Jerry Smith, FASLA of SMITH | GreenHealth Consulting and Yumin Li, ASLA of POD Design have been working together on an American-style senior living development in China. Read about their exciting new project in The Dirt.
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ASLA is excited to announce that the U.S. Congress heard your voices and passed H.R. 4680, the National Park Service Centennial Act.
The bipartisan legislation celebrates the National Park Service's 100th year of existence and provides tools and resources to safeguard America's iconic natural and historical treasures. The Centennial bill also establishes the National Park Centennial Challenge Fund to finance signature construction, maintenance, and educational projects by matching private contributions with federal dollars. The Fund will be essential to help protect and preserve America's national parks, which are facing incredible challenges.
ASLA supports the mission of the NPS to preserve the natural and cultural treasures and the values of the national park enterprise for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of current and future generations. Landscape architects have a deep connection to our national parks and the profession played a key role in the passage of the National Park Service Organic Act, legislation that established the NPS in 1916.
For the past two years, ASLA advocates have voiced strong support for passing NPS Centennial legislation, including sending thousands of messages to Congress and advocating for the issue during the annual ASLA Advocacy Days. Once again, your voice played an essential role to achieve this legislative accomplishment on behalf of NPS. Thank you for your unwavering advocacy efforts.
Wet or Electronic Stamp: Ethical Considerations by Luther L. Liggett, Jr., Partner, Korhman Jackson & Krantz
As technological advances race onward to achieve previously unimaginable computerized applications, design professional practice laws remain conservative in order to insure the highest level of professionalism and protection to the public.
Before the age of computers, traditional practice and law required crimping or signing over a design professional seal, usually with colored ink to identify an original. But paper is a tool of the past, and today’s project owners develop construction documents on computers for ease of correction and transmittal.
Ohio law accommodates electronic seals, provided that an Architect follows several different sets of rules promulgated for different purposes. This article will review those provisions of law.
Posted: 14 Sep 2015 03:08 AM PDT
Now, the Landscape Institute has just launched another initiative profiling rising stars on its Be A Landscape Architect careers website.
Be A Landscape Architect is the Landscape Institute’s new look careers website. It acts as an information resource for school leavers, undergraduates, post-graduates and career changers thinking about becoming landscape architects. As well as providing details of how to study in the UK and abroad it includes inspirational content about working in the profession.
The post Landscape Institute launches “Be A Landscape Architect” careers website appeared first on World Landscape Architecture.
The U.S. Department of Transportation and the Centers for Disease Control are pleased to announce the launch of the new Transportation and Health Tool, which provides easy access to data that practitioners can use to examine the health impacts of transportation systems. The Transportation and Health Tool provides data on 14 transportation and public health indicators for each state, metropolitan statistical area (MSA), and urbanized area (UZA).
The indicators measure how the transportation environment affects health with respect to safety, active transportation, air quality, and connectivity to destinations. You can use the tool to quickly see how a state, MSA, or UZA compares with others in addressing key transportation and health issues. The tool also provides information and resources to help agencies better understand the links between transportation and health and to identify strategies to improve public health through transportation planning and policy.
Explore the Transportation and Health Tool:
- Select a state, MSA, or UZA from the map to see how it performs on each indicator;
- Learn about the 14 indicators and the process used to select them;
- Discover evidence-based strategies that practitioners can use to address health through transportation; and
- Read more about the scoring methodology or download a spreadsheet with the complete dataset.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) jointly developed the tool in partnership with the American Public Health Association.
If you have questions or feedback about the Transportation and Health Tool, please contact [email protected].
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 15, 2015
Contact
Erin Miller, Mayor’s Office, 645-0815
John Ivanic, Columbus City Council, 645-6798
Mayor Coleman and Partners break ground on the City’s first Urban Tree Nursery
Mayor Michael B. Coleman joined today with Columbus City Council President Andrew J. Ginther, the Weinland Park community and more than 20 non-profit organizations to announce a pilot program for an urban tree nursery and to unveil a community wide effort, Branch Out Columbus, whose goal is to plant 300,000 trees throughout the city by the year 2020.
