Medical transcription can be a very good work at home job. The hours are generally flexible, and you can choose to find your own clients or work for a service.

On the other hand, it can be demanding, with deadlines that need to be met, and a very high standard of accuracy. Add that to changes in technology, and it’s important you consider many factors before you spend money on your medical transcription education.

The first things to look at are your own skills. Can you type fast? Your transcription speed is generally slower than your typing speed. The faster you already are, the better.

How’s your grammar? Spelling? If you have a lot of trouble in these areas, you’re going to have a harder time succeeding as a transcriptionist.

What about your work space? While you don’t have to worry about others overhearing the kids arguing in the background while you transcribe, such distractions will have an impact on your productivity, and hence your income.

How self motivated are you? Can you work well without direct supervision?

This is one of the biggest pitfalls of working at home. With no supervisor around to see what you’re doing, it’s easy to let home life get in the way of working. You can’t allow this to happen. Medical transcription is typically paid on production, not hourly. You don’t work, you don’t get paid.

Also talk to your family about what you want to do. I can tell you from personal experience that not everyone will respect a work at home job as a real one. I was asked for 3 years by my mother-in-law when I was going to get a job when I worked as a medical transcriptionist. That it could be a real job was a hard fact for her to absorb because when she had stayed at home the only work she did was volunteer work.

Do you have or can you get high speed internet? More and more companies are having transcriptionists download the dictation off the internet rather than telephone lines, and this requires a high speed connection.

You should also be aware of potential future developments in technology that will impact the medical transcription industry. While many fear that voice recognition will do away with the need for transcriptionists, so far it is not nearly accurate enough, takes too long to train the software for the taste of many doctors, and will still need to be checked by a human due to the many similar sounding terms used in medicine.

Some companies are already hiring medical transcription editors to review transcripts created by voice recognition software.

And of course, you do have the schools to consider. There’s the need for it to have a good reputation with employers. If no one will hire you because they don’t like the track record of the school, you’ve just wasted potentially a couple thousand dollars and months of your time.

Check the schools out. Make sure that they have a solid reputation with employers. Some are partnered with potential employers, which can mean that students who do well enough have a better shot at available jobs.

Cost matters to pretty much everyone, and it’s hard to find financial aid for most online medical transcription programs. But many will have payment plans, so you can find something that will work with your budget.

As a work at home career, medical transcription is a pretty good one. It’s future is as yet promising, despite the fears new technologies generate, and despite outsourcing. The pay is good, the hours generally flexible. It’s not a bad deal.

Stephanie Foster is a former medical transcriptionist and runs http://www.medicaltranscriptionbasics.com/ for people considering becoming medical transcriptionists. Get more tips on choosing the right medical transcription school at her site.

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An important part of your career management is to understand there’s a much better way to land the job you want than mailing or e-mailing unsolicited resumes.

That better way is called the targeted approach to finding a job quick.

Why is it so hard to find a job?

Because you’re sending out resumes that nobody asked you to send. So stop broadcasting your resume. It’s a waste of time. And you extend the amount of time it takes to find a job quick.

So how do you find a job?

Studies show only a single job is offered for approximately every 1,500 hundred resumes mailed or e-mailed. With reduced staffs caused by downsizings and layoffs, busy executives don’t have time to read your unsolicited resumes. Besides, a resume tells very little about your talents or whether you’ll fit in with the rest of the staff.

I’m not suggesting you stop posting resumes on internet job boards or sending them with cover letters in response to help wanted ads. You need to cover all bases. We’re talking about sending out resumes, willy nilly, to companies in hopes a job will be uncovered.

The six step targeted approach to looking for a job

1. Carefully select prospects for your resume mailings by targeting a number of companies you want to work for; places where you believe your skill set, or what you do, will fit in.

2. Gather information about each company and its executives. There’s so much information about corporations on the Web that can be obtained easily by visiting a company’s website, there’s no excuse for not doing your homework before every interview.

3. Find the name of the executive at each company who you think could hire you if there were a job.

4. Then customize cover letters to each person you’ve selected. Your mission is to explain the reason why you’ve targeted his company and to request a brief meeting to discuss your background and the company’s future needs in order to determine if you can be of help someday should a job become available.

5. Call each prospect for an appointment three days after you think your letter or e-mail was received.

6. Repeat steps 1 - 5 each week by selecting five or more targeted companies a week, customizing cover letters to go with your resumes.

This targeted approach is also called the “the indirect approach” because you’re not asking directly for a job but for a meeting to discuss your background and how you can make a contribution in the future.

This approach is one of the best ways to find a job quick. Why? Because in bypassing human resources, you’ll uncover a job before it’s posted.

