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How You Can Ask Your Boss for a Raise or a Promotion

Asking your boss for a raise or promotion can be a daunting task, but it's a necessary step in advancing your career and increasing your earning potential. While it may be uncomfortable, approaching the conversation with confidence and a clear plan can increase your chances of success. Here are some tips on how you can ask your boss for a raise or promotion.

Networking Mysteries Revealed: How to Build Rich Relationships and Unlock Exciting Opportunities

Networking is a critical skill to develop and an important tool in your professional toolbox. Whether you’re currently employed, unemployed, switching industries, or otherwise progressing on your current track, networking will provide countless opportunities throughout your career. Building relationships through connections enables us to meet new people, link up with mentors, learn about new industries, and develop unexplored opportunities. Let’s consider several essential tips for networking and turning connections into opportunities.

Six Smart Questions to Ask at Your Next Job Interview

Congratulations! You've landed that interview for the job you were hoping for! While you're likely to be grilled with questions by the interviewer, don't forget that you should also come prepared with your own set of smart questions to ask. Asking thoughtful questions shows that you are genuinely interested in the position and the company, and it also gives you an opportunity to assess if the job is the right fit for you. Here are some smart questions to consider asking in your next job interview. 

Work Burnout: What It Looks Like and How To Recover

Your job is your livelihood allowing you to pay your rent or mortgage, put food on the table, make your car payment, pay for soccer gear for the kids, and hopefully spend at least a little time having fun. But your job shouldn’t control your life, make you eternally exhausted and cynical, or cause you to start becoming apathetic at work (or in life). If you’re able to relate to any or all of this, you likely are experiencing work burnout. But before you quit your job altogether, learn to recognize the signs and how to recover.

4 Time Management Skills to Help You be More Productive

When it comes to being productive at work, it can take a lot of work to stay on track for 8 hours a day. If you let yourself get distracted from goals or priorities or with new tasks that land on your desk, you can start to feel overwhelmed with everything on your plate. Practicing good time management skills can help you keep up with demands and feel confident that you’re going to meet your deadlines.

4 Great Ways to Increase Job Security

Since the start of the pandemic, the economy and the job market have been tumultuous and unreliable. A multitude of people lost their jobs and had to search for new ones. Even if you were able to keep your job, there still seems to be uncertainty as we move into a post-covid world. While some layoffs are unavoidable, here are some ways that you can increase your job security.

3 Tips for Talking to Your Boss When You're Struggling

Life inevitably brings struggles for each of us and balancing these with our day-to-day work life has the potential to become unmanageable. It might be in your nature to handle things on your own, but sharing your struggles with others can allow for support and understanding as you face life’s challenges. Whether your struggle involves work or not, when it starts affecting your job performance, sharing them with your boss can be helpful. Here are some tips on how to have this conversation.

The Best Ways to Give and Take Constructive Criticism at Work

Part of working for any company is giving and receiving feedback to grow your career and your business. Many people want to avoid criticism, but if done correctly, it can be a beneficial tool for everyone involved.

How You Can Be A Great Team Member at Work

While hard skills such as graphic design, data analysis, or accounting experience can help you land a job, the truth is that many employers are looking for workers who are team players, great communicators, and can adapt to changing plans or dynamics. While these soft skills might call for self-awareness, they require no training or experience and they are abilities that will help you land the job you want - and keep it!

Six Tips to Help You Overcome Meeting Anxiety with Confidence

You’re getting ready to go into a meeting and that old familiar feeling starts bubbling up. Your heart rate increases, your chest starts to tighten, you start sweating, and you feel nauseous. Meeting anxiety is common, but you have the opportunity to overcome it and step into the conference room (or click into the video call) with confidence. Here’s how:

How You Can Set SMART Goals and Boost Your Career

Feeling stuck in your job or your career overall? Setting goals is a great way to make headway when you’re feeling in a rut and can give you the boost you need to get where you want to be. Without goals, getting that new job or promotion you’ve been hoping for could be difficult.

How You Can Learn to Manage Up & Reach Your Career Goals

Some of the most difficult-to-manage relationships in our lives are our work relationships. We don’t usually get to choose who we work with or who manages us at work. Many bosses and people in middle management are promoted not because of their ability to manage people but because of their skills, knowledge, or experience in a particular field. 

7 Bad Work Habits to Quit this Year

After you’ve been at your job for a while, it can be easy to get into a routine or go on autopilot - that’s when you start developing bad work habits. You’ve likely been caught up in at least one of these seven common work habits, and we’ve got some advice on why it’s time to kick them to the curb. 

3 Paths Toward a More Productive Workday

All of us have hours of the day and times of the year where we are more focused, more productive. Whether we do our best thinking in the morning or can’t seem to wake up when it’s cloudy outside, our levels of productivity and accomplishment are always shifting. But there are things you can do to make yourself more consistent in your productivity. 

The Art of Negotiating

Whether you’re looking for a new job or celebrating working at the same company for years, the time will inevitably come for you to negotiate. 

Building Your Career

As we’ve grown our business to the place it’s gotten to, expanded service offerings, built and sustained a team, and adapted our workplace to changing social and economic environments, we’ve learned a lot about what makes some people successful. Those who learn as they work, who ask good questions and respond to training and correction move ahead. 

New Jobs and Better Perspectives on Your Work History

Are you in a place of starting fresh? Maybe you’ve just graduated with a degree and it’s time to put your education to work. Maybe COVID took your life on an unexpected detour and now you’re plotting a new course. Or maybe you’ve finally said, “Enough is enough” and you are redefining yourself and your future, taking control, taking some risks and doing something you’ve never done before. Wherever you’re at, starting something new takes hard work and a lot of nerve. 

