Women & Career Articles
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Advancing Women - The New Breed Of Management Professional
In today's competitive marketplace, women who want to succeed are honing new skills and becoming mentors to those women who follow in their footsteps. Although the number of male executives still far outweighs the number of female executives, there is a steady increase over the last fifty years. The women who hold managerial positions today are competitive and successful due to several fundamental characteristics that any woman who wants to succeed in business should emulate.
First, the new breed of management professional is an expert in her field and in the corporate culture where she works. She is familiar with the day to day workings of the department she heads up, but also with the workings of other departments related to her own. Most of the women who hold executive positions also held several other positions within the company before being promoted to their current status. Their willingness to learn about other facets of the company and become experts, not just on one area, but on the company as a whole, allowed them to gain experience that helped them get to the top.
Another attribute of successful women is that they take advantage of their connections. It is vital to have at least one mentor who knows the ins and outs of the area you aspire to work in. Connect with the people who have the influence and knowledge you need to get you to the position you desire. Take time to get to know them, to ask questions, and to let them know what you want out of your career. Find out what it takes to get to the next level without being demanding. Expressing interest to the right people will help you get your foot in the door.
Successful women are not afraid to bust out of their comfort zone. Or if they are afraid, they don't let that fear stop them. If you want an executive or managerial position, you will need to put in the extra effort. This means overtime and long hours at odd times. This means asking for extra projects that will give you the experience and connections that you need. This means taking assignments or positions in areas you are unfamiliar with so that you can learn and be an independent worker.
It is important for successful women to perform to a standard of excellence that is far beyond just what it takes to get by. You will need to show the people who are doing the promoting that you have what it takes to move the company forward. Do not be afraid to let people know of your accomplishments, but do not avoid taking responsibility for your mistakes as well.
Finally, women who are in executive positions look at their jobs and see the big picture. They understand the history of the company, the goals of the organization beyond profit margins, and the expectations of the shareholders. Instead of focusing on only your tasks or your department, you must see the big picture to get ahead.
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Can Women Juggle Family Life And Careers
Can women juggle family life and careers? The answer to this question is, of course, yes. But the real question seems to be: How do women juggle family life and careers? For this question, there are a myriad of answers all tailored to the individual, her career, and her family. But overall, there are some basic tips and techniques that can help you to balance a thriving career with a healthy home life.
Most women who work full time jobs still contribute more to the running of the home than the man of the house. But even in homes where this is not the case, both mother and father struggle to maintain a balance between work life and home life. If you feel that after a long day at the office, you are torn between meetings, business trips, and the duties of home and family, you are not alone.
It is important to budget your time wisely. But what does this mean? At the office, this means using your time productively, getting the job done during regular business hours and not using your work time to surf the Internet or catch up on social interactions. If you can leave work on time, this will greatly reduce the stress you feel in trying to address your family's needs in the evenings.
In addition, you need to schedule some time for yourself. Mark your work calendar with times that you intend to spend either by yourself, alone with your spouse, or with the kids. This kind of commitment scheduling can have a real impact on whether or not you keep the commitment to spend time together. Also, it will help you to schedule your other work duties and meetings around that important family time.
While at work, keep your distractions to a minimum. This means that you will need a block of time that is uninterrupted during which you can get your tasks done. Keep a few hours free from meetings or phone calls to catch up each day.
You can apply the same principle at home. Set aside some time each evening during which the phone and television are turned off and the family gets uninterrupted attention from you. This time together is vital and builds the impression in your children that they are a priority to you.
Another way to enhance your family time is to explore the option of flexi time where you work. Many offices offer their workers the ability to change their schedule to fit their family life. You might want to come in early a few days a week so that you can be there when your kids get out of school. Or you may want to come in later so that you can help run the carpool to school. Check out you options with your boss.
Finally, make your weekend time off really count. Use this time for activities that are important to you, like time with friends, vacations to nearby spots with your spouse, or trips to the museum or zoo with your kids. Schedule your time off just as you do your work week by filling in a few slots with set activities to be sure you don't waste the whole weekend with television or naps.
