After over a year of blogging I’ve finally done a guest post! You can check out my article covering how to make a smooth transition to a new job over at Executive Assistant’s Toolbox. It’s personally one of my favorite blogs so I highly recommend you check it out. Let me know what you think of the post in the comment here because hopefully this should open the floodgates for a few more guest posts in the near future. If any readers are interested in doing a guest post for Organize IT, please email me with your ideas.

I had a job interview this morning and it gave me an idea to discuss a few pointers on how to deal with something I was feeling a lot of - nerves. There is a lot of advice out there about how to conduct an interview but what about before the interview? Everyone suffers from anxiety when it comes to them and I will tell you here and now that you can’t magically make it disappear. Instead I’ve compiled some thoughts and ideas on how to manage those nerves and ease your anxieties a little for the next time you have an interview.

• You have nothing to lose (other than the job). If you just happen to make a fool of yourself, or not come across as you would have wanted to, so what? You won’t see your interviewers ever again and at the very worst you have just wasted a few hours.
• Prepare! If you know what you want to say, what points you want to get across, where you are going, what the company is about and what the job entails, then that’s a big weight off your shoulders because as far as you’re concerned, you are prepared for whatever they throw at you.
• Take, for instance, that your interview is at 10.30 and it goes on for 30 minutes. Hold onto the thought that by 11.00 it will be all over. However the interview goes, remind yourself that in 2 hours time, 1 hours time, etc it will be done with and you can take a huge sigh of relief.
• Cope with your nerves at a physical level. Take deep, slow breaths. Also, body parts like your shoulders and jaw tense up too so loosen them up. Shake your limbs. Roll your shoulders and wriggle your jaw about.
• Get there on time. While this usually means sitting there dwelling on all that anxiety you are feeling, it is much more preferable to rushing around and panicing about being late. You can use the time to do some relaxation exercises and more preparation.
• Interviewers know interviews can be stressful, and if they have been trained at all properly, they will take measures to calm you and ease you into proceedings with casual conversation and breaker questions. Keep in mind that they want you to be relaxed as they get a better overall picture of you. Tell yourself that you aren’t going in to be interviewed by monsters

With delegating, the first and most important thing to bear in mind, is whether the task is appropriate for delegating in the first place. If, for instance, you can do it better and more quickly than other people, it may not be appropriate to hand it off to someone else, and vice-versa. However, if you need to manage your time better it is a viable option. Below is a guide to how to delegate effectively:

• Explain the tasks clearly and precisely. You are the one who knows exactly what the job involves, they don’t. It’s up to you to transfer that information thoroughly.
• Remember the basic rules of productivity: explain why you are doing it and what you want the outcome to be. Just because you are delegating the task to others does not mean that they don’t need to know these details as well.
• Likewise, timeframe the task. When you delegate, you don’t then want to worry about when you will hear progress reports or how quickly things are moving forward. It allows you to be aware of progress without constantly hovering around the project.
• Explain why you are giving the task to the persons involved, what they can get out of it and what their boundaries are. This way they are clear about what is expected of them as individuals/as a team.
• Give the people you delegate to the responsibility of the project. If you are telling people exactly what to do, micromanaging the project and not allowing for any initiative that is not delegating. Rather than seeing it as doing a project for someone else, it becomes personal to them with all the responsibilities and expectations that accompany it.
• Give recognition! The key is to be positive and when criticism is required be constructive with it. Let them know where things are going wrong and discuss together how it can be rectified (if you just tell them how to fix it you are no longer delegating, as mentioned in the previous point).

The resume can be very tricky. It’s typically the first impression a company will get of you. However a lot of people take this as an excuse to fill it with bright colors and clip arts so as to get attention. LifeClever has a great article on how to make your resume stand out without looking like a rookie. The main points are below; I’ve used them on my resume and can certainly see the difference!

• Pick a better typeface
• Remove extra indentations
• Make it easy to skim
• Apply typographic detailing

Unusual Business Ideas That Work is quite an inspirational site if you have an entrepreneurial mind or are just generally interested in starting your own business. Every week the blog covers a story of an individual or business and how they achieved their success. It has definitely given me a few ideas! Here are some of my favorite stories to get you started:

• T-shirt sellers that make over 30 million dollars a year
• How to invest in music bands
• How to turn $5000 to $25 million in 5 years selling to… babies
• Bad fishing trip makes a Florida man rich
• The most incredible record company you never heard about