career services – C3S Business School

C3S Business School – Graduates

Testimony of a graduate from the program OTHM Level 7 Strategic Leadership and Management. Congratulations Prerna!

Choosing to Study a Postgraduate Certificate or a Graduate Diploma

If you think that once you finish your bachelor’s degree you have reached your ceiling for learning, you’d be wrong. There is always a way to keep learning and attain more knowledge that’ll help embellish your skills that’ll help with your career. There are a couple of ways to keep on the learning train after you get your bachelor’s degree, and those ways are either a postgraduate certificate or a graduate diploma.

So now your question might be: what the difference between the postgraduate certificate and a graduate diploma is and what are they when taken as their own thing.

Graduate Diploma

A graduate diploma is a qualification (usually vocational) where someone can acquire some practical knowledge and learn some specific skillsets for someone’s chosen field. Basically, the people that pursue this diploma are interested in gaining more practical skills in a quicker fashion for potential employers. Many universities worldwide offer a graduate diploma (including our school C3S Business School). A graduate diploma usually takes about one year to complete, and many programs offer direct entry towards a Master’s degree course. For people that want to improve their career prospects and their potential income, a Graduate Diploma is a good thing to pursue.

Postgraduate Certificate

A postgraduate certificate is an educational credential which provides students with some advanced skills in a specific area of specialization. This certificate provides someone the eligibility to practice a profession. Unlike a Master’s degree that provides a broader view of a subject area and more career options, a postgraduate certificate focuses on a few areas of a specific subject. Compared to a Graduate Diploma which can be completed within a year, a postgraduate certificate can take between a few weeks to one or two years to complete. With something that can be very affordable compared to a Master’s Degree, and an ability to complete it by just completing three to seven courses, you can quickly acquire skills that can help with your career.

C3S Business Schools provides different Diplomas in different careers, each with their own level of specialization. For more information on our programs, click here.

Your Resume: What to keep and what to ditch

You only get a chance to make a first impression. It is something that can happen in many different ways, whether in person or as part of your written work. One of the ways that you can make an impression that could determine a lot for you is your resume.

There will always be the desire to put as much in your resume as you can to make it seem like there’s a lot to be said about you. Despite that impulse, sometimes the most effective way to make an impression is to make sure that what it says is impactful on its own without the need of fluff. For some, less is more.

Here are some of the things you should keep in your resume, and some of the things you can leave out:

Leave your professional reference out of the resume.

Part and parcel of applying for a job is being able to include professional references that will be able to corroborate your prior experience. While they are important, it is important to know that they shouldn’t be part of your resume document. Keep the references on a separate document so you don’t bloat your resume itself. This way, you show restraint and you have your references ready for whenever they’re asked from you.

Unless your industry requires it, leave your GPA out.

This will vary depending on the kind of industry you are trying to pursue. Some will care about your academic achievements, while others care more about your work experience. This one will depend on you. If you want to goose your resume with your GPA, make sure it is a high one. If not, leave it out, and make sure your work experience speaks for itself.

Keep company descriptions in your resume if they’re obscure.

This one will vary depending on your work experience. If your resume includes work experience in a very well-known company, don’t bother writing a description about said company. Now, if you’ve worked at a company whose work is not well-known, keep a description. That way your employer gets some knowledge of something obscure and will appreciate when you don’t write about something obvious.

Include high impact points in your work experience

Keeping with the theme of strong but concise, this one will be of most benefit for you. This is where you can boil down your work experience to the most important and impactful things you’ve done at these places. People don’t want or need to know about the nitty gritty. Just give them brief points of the strong work you did at a certain place.

Doing all of this will keep your resume potentially all in one page, and there’s a higher chance a hiring manager will take time to read it. The easier you make their jobs, the better chance you get.

How to take care of yourself amidst job search stress

There is probably not a more stressful and uncertain time in someone’s life than a job search. This transitional period is very notorious for being a very volatile environment filled with a lack of direction and a sense of defeat. Long waits to find a job, the stress, sense of dejection and discouragement after having a job interview. These are all emotions that a lot of people go through in that transition from school to real life.

The good news is that these are all things we have all gone through at a certain point in life, and we can confidently say there is a light at the end of the tunnel amidst all this uncomfortable stress. However, everyone is going through a different path in life, which means the length of this distinguished stressful period varies from person to person. With that said, there are many ways everyone can take care of themselves and be uplifted while they are going through this. Here are some tips in how to keep yourself energized and with a positive mind as you tread through what will feel like a bleak and hopeless season:

Treat each day as a new day

One of the big fallacies of human nature is the constant dwelling of the past. It’s very easy to always think of the failures of things that came before. Things you wish you had done. Things you wish you hadn’t said. The truth of the matter is, all these things are history. Whatever happened, happened. There is no changing the things that were done or said in the past, and you have the full power in your life to embrace that fact and focus more on being better moving forward. You’re only defined by your past if you let it. Move forward and feel like a new man and strive to be better, and you’ll see a more positive outlook going forward. No need to deal with the “what if’s”.

