How To Avoid Being the Victim of Mistaken Identity

How To Avoid Being the Victim of Mistaken Identity 222 Have you ever been mistaken for someone else? Here's how your personal brand reduces your risk of being a victim of mistaken identity. When identity is mistaken Cases of mistaken identity happen all the time and not always in the ways you might think. Such as when… A credit company mixes up 2 people who attended the same school A coroner mistakes a car crash survivor for the victim Sportscasters think they're talking to a star player's father when it's just a fan A college professor is confused with a student murder suspect Why there are so many examples of mistaken identity If you've never been confused for someone else, it often happens like this.eval A person approaches you, thinking that they've seen you before. However, as they get closer and especially once you open your mouth to reply to their inquiry, they realize that “they thought you were someone else.” It always comes down to a lack of information.eval In the examples above: The credit company had enough information to find 1 of 2 people but not enough â€" e.g a birthday â€" to distinguish between the two. The coroner based his identifications of the survivor and victim on strewn evidence and the opinions of friends and family instead of running scientific tests from the start. The fan and the player's father were wearing similar baseball caps when they were confused and the sports crew didn't have an actual photo of the father. Only a middle initial distinguished the professor's name from that of the murder suspect. The first photo that was put out to catch the murderer was actually an old photo of the professor. So what can you do to prevent yourself from getting caught in such a mixup? 1) Lower your identity information barriers If having the right information about you will keep people certain who they're dealing with, you need to make it as easy as possible for them to get the right information about you. Be listed in your local phone book. Carry identity information â€" driver's license or other â€" at all times. If you have an allergy to medication or other major health condition, wear a MedicAlert bracelet or similar. Make sure that your government agencies (and their databases) have the right information, both via their websites (online) when you call them (offline) if the responses might differ. Have a web presence that appears high in search engine results pages, and make it clear how to contact you for further information. Complete and update your profile on the most-used social media networks in your area. Ultimately- don't just be easy to find, be easy to find well. 2) Be unique and a standout If lowering barriers to your personal ID information is the passive strategy to avoid mistaken identity, being a standout and building a strong personal brand is the active strategy. The stronger your personal brand, the less chance that someone would confuse you with someone else, regardless of whether your personal brand name is Barack Obama or Oprah or something else. The stronger your personal brand, the more people will doubt when they hear something that doesn't match your personal brand. It was a former student of the college professor who notified him that the media was portraying him as a murder suspect. Conclusion If your personal ID information strategy contains both passive and active elements, you probably won't be mistaken for anyone else anytime soon. Have you ever been confused for anyone else in a significant way? I originally published a version of this article on the terrific Personal Branding Blog. If you like this, you'll also enjoy The Most Unexploited Tool in Personal Branding: Your Name

5 Climate Summit Snippets to Boost Your Career

5 Climate Summit Snippets to Boost Your Career As it’s Friday and its snowing in London, I am going off piste a bit and looking at climate summit in Copenhagen (or Cop15 as they say in the industry). It is happening right now and can you honestly say you have any idea what they are really discussing? I sure didn’t so thought I’d look into it for you. Briefing The goal of the summit is to agree on a global climate change deal to follow the Kyoto Protocol that expire in 2012, countries have to throw their hats in the ring to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by up to 40%. This is obviously what all the fuss is about, nobody wants to reduce more than the others as it could hurt their national competitiveness. Think the US vs. China vs. cash struck minnow countries vs. conscious Europeans vs. everyone else. Whos there? All the big shots are there, officials from 192 countries are represented and so far the conference has achieved little more than photo opportunities. Apparently Arnold Schwarzenegger has 10 bodyguards (from the California Highway Patrol no less) and the General Secretary of the UN has 2. It seems like every man, woman and dog has given a speech, I suspect the main aim of these speeches is to look statesmanlike to the television audience that is their respective home electorates. And el Presidente? President Obama is jetting in today to seal some sort of deal that Hilary Clinton has been busy brokering. The president has to achieve a deal as he got the Nobel Peace Prize on credit and he has to pay up with some sort of benefit to the world. Apparently Obama is also being accused of ceding the United States’ sovereignty by Fox News for wanting to sign up to carbon emission caps. Wouldn’t it be great if Denmark ruled the world, just like they ruled the North Seas back in the Viking days? Bacon would be the global staple food, unless you don’t eat meat like me and you’ll have to settle for Danish butter cookies. Where are my snippets? Now, to make use of all this in your career you can throw some of these facts at your boss and he or she will have no choice but to send you as an all-expenses-paid-for observer to the next summit: COP15 doesn’t actually stand for Copenhagen on the 15th of December, it refers to Conference of the Parties and it’s the 15th meeting they have held. The drinking age in Copenhagen is 16 and there are no laws on to public drinking. As long as you can stand up, you can have another one. If not, crash out anywhere on the street and recover before the next one. Since 1990, Great Britain has seen 9 of the 10 warmest years on record, although it’s snowing at the moment. According to a 2006 UN report, livestock (cows) are responsible for 18 per cent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming. This is more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together. In 2003, the government of New Zealand proposed a cow flatulence tax, which was not adopted because of public protest. What will happen next? Let’s hope we get a deal going so that we save the planet and perhaps more importantly that the media can move on to something else for a while. Lets hope that the Tuborg (Carlsberg’s little sister) can flow freely this weekend in what is now hilariously known as Hopenhagen. Image: Shutterstock

