Source: techrepublic.com
You’re an experienced IT professional. You’ve been around the block and done it all. You think your resume is packed full with great stuff because years ago, you read all the articles on how to build the perfect resume and you’ve been following most of that advice ever since. Any employer should take one look at your resume and hire you on the spot, right?
That’s what I used to think too. I’m not a resume expert, but I thought I had a killer resume. Then, three potential clients in three month’s time nixed me because they thought I was “light” in areas where I was actually a specialist.
If that isn’t a wake-up call, I don’t know what is. So I called a close friend of mine, who is an IT manager at a large company. He knows my abilities, he’s an IT geek at heart, and he’s seen a ton of resumes. He looked at my resume and said, “Yep, I’d have thrown it right in the trash.” I called a couple more friends in similar positions. “It could use some improvement,” one of them told me. Ouch. At least they were honest. Basically, I had a resume that would sell me as an administrator or engineer, but not as an architect or consultant, which was the type of work I was looking for.
I began gathering comments and suggestions from these guys and completely rebuilt my resume from scratch. What I learned in this process is that building a resume for experienced IT professionals who want to land higher-level IT jobs is quite different from building the average resume to land entry-level administrator jobs.
I am going to share eight resume tips that sum up what I have learned.
Resume pointers
Most of the standard rules for building a resume still apply: Make sure you have a readable format, proofread for spelling and grammar errors, keep it simple, etc. However, experienced IT pros need to follow some more specialized guidelines. A few of these tips may actually contradict your previous notions of what to include (and exclude) on your resume. They certainly contradicted mine.
Keep your list of “core skills” short and sweet. When you’ve worked with a lot of different technologies, you want to show the world all you’ve done. However, having a long list of core skills actually gives the impression that you know only a little bit about most of those things and that you’re a generalist, not the specialist that the potential client/employer needs. Keep this list to a handful of key skills or possibly eliminate the list altogether.
Don’t list certification exams. At the very least, minimize the impact of this list. The average IT pro might want to list exams passed to build up a resume, but for the IT veteran, this actually marginalizes real-world experience and accomplishments.
Quantify projects and results. For example, if you do an Active Directory implementation, specify how many sites, domains, and servers were involved. If you design an e-commerce system, specify the increased percentage of sales that resulted from the project. Tell the potential client/employer exactly how you helped a previous company that you worked for.
Bullets, bullets, bullets. Don’t use paragraph style writing to describe your projects, tasks, and duties. Bullet-point every major accomplishment or project and leave out the minor things. (Your resume is already going to be too big anyway.)
Include examples of work, if possible. For instance, maybe you’ve written articles for an online magazine, or perhaps you built an e-commerce site. Include links to pertinent examples so potential clients/employers can see firsthand what you do.
Highlight major accomplishments. If you’re a high-tech consultant, you may have a lot of smaller projects and clients. Maybe you were hired as a “grunt” for a couple of short-term assignments but had a major project last year. You can’t exclude the small stuff, or potential clients/employers will question what you’ve been doing. But you can minimize the impact by focusing attention on the bigger things. Some ways of doing this include using a slightly larger font, boldface, or italics, or even drawing a thin border around the major accomplishments. But don’t go overboard-subtlety is still key.
Seek advice from actual managers. Recruiters, agents, brokers, and human resource personnel are all different from managers. Managers want to see results, and they usually know how to spot a weak candidate. If managers think your resume reflects someone who can’t do the job, you’ll never get anywhere. Run your resume by some managers you know and have them critique it for you.
Know when to stop. If you list all your experience from all the jobs, contracts, or projects you’ve handled, your resume will be more like a book. Find a place to stop listing your experience. If you feel you must at least acknowledge previous experience, try making a separate section and just bullet-point where you worked and what your title/function was. Of course, you’ll usually want to do this only for the less-accomplished jobs that you don’t want to highlight on your resume.
Monday, December 6, 2010
10 tips for making a resume for a high level IT post
Sourcc: techrepublic.com
10 things you should know about creating a resume for a high-level IT position
This list is based on the article “Eight resume tips for the experienced IT pro.” It’s also available as a PDF download.
Building a resume that targets an upper-level IT position, such as architect or consultant, requires a different approach than creating a resume to land an entry-level tech job. Although many of the standard rules still apply, you need to follow some more specialized guidelines. In fact, a few of these tips may actually contradict your previous notions of what your resume should include (and exclude).
#1: Keep your list of “core skills” short and sweet
When you’ve worked with a lot of technologies, you want to show the world all you’ve done. However, having a long list of core skills actually gives the impression that you know only a little bit about most of those things and that you’re a generalist, not the specialist that the potential client/employer needs. Keep this list to a handful of key skills or possibly eliminate the list altogether.
#2: Don’t list certification exams
At the very least, minimize the impact of a cert list. The average IT pro might want to list exams passed to build up a resume, but for the IT veteran, this actually marginalizes real-world experience and accomplishments.
#3: Quantify projects and results
For example, if you do an Active Directory implementation, specify how many sites, domains, and servers were involved. If you designed an e-commerce system, specify the increased percentage of sales that resulted from the project. Tell the potential client/employer exactly how you helped a previous company you worked for.
#4: Take advantage of bullets
Don’t use paragraph style writing to describe your projects, tasks, and duties. Bullet-point every major accomplishment or project and leave out the minor things. (Your resume is already going to be too big anyway.)
#5: Include examples of work, if possible
For instance, maybe you’ve written articles for an online magazine or built an e-commerce site. Include links to pertinent examples so that potential clients/employers can see firsthand what you do.
#6: Highlight major accomplishments
If you’re a high-tech consultant, you may have a lot of smaller projects and clients. Maybe you were hired as a “grunt” for a couple of short-term assignments but had a major project last year. You can’t exclude the small stuff or potential clients/employers will question what you’ve been doing. But you can minimize the impact by focusing attention on the bigger things. Some ways of doing this include using a slightly larger font, boldface, or italics, or even drawing a thin border around the major accomplishments. But don’t go overboard — subtlety is still key.
#7: Seek advice from actual managers
Recruiters, agents, brokers, and human resource personnel are all different from managers. Managers want to see results, and they usually know how to spot a weak candidate. If managers think your resume reflects someone who can’t do the job, you’ll never get anywhere. Run your resume by some managers you know and have them critique it for you.
