Many people are feeling financially insecure these days because of the continuing fall-out after the banking disaster. Lots of these people are turning to working from home, even if it is only on the week-ends, to reduce this level of insecurity and dependency on an employer. The Net plays a substantial function for many aspirant self-employed people these days.

If you want to sell yourself or products on the Net, you will ave to promote, just as you would in your local, physical world. The thing that amazes a lot of Internet advertising newbies is the fact that the off line business world and the on line business world behave according to similar principals.

One method of selling goods and services on and off line is through classified ads. The classified advertisement usually sells fairly cheap items (although not always), so the placer of the advert attempts to be as descriptive as possible within the minimum number of words for the advert, because that keeps the cost down.

All the concepts we discuss here will apply to both on and off line classified classifieds.

The first thing to do is think from the readers’ point of view. The reader may or may not need something in particular, but is almost certainly searching for a bargain. How many classified ads are there in your local paper? Hundreds? Thousands? On line it is frequently thousands – merely look at Craig’s List.

So you have to get the readers’ attention as they scan down the ads. You know what it’s like, you have done it yourself. What catches your eye? ‘Free’ is the biggest stopper. Free delivery, or whatever. If you are able to work the word ‘free’ into your advertisement, you will stop most people for a few seconds more at least.

But that is all you need, if you are selling something worth having, that the reader thinks is a bargain. You have gotten your foot in the door, so to speak and the householder is listening, for a time. Obviously, this is a common attention-grabber and many others will be using the same method.

Now you need to make the reader want what you are selling. At this point, the reader likes to feel reassured, so the word ‘guaranteed’ is handy, if you mean it naturally. Promise that what you have to deliver is fit for purpose, guaranteed.

This takes a lot of the nagging doubt out of the readers’ mind. Everyone is cautious of scams, especially Internet scams and nobody wants to be made to look a fool. Assuage the fears or your readers, and they will be more likely to ‘give you a try’.

The last part is the ‘call to action’ – ‘get it now’. But you can make this even more dramatic by saying things like: ‘special offer ends in seven days’, or ‘just 50 pieces left’. Nobody really believes these claims, but they still work.

There is no need to mislead, but you are in competition with people who are less scrupulous, so you have to employ some tactics. It’s a pity, but it is the way of business. Only make certain that the items or services that you are selling are worth the money and up to the claims that you make for them and you will not be criticized too much| for saying you only have 50 left when you have 100 !

Owen Jones, the author of this piece writes on quite a number of topics, but is at present concerned with Google web translator services. If you want to know more go to our web site at Real Translator Jobs Advice.

With so many people chasing each position these days, just being summoned to an interview is an accomplishment in itself. However, it is the last fence and it would be a shame to fall at it. Therefore, if you come this far, you ought to pull out all the stops, just like a race horse goes flat out in the last furlong.

The intention of this article is to provide you with some tips that may just help you be successful at your interview.

The first thing to do is research the firm. That is very simple to do these days, because each firm strives to establish an Internet presence. You may know your job inside out, but you will have to know about the firm who is providing the job too.

One of the most frequently asked questions at a job interview is: how do you think you will help our firm? or How do you think you will fit into our company? You can only answer these questions if you know about the firm.

You should acquaint yourself with the names of the key members of the firm and read the pieces on them. These articles will tell you the history of the person’s career, hobbies or interests and possibly about his or her family (married with two kids).

You should also learn the history of the firm: when it was established and by whom. Whether it has overseas branches and when, if ever, it got its stock market listing. Has its share price been going up or falling and why? Do currency fluctuations have a major effect on the firm and is it better to have a robust or weak home currency for that firm?

Do you know who will be interviewing you? Is it an outside recruiting company or is it a member of the company’s staff? Try to find out something about your interviewer. You never know it might benefit you even if the interviewer is from an external firm. The least you should do is remember the interviewer’s name before being introduced.