For the first time in the city’s history, a thorough Urban Tree Canopy Assessment was conducted. The study was led by the Columbus Recreation & Parks Division of Forestry and prepared by consultant, Plan-It-Geo.
The study shows that the urban tree canopy in Columbus covers 22% of the land, at a total of 31,171 acres. These trees provide a multitude of economic, environmental, and social benefits, conservatively valued at more than $12.1 million annually.
“The City of Columbus is committed to a 27% tree canopy by 2020, but we cannot do it alone. That is why we are branching out by creating the “Branch Out Columbus” campaign calling for community wide action,” said Mayor Michael B. Coleman.
An executive order will be prepared by Mayor Coleman to preserve and restore trees on all city led construction projects. To help residents on private property, through our GreenSpot Backyard Conservation Program, the City will pay up to a $50 rebate to plant native trees on their property while supplies last (currently there are enough funds for approximately 400 trees).
The city, through the Recreation & Parks Foundation, has set up a fund at the Columbus Foundation where businesses and residents can donate money towards the planting of trees in the community.
“Trees are an important part of improving the quality of life in Columbus,” said Council President Ginther. “From cleaning the air and water to improving property values and fighting greenhouse gases, trees make Columbus a great place to live and work.”
Mayor Coleman and residents of the Weinland Park neighborhood also announced a pilot program for an urban tree nursery. The vacant land, owned by the City of Columbus’ Land Bank and Campus Partners, on 8th Avenue near 5th Avenue will be the city’s first Urban Tree Nursery. The vision is for the nursery to be a place where trees can grow to be planted in the neighborhood and where residents can learn about the importance of trees and how to properly care for them.
The Mayor announced the goal is to have at least four urban tree nurseries established in our target neighborhoods by the year 2020.
For more information about the Branch Out Columbus- 300,000 trees by 2020 campaign, and to see a copy of the Urban Tree Canopy Assessment, please visit www.columbus.gov/branchout .
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GBCI Launches SITES, its Newly Acquired Rating System for Sustainable Landscapes
Published on: Wednesday, June 10, 2015
SITES addresses global concerns such as climate change, loss of biodiversity and resource depletion through sustainable landscape design and management
June 10, 2015 (Washington, D.C.) – Today, Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI) launched its newly acquired SITES rating system, the most comprehensive program and toolkit for developing sustainable landscapes.
SITES was developed through a collaborative, interdisciplinary effort of the American Society of Landscape Architects, The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at The University of Texas at Austin, and the United States Botanic Garden. The rating system can be applied to development projects located on sites with or without buildings - ranging from national parks to corporate campuses, streetscapes and homes, and much more.
“Landscapes knit together the fabric of our communities,” said Rick Fedrizzi, CEO, GBCI. “And sustainable landscapes are critical in their ability to reduce water demand, filter and reduce storm water runoff, provide wildlife habitat, reduce energy consumption, improve air quality, improve human health, and increase outdoor recreation opportunities. SITES is an important addition to our toolkit, and GBCI appreciates this opportunity to support this additional contribution to healthy, thriving communities and neighborhoods.”
“It is exciting to see years of work developing and field testing SITES culminate with the availability of this rating system,” said Fritz Steiner, FASLA, dean of the School of Architecture at The University of Texas at Austin. “The depth and breadth of approaches that were implemented by pilot projects demonstrates how valuable SITES can become for revolutionizing our relationships with built landscapes.”
“Landscape architects and members of all the related design and planning fields know that the issues addressed in SITES are increasingly important to creating livable and resilient communities,” said Nancy C. Somerville, executive vice president and CEO of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA). “GBCI will take SITES to the next level and ensure its future growth and influence, and ASLA is pleased to provide continued education and communications support.”
