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Business jobs are highly desired by many graduates, but establishing a successful career in business takes a lot of time, dedication and of course hard work. According to a recent U.S. News and World Report article many business jobs are in demand due to the onsets of economic recovery, but because of high unemployment rates these jobs can still be very competitive and difficult to obtain.
So if you are considering launching your career in business, take into consideration these 5 steps for standing out from the crowd and landing your dream business job:
Improve Your Education
Business careers usually require some kind of qualification, such as an undergraduate business management degree or completing an MBA program. Many employers look for candidates that have these qualifications, so it’s important to complete as many qualifications as possible. This will maximize your marketability and open the doors to higher earning positions. If you can’t afford to give up your job or current lifestyle to go back to school, consider attending an online school, where you can save money and time by studying from the convenience of your home.
Network
Once you have a degree in business you may be wondering “How to get a business job?” Well one of the most important first steps post graduation is to network as much as possible. Networking is essential for learning about potential jobs and gaining industry contacts. Look out for local networking events and try to go to at least one or two a week. Have your business cards at the ready and don’ t be afraid to reach out to contacts you make in the near future about jobs opportunities.
Write a Strong Resume
A strong resume is vitally important for all careers in business, as your business resume is often the first thing an employer learns about you. A resume should be well written, concise and clearly demonstrate your business skills and talents. For jobs in the business sector you will want to clearly indicate on your resume how your business degree or qualification adequately prepared you for business career paths. Mention specific courses you took and how these equipped you with top skills and knowledge. Lots of people want business careers, so you need an extra strong resume to stand out to employers.
Have a Portfolio
When the phone finally rings for your dream job, don’t arrive to your interview empty-handed, make sure you have a portfolio in tow. A portfolio shows that you came to the interview prepared, and are taking your business career seriously. If you have only just graduated from college and don’t have much of a portfolio yet, just include examples of your coursework or work that you completed during internships. Moreover, if you are a seasoned employee and are applying for business management jobs, include case studies in your portfolio that illustrate your talents and achievements at previous positions. Many employees forget to put a portfolio together for interviews, so get a head start in the interview process by always bringing a well organized, professional portfolio with you.
Have Your Own Website
If you really want to impress potential employers’, build you own website that showcases both your resume and your business skills. Include a professional photo of yourself and your contact details. This way when an employer “Googles” you, they will find an impressive online portfolio that shows you have taken considerable time to promote yourself and that you are sincere about working in business. If you aren’t familiar with website design and publishing, ask a friend to help or even hire someone to do the job. Although it’s an investment of time and perhaps money, it will pay off if you land your desired job.
Jobs for business majors can be very competitive, but if you follow all of the above suggestions in your job search, you’re chances of securing your perfect job will be significantly increased. Don’t be afraid to go that extra mile to get the job you want and deserve, good luck!
If you are considering embarking on a business degree, you may be asking yourself “What Can I Do With a Business Degree?” Well the answer is quite simple, plenty!
A business degree can open the doors to many different career paths, business as well as non-business related, and can equip you with essential skills and knowledge that you can utilize to your advantage in virtually any kind of career.
However, there are some careers that are just easier achieved with a degree in business. Here are 5 top jobs with a business degree and how you can achieve these:
Entry-Level Manager
An excellent first job out of college, many entry-level manager jobs either prefer or require you to have a degree in business. A managerial role will include managing and organizing a group of people and having a fairly senior role in your office. This will provide you with fantastic team building and leading skills which you can then transcend toward higher earning jobs further down the line. To put yourself a step ahead of other applicants for managerial roles try choosing business courses that teach and analyze leadership roles in business.You may also want to consider an online business management degree, which can give you plenty of spare time to enroll in business related internships and also build contact by attending business events.
Accountant
When you’re considering business administration schools, keep in mind that business administration degree jobs include accountancy. Although accountants aren’t generally regarded as the most glamorous of jobs, a career in accounting can be lucrative and often times high in demand. To prepare yourself for a career in accountancy, you will probably want to either choose a degree in business administration or choose a business degree that offers a specialization in accounting.