This is how to beat the competition for the job you want. With the targeted approach, you’ll also shorten your job hunt by doing the six steps each week as you customize letters and follow up five or more targeted companies by phone to request appointments to discuss your background and an organization’s future needs.

When you can not find a job, or feel discouraged because recipients of your resume failed to contact you, try the targeted approach to land the job you want.

Randy Place, a career management consultant in private practice, and Internet host of Your Career Service — http://www.yourcareerservice.com Daily posts feature job-finding tips and career management advice. Topics include job interview tips, networking strategies, dealing with job loss, resume writing and personalized cover letters, getting ahead at work, how to handle standard interview questions and much more.

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Are you a sassy and seductive femme fatale looking for a promotion? Or are you a conservatively clad careerist looking for feminine clothes with a little sexual flavor? Depending on the career, dressing sexy at work can give you a competitive edge or ruin your chance to rise to the top.

A sexy woman can be viewed as a symbol of power or an agent of seduction.

If you work at Hooters, are an exotic dancer or even perform certain unmentionable sexual acts behind closed doors, dressing super sexy is a fundamental requirement of your work. Imagine a dominatrix or a well-endowed wing-server in a Brooks Brothers blouse, conservative leather round-toe pumps and a Herringbone skirted suit. Could these ladies perform their jobs well? Absolutely. However, it would be a little more difficult to gain those enormous tips and serve their clients without the proper tantalizing attire.

For women who don’t work in a sexually charged environment, there are definite dress expectations and a mandatory strict adherence to office clothing customs. If you are a uniformed professional: a medical employee, work in law enforcement or armed services, your standard issued uniform represents credibility, safety and protection. Modifying your uniform with racy black fishnets or unbuttoning your blouse to reveal lacy intimate apparel will not only compromise your credibility but send a message that you are incapable, incompetent and not a viable candidate for promotion.

Would you expect a female entertainment executive to wear a poncho at a black tie event?

Women who work in the creative fields, advertising, fitness, music, movies, beauty and fashion, the sexy clothing lines at work are often blurred. Figure hugging suits, body enhancing workout wear and lingerie inspired dresses and blouses are the norm in these industries. Would you patronize a fitness trainer who wore baggy clothes, old workout wear and didn’t look fit? When in doubt the sexy clothes question always lies in appropriateness and behavior. Just because you are wearing low cut dresses or a sexy outfit, doesn’t mean you have something to sell. In this corporate rat race dignity, competence and results will trump sexy clothing choices every time.

To determine if you are dressing too seductively at your job, look no further than the highest ranking female in your organization or field.

Many long days at the office and mandatory after-hour work events make the transition from professional corporate citizen to party-hopping social diva a necessary evil. Can you wear the latest body hugging fashion at work? It depends on your job, career aspirations and the occasion. Copy the fashion choices of the top performer at your company or the leading professional in your field. If she dresses sexy at work and still continues to have the respect of her male and female peers and superiors, follow her lead. If this superstar woman throws a little sex appeal into the fashion mix and is successful, you might be on the right track to career success.

With casual clothes becoming the norm in most 9 to 5 work environments dressing sexy at work in the 21st century can be difficult to define. Too often what women wear to work now mirrors the sexy form-fitting fashions of today. A woman can be one bare midriff, too tight shirt and mini-skirt away from career clothing suicide. If conservative office attire is the way to the top at work, keep that push up bra, lacy thong and midriff top well hidden under your suit…where it belongs.

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Nothing lasts forever, especially your job. And in an economy that is less than robust, you may be more vulnerable to losing it.

You may have believed you were in a good situation just a few months after you were hired, with a good salary and benefits, new colleagues you have come to trust and respect, and fulfilling work that can help you advance your career.

But the economy operates in cycles. Depending on which news source you rely on most, we’re either heading into a short downturn or a period of slow growth. Yet, there could be something else afoot here. Maybe something has happened that gave you reason to question whether you might fare better somewhere else. Maybe you woke up one day and recognized one of those “A-HA!” moments when you discovered you could take your career in a different and potentially exciting direction.

But if it’s your current employer that’s leading you to wonder if it’s time to update your resume and hunt for a new job, refer to this list of warning signs, any one of which you may have recognized clearly enough to go back to your resume:

1) Your company or industry is in trouble. Think of the industry you’re in and whether it’s ripe for a downturn. Prime candidates: retail, hospitality, manufacturing, and - given the recent problems in the sub-prime mortgage market - financial services. Has your company lost major clients? Did it recently lay off a handful of people - or more? Is it losing business to lower-priced competitors? Has it failed to respond to new offerings or business campaigns from the competition? If it’s a public company, has its stock price dived recently? If the problem is across the entire industry your company competes in, and you have been with that industry a while, it may be time to change employers and industries. If you need to change industries, take an inventory of your core skills that you can take with you.