Attempt to learn something about your possible future colleagues. Is there anyone famous there? Or has any of them written a book, given lectures or published papers? If so, say that you are looking forward to working with ‘so and so’, because you admire their work on ‘so and so’, which he/she wrote on so eloquently in their book called ‘so and so’. Do not be afraid to show that you have done some research.

Write down the questions you think you will get asked, write out responses and practice them. Read and reread them out loud until you can roll them off comfortably. Get a friend to assist you to think of questions and ask them to listen to your replies. Tell them to warn you of any idiosyncratic habits you have like messing with your hair or beard,

Lay out your clothes the day before so that you do not have to worry about what to wear. In general, darker colours and conservative styles are the best clothes to wear, unless you are going for a job in a fashion design firm. Dress the part and strive not to look too flashy. There may even be a dress code that you could find out about – look on the website or ring up.

Finally, put your passport, birth certificate and resume in your bag or pocket, just in case, carry a nice pen and a business card if you have one. A small note pad might come in handy as well.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on lots of topics, but is currently involved with Jobs for Linguists. If you would like to know more go to our website at Genuine Translator Jobs Advice.

An author writes, that much is obvious, but when you begin talking about what he or she writes and how it is written, things is much less clear. Each writer has a personal style and it is that style that sorts the wheat from the chaff. Everyone almost certainly has a favourite author and that usually means that the person likes the style in which that writer writes.

Knowledge is also important, but style is important even in technical writing although in technical writing, the best style is to being fair and impersonal. After all, a mechanic does not check with a handbook on a certain car’s gearbox to read the author’s personal opinion of that gearbox, but the same person will read a review of the car as a whole by a writer whose opinion he or she respects.

I know people who have not read a book since school because they were put off by Shakespeare. In one case, a teacher told the boy that he was clearly a moron if he could not see why Shakespeare was the best playwright ever. He still cannot understand why, and it ended his reading.

The first tip for a author is to read lots, but never to copy. No-one wants to read work that attempts to be a copy of someone else’s style. If you like Shakespeare and you read it frequently, it will almost certainly have an effect on your style naturally without you having to do it on purpose, but that is different from impersonation. That is influence and that is not necessarily a bad thing.

After you have had the urge to wrote, you have to make the decision what to write on. Are you going to be a novelist or an author of ad hoc pieces? You can do both. You need to eat and a (first) novel can take years to finish, writing short pieces can place food on the table in the meanwhile.

There are many web sites that provide writing projects for article writers. Usually, you have to list what you are able to write on and provide a free sample. If you are accepted onto the register, you can browse the list of articles for which clients have put orders. When you have written it, you upload it, which is very easy, and if it is approved, the payment is transferred to your account.

In my experience, writers get better the more they write, so do not become discouraged if you find it difficult to get going when you first begin in your writing life. Confidence comes with training. in most lines of work, including writing.

The best piece of advice on writing that I have ever been given is ‘to write for at least ten minutes every day’. It was the daily tip in a diary I had around 15 years ago. I remind myself of it at least once a week.

The best thing about it is that I find it not possible to write for only 10 minutes. It might take a while to get going, but when I’m off, an hour or two flies past without me noticing. Try it and see for yourself.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece writes on many topics, but is currently concerned with Professional Translation Services. If you want to know more go to our web site at Real Translator Jobs Advice.

Many people are feeling financially insecure these days because of the continuing fall-out after the banking disaster. Lots of these people are turning to working from home, even if it is just on the week-ends, to reduce this level of insecurity and dependency on an employer. The Net plays a large role for many aspirant self-employed people these days.

If you want to sell yourself or products on the Internet, you will ave to promote, the same as you would in your local, physical world. The thing that amazes many of Net advertising newbies is the fact that the off line business world and the on line business world behave according to comparable principals.

One way of selling items and services on and off line is through classified ads. The classified advert normally sells quite cheap objects (although not always), so the placer of the advertisement strives to be as descriptive as he or she can within the minimum number of words for the advertisement, because that keeps the cost down.

All the principles we discuss here will apply to both on and off line classified classifieds.