Be the person you want to be

No matter when you are in life, you always have the choice and ability to become the person you want to be. This is a sense of self-worth that can help propel you for the rest of your life and lead to great satisfaction, and it can be done on your terms and not others. Don’t be who others think you should be. You know what you like. You know what you want. Embrace the confidence of yourself, picking a career you know is right for you, and you’ll see how the pieces will fall into place. When you are confident in yourself, the long trudges of negativity that happen in the dark transitional period after college will help keep you positive amidst the doldrums.

Just do it

Don’t complain to make yourself feel better. Don’t just sit around waiting for something to happen. Don’t sleepwalk through life not appreciating what you have and what has led you where you are. Don’t put your life on hold for anything or anyone. Like mentioned above, you above anyone else have full control of your life, so take action and do it. Hold yourself to a higher standard. Set goals you want to achieve. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Carefully consider and evaluate the things you’re doing on a daily basis.

Be honest with yourself and others, remain open to constructive criticism. Finally, above everything else: stay positive, because why not?

Mistakes to avoid as a project manager

Usually there is a lot said about the kinds of skills, abilities and talents a Project Manager should know, have and do for them to perform in the best way they can. These are things that are said to be of great importance as a manager, whether is it managing of a work team, keeping the motivation of the team, show strong leadership to the team and being smart with the decision making. While these are the things that are expected from managers, it can’t be denied there is a chance a manager could make some mistakes. Either small or big, these are mistakes that can be a big hindrance to the manager and those around him/her and can lead to some failure and keep you from objectives to accomplished. It’d be wise to keep them in mind as a project manager.

Here are some common mistakes to keep in mind of:

Hinder the work of your team

It is one thing to want to control everything that happens within a project and quite another to hinder the work of your team(s). A good Project Manager must be the benchmark of his collaborators, the example to follow in the aspects of the day to day. With that said, it does not mean that manager acquires the role of police or vigilante. Examples of this are when the leader continually interrupts the planned work, rejects the work of his supervisors again and again, worries too much about the hours and deadlines and, worse yet, openly criticizes the results obtained. The latter is the worst case, as it makes the team members look at the leader as a competitor and not as a trend setter.

Hide relevant information to the project or give it biasedly

The core communication of any project is a task that corresponds to the Project Manager, both in its conception and execution phases. When this information is hidden or is used in a biased way (for example to favor one or several members of the work teams over others), the ground has been set for distrust. Employees will stop believing the leader’s messages and groups will tend to separate, especially by workers who have not had access to information. It will generate a climate of isolation, individualism and it will be almost impossible to delegate successfully and effectively.

Subtract importance to the effort of the collaborators

Some project managers still live in the idea that the members of their work teams are machines. In fact, they demand the maximum effort from them and then refuse to recognize it; they ignore it and give priority to other issues. This is a huge mistake. The great value of any project are its collaborators, because in them lies knowledge, skill and talent. Besides, it is usual that when a goal is not met, and changes are announced in the methodology or strategy, it goes directly from one action to another without making a prior analysis of what has happened. This is also a sign of the disinterest that a Project Manager can show when he is unable to prioritize the most relevant aspects of the projects they lead.

Little collaboration and closeness with the actions of the project:

If there is one trait that defines the 21st Century Project Manager in particular, compared to other types of project leaders, it is their closeness to the actions that are being carried out. Its function is to control, accompany, advise, guide, follow and supervise each and every one of the things that occur within the projects. The error, in this case, is to isolate yourself in your own bubble to the point of losing perspective of what is being done. When you don’t go looking for moments to talk with collaborators, are no aware of their demands or needs, not offering periodic feedback and, ultimately, not having sense of the situation and refusing to lead the project in the field itself, then you can expect the project to completely go off the rails

Ambiguity in decisions

Projects cannot and should not get going in the midst of uncertainty. The person in charge of the boat must have clear ideas and objectives, even though the roads that are addressed may not always be the ones planned. The good Project Manager should avoid hesitation, overly conceptual or theoretical communication, ambiguous decisions, too many versions of the same fact and lack of perspective and vision. All this will make the project erratic, confusing and without a defined horizon, causing, in addition, that members of the work teams are discouraged and lose their commitment to their tasks. And that’s not what you want for your project, right?

