2024 was a year defined by challenges, including a recession and many layoffs, a brutal job market, and many companies forcing a return to office. Despite those challenges, you’ve made it to the end of the year and deserve some celebration. Whether you started a new career, joined a new industry, are navigating a job search, looking to further develop your skills, or want to make your workplace more efficient and inclusive, we applaud your efforts toward growth and are thankful that you’re part of the NexGoal community! As always, we’d like to take the time to thank our readers, the candidates, and the clients we work with daily for your support and for working with us in 2024.
The New Year always represents a time for self-reflection, and we’re no different. We wanted to take time and look over our Career Advice articles that strongly resonated with our audience in 2024. This collection includes some of our newer pieces, covering topics like workplace culture, interview strategies, savvy LinkedIn tips, and setting career goals. These five articles were some of your favorites, and we hope they’ll continue to guide you as we head into 2025!
Why You Shouldn’t Call Your Workplace A Family
Some companies will use the phrase “we’re like a family” to market a positive and close work culture, but the phrase is actually a red flag. Even if the intentions are good and your work culture is mostly positive, the phrase “we’re like a family” has toxic undertones that should make job seekers wary.
Work and family are drastically different behemoths and should be treated as such. Why is calling your workplace a family doing more harm than good? We’ll cover the major problems and why you should rethink the term.
How To Describe A Typical Workday In An Interview
There are a lot of stock questions you’ll face in most of your interviews. Even if you prepare well, it can be easy to lose steam with these seemingly innocuous questions. So if an interviewer asks you to describe your typical workday, make sure you can provide an answer that adds value and shows why you’ll be the ideal candidate.
Describing your typical workday allows you to highlight the skills you’ll bring to the job, how your experience relates to the role, and how well you handle juggling multiple responsibilities. Make sure you’re providing a meaningful and exciting answer to earn that coveted role!
Avoid Looking Desperate In Your Job Search!
There are many situations in life where you’ll simply need whatever job you can find. Whether you’re moving to a new city, switching industries, or simply need to pay the bills, sometimes you’ll need to take what you can find. But don’t make that obvious through the job-seeking process. Coming across as desperate will significantly lower your shot of getting hired.
“The problem with desperation is that it causes you to focus on what you should get rather than what you can give. And when a company is hiring, they’re concerned with the latter, not the former.” –Mark Anthony Dyson
Even when employers themselves desperately need to fill a role, they don’t like when a job seeker appears desperate. As a job seeker, you need to express the value you can bring to that organization rather than focusing on your needs. In order to avoid looking desperate in your search, avoid these common behaviors.
Pros And Cons Of Using LinkedIn’s “Open To Work” Badge
It’s often challenging to find a new role in a crowded job market. Thankfully, there are a myriad of tools out there to help with the journey. For example, LinkedIn has a badge that can be added to your profile to show that you are “Open to Work” and allow recruiters to easily find your profile. There is a similar “Hiring” badge for recruiters with open positions. Oddly, however, this feature is considered controversial.
Making yourself more visible to those with open roles seems like a massive benefit. But detractors believe it makes a job seeker look desperate, among other reasons. We’ll look at both sides of this argument, but only you can decide whether it’s right for you.
Is A Bridge Job Right For You?
Let’s face it, finding a job when you really need one isn’t easy. Among national crises, layoffs, skilled competition, or simply an unfriendly market, sometimes your dream job might seem far off. In these cases, it’s worth considering taking a bridge job.
If you need to pay the bills, get the right skills for a career change, or avoid having too large of a career gap on your resume, a bridge job might be the right option. We’ll explore the concept of a bridge job and when it might be time to find out in this breakdown.
Wrap up
We’d once again like to thank you for taking the time to engage with us this year, and we thank you for all of your support in 2024! If you’ve missed out on any of these career development tips, we hope you find them useful today!
If there’s anything you’d like to see from our content team in 2025, reach out and let us know! Likewise, if you need assistance with our hiring goals in the coming year, send us a message through our Recruiting Services portal!
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