#8: Know when to stop
If you list all your experience from all the jobs, contracts, or projects you’ve handled, your resume will be more like a book. Find a place to stop listing your experience. If you feel you must at least acknowledge previous experience, try making a separate section and just bullet-point where you worked and what your title/function was. Of course, you’ll usually want to do this only for the less-accomplished jobs that you don’t want to highlight on your resume.
#9: Make sure your design is simple, attractive, and readable
As with any resume, you should use a clean font such as Times New Roman or Arial. Be consistent in your use of boldface, underline, or italics to help lead the reader through the document and avoid contrived graphical elements.
#10: Edit, revise, and proofread
Experts suggest that a resume should go through three to seven drafts before it begins to reflect the multidimensional individual on a piece of paper. Be grammatically correct, spell-check the document, and have someone else proofread your resume carefully.
10 things you should know about creating a resume for a high-level IT position
This list is based on the article “Eight resume tips for the experienced IT pro.” It’s also available as a PDF download.
Building a resume that targets an upper-level IT position, such as architect or consultant, requires a different approach than creating a resume to land an entry-level tech job. Although many of the standard rules still apply, you need to follow some more specialized guidelines. In fact, a few of these tips may actually contradict your previous notions of what your resume should include (and exclude).
#1: Keep your list of “core skills” short and sweet
When you’ve worked with a lot of technologies, you want to show the world all you’ve done. However, having a long list of core skills actually gives the impression that you know only a little bit about most of those things and that you’re a generalist, not the specialist that the potential client/employer needs. Keep this list to a handful of key skills or possibly eliminate the list altogether.
#2: Don’t list certification exams
At the very least, minimize the impact of a cert list. The average IT pro might want to list exams passed to build up a resume, but for the IT veteran, this actually marginalizes real-world experience and accomplishments.
#3: Quantify projects and results
For example, if you do an Active Directory implementation, specify how many sites, domains, and servers were involved. If you designed an e-commerce system, specify the increased percentage of sales that resulted from the project. Tell the potential client/employer exactly how you helped a previous company you worked for.
#4: Take advantage of bullets
Don’t use paragraph style writing to describe your projects, tasks, and duties. Bullet-point every major accomplishment or project and leave out the minor things. (Your resume is already going to be too big anyway.)
#5: Include examples of work, if possible
For instance, maybe you’ve written articles for an online magazine or built an e-commerce site. Include links to pertinent examples so that potential clients/employers can see firsthand what you do.
#6: Highlight major accomplishments
If you’re a high-tech consultant, you may have a lot of smaller projects and clients. Maybe you were hired as a “grunt” for a couple of short-term assignments but had a major project last year. You can’t exclude the small stuff or potential clients/employers will question what you’ve been doing. But you can minimize the impact by focusing attention on the bigger things. Some ways of doing this include using a slightly larger font, boldface, or italics, or even drawing a thin border around the major accomplishments. But don’t go overboard — subtlety is still key.
#7: Seek advice from actual managers
Recruiters, agents, brokers, and human resource personnel are all different from managers. Managers want to see results, and they usually know how to spot a weak candidate. If managers think your resume reflects someone who can’t do the job, you’ll never get anywhere. Run your resume by some managers you know and have them critique it for you.
#8: Know when to stop
If you list all your experience from all the jobs, contracts, or projects you’ve handled, your resume will be more like a book. Find a place to stop listing your experience. If you feel you must at least acknowledge previous experience, try making a separate section and just bullet-point where you worked and what your title/function was. Of course, you’ll usually want to do this only for the less-accomplished jobs that you don’t want to highlight on your resume.
#9: Make sure your design is simple, attractive, and readable
As with any resume, you should use a clean font such as Times New Roman or Arial. Be consistent in your use of boldface, underline, or italics to help lead the reader through the document and avoid contrived graphical elements.
#10: Edit, revise, and proofread
Experts suggest that a resume should go through three to seven drafts before it begins to reflect the multidimensional individual on a piece of paper. Be grammatically correct, spell-check the document, and have someone else proofread your resume carefully.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
vocabulary label
Grammar
Countries, nationalities and languages
The weather
Describing people/objects - appearance
Describing people/objects - character
Relationships
At home
Everyday problems
Global problems
Education
Work
Sport
The arts
Food
The environment
Towns
The natuaral world
Clothes
Health and medicine
Travel
Holidays
The press and media
Numbers and shapes
Science and technology
Politics and public institutions
Crime
Money - buying, selling and paying
Number, quantity, degree and intensity
Time
Distances and dimensions
Obligation, need, possibilit and probability
Sound and light
Possession, giving and lending
Movement and speed
Texture, brightness, weight and density
Success, failure and difficulty
Containers and contents(e.g. box of matches, jar o
Belief and opinion
Like, dislike and desire
Speaking
The six senses
What your body does
What animals do
your body
Business
Action
Agreeing, Accepting, Argueing, Decline, Object
Bank - Economic
Pleasant and unpleasant feelings
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Common errors in English
Most are extracted from the book "Common Errors In English"
============= look for / seek ======================
new graduates seeking employment ( not seek for)
Attractive woman, 27, seeks male, 25-35, for fun and friendship. (
=============Pay (the first 1000 most commonly used)==================
If you pay the food, I'll buy the drinks (Wrong) -> If you pay for the food, I'll buy the drinks.
11 to give someone money for something you buy or for a service :
give money
[intransitive and transitive]22 to pay money that you owe to a person, company etc :
bill/tax/rent
[transitive]GRAMMAR 
The verb pay is followed directly by a noun when you are talking about paying a person• I'll pay you tomorrow.• I haven't paid my accountant yet.Pay is also followed directly by a noun when you are talking about the amount of money you pay• I've already paid £700.!! Do not use pay followed directly by a noun referring to the thing you are buying. Use pay (an amount of money) for something• When I paid for my tickets (NOT paid my tickets) the man told me there was no discount.• I paid £100 for this jacket.When you are talking about whether you pay for something using a cheque, a credit card etc, use pay by• If you pay by credit card, you get free insurance.When you are talking about the type of money you use to pay something, usepay in• You can only pay in euros.