How to take ownership of what you really want

How to take ownership of what you really want The novel Fifty Shades of Grey is selling faster than a Harry Potter book right now. The book is about sexual domination in a contemporary setting, including the career woman who has everything, including a hot, successful boyfriend. The big news is that we have enough data to show that the majority of women buying Fifty Shades of Gray are in their 20s and 30s living in urban areas, according to the publishers data, and the Atlantic. To be clear, these women are incredibly powerful. In urban areas, more women than men graduate college, women out earn men in their 20s, and we are almost to the point where women in their 30s are outnumbering men as breadwinners. Which means that it is the women who have tons of power who are also having tons of rape fantasies. None of this should surprise you, because there is a tradition of sexual domination literature being popular with women. For example,  The Story of O  is a college reading list mainstay for women reading way off the syllabus. And rape fantasies have such a long history of being shockingly ubiquitous among women that we have a euphemism invented by the queasy: fantasies of sexual submission. So we know that the majority of women who read this blog have a college degree, live in a urban setting, and are in their 20s and 30s, presumably out earning men, if not the men in their immediate surroundings, then at least the men in their theoretical surroundings. Which means that the majority of women who read this blog have lots of power in their lives and also have lots of rape fantasies. Katie Roiphe has a phenomenal article in Newsweek about why this type of  woman fantasizes about sexual domination. She writes that women must be desperate to read rape fantasies because they are reading Shades of Grey: “Millions of otherwise intelligent women are willing to tolerate prose on this level. If you are willing to slog through sentences like ‘In spite of my poignant sadness, I laugh,’ you must really, really want to get to the submissive sex scene.” So I am admitting now that I have rape fantasies, too. I have known since I was in college that this is not weird because I was a girl who read everything, and I read so much about rape fantasies that by the time I was teaching creative writing at Boston University I had to make announcements at the beginning of my course that students could not write about masturbation or rape fantasies because it was so common in an intro creative writing class and also so difficult to write well. There’s something really liberating about being able to own the rape fantasy. First of all, it reflects a lot of self knowledge. It reflects that you know that your fantasies are just fantasies and it’s okay to have them. It reflects that you do not feel the need to have all PC thoughts all the time in order to be an intelligent, educated person. And it reflects the knowledge that you do not lose your power by  harboring fantasies of powerlessnessyour power is much more stable, and hard-won than that. If you can do all that, then other things become easy. For example, it’s easy, then, to also harbor the fantasy of telling everyone at the cocktail party to fuck off when they ask you what you do and you are doing nothing because you know you’re going to get pregnant in four months and you don’t want to get a job and then leave it in a year. Because let me assure you that this is what most women want to do: work part-time after they have a baby. So of course they don’t want to hunt for a full-time job right before they have a baby. It also becomes okay to say that you are only dating men who earn a lot of money. Because I simply don’t believe that women harbor the fantasy of being responsible for putting food on the table for their family. Women do it because it’s practical. They fall in love with the intoxicating nature of earning money, or they fall in love with a guy who is terrible at earning money. But the number of women who want a full-time, high-powered job is very slim. Honestly, it’s easier for me to admit that I have rape fantasies than it is for me to admit that I wanted to marry a guy who makes a ton of money. If nothing else, I have control over both, and I’m only getting what I want for one of them. I have a huge collection of rape fantasy books leftover from when I was too scared to tell the guy I’m with what my fantasies are. And I have a mate who is unfazed by the fantasies: he’s heard it before. But I did not get the guy who earns more than I do. I tried, but mostly what happened is that I hated those guys and when they asked me out on a third date, I wrote blog posts instead. Admitting to rape fantasies is so liberating because now I can admit to all the other un-PC things I’m feeling. I want to stay home with my kids because of guilt and I don’t care. I think it’s guilt built into my DNA and I’m not going to fight it. And I want someone to take care of me and I don’t care if you know. Sure, I like that I can take care of myself. But most educated, city-raised women can take care of themselves and their kids. It’s not that difficult. Finding a guy who will take care of me is much harder. I’m probably not going to read Fifty Shades of Gray, because, as an ex-creative writing instructor, I need to tell you that Elizabeth McNeil  and Marquis de Sade  are much stronger writers of the literary rape scene.    But I am done having closeted fantasies. I don’t want to be told by the feminists what’s okay for me to want.  I am done hiding what I really want because what is really liberating is for women to be able to want whatever we want.