“SITES is a powerful tool for enhancing built landscapes precisely because it puts ecosystem services, the benefits humans derive from functional ecosystems, front and center,” said Ari Novy, executive director of the United States Botanic Garden. “This approach will help maximize our collective ability to create sustainable and healthy communities. Making SITES available through GBCI will be a great boon for the quality and resilience of our built landscapes.”
The SITES rating system uses progressive industry standards for landscape design and incorporates additional recommendations from technical experts in the fields of soil science, botany and horticulture, hydrology, materials, and human health and well-being. Some of the credits for sustainable landscape performance have been developed in alignment with similar credits in the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) rating system, the world’s most widely used green building program.
SITES, originally modeled after LEED, includes best practices in landscape architecture, ecological restoration and related fields as well as knowledge gained through peer-reviewed literature, case-study precedents and projects registered in the SITES pilot program.
“Adding SITES to GBCI’s rapidly growing list of certification systems and credentials it supports not only expands GBCI’s capabilities, but it also helps us to further our mission to enact global sustainable change,” said Mahesh Ramanujam, president, GBCI.
SITES draws on the experience gained from a two-year pilot program involving more than 100 projects. Forty-six of these pilot projects have achieved certification, including landscape projects at corporate headquarters, national and city parks, academic campuses and private homes.
Interested project teams can visit sustainablesites.org for more information and to register their projects and access the SITES v2: Rating System For Sustainable Land Design and Development, a guide that provides best practices, performance benchmarks and tools for creating ecologically resilient landscapes and rewards successful projects through certification.
The Wildflower Center and ASLA will help GBCI create and implement SITES credentialing and certification offerings such as training project reviewers and will provide educational opportunities for pursuing SITES certification.
A Leaders Roundtable on current issues and approaches in healthcare facilities planning and design, created and sponsored by Landscape Forms. The discussion included directors and administrators of three of the country’s largest medical centers, architects from international firms, architects and landscape architects from regional practices.
GOINGnative: False Solomon's Seal By Barry Glick
Article from Washington Gardener, Summer 2012
I had to go to England!!! Yes, I had to go to the UK to be enlightened about a plant that grew in my own backyard. In my defense, I was so much younger then and much less enlightened. But here’s the short of it. In 1992, my friend, Dan Heims, and I spent two solid weeks travelling around the UK visiting gardens, plant collections, and friends. It was a plantsman’s dream trip starting off with two nights as the guests of Agatha Christie’s daughter, a day with Beth Chatto, a day with Elizabeth Strangman, and many other legends of British gardening and culminating with a full day, sun up to sun down, of Dan and I strolling around Wisley with Graham Stuart Thomas just the three of us. (I’d use a few exclamation points here, but I’ve been told that I use too many!)...
Click here to read the entire article.
About the Author:
Barry Glick is the self-proclaimed “King of Helleborus” and owner/manager of Sunshine Farm & Gardens (http://www.sunfarm.com/), a mail-order plant nursery nestled on 60 acres on a mountaintop in Greenbrier County, WV. Barry grows more than 10,000 different plants and specializes in native plants and hellebores. He can be reached at 304.497.2208 or mailto:[email protected]
Visit the ASLA National membership page: http://www.asla.org/join.aspx
For more than 100 years, ASLA has promoted the practice of landscape architecture and advanced the profession through advocacy, education, communication, and fellowship. ASLA members enjoy many benefits and discounts with their annual dues but the value of membership extends far beyond discounts. Joining ASLA is an asset to your professional development.
Check out this video to see why you should join ASLA today!
Have you ever experienced brain freeze during a job interview? You are asked a question and your mind goes blank—it's horrifying. You lose composure as well as confidence. Your interview goes down hill from there. Brain freeze most often happens as a result of behavioral or situational interview questions that are not anticipated before hand. As a career coach, this is the most common interview problem I hear about from my clients. With the right preparation you can avoid the nightmare of brain freeze and improve your interview performance greatly.