The verb pay is followed directly by a noun when you are talking about paying a person• I'll pay you tomorrow.• I haven't paid my accountant yet.Pay is also followed directly by a noun when you are talking about the amount of money you pay• I've already paid £700.!! Do not use pay followed directly by a noun referring to the thing you are buying. Use pay (an amount of money) for something• When I paid for my tickets (NOT paid my tickets) the man told me there was no discount.• I paid £100 for this jacket.When you are talking about whether you pay for something using a cheque, a credit card etc, use pay by• If you pay by credit card, you get free insurance.When you are talking about the type of money you use to pay something, usepay in• You can only pay in euros.
=========================== Sick and Ill ---
Anna has been sick for three days
If someone has been sick, it usually means they have vomited food
from their stomach. When someone is not at work because of illness
they are off sick, but generally say: Anna has been ill for three days
=================== on Next Monday
Your mother is coming on Next Monday (Wrong), don't use preposition before next
=================== In the evening & at night
What time do you go to bed in the evening (!) -> What time do you go to bed at night
We usually do things in the evening, and go to bed at night
Did you go out yesterday night (X) -> yesterday evening / last night
We never say yesterday night or last evening, we say yesterday evening, which is earlier than last night. Or He's coming to dinner on Saturday night.
===================
At first we had soup
At first tells you how something begins, but it changes and doesn't finish this way
-> At first it was easy, but then it became difficult
-> At first we went to a pub and afterwards we went to a disco.
For an action that happens and finishes before another one, say:
First we had soup
We spent two hours trying to find the restaurant. At the end we went home.
We can only say at the end (or beginning) of something, e.g. a book/film, or a holiday.
What would she find at the end of her journey?
If a situation changes and ends in an unexpected way, we can use "in the end"
================== One after another
After switching the light on, the computer stopped working
you can only use After ... ing if the same subject does both actions in the sentence.
-> After I switched the light on, the computer stopped working.
There were so many problems with booking the holiday. After all, we decided to cancel it.
After all means you shouldn't forget this important point.
e.g: I don't think Daniel should be allowed out late - after all, he's only 16.
If things happen to make you change plans:
In the end we decided to cancel it.
===================== Furthermore - What's more
Great! Sally's coming to the party. Furthermore, she's bringing Jane!
Furthermore is used in more formal language to introduce another idea.
-> Great! Sally's coming to the party. What's more, she's bringing Jane!
The proposed bridge would be more efficient. Furthermore, it would have cost advantages.
===================== On the other side
Your mother's starting to look old. On the other side, she's still beautiful.
An argument does have two sides, but we say:
-> On the other hand, she's still beautiful.
==================== Despite
Despite of the problem, we managed to finish on time
Don't use of after despite.
-> Despite the problem, we .. (commonly used )
-> In spite of the problem, we
=================== Explain
She explained me the problem (X) -> She explained the problem to me
===================Remind
Peter reminded me of the chicken in the oven. (X) ->
If you are reminded of someone or something, you think of it because there's a similarity, e.g. Peter reminds me of my brother - they have very similar faces.
If you want to be sure someone doesn't forget something, you remind them about it.
-> Peter reminded me about the chicken in the oven.
===================It's and Its
The misuse of it's and its I have often encountered
'its' is a possessive form of 'it' like my, your, their, his, her, and our.
it's means it is or it has, it's is not the possessive form of a noun like my sister's husband
due to it is a pronoun
===================Think of & think about
Our secetary is thinking about leaving.
lf you're thinking about something, it is happening in your head at this moment, e.g
You look worried, Steven, what are you thinking about?
lf you have a plan but you' re not sure about it yet, you 're thinking of doing it.
-> Our secretary is thinkng of leaving.
===================remember/forget to do sth/ doing sth/ stop to do sth/ stop doing sth
try to do sth/ try doing sth (ofen misuse)
Please remember to lock the door.
I remember going to ballet classes when I was a child
Have you tried to take some aspirin? (Wrong)
This means you don't know if you can do it. If something is easy, but you don't know what the result will be, use try + V-ing
-> Have you tried taking an aspirin?
Have you tried using this shampoo, it's really nice
I cam here for learning English (Wrong)
-> If you want to say why you do something, use to
not for
I came here to learn English
This knife is to cut meat. (Wrong)
use for doing to explain what something is used for
=================== How much you have done ========
I've been painting three rooms today (Wrong)
To say how much you have done, use
I 've painted three rooms today
She 's interviewed 11 people so far this morning
To describe activity over a period of time:
I've been painting all afternoon
=================== will / going to / v-ing ========
I'll visit our Lisbon office next week! (is used incorrectly)
If you use will to talk about the future plans, it means you are deciding the plan at the moment you are speaking
-> The phone is ringing. I will get it.
For plans you have already made, there are two possibilities:
-> I'm going to visit our Lisbon office next week.
This means you've decided the plan (in your head) but may not have arranged it with the people in Lisbon yet.
-> I'm visiting our Lisbon office next week
This means you've definitely arranged the visit with the people in Lisbon
======================= Suggest ========
The doctor suggested taking exercise. (Wrong)
If you sugest doing sth, you are one of the people who will do it.
-> He suggested that I (should) take exercise.
======================= Too , So, Very ========
Your garden is too beautiful (Wrong)
Too + adjective means there's a problem: e.g. This sofa's too big to go in the room.
-> Your garden is very/so beautiful
======================== Much and a lot of ========
Wrong: He has much money.
Don't use much in positive sentences, use it in negatives and questions
-> He hasn't got much money. Do you have much work to do today?
A lot of can be used with negatives, questions and in positive sentences.
======================== Leave home to go to work / to school (not leave the house)========
======================== cause trouble /not make trouble ========
===================help sb do sth ========
help sb to do sth (wrong)
=================== High & Tall ========
My friend is two metres high (X) -> my friend is two metres tall
=================== Clean & Tidy ========
The guests will be here soon. I'll just clean the living room
We usually clean using water, You can quickly tidy a room by putting everything in its place.
I'll just tidy the living room.
===================Nervous ============
My boss is difficult to work for
she's always very nervous. (X)
Nervous means worried and lacking confidence
(usually before something important, like an
exam). lf someone always has a difficult
character , you can say they are bad-tempered
My boss is difficult to work for. She
always very bad-tempered.
==================== With / By ========
The man was killed by a knife -> the man was killed with a knife
(by the person using it)
================== Cooker ============
My sister is a very good cooker (X) -> a cooker is a machine, a person who cooks is a cook
===================Shout to & shout at ========
That's my friend on the other side of the street. I'll shout at him (X) -> I'll shout to him
You shout at someone when you're angry. To attract someone's attention, you shout to them.