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Can Working At Home Be Rewarding
More and more women today are opting out of the corporate world to find job satisfaction at home. The idea of flexible hours and a fulfilling career are appealing. Many women feel that working at home would give them the extra time they want with their kids while still providing the all important extra income. They also feel that the reduced stress of being out of the office will make them more available emotionally to their families.
These things may or may not be true. Working at home is a rewarding choice - for the right person. There are some big challenges to working at home that could turn into stumbling blocks for someone who is ill prepared to take on this responsibility. But there are also many rewards if you find that working at home is right for you. So let's look at some of the advantages and drawbacks to working at home.
Advantages
Many women find that working at home allows them more time to experience their children's growing and learning processes. This in itself is rewarding. Your time will be taken up less by commuting, you can spend lunch with your kids, and you can be there when they get home from school. All of these are things that usually make women take a leave of absence from their jobs. But if you can get all of this and still maintain your career at home, this may be a good solution for you.
Another great way that working at home benefits women is through the flexible schedule. You can come and go as you please a great deal of the time. You can work in the morning or in the afternoon or in the evening. You can even work some in the middle of the night when the house is quiet. Your particular schedule will vary according to the type of work you are doing. If you need to correspond with your office, for example, you hours might be much the same as when you worked on site. However, you can leave your desk at any time to see to the children.
Working at home can also be rewarding because many women pursue this course in order to pursue some career goal or dream. Perhaps you are a writer and wish to pursue this talent, or perhaps you have graphic design skills that you wish to put to good use. Whatever your talents, you can start your own home based business to fulfill your dreams. This type of work is fulfilling and can be a great example to your kids of chasing and attaining your dreams in life.
Drawbacks
As great as working at home sounds, there are disadvantages that can trip you up if you are not prepared. First, there is time management. You are the only one responsible for motivating yourself to do the work. If you cannot be self disciplined enough to work when you need to and play in your spare time, working at home may only be an exercise in frustration.
There is also the fact that you are solely responsible for your paycheck. This may seem obvious, but if you are starting your own home-based business, remember that there is no such thing as vacation pay. If you need to take time off of work, you will also have to take time off getting paid.
Overall, working at home has a lot to offer the right person. It can be a rewarding and demanding challenge that only you know whether or not you can meet.
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Equal Pay - Fact Or Fiction
When President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act into law, most women thought that it would repair the equality in the workplace between what women are paid and what men are paid for the same work. There have been great strides toward equality since then, but there is still a long way to go. According to the AFL-CIO, the average 25-year-old woman working full time until age 65 will earn $523,000 less than the average working man. That is a huge difference, and the numbers vary from industry to industry.
If the current trends continue and the rate of change in wage equality remains the same, working women will not be paid the same as working men until at least the year 2050, and maybe later. Today, the average working woman makes 78% of what working men earn. But again, this is an improvement. In 1979, working women made only 62% of what working men earned for the same work.
What most surveys show is that the difference in pay varies according to several factors. The first and foremost is race. White women earn about 78% of what white men earn. However, black women make 91% of what black men earn, and Hispanic women earn 88% of what Hispanic men earn. This difference in percentages may be due to the fact that white men still earn on average the highest salaries of all racial groups.
Another factor in lower pay is education level. Surveys show that the gap is wider among professional groups. Women are highly educated and working with other highly educated individuals are paid a lower percentage of men's wages than their less educated counterparts. This may be due to the tendency among women to not seek out promotions as often as men, preferring to stay in their current role longer to achieve more experience and training.
Occupation is a factor that reveals surprising findings. One would think that in occupations that are experiencing shortages, pay initiatives would be higher to attract all candidates, and therefore, women's pay would be higher. This does not seem to be the case. The medical field is experiencing a shortage of doctors due to high insurance costs and the lengthy training required. But women physicians make only 58% of what their male counterparts earn.