Turning a New Year into a New Professional Season

Since the start of the pandemic, our job market has been in a profoundly volatile place. From supply chain issues to workforce shortages, budgetary restraints, and new standards for productivity and effectiveness, there’s not an industry unaffected by the changes forced upon us.

The Secrets to Changing Industries  

Depending on what you do for a living or what you are expecting out of the career you’re building, you may feel like a new job is the wrong choice. Sometimes, “starting over” at a new company or in a new industry means giving up seniority, specialized expertise, and opportunities for promotion and pay increase.

The Essential Message to Communicate in a Job Interview

In this job market, it’s hard saying what will get you hired. For some places, it’s a simple question of whether you’ll show up. That’s all it takes. For other jobs, the standards certifications needed to do the job well are still a requirement, but the context and setting for the work may be up for discussion.

How to Find a Job When Everyone is Hiring

Have you ever been voicing your frustrations of the hassles and hurdles of finding a job only to have someone feel compelled to share the not-so-helpful quip, “Lots of places are hiring.” The statement is clearly not being made by someone who is actually looking for a job. The actual process of searching for, interviewing for, preparing for, and starting a new job is something altogether different when you’re the one going through it. While many places may say they’re hiring, that doesn’t mean they’re hiring you.

And so as you consider how to go on this journey of job hunting, there are things to think about. 

Making Work Work for Your Company

The past 18 months have taken all of us by surprise. None of us knew how vulnerable our companies were — even in one of the most thriving economic seasons we’d ever experienced. None of us could have predicted that we’d have to redefine the workplace and realign expectations we put on performance. Now as we move forward within a new economy that essentially has pushed a massive restart button on all of us, we have to revisit some of the most fundamental components of employment.

You and Your Boss: Tips to a Better Relationship

Let’s face it. Some bosses deserve a mug that calls out how great they are at their jobs. Other bosses will only get one if they buy it for themselves. Not every boss is a great leader, and not every great leader is a boss. Deciding whether someone is worth following isn’t always about the title they hold or the authority they’re given. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t have a better relationship with the boss you have.

Here’s some advice from some seasoned professionals on how to make your relationship with your boss as good as it can possibly get.

Positioning Yourself for Promotion

The job market across the country is in a funny place right now. The recently-subsided COVID lockdown put many people out of work. Many small businesses suffered irreparable setbacks as they were unable to keep their doors open. Many large businesses changed the way they thought about their employees, the way they measured success, and even how they defined the word “office.”

This economic season has some people struggling to return to work. It has others wondering where they should go next after their last job was lost to the pandemic. But if you are one of those employees who has been able to maintain a job or has returned to work, there are ways to take advantage of this economic new world. There are ways to position yourself for new, better opportunities.

Viking Client Services - A Career Path?

For many people, the idea of being contacted by a debt collector conjures up negative emotions. Some of those emotions are understandable. Who, after all, wants to be contacted about money they owe? But the people we’re specifically referring to here are those who equate debt recovery and debt collection with something unethical or illegal. People wonder if the debt collection company that contacted them is running some sort of a scam. This isn’t necessarily irrational. The shady practices of some companies in this industry have bruised the reputation of many great companies that are doing good work.

The unfortunate piece of this is the number of good workers and good companies who are doing good work that end up getting associated with collections scams. So when it comes to the work we do at Viking Client Services, the question is worth asking:

Is working in a debt collection job with a company like Viking Client Services really a career opportunity?

The Opportunities That Come with Steady Employment

If you take some time to talk to people who are moving toward the twilight of their career, you’ll probably experience some consistent messages. What you’re unlikely to hear is phrases like, “It all went according to plan” and “There were no surprises along the way.”

You’ll realize that people didn’t have a crystal ball about each step they took. They didn’t have know the end of the story. Sometimes you’ll hear stories about risks they took or abrupt changes in direction. Sometimes you’ll hear about job loss or uncertainty. Often you’ll hear about lessons they learned along the way and things they wish they’d learned sooner.

Whatever lessons were learned and whatever direction was taken, some common themes will probably rise to the surface.

Where is Your Job Taking You?

Sometimes the job you’re in is a means to an end. You need to pay your bills. You need to make ends meet. You need a job. Ideally you’ll find a job that’s rewarding and enjoyable while you also make enough money to pay your bills, but the main point is to work.

Sometimes the job you’re in is a stepping stone toward something bigger. You know that you have to “pay your dues” in the mail room or in middle management if you’re ever going to climb the ladder at your company or in your industry. While the path ahead isn’t always clear for promotion and new opportunities, the goal definitely is.

Is Your Job Rewarding?

Let’s Define Rewarding

If we sat down with twenty different people, we would get twenty different answers to the question, “Is your job rewarding?”

For some, “rewarding” is about a sense of purpose or value. It’s knowing that the thing they’re doing is the thing they were put on earth to do. Even backing off of that a bit is another definition of rewarding, when someone is able to see that their contribution to their company is valuable, their ideas listened to, their voice important.

Turning Things Around: Salvaging an Interview That's Gone Awry

Have you ever been in a job interview that seemed to be going off the rails? Maybe you butchered an answer. Maybe you got emotional or too personal. Maybe you did something like talk in circles, play air guitar, or ask a question that you immediately regretted asking. Bad moments happen in interviews. But a bad moment doesn’t have to mean a lost opportunity. You just need to find some ways to adapt.

Going to Work in a Recession Proof Industry

Many businesses have been beat up by the global pandemic that has dominated 2020. Mandated shutdowns forced businesses to close their doors and many were unable to weather the storm. While some chose to defy government-ordered closure, the vast majority went along with the demands. The results have been damaging to many and catastrophic to some.

The global pandemic has led to lay offs, losses, and, in many cases, permanent closures. It’s led many people to reconsider their career path.