Public Relations Specialist
If you love interacting with others and fostering new relationships, then you will likely love a career in PR. Many of the skills and tools you gain while completing your business degree can easily be transferred and effectively utilized within the public relations field. One of the most versatile jobs for business majors, public relations is an ever expanding and changing career field. Increase your employment chances in public relations by taking PR related internships while in college and also enroll in any PR related courses offered at your school.
Marketing Specialist
Most major companies hire marketing specialists that help market their company to potential clients and investors. If you are creative but also have a business mind, marketing is a wise choice. There is plenty of room for growth as a marketing specialist and there is always potential for moving all the way to the top of your company or even forming your own. If marketing is definitely the career path you desire, make sure you concentrate in marketing in your business degree or enroll in a business marketing degree program.
Entrepreneur
Don’t feel like working for others? Become an entrepreneur! Although easier said than done, becoming a successful entrepreneur can be very financially rewarding and of course very exciting. You will likely need substantial savings to start up your own company, so you might want to consider online business degrees where you can enjoy both low tuition rates and more free time to hold down a job. Or if you prefer a traditional brick and mortar school, try and choose a school that offers a business specialization in entrepreneurship.
Naturally, there are many more prosperous and in demand jobs that either require or desire business degrees but we wanted to highlight some of the top few. Feel free to do further research and look into all of the many great jobs you can attain with a business degree. Also, make sure you do your homework and choose the best business school and business program that suits your career goals.
Preparing end of year tax returns are met by many with dread and confusion. End of year tax forms can be hard to understand and keeping a track of your year’s expenditures can seem near impossible.
However, there are many simple steps you can take towards preparing for the arduous task of filing your end of year taxes.
Here are our top tips for taxes:
Make A Note of Any Deductions
If you already know of any deductions you may be able to claim on your tax return come tax season, make a note of them. If you have made a charity donation or spent a lot on healthcare, or getting that online bachelors degree this year, you will likely be able to claim some deductions.
Make sure you keep a file or a drawer full of receipts and any other needed documentation. This a great tax tip, as you don’t want to be scrambling around for pieces of paper at the very last minute.
Donate Now
If you plan on donating something and claiming it on your tax return, don’t leave it any longer. This will allow you time to gather all the correct documentation you will need to claim on your end of the tax year forms.
Above all, make sure you ask for a receipt when you donate, otherwise you won’t have any other documentation to prove your donation to the taxman.
Decide Whether to Standard or Itemize Your Deductions
When you fill out your end of year tax form, you will either choose standard or itemize deductions. Standard deductions are based on your filing status and will have a set amount. If you don’t have many additional deductions (from what you originally filed) filing out standard deductions are generally a lot easier.
However, if you have further personal deductions that total more than your standard deductions, it can be worthwhile to itemize your deductions. These can include charity donations and also mortgage interest, charitable contributions, property taxes, medical expenses as well as other miscellaneous expenditures.
In order to be fully prepared for your end of tax year paperwork, you will want to make sure you decide well in advance whether you will choose standard or itemized deductions. Substantial paperwork is especially required for itemized deductions.
Contribute to a Retirement Plan
For tax savings tips, investing in a retirement plan is a great option. Investing in plans such as a 401(k) or 403(b) can give you some much needed tax breaks.
These retirement plans are therefore great ways for planning for your future and also helping reduce your next tax returns. However, you must begin to contribute to these plans before December 16 of the year you are filling for 401 (k) and 403(b) and other plans you often have until April 16.
Do Your Research
Don’t leave anything to the last minute when it comes to these tax saving tips. If you need any additional documentation, make sure you have it all gathered and organized well before you plan on filing your forms.
Likewise if you need additional help such as an accountant or a lawyer, make sure you have scheduled their help well in advance. Do as much research either through them or online to make sure that you are aware of all of the deductions you can make for this end of tax year 2011. The last thing you want is to miss something out, and miss the chance to save money or receive tax refunds.
As you can see, filing your tax returns is a fairly complicated procedure. However, there are many loopholes and tax return tips you can use to get and save the most out of this time consuming process. Just be sure to plan everything in advance and know your options and you should be fine. Good Luck with your end of year tax savings!