First of all, it's important to understand what a behavioral or situational interview question is. It is any question that start with:
Tell me a time when …
Give an example of …
Describe a situation when …
Employers ask these types of questions with the assumption that past behavior indicates future performance. These questions reveal a lot about a candidate, including a candidates ability to think fast on their feet. Given that interviews are inherently stressful, many job seekers find it extremely difficult to think fast during interviews. Here are four steps that will help you prepare for any interview question.
Take inventory of your accomplishments.
This requires more than a cursory mental note of the good stuff you've done in the past year. Take a systematic approach by asking yourself what challenges you've faced in each of your positions over the past five or more years. Try asking yourself
What processes have I improved?
How have I made work easier for others?
What did I do to save my company money?
When did I find a solution to a departmental problem.
How did I save time?
When did I go beyond the call of duty to solve a customer problem?
Write out your answers to these questions. Remember to include the quantitative details when appropriate. Include dollars saved, hours cut, percentage increased etc.
Study the job description.
With your list of accomplishments in hand you are ready to turn your attention to the job description. Study the requirements to determine the all possible challenges involved with the job. If the actual job description is skimpy in details, look to other similar positions listed to help fill in the blanks. Additionally, ask others who hold similar positions what their greatest challenges of the job are. Write out your list of anticipated challenges.
Create a list behavioral questions.
Turn your list of challenges of the position into a list of questions that start with:
Tell me a time when you …
Describe a situation when …
Have you ever had to …
Your list will look something like:
Tell me a time when you had to cut costs out of your annual budget.
Describe a situation when you had to fire a friend.
How would you go about repairing a relationship with a disgruntled client?
Use your list of accomplishments to answer your behavioral questions.
Ask a friend to help you role play your interview answers. You should feel very comfortable communicating your success stories. The more time you practice actually talking about your accomplishments the faster you'll be able to recall your stories in your next interview.
With interview performance more important than ever before it pays to prepare, prepare, prepare. There is no such thing as over preparation when it comes to interviews. Use this 1,2,3,4 approach to interview prep and you'll be surprised at how much more confident you'll feel in your next interview. The better you interview the faster you'll be at your new job.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Deborah Walker, Certified Career Management Coach
Read more career tips and see sample resumes at:
email: [email protected]
360-260-4965
Twitter: http://twitter.com/DebWalkerCCMC
Attendees of the 2013 OCASLA Annual Meeting:
Edward K. Uhlir, FAIA, Executive Director of Millennium Park, Inc. has been kind enough to share with us the Millennium Park Quadruaple Net Value Report released by Texas A&M University and DePaul University in the summer of 2011. Statistics outlined in this report were cited in the presenation given by Ed at the 2013 OCASLA Annual Meeting in Columbus.
West Creek Stream Restoration Project, Parma, Ohio by Wade Trim
A natural approach to the problem of stormwater runoff and combined sewer overflow has been the idea of green infrastructure—systems and practices that use or mimic natural processes to infiltrate, evapotranspire, or reuse stormwater and runoff on the site where it is generated.
Many regions and municipalities are working on projects right now that address the important issue of combined sewer overflow. Many older cities must reduce the amount of stormwater that overflows into their sewer lines, as mandated by the Clean Water Act.
The problem with the combined system is that when the rainwater system gets overwhelmed, it can put raw sewage directly into the storm runoff receptacle. That means streams, rivers and Lake Erie are seeing more sewage than they bargained for.
Landscape architects are uniquely positioned to help solve this problem.
“Our approach with green infrastructure is that it’s not a silver bullet,” says David Anthony of Cleveland-based Wade Trim. “It is a part of a toolbox as you explore a long-term control plan for combined sewer overflow.”
Anthony says it’s a challenge for communities to pay for these projects over a declining population base—many of which have been decreed by the Department of Justice. And they need creative ways to address the problem.
“It’s a situation where … green infrastructure and a gray solution, that combined solution hasn’t been fully vetted yet,” he says. “The new technology we’re working on has pretty small data sets. We need more data to prove that the technology works to achieve the end product to remove stormwater from the combined system.”