===================By yourself & On your own ========
I put the tent up all by myself or on my own. (not by my own)
===================== However
It's a nice car, however it's expensive
Use but in informal language: However (more formal) goes with the second opposite idea in another sentence.
We understand your problem. However, we can't help.
===================== Guess who? -> Guess who! ======
Since “Guess who” is a command rather than a real question, technically it should not be followed by a question mark. A period or exclamation point will do fine. Similarly, there should be no question mark after the simple command “Guess!”
www.english-for-students.com
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Get Up And Get Moving
Get Up And Get Moving
Once you have decided to take responsibility and make changes in your personal life, your business or your community, it is necessary to take action. You can have all the lofty goals and ambitions you want but until you actually take some action, they remain simply wishes and unfulfilled dreams. The Bible tells us that faith without works is dead. The key to all personal power is action.
Taking Action
Make that extra phone call, write that extra letter, send the email, or do whatever it is that you have a tendency to avoid doing. Procrastination is surely a death rattle. It will stop us from ever achieving our goals. It will prevent us from ever having that which we want and deserve for ourselves and our loved one's. In order to live fully, you must end procrastination -- now. Don't be like the guy who was going to start a club for procrastinator's but decided to wait.
Do It Now
How many times have you had a great idea for a business and six months later saw it sitting on a shelf somewhere? Someone had stolen your idea. How many times have you had an idea at work and hesitated, only to find someone else had made the suggestion and received the credit for it? Let me ask you a question. What was the difference between your idea and the person who actually implemented it? I'm sure you have already guessed it. They took action. It's that simple. Action. The way to realize the power and potential you have is to take action.
Have a plan
Once you have decided on your goal, and written it down. Then, write down the action steps you will need to take to reach it.
If your goal is to increase your sales by 30% in the next six months, write down the actions you will need to take, step by step. This may mean developing an advertising program or hiring a new salesperson. Perhaps you will want to send a letter to all of your present customers. Whatever it is you want to do, there are steps you can take to accomplish your objective. Write them down.
Be sure to include one or two things you can do right now, today, to get yourself moving toward your new goal. Doing something immediately brings into being the law of physics that says an object in motion tends to stay in motion until acted upon by an outside force. By taking the first step, however small, you are putting yourself and your talents in motion and before you realize it, you will have reached your destination.
Telephone Interviews
http://www.seekingsuccess.com/articles/art167.php
Telephone Interviews
By Tamara Dowling, CPRW
Many employers conduct telephone interviews to screen candidates for basic qualifications. It is also an alternative when it is not practical to invite an out-of-area candidate to the office.
Telephone interviews can be challenging because it is more difficult to gain rapport with the interviewer because you cannot see the interviewer's non-verbal reactions and cues. Conversely, the interviewer cannot see your enthusiastic expressions or professional appearance. This places all the weight on your phone manners, clarity of speech, voice tone and the content of your answers.
Here is a quick tip list for excelling at a telephone interview:
- Treat the phone interview as you would a face-to-face interview.
- Select a quiet, private room with a telephone in good working condition.
- Conduct a mock telephone interview with a friend to gain feedback on your voice quality and speech.
- Before the interview, prepare talking points for the call including value you bring to the company and specific questions.
- Arrange the following items: your resume, cover letter, copy of application if you submitted one, highlights of corporate information and brief talking points.
- Dress in business attire.
- Breathe deeply and relax. Speak slowly, clearly and with purpose.
- Smile, it changes your speech and the person on the other end can sense it.
- Write down the full names and titles of each call participant.
- Take notes when appropriate.
- Be courteous and try not to speak over the interviewer. If you do, apologize and let the interviewer continue.
- Support your statements with detailed examples of accomplishments when possible. It is easy for someone to get distracted on a phone call, so paint a vivid picture to keep the interviewer interested.
- Explain any pauses in your speech to ponder a question or take notes.
- If you think of a question or comment while the interviewer is speaking, jot a note on your talking points list, so you remember it later.
- During the interview, if the interviewer inadvertently answers a question from your prepared list, cross it off. If you forget and ask it, it will seem as if you were not listening.
- Offer to provide additional information or answer other questions.
- Use your talking points list of specific skills and accomplishments; cross them off as you work them into the conversation. At the end, if you have some uncrossed items, you might say something like, "I thought you might be interested to know I led a major conversion project, quite similar to what you are planning. I managed a $2.5 million budget and completed it 45 days early, saving over $48,000."
- Before ending the call, be sure you know the next step in the process, and offer to provide any additional information needed.
- Do not hang up until the interviewer has hung up.
- Promptly send a formal follow-up / thank you letter, just as you would for a face-to-face interview.
What Is The 80/20 Rule
What Is The 80/20 Rule And Why It Will Change Your Life
I mention the 80/20 rule frequently in my writings so I thought it was about time to write a proper introduction to the concept. I believe it’s fundamental to every business person – to every human being – so if you have never heard of this rule, please read on and absorb everything I’m about to tell you, it could potentially change your life.
The 80/20 rule sounds like a statistic and in some ways it is. Personally I’m not a big fan of maths and beyond basic web statistics like pageviews, impressions, unique visitors – and when I stretch myself – conversion rates and split testing, I try and avoid all complex numbers. I work better with feelings, ideas and concepts.
The good thing about the 80/20 rule is that you don’t have to understand statistics to be a believer. Yes it has foundations in economics and yes, it was “proven” using statistical analysis by a man named Pareto, but it is not meant to be understood only by economics professors.
Here’s what the Wikipedia has to say about it:
The principle was suggested by management thinker Joseph M. Juran. It was named after the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who observed that 80% of income in Italy was received by 20% of the Italian population. The assumption is that most of the results in any situation are determined by a small number of causes.
I can’t remember exactly when I was first exposed to the 80/20 Rule but I know when it first really hit home. I was in my local bookshop and I picked up a copy of Living The 80/20 Way by Richard Koch. Koch took the 80/20 Rule and made it his own by writing a series of books on the topic. Living The 80/20 Way fit me well because it discussed living life productively seeking maximum satisfaction by focusing on your passions (Koch has written other books focusing on the 80/20 Rule for business and managers that I didn’t enjoy quite as much). At the time I sometimes accused myself of being lazy for not “working hard” but I realized what I was doing was living an 80/20 lifestyle and in fact probably being a lot more productive than those working harder than myself.