Even with the convenience and flexibility of online programs, earning your business degree takes a lot of time and effort. You must be devoted to your school work and put in a lot of hours to complete your assignments, but that doesn’t mean you’re doomed to no social life.
As with anything, you must find the balance to life to fully enjoy the moment you’re in. Finding time to socialize is especially difficult if you also work while in school because your time is so limited, but it is still possible. Maintaining a social life in college is such an important part of the experience that if you fail to foster one, you’ll always look back with regret.
When it comes to college, social interactions are a huge component, so it’s important not to neglect this vital part of life. We are meant to live in community with others, and it is very detrimental to your emotional health when you are isolated and alone. Balancing work,school and family is a tough job, but one that pays off big rewards when done correctly. Of course, it is important to be diligent in your studies to ensure your academic success, but it is also important to create a sustainable schedule where your life, relationships and experience life outside of responsibilities are maintained.
Here are some tips on balancing school with a social life:
Balancing School and Social Life
1. Make time for friends – If you feel like your social life is suffering, then it is time to branch out and make some friends, or make time for the friends you already have. Call up an old friend and make plans for the weekend. If you plan something, you can make the proper adjustments within your week to ensure that you can go out and have a good time without worrying about other things. While it may feel like you have absolutely no time to hang out with friends, you can make the time by choosing time with friends over other unimportant matters. It all comes down to time management. Continue reading Finding a Balance Between School and Social Life
 Earning your business degree is one of the smartest career and life moves you could ever make. The benefits of holding a business degree are almost too numerous to count. Majoring in business is an extremely smart choice because it creates a solid foundation from which you can build your life upon.
Benefits of a Business Degree
Here a just a few of the benefits of having a business degree:
1. Career Flexibility - You may be wondering what to do with a business degree, and fortunately, the options are nearly endless. A business degree is extremely useful for many different professions. From a business administrative assistant to a high powered executive, there are countless positions available in the field of business. Many college graduates lament the fact that their degree offers very little in terms of job opportunities. However, with business, there is literally a world of possibility awaiting you. From corporations to entrepreneurship to business ownership, you can get so many different jobs with a business degree.
2. Earning Potential - Among the many business degree benefits, the earning potential is nearly limitless. Those with a business degree have the opportunity to have a very high earning potential. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports that “median annual wages of wage and salary of chief executives in May 2008 were $158,560. Some top executives of large companies earn hundreds of thousands of dollars to more than $1 million annually, although salaries vary substantially by type and level of responsibilities and by industry.” Continue reading The Benefits of a Business Degree
As a business student, you should always be looking for ways to improve your skills, stay on top of the latest news in the busin ess world and be the best business person you can be, and now you have the chance to do that with greater ease by using some great new apps!
Believe or not, there are many apps that are extremely useful for business students. The best apps are those that improve your day-to-day business dealing and help you achieve your goal of earning your business degree!
Top 10 Business Apps
Check out this list of the best business apps!
1. Goal Tracker: Like the name implies, Goal-Tracker is one of the top business apps for helping you reach your goals. Track the due-dates of your goals and measure your success along the way. Whether it’s business, financial, sports, web or health goals, Goal Tracker will assist you every step of the way.
2. Task2Gather: Looking for a way to organize all of your business, personal and family tasks in one web cloud? Task2Gather, a great mobile app for business, does just that and is always accessible from an iPhone or desktop PC. You can even share your tasks with your fellow classmates, family members, colleagues, etc.
3. JustAddMoney: JustAddMoney, considered one of the best finance tracking apps, allows you and other users to track your expenses with ease and convenience straight from your phone or any web browser. You can use this most useful app to track your spending in real time by entering information such as receipts, checks, credit card purchases, and the amount of cash you spend every time you make a purchase. Continue reading Best Apps for Business Students
If you are looking to earn your business degree from a world-class university, consider enrolling in an online degree program at Colorado State University-Global Campus!
CSU-Global has just been named one of the Top 25 Online Universities for 2011, and is proud to offer the highest quality online Certificate, Bachelors and Masters Degree Programs in the country. CSU-Global Campus is widely respected, offering degrees that employers will respect.