Wade Trim is in the early stages of working with the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District on the management of its stormwater program.
Green infrastructure can also be seen as a modification of a gray infrastructure: streets, roofs, parking lots, and city storm water and sewer systems.
In addition to countless municipal projects underway throughout the state, one of the most recognizable examples of a green infrastructure project is at the Governor’s Residence and Heritage Garden in Bexley, which has been a showcase of sustainability for the past 15 years.
The use of permeable pavers in the driveway and parking lot are a great example of green infrastructure, according to Gary Meisner of Meisner + Associates/ Land Vision in Cincinnati. Rather than water flowing quickly off of a paved surface and into the storm drains, permeable pavers allow water to flow to plant-covered ground where it can be slowly absorbed.
Springfield Regional Medical Center Green Roof, Springfield, Ohio by Meisner + Associates
Meisner also worked on the green roof at the Springfield Regional Medical Center in Springfield, Ohio. “It’s combining functional storm water management with aesthetics, which is important for planning and design.”
Hospitals have been setting standards for this kind of work, Meisner adds. “There are many different ways to be green. Each assignment has its own potential.”
Anthony notes: “As we move forward in the next five years, we will use green infrastructure as a way to create stormwater features that fit within the context of neighborhoods.”
If your firm has a green infrastructure case study it would like to share, please contact us at:
Are you completely happy with your current job? If not, now is a great time to analyze your job satisfaction. There are ten sure signs that you are experiencing job dissatisfaction. If you:
- Dread Mondays or coming to work
- Can’t wait for Friday
- Are often bored at work
- Feel tired or chronically fatigued
- Avoid your boss and dread meetings
- Have no enthusiasm or sense of self-worth
- Feel like you are getting nowhere in your job
- Take work stress home
- Question your choice of industry or occupation
- Can’t think of a way out
Any of the above signs indicate a need for change. The biggest career mistake is to ignore those indicators. A head-in-the-sand mentality can lead to a downward career spiral that ends with disappointment and “what if” regrets.
Here are three great ways to facilitate positive change:
Analyze your career choice.
Is the problem your boss or employer—or is it that you have chosen the wrong occupation? Before you take any action, make sure you know what needs to change.
Don’t make the mistake of throwing away a good career (ex. accounting, sales, finance) when the problem is really the person you work for. On the flip side, if you’re not cut out for sales, then changing employers isn’t going to help the problem.
A career coach can guide you to determine which of these problems is causing your unhappiness and give you ideas for your next career move.
Update your resume.
Updating your resume can give you a great confidence boost. You’ll feel better immediately if you know you are ready whenever opportunity knocks.
Be careful, however, that your resume doesn’t resemble a house with too many additions, each resembling a different style. If you have simply added to the same old resume job after job, it’s time to “tear down that old shack” and rebuild your resume from the ground up.
If your old resume format doesn’t live up to your professional image, you may want to consult a resume coach. You’d never wrap a ruby ring in old newspaper, and you should never present your career with anything less than professional polish.
Brush up your interview skills.
If you have been on the job for a couple of years, your interview skills are probably rusty. Don’t make the mistake of blowing off the first few interviews as practice. They might be the perfect jobs for you!
You’ll feel much more confident and comfortable if your interview skills are honed before you step into the first interview. To determine your current level of interview expertise, answer the following questions:
- Do you know the toughest interview questions—and how to answer them?
- Can you answer the salary question without compromising the level of starting salary at offer time?
- Can you recognize the most common interview styles—and respond without showing stress?
If you aren’t sure, then it may be time to visit with a career coach who can help you prepare to WOW them in every interview.