What Exactly Is The 80/20 Rule?
By the numbers it means that 80 percent of your outcomes come from 20 percent of your inputs. As Pareto demonstrated with his research this “rule” holds true, in a very rough sense, to an 80/20 ratio, however in many cases the ratio can be a lot higher – 99/1 may be closer to reality.
It really doesn’t matter what numbers you apply, the important thing to understand is that in your life there are certain activities you do (your 20 percent) that account for the majority (your 80 percent) of your happiness and outputs.
You may have expected me to say that 20 percent of your activities produce 80 percent of your financial rewards, and that is true, there are probably a handful of activities you do each week that produce your income. You can definitely apply the 80/20 Rule to most aspects of your business or working life, however I believe your overall happiness and satisfaction are much better variables to focus on. Money certainly plays an important role in your happiness and your money is influenced by 80/20 relationships, but it is only a component that leads to your overall well being, which should be your primary concern.
80/20 Examples
There are many economic conditions, for example the distribution of wealth and resources on planet earth, where a small percentage of the population controls the biggest chunk, which clearly demonstrate the 80/20 Rule. There are business examples such as 20 percent of employees are responsible for 80 percent of a company’s output or 20 percent of customers are responsible for 80 percent of the revenues (or usually even more disparate ratios). These are not hard rules, not every company will be like this and the ratio won’t be exactly 80/20, but chances are if you look at many key metrics in a business there is definitely a minority creating a majority.
At a micro level just by looking at your daily habits you can find plenty of examples where the 80/20 Rule applies. You probably make most of your phone calls to a very small amount of the people you have numbers for. You likely spend a large chunk of your money on few things (perhaps rent, mortgage payments or food). There is a good chance that you spend most of your time with only a few people from the entire pool of people you know.
I’ll present to you how the 80/20 Rule applies to my life and how I have used the concept, although not always deliberately – it’s just the way I construct my life (for maximum pleasure!) -to improve the efficiency of my output and enhance my overall lifestyle.
My 80/20 Life
In my life I’ve noticed plenty of 80/20 ratios and generally they relate to my core competencies and passions. I really enjoy writing articles such as this, recording podcasts and interacting with other business people through Skype and blogging. In terms of rewards, the two-to-four hours or so per day that I spend writing – when I’m in the creative zone and my best work comes out almost effortlessly – is my money time. My articles and podcasts work hardest to generate income for me, create business opportunities and allow me to express myself creatively. I get the most financial and intrinsic satisfaction from this time.
I expect you could tell me a similar story about your life. During times you really enjoy yourself your output is at its peak. Your passion activities probably don’t pay your bills at the moment, which unfortunately means that you can’t sustain your life by indulging only in what you enjoy. I’ll talk more about transforming your life to a financially stable and personally fulfilling 80/20 format later in this article.
During some times in my life I struggle and waste time performing activities I don’t enjoy or I am not good at. For example bookkeeping is not high on my fun list. I don’t always like managing keywords in Google AdWords campaigns because I don’t have the patience to thoroughly test the variables and track the numbers. The same can be said for things like Google Analytics. These activities are more numerical in basis, I’m not a numbers person so when possible I leave these tasks, along with other activities like programming, graphic design and proofreading to other people, the specialists who enjoy them.
Some of my time is spent procrastinating or working inefficiently doing activities that provide very little benefit. This often occurs when I am tired or below peak physical condition. I sometimes lack the mental throughput to motivate myself to be productive (and boy, my writing stinks when I’m tired!), but I’m working on it and getting much better at reducing time wastage. When I’m in this state it’s smarter for me to study – read books and ebooks – because I’m not capable of producing quality output, but taking input – learning – is a good use of time when I am not there 100 percent mentally.
80/20 Business
When I look at one of my businesses, BetterEdit.com, it’s very clear that a small handful of repeat customers account for most of the income. The customers who become longterm users, who gain the most from the services and fit well demographically and socially with the business model, are key. They provide 80 percent of the value but only represent 20 percent (or much less) of the overall people that use the business. My job is to determine the best way to attract and convert more customers into longterm users.
With blogging I learnt (and teach in my Blog Traffic Tips newsletter) that there are a handful of activities that I do every day that produce the most results. Breaking things down further, there are usually a key 20 percent of elements within an individual blog article (think article headline) that have the most dramatic affect on results. The numbers of course are not clean 80/20 ratios but there are definitely dominant factors at play.
In a business sense, finding the 80/20 ratios is crucial for maximizing performance. Find the products or services that generate the most income (the 20 percent) and drop the rest (the 80 percent) that only provide marginal benefits. Spend your time working on the parts of the business that you can improve significantly with your core skills and leave the tasks that are outside your best 20 percent to other people. Work hardest on elements that work hardest for you. Reward the best employees well, cull the worst. Drop the bad clients and focus on upselling and improving service to the best clients.
How You Can Live An 80/20 Lifestyle
When you start to analyze and breakdown your life into elements it’s very easy to see 80/20 ratios all over the place. The trick, once your key happiness determinants have been identified, is to make everything work in harmony and avoid wasting time on those 80 percent activities that produce little satisfaction for you.
The message is simple enough – focus on activities that produce the best outcomes for you. This applies to both your business/working life and your “other” life (I think they are all part of your “life” but people often prefer to distinguish them). The problem for most people is how to make a living from what you really enjoy, so lets focus on that…
I’m sure you have heard the phrase “struggling artist”. The stereotype where a creative person, musicians, actors, writers and artists, struggle to get discovered and work long hours on horrible day jobs, often in retail and hospitality, until hopefully they finally break out, get discovered and become famous. It shouldn’t surprise you that the ratio of struggling artists who actually become famous enough to live off their craft also follows an 80/20 Rule – only a small few of the overall total manage to get that far.
The same can be said for entrepreneurs. How many of you now reading this article are working day jobs, jobs you probably don’t like much, while you work hard after-hours to get your dream business up and running?
In truth, and this is a sad fact, most people in the world work jobs they don’t like and only truly live their passions on weekends and outside of working hours. Only a small sample actually live their passions day in and day out, how they want to and when they want to. If you want to become one of the special few so you can live your passions on your terms there are a few things you can do.