Even in supposedly female dominated fields, women's wages lag behind men's. Female teachers earn only 87% of what male teachers earn, and women nurses earn 91% of what male nurses earn. Overall, equal pay is nonexistent in the modern workplace, though there have certainly been advancements.
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Female Senior Executives - Getting Ahead
Today, women long to occupy that corner office just as much as men do. And whether or not you have a family at home, becoming a senior executive is a goal well worth having. Unfortunately, there are still many barriers to women in senior executive positions. Unlike the majority of old reasoning which stated that women did not aspire to this goal as much as men do, new studies indicate that women want this promotion as much as men do and have just as much career ambition.
But women still have a difficult time moving into these senior positions. Only a fraction of Fortune 500 companies have female chief executive officers. The number is rising, but very slowly. This is in direct contrast to studies that show at least half of working women desiring an executive position. The same proportion of women desire to move up in their careers, yet the majority of the leadership positions are still held by men. So what is the problem?
Most women in corporate jobs hold staff positions rather than line positions. This means that they are less experienced than the men in their offices. The line positions are those that oversee a business that earns money for the company. Since most leadership roles are filled by workers in line positions and the majority of staff positions are not promoted, the women in corporate culture are stuck.
If you add in the facts that many women are excluded from informal groups, you get another reason why women have a hard time getting ahead to executive positions. These informal groups may just be getting together for lunch or a game of golf, but business that is discussed and deals that are made during these times can be crucial to the advancement of a man's career. If women are not included in these social opportunities, their career opportunities suffer as well.
In addition, there are still stereotypes about what a woman is capable of in corporate culture. And the lack of promotions for women also means that there are very few role models for women to follow or mentors to help them along the way.
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How Taking Time Off To Raise Children Impacts Your Career
In a world where women are still the ones who are expected to handle most of the child rearing duties, work and home life are difficult to balance. So it is very common for new mothers or mothers who are having more children to take time off from their jobs to stay at home and care for their children. If you left a career that you enjoyed and had put a lot into, you may be wondering how your time off will affect your career path once you are back on it. Or if you never got established in your career before you took time off, you may wonder if your break will jeopardize your ability to advance.
The transition from work to home can be traumatic for many women. Some feel that they lose some of their identity when they stay home with the children. This is especially true if you had strong ties to your job, a long work history, or a passion for what you do for a living. You may also experience some boredom or depression by changing your routine and limiting your contact with other adults. But the fear that your career may suffer as a result of your hiatus is not necessary.
There are some things you can do to minimize the impact your time off has on your career path. Most of these things can also help alleviate some of the other negative side effects of your staying at home, including the boredom and identity crisis.
First, it is important to stay current. Just because you are not reporting to the office every day does not mean that you can't stay on top of what is happening in your industry. Now would be a good time to subscribe to some email newsletters that keep you up to date on the current industry trends. Invest in a high-speed Internet connection at home to make sure you have access to the world outside.
You should also keep all your contacts from work. If you are planning to return to the same job, keep in touch occasionally with your colleagues and clients with a message checking on their progress. If you are planning to embark on a new career, be sure that you hang on to your contact list from your previous job.
Another way to help your career while you are taking time off is to try out some of the online classes or workshops available. One of the most common complaints of women returning to work after a long absence is that their skills are out of date and they are not trained in the newest technologies in their field. You do not have to fall victim to this circumstance. There are plenty of online courses you can take if you do a little research. This is where the newsletters and group memberships you acquire can come in handy. Most of them will list training resources in your area or online. You can also try taking a community education class in the evenings or on weekend mornings when you can get a sitter.
Some mothers may be able to work part time in their fields. This will help to alleviate the issue of a large gap in your resume. The resume gap is something that, while certainly understandable to most employers, may still hold them back from hiring you. So if you can work part time, you can keep a listing on your resume and show that you are current.
Overall, try to stay in touch. Attend trade association meetings even if you are not working. Build relationships with people in your industry that may later lead to job opportunities. Take advantage of online tutorials and courses to keep your skills sharp and up to date and to maintain your interest in your field.