[FREE WORKSHOP AND CONTEST] How to Ditch Your Dead End Job - Classy Career Girl

[FREE WORKSHOP AND CONTEST] How to Ditch Your Dead End Job Are you struggling to figure out  exactly  what you should be doing in your job search to find a career you love? Are you tired of worrying about whether or not you are job searching correctly or just wasting a bunch of time? In this day and age, none of us have time to waste on things that don’t generate results. I’ll be the first to admit that getting out of a job you hate can be really frustrating and overwhelming. Ive done it myself. But don’t fret. I’m here to help you say adios to your dead end job and find a fulfilling career you love for the rest of your career. Heres a video I just recorded for you with all the details: I would be honored to be your trusted advisor and help you navigate the (sometimes tricky) waters of job searching to increase your happiness and success. If you can stay one step ahead of your competition, you are sure to see a steady stream of quality opportunities come your way. So how do you stay one step ahead? You need to create a job search action plan with the foundation of the plan built on your unique strengths and your personality, interests and motivations  (and not 100% reliant on your resume or online job postings). That way you can easily attract networking opportunities that will lead you to a job you love. To help you put this strategy into action, next week Im hosting a new, live workshop, How to Ditch Your Dead End Job and Find a Career You Love. Join me and I will show you how to do it step-by-step. ?? Click here to register for my free training - Heres what well cover in my action-packed training: To make finding your dream job quick and easy for you, we will break it down into three core principles:   Understanding Yourself, Time Management for Efficient Job Searching and a Networking Action Plan. Understand Yourself:  Ill show you how to narrow down your search by self-reflection to discover your Ideal Workday   a fabulous workday that you would love to have from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed. Time Management For Efficient Job Searching:  Its not about how much time you spend job searching. Instead, its about having an effective and strategic job search (Ill show you how to save 1 hour everyday to devote to getting results job searching). Networking Action Plan:  Discover whats working right now with LinkedIn and social media networking to turn your network into dream job opportunities. (You can find hiring managers and recruitiers for your dream job and Ill show you how.) This webinar is for YOU if you want to finally create a plan that will produce REAL RESULTS for your job search. Click here to register for my free training -   Can’t wait to see you there! Anna P.S. I also will be holding a contest and three lucky winners who register and show up live will receive my Ultimate Career Success Package valued at over $2,000.  This webinar will fill up quickly, and once 500 people are live on a webinar, no one else can get on. You dont want to be locked out, so make sure to  Sign Up Now  and show up 10 minutes early to grab your seat!

How a Pastor Resume Can Help You Land the Job You Want

How a Pastor Resume Can Help You Land the Job You WantA pastor resume is something that can help any pastor to land the job he or she is looking for. You may wonder how a pastor can get his or her foot in the door of the company he or she is applying for, but if you want to make it in the industry you will need to have an impressive and useful resume.To start off with, your pastor resume should be interesting. It should be appealing to a potential employer and should not only tell the prospective employer what the person has done, but also to explain the person's experience in the industry. This is a good way to put yourself at a much better advantage. It is also a good way to be well-researched about the workplace you will be applying for.Pastor resumes can get overlooked by applicants, but if you apply to as many companies as possible, then this will happen. The pastor resume is definitely something that you will want to keep up with as time goes on and will also help your chances of landing the job you are trying to get. If you simply don't take the time to keep track of what is going on in the field, you will end up getting lost and wondering where you are in the process.An employer will need to know what they are hiring for, especially if they are looking for someone in a specific position. You need to be able to show them what kind of work you have done in that position. You can look into your church's records for information about the previous pastor that held that position and see what they did there.You can also talk to other pastors that may have been a part of the church you are trying to become a pastor at and see what they thought about how the new pastor did. This will give you an idea of what you should expect from a prospective employer.Another thing that you can do when you are creating your pastor resume is to be detailed about your work history. Give the employer as much information as possible so that they can find out how you would fit into their job role. If you are a lay minister you should also be detailed about any social work training you have had.You may also want to add information about what kind of people you know, and what types of fields you may be trained in. One of the most important things when you are putting together a pastor resume is to make sure that it is appealing to your prospective employer. They are very busy people and it is their responsibility to find the right people for their company.Take some time to research a few of the most common industries, and then consider what kind of experiences you have had in that field. You can make a great impression if you make yourself stand out.