Focus On Your Passions, Not Material Possessions
The simple fact is not everyone can be a famous artist. Not everyone will start a million dollar business. I’m not going to tell you stop striving for those goals, I’m working on them myself, however you can work smarter TODAY to find greater fulfillment, and that is what living an 80/20 lifestyle is all about. Best of all, your likelihood of becoming one of the famous artists or entrepreneurs is enhanced if you tweak your life to follow the 80/20 Rule because you tap into what you do best more often.
The first thing you must decide, and this is often the hardest step, is to determine what it is exactly you have passion for. Some people can answer this question easily – “I want to be a famous pianists/singer/poet/author”, “I’d like to run my own real estate agency/coffee shop/advertising company” etc. Others may have a general idea “I don’t want a day job” or “I want to run a business” but the specifics are not sorted yet. If you are not sure what your passions are all I can suggest is test yourself. It’s usually easy to determine what you DON’T like so keep doing that until you find what it is you DO like.
Outputs Vs Inputs
I’d like to make a point about outputs vs inputs before moving on. Most humans are good consumers – we are good at taking inputs. Chances are you can easily rattle off a bunch of things you do enjoy about your life: eating out at nice restaurants, consuming junk food, reading books and magazines, going to parties and dance clubs, watching movies and DVDs, listening to music, meeting new people, surfing the net, having sex, playing sports and shopping. All of these activities more or less are inputs which means you consume the outputs of other people.
You may consider the activities I just mentioned passions but it’s hard to find a sustainable passion if all you do is consume. To foster an 80/20 lifestyle you need to locate activities that are passions for you because you create output for others to enjoy. Yes you can get paid to have sex, watch movies, eat at restaurants and read books, but chances are you won’t find it fulfilling or sustainable for very long OR you will be required to provide something back as part of your involvement – that’s your output, the value you create.
It’s okay to love eating out at restaurants and claiming your passion is food, if your intention is to also create output by starting your own restaurant, or a restaurant reviews website or a newsletter or magazine or becoming a chef. If you enjoy listening to music you might also enjoy producing your own music or covering the music industry as a journalist on your own blog.
Only by producing output for other people to enjoy or make practical use of can you expect to convert a passion into a sustainable income. You should understand this already as I suspect the times in your life that you have created something for others or worked on something that benefited other people you experienced the most fulfillment. If you suffer from a lack of direction now, if you are depressed because you don’t even know what your passions are to start applying the 80/20 Rule to, you need to do one thing – start being creative and giving back – produce output! You won’t find fulfillment only by consuming.
An 80/20 Lifestyle Blueprint
To start living 80/20 today you have only to do one thing – focus your energies on what you enjoy.
Part time work – Part time passion
Many people work a full time job and work after hours on a business or hobby or creative talent. If this is you I suspect your ratio is not 80/20 and probably closer to 20/80. You spend way too much time at a job you don’t like, you are probably not very motivated to do it well so you don’t fall into the vital 80/20 employees for that company, and by the time you get home you are too exhausted to spend time on your passion. You feel like you are getting nowhere fast. This lifestyle is not good for anyone since all the relationships fall into the 80 percent that produce 20 percent of the value. You get very little from it and the people you work for get very little from you.
If this currently describes your situation what you need to do is start changing those ratios. Reduce the amount of time you spend at a job you don’t like and increase the amount of time you spend on your passion. You may say you can’t do that because you need the money but I suspect you don’t really need as much as you think you do. Most people can live off part time work but choose to work more because they want more things. You may see your peers enjoying material goods which creates desires in you. Your wants start to outweigh your needs, which is probably the biggest pitfall in our modern, advertising driven, materialistic society.
I’m not saying you have to live like a pauper but I know that your real happiness comes from spending time doing things you enjoy the most, not from earning more money. Chasing the dollar for the sake of the dollar does not work. Chasing passion often leads to a greater income because the quality of your output is so much higher. Focus your energy on increasing investment in your core strengths and you will reap rewards.
Drop your working hours to three days per week and spend more time attracting more clients, booking more singing gigs, finding more time to write your novel or to develop your invention or code your software or find investors or whatever it is you really want to do.
For those of you who have no intention of turning your passions into money generating enterprises this is still a good option. If money isn’t your primary concern but your music is, why do you spend so much time working to earn more money than you need? Yes you need to plan for the future and build assets, but clearly for your musical soul it’s not something that needs to take the majority of your time and energy. You can be happy without that mansion by the sea and you never know, if you spent more time on your music the eventual album sales may one day lead to that mansion by the sea. If not, at least you will be a lot happier for following your enthusiasm rather than the dollar.
If financial freedom is important to you and a big part of your plans look at this step as phase one and work to convert your passions into income generating propositions. Grow your business client-by-client, gig-by-gig or sale-by-sale. keep adjusting your work vs passion time ratio as your business grows to support you and you no longer need your job income. Look for 80/20 activities in everything you do and drop any inefficiencies as soon as you can.
Don’t Let Fear Stop You
The biggest factor that stops most people from chasing their dreams and working towards their real goals is fear. Fear of the lack of security, the reduced paycheck and of the unknown future keeps people locked into routines that are not satisfying. That path leads to sadness, depression, poor health, low income and ultimately an early death. Who wants that!
Don’t let fear be the reason for not achieving your goals. Stop, reassess your real passions, remove the money equation long enough so you can think without worrying about finances, and make plans to move towards your 80/20 lifestyle activities. Maximize what you are good at. Find the activities that produce the most results for you and your business and put your energy where the big rewards are.
Yaro Starak
80/20 Optimizer
I mention the 80/20 rule frequently in my writings so I thought it was about time to write a proper introduction to the concept. I believe it’s fundamental to every business person – to every human being – so if you have never heard of this rule, please read on and absorb everything I’m about to tell you, it could potentially change your life.
The 80/20 rule sounds like a statistic and in some ways it is. Personally I’m not a big fan of maths and beyond basic web statistics like pageviews, impressions, unique visitors – and when I stretch myself – conversion rates and split testing, I try and avoid all complex numbers. I work better with feelings, ideas and concepts.
The good thing about the 80/20 rule is that you don’t have to understand statistics to be a believer. Yes it has foundations in economics and yes, it was “proven” using statistical analysis by a man named Pareto, but it is not meant to be understood only by economics professors.