The first thing to do is think from the readers’ point of view. The reader may or may not need something in particular, but is almost certainly searching for a bargain. How many classified ads are there in your local paper? Hundreds? Thousands? On line it is frequently thousands – merely look at Craig’s List.

So you have to grab the readers’ attention as they scan down the ads. You know what it’s like, you have done it yourself. What catches your eye? ‘Free’ is the biggest stopper. Free delivery, or whatever. If you can work the word ‘free’ into your advert, you will stop most people for a couple of seconds more at least.

But that is all you require, if you are selling something worth having, that the reader thinks is a bargain. You have gotten your foot in the door, so to speak and the householder is listening, for a while. Naturally, this is a common attention-grabber and many others will be using the same tactic.

Now you have to make the reader like what you are selling. At this point, the reader likes to feel reassured, so the word ‘guaranteed’ is good, if you mean it naturally. Promise that what you have to offer is fit for purpose, guaranteed.

This takes much of the nagging doubt out of the readers’ mind. Everyone is cautious of scams, especially Internet scams and nobody wants to be made to look a fool. Alleviate the fears or your readers, and they will become more likely to ‘give you a try’.

The last part is the ‘call to action’ – ‘grab it now’. But you can make this even more dramatic by saying things like: ‘special offer ends in seven days’, or ‘just 50 items left’. Nobody truly believes these claims, but they still work.

There is no need to mislead, but you are in competition with people who are less scrupulous, so you have to employ some tactics. It’s a pity, but it is the way of business. Just make certain that the goods or services that you are selling are worth the money and up to the claims that you make for them and you will not get criticized too much| for saying you just have 50 left when you still have 100 !

Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on quite a number of topics, but is currently concerned with Google web translator services. If you want to know more go to our web site at Real Translator Jobs Advice.

Scam web sites often have some characteristics in common, so we have listed some of the less well-known ones below.

The older the site, the less likely it is to be a scam, because scam sites are removed regularly. This test is also not decisive, because new businesses are created every day, but it might help you make up your mind. A further useful test is the contact details.

Are there full contact details? Are you able to you check the address? Look it up on Google Earth. How about the email address, do they have their own email address or is it a free one, like a Hotmail, Gmail or Yahoo account? Why would a firm not have it’s own email address? If there is a phone number, ring it on . Does it sound correct, or does it go straight to voice mail?

What is the pay? Do they maintain that you could be earning thousands a week? Does it sound credible? You know the expression: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Does the advert claim that no experience is necessary? How can you earn money at a job you know nothing of?

You will require experience whatever you do. So you will have to allow for that. Also, does the advert target one group of people? Does it say, ‘jobs for stay at home mums’ or ‘work for pensioners’? Why would a company worry about where its staff comes from or how old they are? These are warning signs too.

Be very wary about using your own personal accounts for other firms. For example, a firm selling toys asks you to sell them on eBay or wherever you like. You place the adverts, you collect the money and they ship the goods, for which you pay them and receive 10%-20%. The problem is, the firm never sends the toys, so then eBay demands a refund, but you have already sent the majority of of it to the firm.

Does the registration form want to know the ins and outs of your personal life? Why would they want to know whether you are single or not and how many children you’ve got? Why would they want to know whether you own your own home and while the insurance expires? Well, because they can sell this knowledge or use it to spam you with individualized offers.

Never give your personal banking details. Instead, open a special account only for receiving earnings in and sweep it clean often or endeavour to be paid via PayPal. There is a fee, but the money is secure and PayPal will chase up or right any illegal actions. Remember that anyone sending you money through PayPal will not require your password, they only require their own! . Enter the name of the company into a search engine with the word ‘scam’ or ‘problem’, then check the same with the name of the web site. Judge for yourself by the results. Any more than two or three complaints is a bad sign, but click the links and see if the concerns were resolved. Obviously a good company would attempt to resolve any concerns.

There are forums for people who would like to work from home. You could register with a couple of these and see which schemes are well-liked and which are condemned. Search on ‘work at home forum’. You should register with a couple of them otherwise you will not be allowed to ask questions and receive notifications if threads are replied to.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece writes on quite a number of topics, but is currently concerned with translator for company services. If you want to know more go to our web site at Real Translator Jobs Advice.