The beauty of CSU-Global is that you can even earn your certificate or degree from the comfort of your own home. Students have the ability to keep up with their other responsibilities and duties. Tailoring your schedule to meet your needs means you’ll never have to sacrifice the quality of your education or lifestyle. Most importantly, CSU-Global never sacrifices quality for convenience, so you can rest assured you are receiving the highest quality degree possible.
Are finances holding you back? Whether you’re looking to earn your online undergraduate or your online graduate degree, CSU-Global offers financial aid to qualifying students to help with tuition costs. They even offer tuition guarantee which ensures that you will pay the same tuition rate throughout your entire degree program. CSU-Global is committed to never letting money hold you back from living your dreams.
As the newest campus in the Colorado State University System, CSU-Global Campus offers:
- 100% online degree programs for working professionals and nontraditional students.
- A streamlined admissions process with courses starting every 8 weeks
- Access to interactive and attentive faculty who are experts in their fields.
- Degrees employers recognize to give you the competitive edge necessary in today’s global workforce.
- Affordable tuition rates, tuition guarantees and financing options.
- Small class sizes.
Ready to propel your business career? You’ll acquire the professionally relevant skills you need to become a leader in your field, while gaining invaluable experience to help achieve your goals. CSU-Global has specifically designed their business programs to meet the growing demands of professionals within the field, and is dedicated to providing students with the resources, tools and knowledge to achieve business success. Continue reading Colorado State University – Global Campus
 Preparing for job interviews can be extremely nerve-racking. Whether you’ve just earned your online degree in business and are going for your first job, or have been working for years, preparation for an interview can cause major anxiety. Will you answer the questions correctly? Are you the right one for the job? While it can make even the most savvy business person nervous, practicing mock interview questions and polishing off your answers can help set you apart from the other candidates.
The best way how to prepare for interview questions is to go through as many question and answer sessions as you can with a friend or colleague. This will arm you with answers for the actual interview, preventing you from finding yourself stumbling over your words or racking your brain to come up with original answers. Whether you’re preparing for a phone interview or an in-person one, the best thing you can do is to prepare interview questions and answers ahead of time so that you don’t get caught off guard. Make sure you have answers for each of the following questions.
Top Five Interview Questions
- How would you describe yourself? You must be prepared to answer this question because it will be asked every time. The key to preparing for interview questions is to come up with your detailed answers beforehand. Be sure to consider who is interviewing you and though you need to be honest, describe your shining attributes without falling back on cliche terms such as “hard-working”. Find a way to integrate your qualities and characteristics with successes in previous work positions and provide examples. For instance, explain how your ability to work as a team player enabled you to create the first product of its kind with a team of researchers in your last job, or that your dedication to working extra hours was the only thing that saved your company’s presentation from being unfinished during a big pitch.
- What are your goals? This too is one of the most frequently asked interview questions because it gives the employer a sense of what you are trying to achieve and where you want to be heading. It would be unwise to focus solely on monetary gain, such as becoming a millionaire, but rather, give the interviewer a clear idea of your career goals.
- Why do you think that you’re the right fit for this particular position? This is one of the more common job interview questions and requires a bit of homework. Research the company, their history and background, and be prepared with an answer that jives with their company culture and history. If you have the opportunity, talk to current or past employees and ask detailed questions about the company and try to gain insight into what type of people they hire. Come up with a few points of why you’re right for the job and be sure to include past successes and lessons that make you a perfect fit for the job.
- What are your greatest weaknesses? First, this question is testing to see if you are going to be honest. The natural response would be to sugar-coat your answer in order to be appealing to the interviewer, but it is important to be truthful on this one. It is definitely one of the tough interview questions that can sometimes trip people up, but if you come up with your answer ahead of time, you will be ready to gracefully answer it. The best way to answer is to think about something you struggle with, for example, perfectionism, and tie it into a strength, such as unparalleled performance. If you can successfully turn your weakness into something that can actually benefit the company, you will set yourself apart from others.