Here’s what the Wikipedia has to say about it:
The principle was suggested by management thinker Joseph M. Juran. It was named after the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who observed that 80% of income in Italy was received by 20% of the Italian population. The assumption is that most of the results in any situation are determined by a small number of causes.
I can’t remember exactly when I was first exposed to the 80/20 Rule but I know when it first really hit home. I was in my local bookshop and I picked up a copy of Living The 80/20 Way by Richard Koch. Koch took the 80/20 Rule and made it his own by writing a series of books on the topic. Living The 80/20 Way fit me well because it discussed living life productively seeking maximum satisfaction by focusing on your passions (Koch has written other books focusing on the 80/20 Rule for business and managers that I didn’t enjoy quite as much). At the time I sometimes accused myself of being lazy for not “working hard” but I realized what I was doing was living an 80/20 lifestyle and in fact probably being a lot more productive than those working harder than myself.
What Exactly Is The 80/20 Rule?
By the numbers it means that 80 percent of your outcomes come from 20 percent of your inputs. As Pareto demonstrated with his research this “rule” holds true, in a very rough sense, to an 80/20 ratio, however in many cases the ratio can be a lot higher – 99/1 may be closer to reality.
It really doesn’t matter what numbers you apply, the important thing to understand is that in your life there are certain activities you do (your 20 percent) that account for the majority (your 80 percent) of your happiness and outputs.
You may have expected me to say that 20 percent of your activities produce 80 percent of your financial rewards, and that is true, there are probably a handful of activities you do each week that produce your income. You can definitely apply the 80/20 Rule to most aspects of your business or working life, however I believe your overall happiness and satisfaction are much better variables to focus on. Money certainly plays an important role in your happiness and your money is influenced by 80/20 relationships, but it is only a component that leads to your overall well being, which should be your primary concern.
80/20 Examples
There are many economic conditions, for example the distribution of wealth and resources on planet earth, where a small percentage of the population controls the biggest chunk, which clearly demonstrate the 80/20 Rule. There are business examples such as 20 percent of employees are responsible for 80 percent of a company’s output or 20 percent of customers are responsible for 80 percent of the revenues (or usually even more disparate ratios). These are not hard rules, not every company will be like this and the ratio won’t be exactly 80/20, but chances are if you look at many key metrics in a business there is definitely a minority creating a majority.
At a micro level just by looking at your daily habits you can find plenty of examples where the 80/20 Rule applies. You probably make most of your phone calls to a very small amount of the people you have numbers for. You likely spend a large chunk of your money on few things (perhaps rent, mortgage payments or food). There is a good chance that you spend most of your time with only a few people from the entire pool of people you know.
I’ll present to you how the 80/20 Rule applies to my life and how I have used the concept, although not always deliberately – it’s just the way I construct my life (for maximum pleasure!) -to improve the efficiency of my output and enhance my overall lifestyle.
My 80/20 Life
In my life I’ve noticed plenty of 80/20 ratios and generally they relate to my core competencies and passions. I really enjoy writing articles such as this, recording podcasts and interacting with other business people through Skype and blogging. In terms of rewards, the two-to-four hours or so per day that I spend writing – when I’m in the creative zone and my best work comes out almost effortlessly – is my money time. My articles and podcasts work hardest to generate income for me, create business opportunities and allow me to express myself creatively. I get the most financial and intrinsic satisfaction from this time.
I expect you could tell me a similar story about your life. During times you really enjoy yourself your output is at its peak. Your passion activities probably don’t pay your bills at the moment, which unfortunately means that you can’t sustain your life by indulging only in what you enjoy. I’ll talk more about transforming your life to a financially stable and personally fulfilling 80/20 format later in this article.
During some times in my life I struggle and waste time performing activities I don’t enjoy or I am not good at. For example bookkeeping is not high on my fun list. I don’t always like managing keywords in Google AdWords campaigns because I don’t have the patience to thoroughly test the variables and track the numbers. The same can be said for things like Google Analytics. These activities are more numerical in basis, I’m not a numbers person so when possible I leave these tasks, along with other activities like programming, graphic design and proofreading to other people, the specialists who enjoy them.
Some of my time is spent procrastinating or working inefficiently doing activities that provide very little benefit. This often occurs when I am tired or below peak physical condition. I sometimes lack the mental throughput to motivate myself to be productive (and boy, my writing stinks when I’m tired!), but I’m working on it and getting much better at reducing time wastage. When I’m in this state it’s smarter for me to study – read books and ebooks – because I’m not capable of producing quality output, but taking input – learning – is a good use of time when I am not there 100 percent mentally.
80/20 Business
When I look at one of my businesses, BetterEdit.com, it’s very clear that a small handful of repeat customers account for most of the income. The customers who become longterm users, who gain the most from the services and fit well demographically and socially with the business model, are key. They provide 80 percent of the value but only represent 20 percent (or much less) of the overall people that use the business. My job is to determine the best way to attract and convert more customers into longterm users.
With blogging I learnt (and teach in my Blog Traffic Tips newsletter) that there are a handful of activities that I do every day that produce the most results. Breaking things down further, there are usually a key 20 percent of elements within an individual blog article (think article headline) that have the most dramatic affect on results. The numbers of course are not clean 80/20 ratios but there are definitely dominant factors at play.
In a business sense, finding the 80/20 ratios is crucial for maximizing performance. Find the products or services that generate the most income (the 20 percent) and drop the rest (the 80 percent) that only provide marginal benefits. Spend your time working on the parts of the business that you can improve significantly with your core skills and leave the tasks that are outside your best 20 percent to other people. Work hardest on elements that work hardest for you. Reward the best employees well, cull the worst. Drop the bad clients and focus on upselling and improving service to the best clients.
How You Can Live An 80/20 Lifestyle
When you start to analyze and breakdown your life into elements it’s very easy to see 80/20 ratios all over the place. The trick, once your key happiness determinants have been identified, is to make everything work in harmony and avoid wasting time on those 80 percent activities that produce little satisfaction for you.