Job dissatisfaction is an indication of needed change. Take the steps of change by investing in the appropriate job-search skills and tools, and you will be in a position to change your job—and your life—for the better.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Deborah Walker, Certified Career Management Coach
Read more career tips and see sample resumes at:
email: [email protected]
360-260-4965
Twitter: http://twitter.com/DebWalkerCCMC
Your cover letter has only one job. It is meant to entice the reader to open and read your resume. Sounds simple, but job seekers often stress as much over their cover letter as they do the resume. If this sounds like you, relax, there is a simple approach to cover letters that will streamline your application process and give you confidence every time you send out your resume. Just keep these three cover letter tips in mind and you'll never stress over writing them again.
1. Keep it short.
More often than not you'll send your cover letter via email or some other electronic system. Your reader won't be looking at a piece of paper, but at their computer screen. Ever notice how short your reading attention span is when you're reading text on your computer? That's why online articles are typically shorter than print articles. The same holds true for email messages. If you've got 60 messages in your inbox you don't have the patience for lengthy text. Now imagine you're a recruiter or resume screener and you must get through a couple hundred resumes in a day. If you want your cover letter read keep it short, concise and to the point.
2. Focus on qualifications.
Most job seekers freeze up when writing cover letter because they don't know what information recruiters want to see. The first person in an organization to read your resume is a recruiter or HR professional who acts as a screener. They are interested only in identifying candidates who match match their set of qualifications. The better the match the higher the interest. Don't worry about explaining why you are interested in the position, the screener probably doesn't care. He/she only want to know if you qualify as a viable candidate. Use the job posting as a guide to know exactly what qualifications to mention in your cover letter.
3. Don't try to get fancy.
Job seekers get frustrated writing cover letters because they try to make it into a creative writing exercise. That's not necessary. It's much more important that you keep your ideas clear and easily understood. When writing about your qualifications do use the same verbiage to describe your skills as the job posting. You'll make the resume screener's work much easier and they will recognize you as a perfect candidate match much quicker.
Using this simple approach will allow you to take a customized approach with each cover letter you send. Generic cover letters usually sound canned no matter how much time was spent writing them. Worse, a one-size-fits all cover letter looks like it was borrowed off the page of a sample cover letter book. Would you take the time to read a mass-produced letter?
I'm often asked if cover letters are still relevant in today's fast-paced job market. While the form has changed from paper to electronic they are still a vital part of your job-search marketing materials. Cover letters provide your first opportunity to make a good impression on your potential new employer. It pays to write them with clarity and simplicity.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Deborah Walker, Certified Career Management Coach
Read more career tips and see sample resumes at:
email: [email protected]
360-260-4965
Twitter: http://twitter.com/DebWalkerCCMC
You’ve been hoping for a new job, but your phone is silent. No recruiters calling, no job offers; it’s so quiet you can almost hear the crickets outside. Maybe it’s time to reassess.
Does this sound like your job search efforts?
- You’ve sent out hundreds of resumes to countless job postings but received little or no response.
- You’ve left dozens of voice mails to recruiters explaining why you are a perfect fit—and they never return your call.
- You’ve tweaked your resume so many times you no longer recognize it.
If this describes your situation, you are not alone. Many talented, qualified job seekers get ignored by recruiters and hiring managers simply because their resume has one or more of the following problems.
1. Your resume highlights your lack of industry experience
Most recruiters are looking for a point-by-point candidate match when screening resumes. Industry background usually ranks high on the list of qualifying issues. If you don’t have experience in that industry, your resume is going straight to the circular file—unless you can give them a compelling reason to keep your resume in the stack.
If you lack specific industry experience, but you know you have the basic skills for the job, try highlighting your transferable skills instead. Job seekers who lack industry experience can make it past the resume screener by proving their ability with skills they have that transfer from industry to industry. Examples of transferable skills include expertise gained in sales, customer service, finance, accounting, negotiation, cross-functional communications, and/or team building. Look at the skills they need, then figure out how your background is a match.
2. Your resume shouts “Overqualified!”
Nothing scares off a recruiter faster than a candidate who is obviously overqualified for the job. The two main concerns are (1) that the candidate would soon get bored and leave at his earliest convenience, and (2) that the candidate would be too expensive to hire. Even worse is the assumption that the over qualified candidate is on a downward career slope—a has-been with all his best years behind him.
