Thursday, May 10, 2012

College Degrees Employers Want Most

College Degrees Employers Want Most According to a recent report from the National Association of Colleges and Employers, these five degrees are in demand with employers. By Sarah Tann Do you want to go back to school and earn a degree that employers actually want? In their "Job Outlook 2012" report, the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) uncovered which college degrees are most wanted by employers in 2012. The report also noted that the surveyed employers said that they plan to hire 9.5 percent more new graduates between 2011 and 2012 than they did between 2010 and 2011. New York career expert and psychologist, Eileen Sharaga, is not surprised by these numbers. "Economic reports indicate that employers are starting to hire," says Sharaga, noting that industries like accounting, finance, and computer science are seeing a bright hiring outlook. So, how exactly do you get these employers to come after you? While there are no guarantees that a specific degree will lead to a job, it might help to know which degrees they are currently targeting. Keep reading to learn more... #1 Degree - Finance If numerical equations don't intimidate you, you might want to consider earning an in-demand bachelor's degree in finance. Most Wanted: This facts and figures degree is definitely on employers' radar, with the 2012 NACE job outlook report finding that 61.3 percent of surveyed respondents intend to hire finance degree grads. Typical Coursework: "Finance majors learn how to make financial decisions for organizations" with help from courses that cover topics like planning, raising funds, making wise investments, and controlling costs, notes the College Board, an educational organization that administers aptitude tests like the SAT. Click to Find the Right Finance Program. Potential Careers & Average Annual Salaries: It's no surprise this degree is in demand with employers. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, you could take a variety of career paths with this degree, including financial analyst ($87,740), personal financial advisor ($90,900), and insurance underwriter ($67,520).* #2 Degree - Accounting Do you like to keep an eye on your budgets and finances? Then consider studying accounting, an area that employers have their eyes on. Most Wanted: With 59.3 percent of surveyed employers planning to hire accounting grads in 2012, according to the NACE report, accounting majors would do well to keep their calculators and spreadsheets handy after graduation. Typical Coursework: "Accounting majors learn how to gather, record, analyze, interpret, and communicate information about an individual's or organization's financial performance and risks," says the College Board. To get a handle on these skills, you'll likely take commonly offered courses like business law, auditing, and tax accounting. Click to Find the Right Accounting Program. Potential Careers & Average Annual Salaries: With a bachelor's degree in accounting, you could learn the skills needed to help you pursue a career as an accountant ($70,130), auditor ($55,430), or budget analyst ($71,450).* #3 Degree - Computer and Information Sciences Computers, smartphones, and tech gadgets have become necessities in both our personal and professional lives. That might explain why so many employers are after techies with a degree in computer and information sciences. Most Wanted: In fact, according to the NACE report, 59.3 percent of surveyed employers have plans to hire computer and information science grads this year. Typical Coursework: With this degree, you'll likely learn about areas like "robotics, natural language recognition programs, artificial intelligence, programming languages, numerical analysis, and gaming technology," notes the Princeton Review's "Top 10 College Majors" list on their website. The Princeton Review is a leading provider of education support and college preparation services. Click to Find the Right Computer and Information Sciences Program. Potential Careers & Average Annual Salaries: With a bachelor's degree in this tech-savvy area, you could prepare to go after careers like network and computer systems administrator ($74,270), computer programmer ($76,010), and computer systems analyst ($82,320).* Earning a "most wanted" degree never sounded so good. #4 Degree - Engineering, Electrical and Mechanical When you think of robots and roller coasters, what comes to mind? Fun, excitement, innovation, and engineering... Okay, engineering might not have been your first thought, but did you know that without talented engineers and the in-demand degrees linked with them, robots and roller coasters might not exist? Most Wanted: Finding people to help build and purpose these types of thrilling devices and machines is a high priority for employers - at least that's what stats from the NACE report seem to indicate. The report found that 51.5 and 50 percent of surveyed employers plan to hire electrical and mechanical engineers in 2012, respectively. Typical Coursework: Electrical engineering majors "study electricity: how it works, how it's generated, and how it's used to power everything from light bulbs and radios to cell phones and robots," says the College Board. Mechanical engineering majors, on the other hand, "learn about the machines that bring convenience and excitement to our lives. They study the physics that make roller coasters loop and planes fly." Click to Find the Right Engineering Program. Potential Careers & Average Annual Salaries: It's no surprise that employers are after engineering grads. Depending on which bachelor's in engineering you earn - electrical or mechanical - you could be prepped to pursue careers like electrical engineer ($89,200), mechanical engineer ($83,550), and sales engineer ($97,320).* #5 Degree - Business Administration Leader, ambitious, problem-solver...if these are words that describe you, or terms you want to be associated with - a degree in business administration might be worth considering. And more importantly, it's a degree that employers want. Most Wanted: Employers have their sights on students with this business degree background, notes the NACE report. To get into specifics, 48.5 percent of surveyed employers said they plan to snatch business grads to join their companies this year. Typical Coursework: "This program prepares students to plan, organize, direct, and control an organization's activities," notes the College Board. And just how do students pick up this expertise? Probably from commonly offered courses that could include accounting, business communication, and management. Click to Find the Right Business Administration Program. Potential Careers & Average Annual Salaries: With this "most wanted" degree, students could prepare to pursue careers like human resources specialist ($58,890), market research analyst ($67,130), and personal financial advisor ($90,900).* *All potential careers and average annual salary information is from the U.S. Department of Labor, May 2011 statistics.