Remember above all to not downplay your time with your kids. It is an admirable decision to stay at home with your children, so do not apologize for it or feel ashamed of the time away from your desk. If anything, the experience you gain at home will make you a more dedicated and patient worker.
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Is Female Ambition A Myth
As women advance in the corporate and home based business worlds, there is still a question as to whether or not women have the same ambition as men in the work force. With motivations involving children and family life, do women want to pursue the same career paths as their male counterparts? And if they do, then why are not as many women in executive positions as men?
The fact is that the majority of executive and managerial positions are still held by men. Overall, men are more likely to be hired and promoted within a company. This discrepancy might seem to indicate that women do not have the same desire or drive to succeed career wise as men do. And in fact, this perspective has been the dominant one for many years.
The idea sprang first from the old idea that most women want to get married, have children, and stay at home to raise families. This life path was expected of women fifty, even thirty, years ago. It was assumed that because this was the most common option for adult women, this was the option they preferred.
But as we move into the modern age of a two career household, it is time to re-examine this idea that the average woman, working or not, does not have the same ambition as a man. First of all, are the hiring and promoting trends in corporate society the result of a lack of interest on the part of women or a result of remaining prejudice and a culture hostile to female advancement? The answer, according to a study by Catalyst, a New York research group, is the latter.
The study reveals that 55% of working women and 57% of working men aspire to be the CEO of their company. This indicates that the same amount of ambition exists between the sexes and means that the imbalance of power in corporate cultures is due to another factor.
The study also found that women with children are just as likely to aspire to executive positions as those women without families. This dispels the myth that a woman with children would necessarily prefer to be a homemaker rather than a career woman as well as a mother.
The findings are clear: female ambition is not a myth. However, it is still sometimes an unfulfilled desire due to continuing prejudice and hostile work environments, as well the persisting myth that women are not suitable for executive or leadership positions.
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Part Time Work Can Be Rewarding
For women who have families and the desire to advance in their careers, the decision to stay home with children is a difficult one. Many women take a leave of absence from their jobs to care for young children. Some women forsake their careers altogether in a decision to take up the challenging career of homemaker. If you have taken time off or are considering doing so in order to care for your young child, you may want to think about the options available to you. Staying at home does not have to mean giving up your career.
First, it is vital to stay up to date on the industry culture while you are at home if you wish to return to your career. One way to do this is to stay in touch with your network. Keep abreast of new developments at your company if you plan to return there when your leave of absence is completed. If you intend to look for another position, you can still utilize your network to find out about any future job openings and get recommendations.
You may also want to keep your skills up to date by taking some local courses at night or online. There are some useful online tutorials that will boost your earning capacity that you can take from home. This will also look good on your resume when you return to work, showing potential employers that you are persistent and have a genuine interest in your field.
If you have the time and the inclination, one of the best ways to keep your career on the right track while caring for children is through part time work. Find a position in your field that you can work in during part of your day. You might work all day on two or three days out of the week, employing childcare or relying on family to look after the little ones. Or you might consider working in the afternoons or evenings when you can afford to bring in a sitter a few times a week.
Part time work will look good on your resume as well. All working mothers who take time off for young children have a gap in their resumes. While this is certainly nothing to be ashamed of, you may want to fill that gap with an attempt at staying abreast of your career. Part time work would fill the time gap as well as show that you are current on industry standards and changes.
The ability to work part time would also be personally rewarding. Many new mothers find that the drastic change in their schedules from work to home brings on some negative emotional effects. Working part time would restore some of your sense of purpose and identity, as well as give you some meaningful time out with adults.
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The Ability To Multi-task Is A Must For The Professional Female
Women are called upon to do more and more. They are responsible for family needs, friends, aging parents, as well as their own needs and the requirements of their careers. This kind of stressful demand can make any woman feel stretched thin. You must be able to juggle the concerns of family and work without destroying your morale or your compassion. So in this modern world of working women, the ability to multi-task is a must.