There are, however, many valid reasons job seekers wish to downsize to jobs with fewer responsibilities. Whatever your reasons, tailor your resume to fit your current career objective. This means you’ll want to play down your prior responsibilities, list only relevant education (don’t list a PhD if you are applying for a mid-level management position!), and emphasize tactical experience over strategic planning when appropriate.
3. Your resume is crammed with information, but not the right kind
Pity the poor recruiter who must get through 200 applicant resumes before lunchtime. If your resume is in the pile, it will get a quick scan and pass over if she can’t find what she is looking for in less than 30 seconds. If you have a resume that is disorganized or full of dense blocks of text, how will the recruiter learn anything about you?
You’ll catch the recruiter’s attention if you have a clear, easy-to-read resume that highlights your skills and accomplishments, even at a glance. The first rule of resume effectiveness is relevancy, so edit out the past data and redundant facts that aren’t relevant to your current career path. Fill your resume only with the skills needed for that particular job, and you’ll go a long way toward getting a recruiter’s attention.
4. Your resume has too little information
While the “strong, silent type” may be attractive in men, it just plain flops in a resume. A resume that looks more like an outline just doesn’t give the reader enough to work with. Recruiters don’t want to guess what you did at your last job. You need to include enough information to give prospective employers a vision of the possibilities if they choose to hire you.
If you struggle with what to include in your resume, use job descriptions to help you understand what recruiters will want to find in your resume. Then review your previous jobs to determine what skills you have that will be a good match.
5. Your resume doesn’t include accomplishments
If you haven’t thought lately about how your employer has benefited from having you as an employee, it’s a sure bet that your resume is lacking in accomplishments. Remember, as a job seeker you are selling your talents, and you are competing with many others who have the same qualifications as you do. Accomplishments give recruiters a reason to choose you over others for the interview short list.
Give screeners ample reason to select you for interview. Highlight how you have saved time, increased efficiency, cut cost and increased client satisfaction. After all, if you don’t tell them, nobody else will!
If you use this five-point checklist to restructure your resume, you’ll soon hear back from recruiters who appreciate qualified, articulate and confident candidates. The time you spend enhancing your resume could shave off months of fruitless labor and frustrating effort in your job search.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Deborah Walker, Certified Career Management Coach
Read more career tips and see sample resumes at:
email: [email protected]
360-260-4965
Twitter: http://twitter.com/DebWalkerCCMC
CLARB Welfare Study Presented at Ohio Chapter ASLA Annual Meeting - Thursday, May 17, 2012
Ohio Board of Landscape Architect Examiners member, Tim Schmalenberger, and Executive Director Amy Kobe made a presentation to the Ohio Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects 2012 Annual Meeting in Columbus. The presentation discussed the groundbreaking study commissioned by the Council of Landscape Architectural Registration Boards (CLARB), which sought to define public welfare as it relates to the profession of landscape architecture, and, using Central Ohio projects as examples, illustrates the impacts and benefits of landscape architecture has on the public welfare. A copy of the presentation is available here and a copy of the study is available here.
For more information please visit: www.arc.ohio.gov
Some of the most challenging interview questions are found in behavioral interviews which are designed to test your abilities in three ways:
1. Determine how well you work under pressure
2. Find out how well you work with others
3. Establish whether you can resolve conflicts
Sample Interview Questions
To test your stress-coping skills you may get a question like:
“Tell me about the most stressful situation you’ve encountered in your current position.”
To find out how well you work with others you might be asked:
“Tell me about a time when you strongly disagreed with your team?”
“Tell me about a time when you thought your boss was wrong? How did you handle it?”
Finally, employers want staff members who can resolve conflicts to gain win-win results for all parties. To discover your conflict-resolution skills you might be asked:
“Tell me about a time when you had difficulty resolving a customer conflict?”