The female menopause is well-documented, but the male menopause is less well acknowledged, although many health professionals have pointed to its existence.

We have all heard of the amiable woman who becomes bitchy and aggressive once she hits forty or fifty, but men are less likely to admit to their concerns, which has always been a fact.

In contrast to the stereotypical image of a cantankerous menopausal middle-aged woman, middle-aged men going through their menopause are said to abandon their aging wife for a younger one, dress in clothes that are decades younger than suits them and purchase a sports car.

But are these stereotypes an exact depiction of middle-age life? Cliches are often true descriptions of life, which is why they became cliches in the first place but are they caricatures of how most people live?

A fact is that numerous men, who are in their fifties and sixties, start to suspect their sexual prowess. This doubt may lead to a husband stopping making love with his wife in case she compares his current performance unfavourably with when she first met him.

Rather than go through a possibly ignominious question and answer session with his wife (in which he may have his fears confirmed), he goes with another woman.

He will always go with a younger woman – why not? And he will always wine, dine and spoil this younger girlfriend, so she is unlikely to tell him the truth, if he is not doing so well. Thinking with his nether regions and his ego, he is unlikely to perceive the truth.

There are around 18 million Americans going through this situation right now – they are worried that they are being laughed at by their wives because of under performance and they want their prowess confirmed (by an outside source).

This deficiency of self-confidence may out itself in different ways. A middle-aged man may start being very critical of his wife or / and any other woman and this might lead to misogyny in extreme cases. At the other extreme, a man may become an outrageous flirt and endeavour to get off with his wife’s girlfriends.

Lower levels of testosterone in older age may be partially to blame for a reduced libido, which is often the root cause for worries about sexual performance. Elderly men know that they are not capable of doing what they used to.

A popular expression among older men is self-defacing: ‘I used to spend all night doing what it now takes me all night to do’.

Women tend to underestimate this lack of self-confidence in aging men’s sexuality and when people are not taken seriously there can be dire consequences. Men tend to take the lead role in bed, so women do not notice so much that they are losing stamina as well.

The fact is that female and male menopause might have an effect on us in a different manner (and some individuals seem to be unaffected at all), but couples need to become more aware that hormonal changes will occur around mid-life and that is why there is the cliche of a mid-life crisis.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on a variety of subjects, but is now involved with hormonal treatment for prostate cancer. If you want to know more go to What is the Treatment for Prostate Cancer?

One of the concerns when people begin working from home is a lack of structure and organization. Business has developed ways of doing things during the thousands of years of its existence and we have to assume that these ways work, because they are fairly universal among companies all over the world.

These structures include: a Board of Directors, a division of labour within the company, working hours to suit the industry the business is in, a paper trail, filing and assorted other administrative tasks. There are others too, so why is it that so many people who try to work from home throw all of these tried and tested ways out of the window?

Business works by finding a method that works and reiterating it until you have earned enough money / all the money you want. Meanwhile, you look for ways to simplify the process (in order to reduce costs) and ways to transfer the course of action to our sectors (in order to expand).

The role of a Board of Directors is to bandy ideas around and form policy, so if you have a family business, why not make the whole family your Board? Going it alone is difficult, but if you do not do this early on, it will get very difficult to discuss your problems with your family, because they will not understand.

If you bring people in early, they will see how and why difficulties are developing and may have tips. My wife is a farmer and knows nothing about computers, if I had included her years ago, I would be able to talk to her concerning my Internet business life by now. But I did not, so she still knows nothing of computers and I and my computer are on our own whenever anything happens.

Organize yourself and your office so that you can find things. Organize the filing system on your computer and make room for a physical filing system as well. You might have a tiny or even no business at the moment, but be prepared.

Home offices and businesses require a structure too; the beauty of a home / small business is that it is adaptable enough to be able to modify that structure whenever there is a requirement for it, but it still needs a structure and a plan; a course of action and goals; procedures. And it is the Board’s place to set these.