2) Your company has a new owner or it’s seeking one. If your company is in the process of being sold or was just recently sold, watch for changes in processes or operations - or in corporate culture - that could impact your role. In addition, consider possible changes in your benefits, such as higher employee premiums for health insurance or reduced company matches on 401(k) retirement plans. On the other hand, an ownership change could be a good thing, with improved processes and operations, better benefits, and more opportunity for you to grow, which could compel you to stay.

3) Your company has new leadership. Is there a new CEO or president? Is he or she planning to take the company in a new direction? How different is he or she from the previous CEO or president? Does the new leader demand more effort that will upset a work-life balance that is important or cause you discomfort?

4) Your job has been marginalized. Has the company brought in someone else who has taken over some of your duties or assumed a role for which you felt qualified to be promoted into? Has it left you disappointed or angry? If it has caused you to question your future at the company, consider updating your resume.

5) You’ve gone as high as you can go. You’ve hit the ceiling and the company isn’t going to raise it. Those who are in higher-level positions for which you’re qualified and have aspired to aren’t going anywhere. Like a proud, veteran, starting quarterback for a football team who has been benched in favor of a younger - maybe even less expensive - upstart, you believe you have a lot left in you. You want - or need - a challenge with an upward or lateral move.

6) Your new boss is, well (pick one) incompetent, an idiot, a tyrant, or all of these. You come home stressed at the end of a workday because your boss either humiliated you in front of your colleagues, doesn’t respect you, refuses to listen to you, overburdens you with work, or is so unfit for his job that his or her boss is angry with everyone in the department, including you. Do you really need to put up with it?

7) Your boss or company leadership fails to fulfill a promise it made to you when you were hired. Remember when you were hired? For example, the company promised - albeit not in writing - to promote you within a year if you had a strong performance appraisal. You had an outstanding review, but the company has not fulfilled its end of the deal. You bring it up with your boss, who does all he can to avoid the subject. Maybe you should have gotten that promise in writing. Or, maybe it’s time to work on your resume and take your skills elsewhere.

Do any of these sound familiar or similar enough to consider a change? If so, then it’s probably a good time to update your resume, look at job ads, and send out feelers to friends and former colleagues that you’re looking to work elsewhere.

© 2004-2008 Pongo Software, LLC. All rights reserved.

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Consistency in terms of job offers and earning an acceptable income with gradual promotional opportunities is good. But achieving your maximum earning potential is great! This is the difference between having a job and having a career. This is the final piece in a series of four articles that explains how to increase your earning potential:

Part 1: lifelong learning
Part 2: positive thinking
Part 3: goal setting
Part 4: above and beyond

Above and beyond

As part of your endeavour to maximise your earning potential, remember that there are ways in which you can really make yourself stand out from the crowd and actions you can take that will facilitate a faster salary or rate increase than you anticipate. These involve going that little bit further than what is expected of you, but could make all the difference to your earning potential.

Writing articles and contributing letters to magazines whose audience contains the kinds of influential people you want to reach is another action that you might not usually consider to be highly influential with regards to your earning potential, but this kind of self-promotion can be used to ensure that your achievements and opinions are more widely publicised than those of others, which will help in increasing your employment value.

Participating in activities that are indirectly related to work can also have an effect on the way you are perceived by decision-makers within the industry. For example, playing golf with a group of work colleagues and clients might at first appear to be nothing more than a social event, with the intention of enhancing personal relationships, but you can demonstrate skills such as team-working, determination and concentration, which all apply professionally. Letting people see your personal qualities outside working environments can open their eyes to how you would engage within the workplace too.

There are always ways in which you can increase your earning potential and it is up to you to decide whether or not you are prepared to apply yourself in order to move forward. Planning, determination and the ability to see how your short-term achievements contribute to your long-term goals are all key to successfully maximising your earning potential.

www.nes.co.uk

NES is a leading global technical recruitment business providing professionally qualified contract staff to blue chip clients across the world in the oil and gas, infrastructure, rail, power and IT sectors. Founded in 1978, a committed workforce has facilitated the company’s success and continues to ensure that NES experiences ongoing growth in terms of customers, geography and sector.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kath_Finney

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You may have gone through a pretty rough period in your 20’s. From going to college to starting a new job, there was probably a lot of bouncing around from one place to another in order for you to get the job that you wanted. You probably had multiple job options going for you at the same time but couldn’t really figure out which was the right one for you.