- How do you deal with conflict? Employers are looking to see how you will react and respond when stress and problems arise. Often times, the interviewer may explain a specific scenario in which they will ask how you would respond. Think of your personal conflict resolution style and be ready to describe a specific situation in which you successfully handled conflict.
What has been your experience with interview questions and answers? What advice would you give on how to prepare for a job interview? Let us know in the comments below.
 Making the jump from the business world to the medical world is a huge leap.
It is definitely not a typical path, but there are certainly parts of business that would prepare you for certain professions in the medical field. Lessons and knowledge you gained from the business world could help you in your medical records courses.
For instance, medical records management is very business-oriented. Medical records are managed and operated like a business with many needs related to administration. Medical and Healthcare managers, often referred to as executives or administrators, are responsible for planning, directing, coordinating, and supervising Healthcare practices at hospitals and other Healthcare facilities.
Medical records programs are constituted in the form of a masters of Healthcare administration program which is typically necessary to become a medical records manager. A medical recording masters program is preferred but a masters degree in health sciences, public health, medicine, allied health, or business administration is also accepted within the industry. Graduate programs typically require take 2 to 3 years to complete, and may include 1 year of supervised administrative experience. Due to the increased specialization associated with an MBA focused with an emphasis on Healthcare, The Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education reported 72 accredited masters Healthcare administration programs in 2008.
Interestingly, some masters of Healthcare administration programs are selective as to whether a they require a bachelors degree in business or healthcare administration, but many accept students with bachelors degrees in other areas of interest. If you’re a business student that wants to get into the Healthcare industry, this is the profession for you!
Due to the diverse nature of any Healthcare facility, most medical and Healthcare managers are trained as specialists. These different areas of specialization are each responsible to a specific department. Two examples of the various types of Healthcare managers within the average hospital are:
1. Clinical managers- trained in a specific clinical field or area
2. Health information managers- such as Medical Coding specialists and Medical Transcriptionists. Continue reading Making the Leap from Business to Health
Seamlessly fusing coursework with policy research in the areas of intellectual property law, tax law and corporate governance and ethics, the Center for Business Law (CBL) at New England Law | Boston sets itself a cut above the rest.
Armed with professors with inside knowledge, such as one from the Massachusetts Appellate Tax Board, the executive director of FINRA and past regional director of the Securities and Exchange Commission, CBL allows students to receive practical insight along with solid instruction. In an educational environment with no short supply of law schools, CBL takes its duty to provide superior teachers and extraordinary educational tools very seriously.
As a supplement to its rigorous curriculum, CBL offers more than a dozen law clinics each semester in a variety of areas. Students get the advantage of being able to propose placements with organizations of special interest to them. Students have found clinics to be most beneficial and truly enriching to their upper-level study.
“Clinics encourage rigorous legal and factual analysis and expose students to issues of policy and ethics with a sense of urgency that is difficult to simulate in the classroom,” the CBL website states. “Clinical work also enhances readiness for the bar exam, elevates a resume, promotes networking, and provides excellent opportunities to perform public service and public interest legal work.”
In a rough economic time, it is reassuring to know that students graduating from CBL have been placed in organizations such as the Boston Stock Exchange and insurance giant Liberty Mutual. New England Law | Boston’s law school programs readies its graduates to successfully transition into practicing law in the real world. Students from this law school receive an education which places them competitively on the leading edge of theory and practice.
CBL features 3 institutes:
1. Corporate Governance and Ethics
Headed by Professor Susan Finneran, the institute recently has been emphasizing social justice issues and the responsibilities of companies within a system that has allowed them to prosper at the expense of individuals and populations.
2. Intellectual Property
Focused on one of the most rapidly growing areas of legal specialization, this institute’s activities are related to the challenges technology poses to the traditional demarcation in the law between the intangible and the concrete and between the public domain and private property.
3. Tax Law
Addressing a full range of tax issues from both regulatory and compliance perspectives, this institute ensures that the CBL tax program remains a strong core discipline of the school.
If money is an issue, don’t fret. New England Law| Boston has financial aid available to help you achieve your career goals.
To begin on the path to your business law degree today, take the first step to your dreams and contact the school’s admission department.
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