Even if you do not have children to care for in your off hours, a career woman needs to be able to multi-task, to accomplish a lot in a little amount of time. This is especially true if you wish to compete with the men in your organization for promotions and executive positions. Women are called on to prove themselves much more than men are in corporate cultures. They are required to work long hours and take on extra projects in order to be noticed and taken seriously as a potential leader.
If you do have children, you know that multi-tasking is a requirement for being a mother, let alone a mother who also needs to bring home a paycheck. You must balance the needs of your children with the health of your marriage, not to mention your own needs for rest and rejuvenation. This can seem like an impossible task.
But there are some tips that can help you to multi-task without sacrificing the time you need to be healthy and fulfilled. First, learn to use your time well. This means that you will need to keep track of your time in a new way. Think of your time as a valuable commodity. What you spend it on needs to be what you really want. For example, if you have extra money one month, you weigh the advantages of spending it on a big screen television or a weekend getaway for you and your husband. Which situation gives you the most reward?
You need to do the same with your time. Sit down each morning and prioritize your tasks. What is the most important thing you get done that day? What is next? Which things will be okay if left until tomorrow or the weekend? Organize your time as though it were a valuable commodity and you will find that at the end of the day, you have spent it on things that really matter to you rather than on whatever demanded your attention at the time.
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The Latest On The Glass Ceiling
We have all heard the term "the glass ceiling." But how is that ceiling now that women have come such a long way in the work place? The glass ceiling used to imply the limits that were imposed on women who wanted to advance in their careers. There was only a certain level of pay and promotion that they could reach, even though these limits were unspoken and illegal. Today, the glass ceiling may seem to be broken, but it still exists in many ways.
Unfortunately, many of today's working women still report problems with career advancement and pay equality. Most women have to seek out opportunities for promotions and career advancement. In order to receive these top positions, women are required to make the move a priority in ways that many men do not have to do. While some men are automatically kept in mind and approached for promotion or advancement opportunities, women are not always considered in the same way. So their approach must be more aggressive.
The problems that keep women from seeing the same career advancement as men lie in several perceptions about the modern work world. Most women feel that corporate culture still favors men. This means that men are more likely to interviewed, hired, and promoted to leadership and executive positions than women. This also means that the social culture of a corporate office favors men. Many women feel either ostracized or marginalized in the office society of men, and some even feel harassed or disrespected.
This social stigma on women means that they are often left out of informal groups that can often lead to talk of promotions and advancement. Most women feel there is a general misconception about their ability to perform these advanced jobs. This derives from stereotypes about women held over from a time when women were not allowed to work at all.
Another aspect of the glass ceiling is the misconception that family responsibilities will hold a woman back from doing her job effectively. This is a very common prejudice that prevents a woman from achieving a higher status and level of responsibility at work.
The overall perspective from many women in the workplace today is that they still have to prove themselves more than men do to achieve the same career advancement opportunities.
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The Female Entrepreneur And Home Based Business
With the changing face of business, more and more women are seeking opportunities in the home-based business realm. Chances to succeed as a business owner from the comfort of your own home may sound appealing to you as well. And with the advancement of the Internet, this type of business is easier to run than ever. Some women also find that a work and life balance is easier to achieve when working from home. The female entrepreneur is making a big impact on the working world.
A home-based business may be a dream of yours or you may see yourself working in a franchise of some sort. Many women today are opting out of the corporate business world. Leaving a traditional job for an alternative career path used to seem insane and very risky. But today, as it becomes more common and the means to succeed are more readily available, this risk is one well worth taking.
There are three top reasons that women are opting out of the corporate world. First, and most obviously, women take advantage of working at home to spend time with their children. The leading answer among women when asked why they left their corporate jobs is that they wanted to take several years off to raise a family. The home-based business is a great way to maintain their additional income without shelling out the extra cash for day care or other childcare services. It also gives working moms more time to be involved in their children's lives.