However, now that you are in your 30’s, you may be looking for a career that is rewarding and fulfilling, both in terms of finance and in personal satisfaction. First, you will need to understand that your wants and desires will keep growing and changing no matter how old you may be. Come to terms with yourself. Second, you have to shake the old belief that you must have one career and that you must stick with that career until you finally retire.

This belief was great in the days when companies weren’t firing people, collapsing from poor management at alarming rates, or being outdated quickly by other, faster moving companies. Today, the workplace has become an entirely new place. Today, most companies lay off employees who are spending too much time in the company because they are paying them a lot more than newer employees.

Companies today would rather lay off a good employee who earns more and replace them with a newer, cheaper employee.

How to Secure a Good Career When You Are In Your 30’s

The workforce of today is completely different from back in the 50’s. Yes, the older generation believed in giving their employees pensions, raises and even retirement packages, but the businesses today tend to provide their worker with very little pay, no benefits and can actually fire you if you happen to be making too much money. What is the best way to secure a financial future? The best way to do this is make yourself look unique, especially if you are in your 30’s you’ll probably know what the competition is like out there. There are many ways to do this.

Start by getting to know yourself better and asking yourself where you have strengths and skills. Once you have figured out the answer to this question, you will be able to acknowledge the fact that what you are already good at can be expanded to suit your interests. For instance, if you happen to be a musician who plays the piano and you know you are good at it, then it would probably be wise to try out another instrument to see if you are equally good at this new skill! The basic reason for doing this is that in doing this, you are making yourself more marketable and not so easily replaceable.

The more knowledge you have with regards to your profession, the more sought after you will be. Every company wants a good employee, so a company might hire you, irrespective of your age, based on the fact that you could probably make money for them since you have more experience and knowledge in certain areas that most others don’t.

The more marketable that you are as a potential employee, the more secure will be in your future job. However, always make sure that you have mastered your job well. Ask friends and accomplices to test you since they happen to be the best critics.

As a 30-something, you need not worry about changing careers in today’s business world as most companies aren’t as loyal oriented as you think. Companies prefer to hire workers who are willing to work for lower pay. What you must do is find a company that is more than willing to pay you what you deserve.

Don’t worry about sticking on in that job for life since this most likely wont happen. If it is job security that you are looking for, then you should probably think again because job changes are very likely to happen often in the type of career market we have at this time.

Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solutions - Six Sigma Online (http://www.sixsigmaonline.org) offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tony_Jacowski

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If you are out looking for a job, do not expect your employer to know what your employment value is just by looking at your resume or by interviewing you. It is your responsibility to prove this to him or her. Also, if you allow the employers to determine your value, then the chances of them coming to the wrong conclusion will be strong. In order to prevent this, you need to know exactly who you are, what you are capable of, and what it is that you have to sell.

For instance, if you are having a discussion with your prospective employer, then you should probably address issues like how you can help him or her become more successful. This is the only topic that will grab any attention as any other topic would be a waste of time.

You should always know your value as an employee before you actually begin searching for a job so that you can take control of the entire job-search process. Make sure to define certain goals for yourself. Once you have decided what you are looking for before you actually start looking for something, you will have the right clues as to where and when to start looking.

Any job search in order to find a job can be a daunting task. Be prepared to devote all your time and energy in this process. If you are presently unemployed, prepare yourself to spend at least 30 hours every week in searching for a job. If you happen to be employed, then prepare yourself for an ‘extra’ job over the next few months until you find yourself a new job.

Tips for Effective Job-Hunting

Job hunting can be quite intimidating and stressful and can sometimes produce both depression and anxiety in an individual. It probably will take a lot of time for you to find employment, so it is advisable to start as soon as you can and patience is a must!

In addition, make sure that you have a specific goal, but still be prepared and flexible in your approach and your use of alternate options is sometimes necessary. While knowing what kind of a job you want is essential to your job search, you must also keep in mind that there is no guarantee that you will find what you are looking for.

There are loads of opportunities out there and plenty of help is available, so don’t ever be afraid to ask for help. Ask friends, associates, relatives and even career advisors for help. There’s no point in maintaining that “I can do this myself” attitude; the task is generally bigger than you can imagine!

Churning out hundreds of resumes is just a waste of time and energy. Employers receive millions of resume each day and this can get pretty annoying! Getting professional help when making your resume sounds like a good idea as this will help you stand out from the crowd.

Networking is absolutely necessary when you’re out searching for jobs. From job search support groups to former co-workers, bosses, and old classmates, there are many sources out there. Check internet job search engines as there are thousands of sites available.

Follow these few tips and you can rest assured that your job hunt will end up in success!

Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solutions - Six Sigma Online (http://www.sixsigmaonline.org) offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tony_Jacowski

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