What Are You Good At Figuring Out What You Want to Do - Hire Imaging

What Are You Good At Figuring Out What You Want to Do - Hire Imaging Tighten your focal point. My last post offered four tips on exploring your career fit: inventorying your activities, assessing your likes and dislikes, dissecting your list, and looking for patterns. There’s another similar exercise that can help you come to a reasonably good understanding of how good you are â€" or were â€" at the various activities you listed in the previous brainstorming. It can be hard to remain objective when evaluating how good you are at things, but I think you’ll note that this exercise takes that premise into account. So, go back to the list you filled out from my prior post â€" or go back and do that first if you haven’t. Now, do two things when you look at each category or item. First, give yourself a skill rating (1 to 10, with 10 being the highest) that exemplifies how well you think you did that task. Second, ask yourself, “What did I accomplish?” This is important. No matter how good you think you are at any one activity, please keep a mindset of having objective criteria that can confirm your perceptions. How many widgets did you sell compared to others, for example? What was your part in developing that software? How well did the team you managed actually do, relative to the talent in the scenario? It’s not a contest or test; just be honest with yourself. If you didn’t accomplish anything, let it go. If you did, take the credit! The gist is to be cognizant in this part of the exercise of any discrepancies between the “how-good-am-I-at-this” rating you give yourself and the specific accomplishments you are able to catalog. If you’ve given yourself a high rank but aren’t able to identify any accomplishments, you may want to revisit your rating. Conversely, if you gave yourself a low rating on a specific item and yet are able to write down multiple accomplishments, you should consider whether you’re underrating yourself. You’re likely more skilled than you give yourself credit for. It will serve you well to take enough time with this. If you do, you should have an overview of what you’re good at and that you like. Tighten your focal point. Now, it’s time to focus on the specific features that the various jobs you might consider are likely to offer you. The following is a list of “what-I’m-looking-for-in-a-job” statements. Go through and check as follows: If the feature is very important to you, write VI. If the feature is important to you, write I. If the feature is unimportant, write U. If for some reason, the feature is absolutely offensive to you, write O. Financial rewards and compensation warm fuzzies: A salary that will enable you to measurably improve your current lifestyle _____. Generous benefit package and lots of perks (expense account, trips, tuition reimbursement, car, etc.) _____. The potential for great earning power in the future _____. The potential to make a lot of money in a short timeframe _____. Personal job and career fulfillment factors: The potential to spend the majority of your time doing the things you were trained for and like doing _____. A break to do things you’ve never done before _____. A chance to work independently without supervision _____. An opportunity to work with technology that excites you _____. A chance to learn a new skill or hone other skills, opening doors for opportunities _____. An opportunity to cement your footprint in a career that promises fairly rapid and steady progression _____. Lifestyle fulfillment factors: A location that doesn’t require a long commute _____. A situation that doesn’t require extensive travel out of alignment with your lifestyle _____. A flexible schedule that will allow you to stay in control of your personal life (childcare, community service, etc.) _____. Employer company or organization: An opportunity to join a prestigious or large company / organization with room for advancement _____. A chance to be part of a startup, entrepreneurial or small company with innovation and exciting ideas top of mind _____. A chance to work for an organization that offers a product or service that makes the world a better place _____. An opportunity to work for an organization or company with a product or service that personally interests you. ____. Workplace environment and people: An empowering, supportive atmosphere where people take care of each other _____. An invigorating, social working environment where team collaboration is valued _____. A low-pressure, predictable workplace that allows you to leave your job at the office and not have to carry it with you after hours _____. A challenging pressured workplace where you’re always stretching yourself to think and stay on top _____. A chance to work for or interface with dynamic folks from whom you feel you can learn _____. An opportunity to be outside a great deal of the time, rather than inside _____. When done with the list, tally those features you rated VI (very important). These should rank highly as you begin framing job targets. So, if you find, for example, that most of your VIs are in the area of job and career fulfillment, those factors should play an important part in the job targets you choose. Don’t forget to analyze the Os (offensives), as they will help you rule out those areas that are going to clearly make you an unhappy camper. There is of course, no magic; nor is it a scientific formula. The exercise can, however, help you with some added insight into yourself. By all means, modify the process or add to the list, as many considerations as you wish. I’d love to hear your ideas for other areas that could be included!