Thursday, December 2, 2010

SELL CRAFTS ONLINE

The Best Place to Sell Crafts Online?

Are you crafty? Do you know that more and more people are actually making a good living out of selling their crafts online? A new online marketplace, Etsy.com, has provided artisans with a 24/7 online craft fair for their work!

The mission of this website is to help people who make things by hand also make a living. They hope to connect, or reconnect, buyers and sellers! Most of the crafts people are in the USA, but they are distributed throughout the 150 countries.

What do people make by hand to sell on Etsy?

Well, they have dozens of categories from Accessories to Woodworking, and just about everything in between. Some of the featured items the day I wrote this include photography, jewelry, and furniture. If you have a passion for making things, you can probably find a place to sell it on Etsy!

Can You Make Money on Etsy?

Well, some sellers have exploded their business. Others make a handful of sales. The website, itself, can help you promote your goods, but you probably also need to promote it through other websites, word of mouth, press releases, etc. to really get your own Etsy Store to take off. You can find some Etsy Success Stories for inspiration.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

STARTING A PARATRANSIT BUSINESS

You may find that you can combine your love of driving with serving the needs of the elderly and disabled when you start a paratransit business.

This venture involves picking up special-needs individuals from their homes or other locations, assisting them into the vehicle, and safely driving them to their destination. Of course, you will usually be required to provide them with a ride in the other direction as well.Urban Transit: The Private Challenge to Public Transportation

This sector of the population is expected to remain stable or grow as the average age of American citizens continues to increase. Because many of these customers can’t drive or afford handicap-enabled vehicles of their own, they will rely on your services for transportation.

WHAT TO DO FIRST

When you start a paratransit business, your office location will have little impact on your level of business. Take advantage of this by choosing a location that provides ample space for the price. You will need room to house several large vans as well as office space for your dispatcher.

At least one wheelchair-accessible van is required to start your new business. While it doesn’t have to be brand new, you should make sure that it is clean and in prime condition. It will need a wheelchair lift and equipment to safely secure the chair inside the van.Urban Transit: The Private Challenge to Public Transportation

Before you start a paratransit business, call your state’s division of motor vehicles (DMV) to find out if they have special requirements to transport handicapped people. At a very minimum, you will need a chauffeur’s license that allows you to drive passengers.

Depending on your area, you may also need a taxi license. Keep in mind that many areas regulate the rates of taxi drivers. If this is the case in your location , you should check to see if there is an exception for paratransit driving services.

