opportunities as a pool tester? I’m not sure if there are already, but as the aforementioned story shows, it would be highly efficient to establish one. It would be wise if the local health department would hire a person whose task would be to test every swimming facility for its water quality as well as the pool’s condition. An important task would be to rate them just like the hotels are rated. I don’t know if they already have this kind of job or someone’s just walking around the pool dipping a piece of paper strip in the water and waiting the chemical reaction to happen. I think this cannot be compared with jumping in the water and paddle for an hour.

Daredevil wanted

I imagine an impartial daredevil whose task would be to travel around the country and try each and every public pool, be it at a hotel, olympic pool, spa resort or at a waterpark. I mean people should know what they are paying for while they are using the services provided by a swimming facility. By hiring this kind of person we could prevent such unpleasant surprises to happen. I bet there are persons ‘fearless enough’ to enter the water and spend some pleasant time in the pool and for that to receive a salary as well. The whole essence would be to rate the pool then bring it out to the public. Just like a food critic, but this person should be called a Pool Critic. 

Critic :)

Of course, it would be efficient if the pool tester would be scientifically minded and familiar with certain chemicals.

Pools can be an important part of a family holiday or even for sport loving persons. I think many people would love to read some real survey or review about the quality, condition of the pools they are choosing.


Lately I ran into a job ad, saying that water slide and pool testers are wanted. In January 2013 The First Choice travel agency was looking for someone to test their water slides and pools. 

The contract was for six months when the chosen one had to fly around the travel agency’s resorts to test their pools, water slides and rate them. The payment was around $15.000 and at the end of this exhausting job he got a seven night all inclusive holiday for two. Of course I don’t have to mention that there were thousand of candidates for the job, but only one could be the winner. 

Sound good enough?