5 Advantages to Hiring a Baby Boomer - CareerAlley

5 Advantages to Hiring a Baby Boomer - CareerAlley We may receive compensation when you click on links to products from our partners. I just finished reading an article about the disadvantages or objections of hiring a Baby Boomer (Top 5 Unspoken Objections To Hiring A Baby Boomer). And, while I dont disagree that someBaby Boomers do exhibit the 5 objections, I do feelthere are many reasons/advantages to hiring Baby Boomers. There willalways be trials, tribulations and risks with hiring people. Whether the individual is straight out of one of the best schools, has been working for 30 years or comes highly regarded, issues can and do arise due to personality traits or the challenges fitting into a different corporate culture. Does any one generational group corner the market on the best generation to work with or dont hire from this generation? I highly doubt it. Ensuring you have a robust hiring process helps minimize (but never eliminates) issues whenrecruitingtalent. Suggested Reading:Hire This Boomer.: A Realistic Job Search Guide for the Baby Boomer Plus Generation That being said, I felt somewhat obligated to write the flip side of the 5 objections to hiring Baby Boomers, but rather than going point/counterpoint I wanted to conveysome of what I feel are true advantages to hiring very experienced individuals. To put it all in perspective, every age group(High School grads to Grandpas)hasindividualswho are not exactly hirable or just dont fitin (see9 Reasons Why I Wont Hire You). Experience is Priceless: Much of what determines how valuable we are inthe marketplacedepends on experience, skill set and ability. Baby Boomers possess an amazing amount ofexperience, knowledge and insight based ondecades of working their way up from the bottom. Manytypically occupy (or have occupied) the most senior positions in a company. This level of experience is difficult to come by and, no matter how smart you are, a life time of experience can add real value. They Know the Meaning of Hard Work: Lets face it, Baby Boomers are incredibly hard workers. In fact, most of us dont want to work the way they did in their early careers. The flip side is that they work well under pressure, are tenacious and when push comes to shove(urban dictionary), they will get the job done. TheyHave an Amazing List of Connections: One advantage to working a really long time is that you get to meet lots of people in your career. Some of these people may not be worth remembering, but knowing someone who knows someone has real advantages. Whether it be finding great talent or a vendor that can deliver the right solution for your business, there is nothing more powerful than having a large experienced network at your fingertips. They are Not Afraid to Tell You What You May NotWant to Hear: There is a delicate balance between being outspoken, obnoxious or a complainer and most of us have worked with all threetypes of people. Getting the real story, no matter how ugly it may be, hastangible benefits. Baby Boomers are not afraid to tell you the pros and cons ofmost situations. Much of what they have to say comes from real life experiences. Hearing the bad news beats being blind-sided any day of the week. They Grew Up with the Technology That Drives Our Businesses: There is aview (rightly or wrongly) that older people (namely Baby Boomers) cannot use technology. While Baby Boomers may not know the latest smartphone app (or may not be the best at using a smartphone), their generation invented the technology we all use. Whether it be the world of Windows or Macs, without Baby Boomers like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs (RIP) we would still be using IBM Keypunch cards (you will need to look that one up yourself). The point is, we all get hung up with stereotypes of all shapes, sizes and ages. And while stereotypes could not exist if not for the very people they are modeled after, stereotypesare the exception not the rule. We get fixated on stereotypes because they loom so large even though they are a tiny fraction of the overall population. Dont get fixated on age or generation (or any other defining traitthat may impact your hiring process). Just try to hire the best person for the job regardless of the stereotypical shadow that looms over us all. Career Tip of the Day:5 Reasons Why You Wont Get a Job Offer We are always eager to hear from our readers. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or suggestions regarding CareerAlley content. Good luck in your search,Joey Google+ What's next? Ready to take action? Choose the right tools to help you build your career. Looking for related topics? Find out how to find the opportunities that help you grow your best career. Subscribe and make meaningful progress on your career. It’s about time you focused on your career. Get Educated Contact Us Advertise Copyright 2020 CareerAlley. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy + Disclosure home popular resources subscribe search