You may be able to charge slightly higher rates as compensation for additional equipment and time requirements. Some of your customers may be able to claim their paratransit expenses on their health insurance. If this is a possibility, check with the major insurance providers in your area to make sure that you meet all the requirements to become an approved transit service.The economic impact of Section 16 of the Urban Mass Transportation Act on small businesses transporting the elderly and handicapped in New England (SuDoc SBA 1.20/3:53)

KEYS TO PARATRANSIT SUCCESSSearch Amazon.com for PARATRANSIT BUSINESS
Treat your clients with the utmost respect and care, while providing service at a fair price, to guarantee your success. Once a special-needs customer develops a relationship with a driver, they will be more likely to request their services in the future.

They will tell all of their friends and acquaintances about the great ride that they received from your company. On the other hand, if they are made to feel uncomfortable or unsafe, they will dread a trip provided by your paratransit business and look for any other possible alternatives.

To find customers when you start a paratransit business, create flyers to distribute at local doctor’s offices, retirement homes, and hospitals. Remember that many of your potential customers may be strapped for cash. A healthy discount offer, or even a frequent-customer discount card, will attract many new riders.

Create your own website and make sure that you are included on any local sites that list taxi services. Because you are not in direct competition with local cab companies, get to know the owners and dispatchers. Let them know about your services. Ask them to refer customers to you when they can’t service a specific customer, and offer to return the favor. Many of your customers will only suffer temporary disabilities that can be corrected through treatment.

At some point in the future, you may be interested in expanding your paratransit business. The obvious choice is to purchase new vans and hire extra drivers. You could also open an additional office in a neighboring town. Alternative options include outfitting personal vehicles with wheelchair lifts or training paratransit drivers for other companies.Community Transport: Policy, Planning and Practice (Transportation Studies)

Monday, November 15, 2010

HOW TO HOST A DINNER PARTY

Spending on a dinner party is no joke, and to get your money’s worth, you should prepare for it weeks in advance. Keep in mind that anything ordered rush is likely to add to your tab. You’ll have your own reasons for hosting one, as most people do.

Some don’t mind spending thousands of dollars on a one-night affair just to meet contacts for their business. Others simply want to be the talk of the town and try their best to beef up their guest list with society’s crème de la crème.How to Host a Murder: A Dinner Party Game for Eight

To come up with a successful event, secure the services of friends and family who’ve gone through the same thing and can guide you through the process, or hire a professional party planner. They just might be worth the added expense.

Check out lifestyle and society mags to have an idea about party themes, the hottest décor, and the latest on entertainment. Send out extraordinary invitations. You can even generate a lot of excitement over your dinner party days before the actual event by creating a website informing guests about the theme or giving teasers of what they can expect to experience on that day.

The secret to a successful dinner party is inviting the right kind of people. Include those who are gregarious and popular, those who can easily mingle, and guests who can enliven an otherwise lethargic crowd.

Whether you’re catering the entire shebang or preparing some dishes yourself, see to it that you’re free to entertain as soon as the guests start arriving. Without the help of professionals, expect to do everything from greeting people at the door to checking their coats to serving them postprandial coffee.

If you’re harried because of a lack of extra hands, guests would feel uneasy about arriving when they see that you’re running to and fro, even when they arrive on time. Leave the heating and the plating to someone else so you’ll be where you’re supposed to be – at the door, greeting your guests upon their arrival.

Introduce the new arrivals to other guests and get the conversations going. For instance, you can introduce your brother to a female guest and mention a hobby they have in common, just to jumpstart a conversation between them. Find some common ground for them to start with. This way, even guests who arrive alone won’t feel out of place.

As host of the dinner party, you have the prerogative of deciding on the seating arrangement. A memorable dinner would have men and women sitting alternately, with couples seated apart. This will allow for mingling and detracts from the usual conversations that groups of women and groups of men have.