Like mentioned above, this are some common mistakes that if not kept in check, it will derail your project or company’s goals. Keep these things in mind, and we can guarantee you’ll see better results as a manager going forward.

How to write a company cover letter

There is nothing more important than putting your best foot forward. This is true for you as a person (where you will want to make a great first impression to people and employers, or risk being ignored or presenting a false image of yourself) as it is for a company. A company putting their best foot forward in the eyes of the general public is sometimes the most important thing for the sake of their future. Whether a company’s focus is to sell a product or provide a specific service, it will be for naught if the company’s first impression isn’t a strong one.

For that, just like a prospective employee putting their best foot forward to a company, one big thing a company needs to nail is their public cover letter.

Writing a company’s cover letter has the same intent as a personal cover letter. The way it has to be written has to hit the same format: the header of the letter has to be brief and show a sequence of introduction, development and closure. Just like an employer writing their cover letter to a hiring manager, the company cover letter also needs to know who they are writing it to. In this case, the recipient has to be the audience the company wants to present itself to. Doing this can help personalize the message and strengthen the commercial communication in the header. Doing this can help catch reader attention and help the company say what it needs to say quicker.

As you move forward to writing the meat of the cover letter, it is good to know potential questions people may ask about the company and be prompt to answer those questions before they are asked. Questions like “What does the company do? What is the company’s catalog made of? What is the business philosophy? In what market niche is the company positioned for? What is the purpose of this message?” are a good starting point to what to write for the cover letter.

Writing the next few paragraphs answering these base questions can help create a confident look on the company and make their intentions clear, which can bring confidence to the recipients interested in said company. It is also important to state the information of those potential questions so that potential new clients/suppliers can have information they need to become involved.

This letter can be both an information deliverer as well as an invitation for interaction with the general public, potential customers and business partners. It can be the start of a dialogue that can help propel and expand a company’s initial reach. This is why it is important for this letter to be clean in its typography, have eye catching visuals and have any spelling and grammar mistakes taken care of.

More importantly, when you look at the letter as a company’s foot forward, make sure you feel the quality of the cover letter is one you are proud of. The letter will for sure speak for itself.

Barcelona: One of the best cities to work

Deciding where you will want to work can be a big decision in many areas of your life, whether for personal growth or long-term success. Many factors like cost of living and job opportunities can determine a lot of your ultimate decisions, so it is wise to pick a great city where you’ll be able to succeed.

Where C3S is located is for a really good reason: the city of Barcelona has grown over the last couple of years to be considered one of the best cities in the world to work at. This statement was made after a very thorough study made by the Boston Consulting Group and The Network, where many people consider Barcelona one of the best cities to work at, tied with the city of Berlin in Germany, and only beaten by the city of London in England, and New York City in the United States.

There are a couple of factors which have made Barcelona rank high as a great place to work. For one, thanks to its geographical location, many people like the idea of Mediterranean weather, thanks to Barcelona’s location directly to the Mediterranean Sea. For other people, a big selling point of the city is the unique culture mix of old and modern, where many of the architectural advancements made in the city are complemented by classical architecture from the 19^th century. The richness in culture from the old and new can make for an interesting work environment for some. Add to this some major conveniences like the relative closeness of the city’s beaches (where many people could end a long day of work with a quick trip to the beach); the easy transportation from place to place where everything can be easily reached with a quick bike ride; the emerging business scene that shows an immense amount of growth and opportunity for great new ventures.

Mix all of this together, and you can see why the city of Barcelona is a great place to go work at.

If you need any more convincing of the growth of the city as a great place to work, look at this interesting fact: over the past six months in 2018, many big name corporations have deemed Barcelona a great place to open big company branches and technological centers. Companies like Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon saw the growth opportunity of the city of Barcelona, and decided to establish themselves deeply in the city. Other companies like Lidl, Nestle and Allianz also saw the city’s worth and decided to establish themselves here. If this doesn’t tell you how many people see the opportunities of this city, we don’t know what else could convince you.

At C3S, we saw the great opportunity for growth in this city. We believe being established here can allow us to help all our prospective students to be connected with great business opportunities and have a chance for great success in the future. Through our comprehensive internship program, we can ensure our students will have a great foot forward in one of the best cities in the world to work at.

For more on our internship programs, click here.

For more on C3S, click here.

LinkedIn: A Tool for your Professional Future

Once someone graduates from any higher education institution, the world they will step into is a wide open one. With an overwhelming amount of options and paths to take it, it is very easy to feel lost in how to approach what’s ahead. Moving into this new unpredictable world will always be complicated, so it is good you go in well prepared. One of the better ways to step into this world is preparing ahead of time with the right tools, and one of the best tools for that is LinkedIn.