Another reason that women opt out of corporate life to work at home is that they wish to pursue non-profit or foundation work. This type of activity can be pursued out of the home and much more time can be devoted to an organization if you are not committed to a corporate job. The third most cited reason for women moving from corporate jobs is that they have taken some type of government position. This change does not necessarily entail working out of the home.
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The Transition From Home Life To Work Life
Many parents opt to stay at home during the first few months or years of their children's lives. It is important for them to be at home during these formative times and to show support for their growing families. However, as children grow up and start school, mothers may find that they wish to return to work. Some mothers merely take a leave of absence that allows them to nurture their newborn and return after a few months. Whatever your reason for taking time away from work, the transition back to work can seem awkward.
It is important to consider now whether or not you wish to return to your previous career. For some people, this may be an easy question. If you were particularly attached to your career or pursuing your life long dream, you will of course wish to return to the same work. But if you were not completely fulfilled in your work before you stayed home, or if you cannot return to your same field or position, you may want to consider a change of career.
Use the time you have left in your leave to really give some serious consideration to the question of what you want to do. Your old career may be too demanding now that you have a family. Or you may have been waiting for the right opportunity to start a home-based business. Whatever you choose, you can begin training for your new position, or boning up on your skills for your old position, before you return to the workforce.
When parents return to work after a leave of absence, whether months or years, they have to make up for the time they missed. This applies to those people who are returning to the same career they left. You may need to take some courses or online tutorials to hone your skills. Subscribe to an online newsletter that will keep you up to date on current industry trends. Talk to people in your network and get any news you have missed. You want to go back to work completely up to speed on the culture and the changes in your field.
You will also be called on to explain the gap in your employment history. This is especially true for those people switching careers. This may be a good time to employ a functional resume that emphasizes your skills instead of your work history. Rather than arranging the resume according to the chronological history of your employment, you can arrange it to highlight the skills you acquired at each job. Then when you list your job history below your skills, you would state that you spent some time as a full time parent.
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Top Tips For Women To Succeed At The Highest Levels
It may be tougher for women today to succeed at the highest levels of business. But even with the glass ceiling still in place, women are achieving higher places in the corporate world than ever before. Their creativity, intuition, and intelligence are winning over critics and reversing prejudices. There are some common strategies among successful women that will help women everywhere in their quest to succeed in their careers.
First, it is important to learn the rules of the business game. Men are much more involved in competition and team play as children than women are. So it is important to learn the skills necessary to play well with others. You need to know how to really seek to win and yet shake hands with your competition when it's over. You also need to know how to work well on a team and keep up that team spirit and loyalty.
Another way to help yourself up the corporate ladder is by getting a mentor. You may have plenty of friends at work and be a real people person. But when forming relationships in your career, you need to also think strategically about what that relationship can mean for your future. This does not mean that you should use people, but it does mean that getting on board with a mentor who can help groom you for advancement is a smart move. Spend time with people who can help your career, not just with people who are friendly.
A successful person has great communications skills. Learn how to communicate your ideas effectively without being afraid of questions or discussion. You need to be able to both take and give constructive criticism without getting too emotional or attached personally to the ideas exchanged. Learn some phrases for offering constructive criticism, such as "I wonder if." that will allow you to speak your mind without offending anyone.
Along the same lines as communication is your visibility. Speak up at meetings. Don't be afraid to ask questions and give your opinion. Try not to be overly aggressive, but speak up and let your thoughts be heard. Be confident about your ability to contribute to the corporate culture. Also document your contributions in reports or graphs.
If you want to advance in your current career, you will need to put the time in. This means staying late sometimes and coming in early. It means not grumbling when there is a meeting that goes through lunch. And it means taking on extra work when it is available so that you can get the experience.
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Why Women Are Leaving Corporate Roles
The landscape of corporate society is changing. The Internet certainly made an enormous impact on how we do business today. The availability of products and services, as well as the sharing of information, has made corporate life a very different experience than it was even twenty years ago. But despite all the advances and conveniences, women are still choosing to "opt out" of corporate jobs.