If you really do not have anyone you can bring in, you will have to join physical and virtual business societies, but you cannot be so intimate with them concerning your business as a Board can get. Join the Chamber of Commerce too, because the CoC frequently becomes involved with local schemes before the public knows about them.

Networking is important because it is mind-expanding. Listening is a lot better than talking. As my Dad was fond of saying: ‘You never learn anything with your mouth open’.

Owen Jones, the author of this article writes on quite a number of topics, but is currently involved with Jobs for Linguists. If you would like to know more go to our website at Real Translator Jobs Advice.

In this age of job insecurity and a shorter working week for some, loads of people are looking for methods to supplement their earnings by finding a part-time job. Some individuals are able to go shelf-stacking, delivering newspapers or making hamburgers, but others either have to or want to work from home.

Many of the traditional ‘work from home’ jobs like stuffing envelopes or assembling paper flowers were repetitive and badly paid. The Internet has opened up a whole new world of opportunities to work from home – quite literally. There are work from home jobs on offer now that never existed before.

You can literally be anywhere in the world with an Internet connection and work for or employ people who also could be sitting anywhere in the world where there is an Net connection.

It is not at all uncommon for someone to outsource the design of a website to Asia and the composing of content in English to the UK and then have it assembled and hosted in America for example.

This naturally makes a lot of career opportunities for freelancers, because no one in a project such as the one above would be employed on a permanent basis. The freelancer gets paid on results only. The work has to be of an agreed quality and delivered within an agreed time frame. Payment is done electronically as well.

Hundreds of jobs that now involve a computer may be outsourced to freelancers, which means that there are dozens and dozens of professions that can find work on line. Web site work is the most common instance given, but there are also writing jobs and design work.

A senior accountant living not far from me manages the books for a multi-million dollar firm from 5,000 miles away. Invoices are posted into the company’s accounting and job costing software in an office back in the company and he has access to that; papers that he has to see are scanned and emailed to him and he has a mobile phone and VOIP for longer conversations.

Are you able to write articles? Why not try? Newspapers and magazines are always on the look out for well-written material on all sorts of subjects including travel. Can you translate?

If you know another language reasonably well, say enough to read a newspaper, you can translate. Translators translate back into their mother tongue and in the comfort of your own home, you can have access to dictionaries and encyclopaedias.

If you want to attempt freelancing, search for the sort of career you are looking for specifically or if you are prepared to try a range of tasks just enter in ‘freelance work on the Internet’ for a plethora of choice.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece writes on quite a number of topics, but is at present concerned with Professional Translation Services. If you want to know more go to our web site at Real Translator Jobs Advice.

Many people find it very hard to sell themselves as a product or a commodity and that is because of modesty and because they do not see themselves as products and commodities. We are people, we are people, are we not? The response to that question is not as simple as it should be.

On the human level, yes, obviously we are all people and we are all lovely people with feelings, emotions and problems. However, when you are an employer, you have jobs to do and deadlines to meet and although it is a real shame that the child of employee number 456789 has broken his arm and he requires time off, it is a nuisance to getting that order out on time.

Depending how vital the job is of employee 456789 obviously and how substantial the workforce is. In a shop, it could become a disaster, in a factory, it hardly matters. It is natural, no matter what business managers and owners have learned to say, it is a nuisance if items do not go well in business. It is the purpose of a business manager to flatten out these bumps.

When you start to see the concerns of your employer or even interviewer, who represents the employer, you can begin to see ways of how to advance your career by selling yourself. Therefore, the employee (or business owner who wants to sell) has two things to do to begin with.

First, find out what the employer wants and second, find out what you have to give. You might think that you already know the answers and maybe you do, but let’s go over them anyway. An employer wants you, as an employee to make his life easier. You can do this by being punctual and dependable.

The employer already has a good concept of what you can do by looking at your CV. What the employer does not know is whether you are honest and reliable.