While it is very easy to conflate LinkedIn as just another social media platform amongst many of them, LinkedIn has the specific distinction of being a platform geared more towards professionals. What that means is that instead of being a platform to update people on your daily lives, this is a platform to connect specifically from a professional standpoint, like the acquisition of a new job or other business ventures. Just like it is invaluable to have your CV/resume as polished as possible before you go into the professional world, it’s also increasingly important you get into LinkedIn and make polish how people will see you in there.

Here are a couple of reasons why LinkedIn is very important:

Connect to a strong network of professional contacts

The only way to really make any progress in your professional life, whether now or in the future, is not just on what you know, but who you know. Because LinkedIn’s reach can touch every corner of the internet, it is a very important tool for you to start building important connections which can pay off at any moment. Either a future business partner or a job referral, LinkedIn will help you achieve it.

Job Alerts

While you are in the hunt for a job, LinkedIn can be a very useful tool in the process. Sometimes you may not know when a certain company/organization has an available opening, so LinkedIn works as a great tool to notify you when those openings happen. In this day and age, things are becoming easier to find compared to how it was before, so take advantage of the tools available to you.

Build your online persona & prepare for the future

Background checks for any potential future job are part of what employers do before they hire you. One of the things they check immediately is your online presence in social media to see if you’re a person worthy of being hired. Just as it is important that your social media presence is culled from anything they may deem questionable, having a LinkedIn account can immediately bolster your online presence to an employer as it will show you have firm dedication to being in a professional field. Adding to that how you’ll be able to sometimes learn more about a company interested in you in the future thanks to LinkedIn, and this platform can even help you prepare for an interview that way. As you can see, LinkedIn can be a tool that’ll help you more often than not.

Things to consider before accepting a job

It’s the moment that many people are long anticipating. After a long and arduous process, which included a lot of work searches and potentially a couple of job interviews, the moment has come: you have been offered a job. This moment can be very momentous because it’s the culmination of a lot of things starting all the way from when someone’s journey started with higher education. It all leads up to this.

It is very easy to just jump in and accept it right away.

Now the question remains: before saying yes, has a lot of important question being considered before accepting the offer? As momentous as getting a job offer may be, just saying yes before considering very important elements could be something that may be harmful in the long run. Here are the things you should have considered beforehand before saying yes to a job offer:

Your Life Balance

For some people, focusing on their job will their whole life, It will be the only thing that matters to them. The thing is, for some people that may be appealing, but for others it won’t. And the truth is, a job that consumes someone’s entire time can make someone miserable in the long run. There is so much in someone’s life than just going to work. There has to be a balance to many things, including a social life, a healthy life, and many other things. If a job consumes so much time those other things are not possible, maybe it’s worth reconsidering accepting a job offer with such time commitments.

Source of Income

The big one here, and probably the most important one: how much will the job will pay you? The reason many people get a job is to make money to make a living. It is very tempting to say yes to any job offer once you’re out of school/college because you’ll want to start making any money as soon as possible. Yes, making money is good. The big question is: will it be enough? There are so many factors that constitute someone’s life, particularly different kinds of bills and expenses, it is very important to see if the amount of money you’ll earn will be able to cover everything for you to live well without the stress of not having enough to live by. Also, very importantly, make sure the money you earn can exceed what your expenses are, so that you can still have money with you for any scenario/emergency. If a job will only give you money for your bills and expenses and nothing else, you can either readjust your lifestyle (place to live, miscellaneous things like phone bills/internet/etc.) to adapt to the income you’ll earn, or you can decline the job offer and look for something that’ll make you earn more.

Future Growth

What are your goals? What are your dreams? What are your aspirations? How do you see yourself in five to ten years? These are things to keep in mind when your journey in job searches start. Is the company that is offering you a job fit in with what your dreams and long-term goals are? Do they offer a great career path where you’ll be able to grow within that company to achieve those goals? Will it allow you earn more overtime? Some people sometimes conform themselves with any job to just go by. But like mentioned above, that kind of thing in the long-term can make you miserable. In life you will always want the satisfaction of growing up and seeing progress, so it is very important that a company who offers you a job will make it clear there is great opportunity to grow within the company. You will not want to stay in a job where it will stall your growth and dreams.

At C3S, all we want is for our students to find great success with finding the right job once they finish their studies. We want them to make the right decisions that’ll lead them on a successful career path, and we hope these recommendations serve anyone well.

For more about C3S and our career services, click here

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