After dinner, don’t jump into dish washing duty. You need to be visible as a host even after the meal, so recruit some help to do this job for you. Otherwise, wait until the last guest has left.Party Snacks!: 50 Simple, Stylish Recipes to Make You a Popular Party Host

One of your main objectives in hosting a dinner party is to impress. Take this opportunity to put your best foot forward. Hire professionals to clean your place up days before the event. Use the best dinnerware you can get your hands on. Keep the towels fresh in the washroom and have someone clean up after every guest. Get live entertainment if you must. If you do a good job, you’ll be the talk of the town until your next hosting gig.Esquire's Handbook for Hosts: A Time-Honored Guide to the Perfect Party

Sunday, November 14, 2010

What Kind of Home Business Can You Start?

5 Simple Home Businesses You Can Start Today
What Kind of Home Business Can You Start?

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I talk to a lot of people who would love to run their own business, and they would like to start as a small home based enterprise. But these people never really take the first step because they do not believe they are qualified. On the other hand, I have surveyed dozens of people, from many different backgrounds who took the plunge. What is the difference between the two groups of people? Really, the only difference I can see is that one group never got started, and the other group went ahead and took a risk!

Here are some ideas for some very simple home based businesses that require very little startup money, special skills, or time. They can be started out of a kitchen table, and can also be performed on a part-time or moonlighting basis. This list is not all-inclusive by any means but should give you some ideas for futher research.

* EBay Seller – If you read about many very successful online auction sellers, you will find that many started by selling the things they no longer wanted around their own home. Do you have obselete video games, outgrown clothes, or books you have already read around the house? If so, you already have some inventory to go ahead and test the waters as an EBay seller.
* Yard Care – Not all work-at-home jobs must be based upon the internet. The guy who mows my lawn started out because he was displaced during a hurricane. He borrowed an old truck and a lawn mower, and he started knocking on doors where he saw some unkept lawns. As luck would have it, one of my neighbors runs a property company, and she ended up hiring him for her business after using him on her own lawn. Now he is so busy it is hard to get him, and he ended up buying a new truck, new equipment, and hiring employees.
* Pet Sitting/Dog Walking – I met a lady on the beach who was relaxing because she could now hire employees to walk dogs and pet sit. She started out promoting herself in a neighborhood newspaper, and then expanded to regional ads.
* Mystery Shoppers – Again, I spoke with a woman who made $1,500 one summer, and also got some great goodies and free meals, by doing mystery shopping. I think it is hard to make a full time income, but it can be a fun and flexible way to earn some extra cash.
* Online Freelancers – The internet has generated a lot of demand for freelance work, which could be anything from article writing to programming. Visit some webmaster forums and find a buy/sell/trade section where you will see jobs for hire. You may need special technical skills for some of them, but you do not need much more than the ability to write or fill out forms for others.
* Professional Organizers – Are you organized? Well, it may not suprise you that many people and even businesses are not organized. And they will pay a person to help them get things in order. There is a growing demand for people who will come in and get things cleaned up, both at home and in an office.

No matter what you’re good at, you are sure to find a market for that skill. The only real thing that is holding you back from starting a home based business is your own fear.

How to Stay Motivated Working from Home Tips for making it through the tough times

How to Stay Motivated Working from Home
Tips for making it through the tough times

From Scott Allen, former About.com Guide
See More About:

* motivation
* working from home
* work-life balance

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Work from Home Jobs Entrepreneurs Start Up Typing Working from Home Entrepreneurs Motivation
You're lucky. You work from home. You're your own boss and you answer to no one but yourself. You may have worked years or even decades at a regular job, but now you get to make your own rules and set your own hours. There's no need to fight the alarm clock every morning, nor is there any reason to go to bed early at night. Since you're your own boss, you don't have to worry about getting written up, laid off, or fired.

Since you're reaping all the benefits of working from home, you're also stuck with the responsibilities. You're in charge of every aspect of your home business, which means you have to handle the bad along with the good.

One of the biggest challenges you'll ever face is motivation. Many individuals working from home are content with just earning enough money to get by, and don't strive to take their small business to the next level. If you find yourself slacking from time to time, then you need a good motivation boost.

Here are some tips to help you stay motivated:

Take some time to think about why you started working from home to begin with. Was it because you wanted freedom? Was it for the money? Were you having trouble finding a job anywhere else? In other words, what motivated you to start your own small business in the first place? Try invoking the same feelings again, and you will find yourself motivated once more.