There are three steps to preparing for a behavioral interview.
1. Behavioral questions ask you about specific events. Take inventory of the stressful or difficult situations you've encountered at work. Think back to times when you didn't agree with your boss, or when your peers drove you crazy, or when customers made unrealistic demands.
2. If the workplace doesn't provide much to choose from, expand your thought process to include other circumstances where you work or must cooperate with others, like community activities, neighborhood associations, or church functions. For instance, planning a school fundraiser, participating on a neighborhood committee or participating on a professional association board. Any of these situations are ripe with opportunities for conflict and cooperation, where something must be accomplished for the betterment of the group.
3. Once you've thought of several situations, plan how you will present them in a positive light. For situations you didn't handle well (like your boss yelled at you and you ran off crying) present them in terms of what you learned, like this:
“Yes, I learned an important lesson about following directions and asking questions for clarification when. . . "
For situations that did turn out well, present them based on what was accomplished, like this:
"Yes, I had to deal with a really angry customer just last week. But when I calmly asked a few questions I was able to get to the heart of her issue. I was able to fix the problem, and she was happy with us again."
With the right interview preparation, you can turn nightmare behavioral questions into opportunities to sell yourself. You’ll be seen as an employee who is able to stay calm under pressure, work well with others to promote corporate goals, and retain key customers, contributing to revenue growth. In other words, the type of person all employers would want to hire. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Deborah Walker, Certified Career Management Coach
Read more career tips and see sample resumes at:
email: [email protected]
360-260-4965
Twitter: http://twitter.com/DebWalkerCCMC
Accomplishments are an important part of your resume. They set you apart from your competition and give potential employers a reason to consider you above others with similar qualifications. Most people, however, find it difficult to write resume achievements. What exactly constitutes an accomplishment? Simply put, an accomplishment is an example of how you solved a workplace challenge and what it meant to your employer. Everyone faces problems on the job, especially now given our difficult economic times. You can make those challenges work for you with this three-step method for turning challenges into achievements.
1. Identify significant challenges.
Think back through your career to the times when your company, team or division faced difficult situations that had a potential negative effect on bottom-line corporate issues. Start back through your earlier years of employment. Write a list and be specific about why the issue was a problem. What was at stake? Who were the stake holders? Why was the issue critical? How much of the organization was effected by the challenge? If you take a systematic approach you should be able to identify a challenge for every few years of employment.
2. What was your part in solving the problem?
Now that you have your list of workplace challenges, think back to how you helped solve them. You may have worked alone or as part of a group. Perhaps you coordinated between diverse functional groups to facilitate the solution. Be specific about the technology you used, skills involved and steps you took toward fixing the problem. Did you introduce a new procedure or create a better way of processing information? Did you use technology to streamline routine tasks? Did you train your team on a new process? Did you take on added responsibilities to insure the task was completed?
3. What was the result of your effort?
Once the challenge was met, the solution found and the issue resolved, what did it mean to your employer? What did your company get out of it? Did you save your department time? Did your solution lead to cutting costs? Were you able to identify new revenue opportunities? Did you free up time for your boss? Did you help others to work more efficiently? How many persons within the organization were effected by your work? It's nice if you can quantify your results, but don't be discouraged if you can't quantify every result in dollars.
Once you have all your information at hand it's time to put it together in concise statements that sell your skills.
A few guidelines to keep in mind are:
Try to keep your accomplishment statements to two lines each.
Begin your statement with the result.
Don't dilute the result by providing more information than necessary.
Accomplishments should be included with every employment entry of your resume. For added punch, write a highlight of accomplishments section toward the top of your resume. Remember, at the time perhaps you received little thanks for your effort in solving challenges, but now is the time to get credit for your hard work. Let your resume include your achievements on the job and potential employers will be eager to learn how you can help solve their problems as well.
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Deborah Walker, Certified Career Management Coach
Read more career tips and see sample resumes at:
http://www.alphaadvantage.com//
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