Opting out is the catch phrase applied to those people who are choosing to leave the corporate work force in favor of other non-traditional career paths. Soon the label "non- traditional" may be obsolete, as more and more women choose to stay at home to work.
According to a recent survey, there are basically three reasons why women choose to opt out of corporate jobs. Of all those women surveyed, over 70% cited one of the following reasons for leaving:
The most commonly cited reason was the need or desire to stay at home and raise a family. Women are finding more and more that they are able to start home based businesses to earn an extra income while still being available for their children on a daily basis. While not all women opting out of corporate positions are doing so in order to pursue self-employment, this is a rising trend. The computer and the internet have made it possible for women to commute without leaving home, to market to millions of consumers without a huge advertising budget, and to fulfill their career dreams while maintaining their work and life balance.
The second reason cited was the desire to pursue non-profit or foundation work. Many women leave the paycheck of a corporate job in order to pursue work in the non-profit sector. Some of these women are receiving paychecks, but others leave their jobs to be of service without pay. This is especially true when the additional pay is not making up for the cost of childcare required while the mother is at work.
The third most common reason for opting out of a corporate job is that women acquire jobs with the government. This type of work is still traditional in a sense, but does not carry the same kind of prestige or material gains that corporate work often brings.
Of the women who participated in the survey, 62% said they are not considering returning to the corporate work force at all. So this indicates that corporations may continue to see the current trend of a shortage of workers unless they can make the corporate culture and work environment more conducive the needs of working women.
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Women And The Promotion Game
Women want to advance in the world of business just as much as men do, but women seem to get fewer chances. The opportunity to advance in your career may be up to you to create. The existence of a promotion opportunity at your workplace may be enough for a man to be considered, but you may have to do some extra footwork to be in the game. While this is certainly unfair, it is often the reality. So here are some tips to getting ahead:
Become an expert in the area that you want to move into. Try getting extra work or taking on projects that will give you the experience you need to succeed in the new position. Do not assume that you can learn on the job. It is your responsibility to take the initiative and put yourself in the position to learn all you can about that particular facet of the business. If you are applying for a promotion in a line job, then you will need to get some experience in that profit area of your company.
Know the right people and take advantage of your connections. This does not mean that you should use people to get what you want. It does mean that you should find people in the company, or outside of it, that have the experience and influence to help you get where you want to be. A mentor is an extremely valuable asset. So when you are talking to your office buddy, keep in mind there are people at work who you can talk to that will actually further your career. You are there to do a good job, not to make friends. So decide who you need to know to further your career and then get to know them. Introduce yourself and express your interest in their field.
Express yourself and let the people in charge know that you are interested in moving up. This is a great way to ask what is necessary for you to attain the new position. Don't be demanding, but ask directly what you need to do to get to the next level. This will help you be prepared when the promotion is offered in house.
Another aspect of getting a promotion is working outside of your comfort zone. You will need to do jobs that you may not be prepared for or feel you have enough experience for. You will need to work long hours and sacrifice some personal time. All of these things will be worth the effort if the promotion is really where you want to be. You will clarify your goals when it means giving up some comfort for quality.
Be willing to take responsibility. You would be surprised at the number of adult professionals who still refuse to take responsibility for their actions. This means taking credit when it is due to you and taking responsibility when something you do results in an error. No need to shame yourself or get dramatic, but do admit to your mistakes. The important thing is that you see that the situation is repaired so when you admit to the mistake, your positive actions will counteract any negative impression.
Be an overachiever. You cannot stop working when you have done enough to get by. When you want a promotion, you need to perform above and beyond expectations. Be a quick learner and work well on your own.
Finally, see the big picture. You need a broad understanding of your organization in order to be considered for other roles. You will need to know more than just your particular department's importance in the overall profit margin and corporate culture. So spend some time getting to know the history of the company and ask people in other departments to lunch where you can learn about their world in the company.
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