Now it comes down to you. You can corroborate your CV, but the employer has probably already done that anyway. So, your task is to prove that you know something about the firm, that you are interested in, what it wants to achieve and that you will pull out all the stops to help accomplish that.

If you are not able to say that, maybe you are applying for the wrong career. Enthusiasm counts for a lot. Nowadays there are often 20-30 applicants going for each job, therefore become more selective and be more well-informed about the companies you apply to.

Finally, it is vital to be courteous. This shows itself in a number of ways. You ought to dress in an suitable fashion. Casual/smart is good enough for most jobs, smart to formal is vital for others.

Men should be clean-shaven, with a full set or at least trimmed. It is not good enough to go looking as if you did not have time to shave because you got up late, because you don’t care about the position.

In general women understand this better than men, so I won’t preach, but I want to give two examples. My father’s last bit of advice to me when he retired from the family firm was:

1] Do not take on people who have a newspaper folded on the sports page, because they will stay in the toilet working out their bets

2] Do not employ people who roll their own cigarettes because you have to pay them to make them

I understand if you disagree with my Dad’s tips, but employers are merely human as well.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece writes on quite a number of topics, but is currently concerned with Professional Translation Services. If you want to know more go to our web site at Real Translator Jobs Advice.

If you are used to applying for jobs or even very short term contracts like translation jobs, you will doubtlessly be aware of having to write a resume, which is also known as a curriculum vitae (CV). Numerous people have a hard time with writing their CV and this is not surprising because there are numerous different ways of composing one. In this article, we will take a look at writing a CV

All we employees have a history. We all went to school and we all have had work, the difference being how long we went to school, how long we have been working and what we have been working at. The art of composing a good CV is how best to present that history so that you put yourself in the best possible light without misrepresenting yourself.

The first thing to do, even before you start searching for a career, is to set down everything you have done of any importance in the best date order that you can remember. This is obviously easier for some than for others but it is important to have the time line as accurate as possible, because future mistakes might be seen by prospective employers as lies and that is the last thing that you need.

Now you can start searching for a job, although you have not written your CV yet. But you are prepared. The thing is, you cannot write a good CV unless you know who is going to be reading it. Your CV is the story of your working and educational life and you are not able to compose a good one until you know what your target audience is.

You would not write a steamy novel for kids and you would not write a fairytale for adults. Endeavour to look at it from the employer’s point of view. If you are 45 years old, most employers would think it immaterial that you went grape picking in France in the summer when you were 16.

However, it may not be inappropriate if you were demonstrating a longterm interest in the French language so that you could get a job as a translator. Similarly, it is better for a young person to put that fact in than an older person, because it depicts a willingness to work on behalf of the younger person.

They say that there are around 28 people chasing each job in the UK now and I bet it is a lot more if the job is a decent one, so you can imagine the boss sitting there, the phone going every ten minutes, people putting questions, routine jobs needing to be done AND he or she is short staffed (hence the vacancy) AND there is a stack of job application forms (CV’s) to go through.

You want yours to stand out for the right reasons. You want the boss to be able to scan down the page and think that was clear and simple. Luckily, the days are gone when handwriting was an a problem, although for some jobs an extremely well hand-written CV would still be very striking, but I have not seen exquisite hand-writing for decades, so stick with the word-processor.

A very short covering letter ought to introduce your CV, only to make it obvious what you are applying for. I would attach that to the CV with a paper clip, so that it can be easily discarded. Then the CV:

Name Address Tel No Email

Relevant Qualifications:

Previous Job Experience:

Leave white space to make the page easily readable, say one blank line between data in a section and two between sections. Use a clear font of readable size (10-12). I like 12 because I can read it without my specs.. Start qualifications with the highest most relevant and experience from the last position and work down.

Try to keep everything on one page, but do not cheat to do it by squashing lines up and reducing the font. Endeavour not to make the boss curse you before you have even met each other!

Owen Jones, the author of this piece writes on many topics, but is at present concerned with Professional Translation Services. If you want to know more go to our web site at Real Translator Jobs Advice.