The message is simple enough – focus on activities that produce the best outcomes for you. This applies to both your business/working life and your “other” life (I think they are all part of your “life” but people often prefer to distinguish them). The problem for most people is how to make a living from what you really enjoy, so lets focus on that…
I’m sure you have heard the phrase “struggling artist”. The stereotype where a creative person, musicians, actors, writers and artists, struggle to get discovered and work long hours on horrible day jobs, often in retail and hospitality, until hopefully they finally break out, get discovered and become famous. It shouldn’t surprise you that the ratio of struggling artists who actually become famous enough to live off their craft also follows an 80/20 Rule – only a small few of the overall total manage to get that far.
The same can be said for entrepreneurs. How many of you now reading this article are working day jobs, jobs you probably don’t like much, while you work hard after-hours to get your dream business up and running?
In truth, and this is a sad fact, most people in the world work jobs they don’t like and only truly live their passions on weekends and outside of working hours. Only a small sample actually live their passions day in and day out, how they want to and when they want to. If you want to become one of the special few so you can live your passions on your terms there are a few things you can do.
Focus On Your Passions, Not Material Possessions
The simple fact is not everyone can be a famous artist. Not everyone will start a million dollar business. I’m not going to tell you stop striving for those goals, I’m working on them myself, however you can work smarter TODAY to find greater fulfillment, and that is what living an 80/20 lifestyle is all about. Best of all, your likelihood of becoming one of the famous artists or entrepreneurs is enhanced if you tweak your life to follow the 80/20 Rule because you tap into what you do best more often.
The first thing you must decide, and this is often the hardest step, is to determine what it is exactly you have passion for. Some people can answer this question easily – “I want to be a famous pianists/singer/poet/author”, “I’d like to run my own real estate agency/coffee shop/advertising company” etc. Others may have a general idea “I don’t want a day job” or “I want to run a business” but the specifics are not sorted yet. If you are not sure what your passions are all I can suggest is test yourself. It’s usually easy to determine what you DON’T like so keep doing that until you find what it is you DO like.
Outputs Vs Inputs
I’d like to make a point about outputs vs inputs before moving on. Most humans are good consumers – we are good at taking inputs. Chances are you can easily rattle off a bunch of things you do enjoy about your life: eating out at nice restaurants, consuming junk food, reading books and magazines, going to parties and dance clubs, watching movies and DVDs, listening to music, meeting new people, surfing the net, having sex, playing sports and shopping. All of these activities more or less are inputs which means you consume the outputs of other people.
You may consider the activities I just mentioned passions but it’s hard to find a sustainable passion if all you do is consume. To foster an 80/20 lifestyle you need to locate activities that are passions for you because you create output for others to enjoy. Yes you can get paid to have sex, watch movies, eat at restaurants and read books, but chances are you won’t find it fulfilling or sustainable for very long OR you will be required to provide something back as part of your involvement – that’s your output, the value you create.
It’s okay to love eating out at restaurants and claiming your passion is food, if your intention is to also create output by starting your own restaurant, or a restaurant reviews website or a newsletter or magazine or becoming a chef. If you enjoy listening to music you might also enjoy producing your own music or covering the music industry as a journalist on your own blog.
Only by producing output for other people to enjoy or make practical use of can you expect to convert a passion into a sustainable income. You should understand this already as I suspect the times in your life that you have created something for others or worked on something that benefited other people you experienced the most fulfillment. If you suffer from a lack of direction now, if you are depressed because you don’t even know what your passions are to start applying the 80/20 Rule to, you need to do one thing – start being creative and giving back – produce output! You won’t find fulfillment only by consuming.
An 80/20 Lifestyle Blueprint
To start living 80/20 today you have only to do one thing – focus your energies on what you enjoy.
Part time work – Part time passion
Many people work a full time job and work after hours on a business or hobby or creative talent. If this is you I suspect your ratio is not 80/20 and probably closer to 20/80. You spend way too much time at a job you don’t like, you are probably not very motivated to do it well so you don’t fall into the vital 80/20 employees for that company, and by the time you get home you are too exhausted to spend time on your passion. You feel like you are getting nowhere fast. This lifestyle is not good for anyone since all the relationships fall into the 80 percent that produce 20 percent of the value. You get very little from it and the people you work for get very little from you.
If this currently describes your situation what you need to do is start changing those ratios. Reduce the amount of time you spend at a job you don’t like and increase the amount of time you spend on your passion. You may say you can’t do that because you need the money but I suspect you don’t really need as much as you think you do. Most people can live off part time work but choose to work more because they want more things. You may see your peers enjoying material goods which creates desires in you. Your wants start to outweigh your needs, which is probably the biggest pitfall in our modern, advertising driven, materialistic society.
I’m not saying you have to live like a pauper but I know that your real happiness comes from spending time doing things you enjoy the most, not from earning more money. Chasing the dollar for the sake of the dollar does not work. Chasing passion often leads to a greater income because the quality of your output is so much higher. Focus your energy on increasing investment in your core strengths and you will reap rewards.
Drop your working hours to three days per week and spend more time attracting more clients, booking more singing gigs, finding more time to write your novel or to develop your invention or code your software or find investors or whatever it is you really want to do.
For those of you who have no intention of turning your passions into money generating enterprises this is still a good option. If money isn’t your primary concern but your music is, why do you spend so much time working to earn more money than you need? Yes you need to plan for the future and build assets, but clearly for your musical soul it’s not something that needs to take the majority of your time and energy. You can be happy without that mansion by the sea and you never know, if you spent more time on your music the eventual album sales may one day lead to that mansion by the sea. If not, at least you will be a lot happier for following your enthusiasm rather than the dollar.
If financial freedom is important to you and a big part of your plans look at this step as phase one and work to convert your passions into income generating propositions. Grow your business client-by-client, gig-by-gig or sale-by-sale. keep adjusting your work vs passion time ratio as your business grows to support you and you no longer need your job income. Look for 80/20 activities in everything you do and drop any inefficiencies as soon as you can.
Don’t Let Fear Stop You
The biggest factor that stops most people from chasing their dreams and working towards their real goals is fear. Fear of the lack of security, the reduced paycheck and of the unknown future keeps people locked into routines that are not satisfying. That path leads to sadness, depression, poor health, low income and ultimately an early death. Who wants that!
Don’t let fear be the reason for not achieving your goals. Stop, reassess your real passions, remove the money equation long enough so you can think without worrying about finances, and make plans to move towards your 80/20 lifestyle activities. Maximize what you are good at. Find the activities that produce the most results for you and your business and put your energy where the big rewards are.
Yaro Starak
80/20 Optimizer
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