Set goals for yourself. They don't necessarily have to be large goals—in fact, you will be better off setting small and easy goals. Try to get through one step at time. Plan to work an hour more every day. Try earning an extra $100 a week. What about $200? Just imagine what all you can do with that extra $100 or $200 each week!

Create a vision board. A vision board can be a wallpaper or collage of everything you want in life. It can include pictures of your dream car, dream home, yacht, land, famous places that you want to visit, and so forth. Anytime you need a boost of motivation, just look at your vision board! It will remind you of everything you can obtain if you work hard enough.

If you're not feeling very inspired and your creative juices aren't flowing, don't force yourself. The more aggravated you become, the less motivated you'll be. You also won't be able to produce quality content when you're feeling down. It's ok to take breaks. Sometimes lack of motivation doesn't necessarily mean that you're not doing any work—it could also mean that you're working TOO hard. Lie down to read a book or take a nap if you have to. Sometimes a bit of rest is all we need to stay motivated.

Working toward goals and taking breaks may seem contradictory, but they both play an important role in motivation. You can work and still rest. There is time enough to do both. Napping doesn't necessarily equate to laziness. Laziness is when you don't even try to motivate yourself.

If you work hard and find yourself stuck, then you need to rejuvenate yourself somehow. Once you're done resting, then you can get back to work again. You will more than likely have everything sorted out in your head after resting up, and before you know it, your work will be all done!

It doesn't matter how much money you earn by working at home. Nor does it matter how successful your small business is. At some point in time, you will find yourself needing motivation. You need to: think about why you wanted to work from home to begin with, evaluate your present situation, and make plans for the future.

Never let yourself forget why you're working from home. You are luckier than most people out there. You don't have to trudge to work every day slaving away for a thankless boss. Be thankful that you have freedom and independence that most people don't. As long as you can stay motivated and focused, your earning potential is unlimited and you can live a lifestyle most people only dream about.

Three Real Businesses People Do From Home

Three Real Businesses People Do From Home
Are There Real Work At Home Businesses?

It is fairly easy to get cynical about work at home opportunities because we have heard about so many scams, or maybe even gotten involved in some fairly shady schemes that really did not work out very well. But there are many people who have either started, or continue to, run real legitimate and useful businesses from their homes. Sometimes they even hire other home workers, and so they provide work at home jobs.

Many of these opportunities can be started part-time with a very small investment. So they are the type of small businesses where a person can dip a toe in, as they say, to see how it works out. Then they could expand or contract as the individual owner requires.

Food Catering Business: The general term, food catering, actually covers a lot of niche businesses. They could range from specialized mobile catering or lunch trucks to preparing gourmet treats for business events and weddings to delivering healthy meals in the same way that a pizza man delivers, well, pizza!

This can be simple or complicated. Some areas may require a licensed kitchen in order to prepare food for sale. If you run a snack truck where you only sell pre-packaged food from wholesale distributors or if you prepare food at the customer’s house or location (personal chef), you will need much less paperwork than if you want to prepare the food on your own site and deliver it.

You may be able to cater from home, but in many locations you would need a seperate commercial kitchen. Legally, you probably cannot use your family kitchen. However, many flexible caterers have solved this problem by renting (or working out an agreement) with a local church or similar organization that does maintain a commercial kitchen.

Otherwise, the rest of the business like planning, meeting clients, or advertising for more clients, can be done from a home office.

Party Planner:Again, this could cover anything from planning a toddler’s first birthday part to a wedding with 300 guests. It all depends upon your own particular expertise, talents, and ambitions.

Virtual Assistant: This field is actually growing right now. As small businesses try to control costs, they are more willing to hire out certain tasks. Of course, the particular tasks you would be open for will depend upon your skills, abilities, and training.

You may work purely from home, over the Internet or a phone, setting appointments, filling out spreadsheets, handling social media (i.e. Facebook, etc.), or handling customer service. If you are mobile, small businesses may need somebody to run errands, hand out fliers, or man booths at local events.