Employed vs Self-employed: Pros and Cons

Posted on January 6, 2022January 6, 2022 by Edna Crane

While employed and self-employed, people both have their own pluses and minuses. One of the things to take into consideration when thinking about this topic is whether or not it would be more advantageous to work for another company versus being an entrepreneur.

Pros for being employed:

The advantage of having a steady paycheck that puts food on the table
Steady hours that ensure an employee is paid for all of the time they put into their job
A company will most likely provide benefits such as health care, life insurance, retirement plans, and vacation time. This is one of the hardest parts of being self-employed.
The ability to work in a team environment and the support of having co-workers to collaborate
Having a smaller chance of being replaced by another employee due to the fact that you have been there for some time and your superiors believe that it would be too much of a hassle or cost more money to train a new worker for the job that you do
Steady pay and work allow an employed person to save more money than they would if they were self-employed.

Cons for being employed:

One of the hardest parts about having a steady paycheck is not getting fired from your job. This could happen due to the fact that an employer might decide to cut costs if they are losing money.
Companies can change management, be bought out, or go under, which could result in layoffs.

Pros for being self-employed:

Freedom is one of the biggest pros for starting your own company. Having your own business allows you to make all of the decisions and do things as you feel they should be done.
Having a new idea and turning it into an actual product is one thing that many entrepreneurs dream of. They would love the chance to create something from scratch and see it become successful.
You will not have a cap on how much money you make, which can result in extremely high profits.
With this freedom and flexibility, you can choose the hours that you want to work and take time off when needed.

Cons for being self-employed:

One of the biggest cons would be the lack of security that someone has when they are employed at a company. This can be from not being able to rely on steady pay to have no one else who will watch your back if something goes wrong.
Another negative aspect is that you have to contribute a larger portion of your income toward taxes and self-employment insurance. When you work for someone else, your company will most likely take away a percentage of your money to cover these contributions for you.
The biggest con would be the risk factor involved with starting up a business. There is no guarantee that an idea will work, and there is always the chance of failure, which could result in losing all of the money and time invested into the idea.

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In Closing

You can choose to be self-employed if you have always wanted the freedom to do things your way. Yes, there are always risks involved with being an entrepreneur, but some people would rather take the chance of success over security any day!

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How To Improve Your Chances Of Getting Your Dream Job

Posted on January 5, 2022January 5, 2022 by Edna Crane

You’re probably reading this because you’re not happy with your current job, and you want to have a role where you feel like a valued member of the team and where you’ll often have a fresh set of challenges to keep you motivated and productive.

The trouble is, you’re unsure of the best way to achieve that goal. What you don’t want to do is end up with another job that’s just as unfulfilling as your current one. With that in mind, what should you do? Take a look at the following hints and tips for some inspiration:

What’s Your Definition Of A Dream Job?

Before you start looking for a new job, you first need to think about your definition of a dream job. For example, is it one that’s local to you, or is it a remote job? Is it a job that has a specific work culture at the workplace? Is it a job that pays a particular salary?

Those are just some of the many things that can define a dream job for somebody. As you can appreciate, each person’s definition is different, so you need to consider which factors would complete your definition of a dream job.

Once you’ve worked that out, you can then start looking for jobs that fit within those parameters. Of course, you’d need to be realistic about your expectations. For instance, it’s unrealistic to assume you’d get a $1 million salary working as a dog walker!

Think About Your Ideal Niche Or Industry

The next thing you need to do is consider which niche, industry, or sector appeals to you the most. You may have decided that your current industry doesn’t appeal to you anymore or that you’d have better career progression opportunities in other sectors or markets.

If you have specific niches or industries in mind, it makes sense to speak with someone that works in them as they can give you a real-life account of what it’s like to work in them. After all: you don’t want to move to a new niche and then find it doesn’t meet your expectations.

Build Your Skills And Qualifications

You will undoubtedly have an array of skills and even qualifications under your belt already. But, you may find that you need to build on them to achieve the goal of working in your dream job.

For example, if you’re a software developer, it makes sense to have some further training to learn about different software development methodologies or programming languages. You can usually get certifications or qualifications that will get recognized by future employers.

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Update Your LinkedIn Profile

One final thing you can do to boost your chances of landing your dream job is update your LinkedIn profile. The thing about LinkedIn is that many employers and headhunters actively seek out potential new candidates to fill new positions. What might surprise you is the jobs they want to fill don’t actively get advertised. Instead, they’d rather look for potential candidates themselves through LinkedIn or other pools of professional networks.

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10 Careers that Help People and Make a Difference

Posted on July 31, 2018July 6, 2021 by Edna Crane

Helping others is one of the most meaningful things we can choose to do with our lives, and there are lots of options. Whether you’d like to work directly with people who need help, or you’d prefer to look at the bigger picture, a career helping others can come in just about any shape or form.

If you want more of an idea of what you can do for your people-focus career, you’re in the right place. Read on for some suggestions and explanations that will help you to make this all important decision!

1. Nursing

As a nurse, you can work with people in a wide variety of settings. You might be working in theatre assisting surgeons, GP surgeries, or even in hospital wards. You could choose to specialise as an adult nurse, children’s nurse, mental health nurse, or another kind of nurse depending on where your interests lie. You can help a niche sector of people, or work with a wider group of people depending on the setting you want to work in and who you’d like to meet on the job. There’s nothing stopping you from starting out as one kind of nurse and then switching later on either, if you realize that it isn’t for you or you want a change.

2. Medicine

Working in medicine, i.e. becoming a doctor is a great option if you want to work closely with people and see the direct impact you are having on their lives. You could perhaps even get involved in medical research, working on finding cures for diseases.

You can work in a number of settings, including surgeries, hospitals, clinics, and more. You may also offer onsite services for corporate industries, just as coal board medical do. Getting a degree in medicine can be tough but it can be more than worth it. You could even do a bit of both, and work in research as well as a general practice.

3. Psychology

There are lots of different routes you can take to get into psychology. You may deal with people having mental health issues, those suffering from brain injuries, and perhaps even those who are looking to give up smoking and do other things to improve their physical health. You will need to be open to learning about why people do the things they do so you can understand their motivations and help them to stop the things they’re doing and thinking that are slowing them down. You’ll help people to improve their lives in a variety of ways, sometimes by giving them strategies and other times by simply talking to them.

4. Teaching And Education

As a teacher, you’ll be working directly with your pupils, helping them to develop and grow. You could work in primary or secondary schools, or other further education establishments. Some teachers even choose to work in hospitals and young offenders institutions. If you’re not committed enough to train for this, you could also look into things like childcare and becoming a teaching assistant.

5. Social Work

Social work is basically working with individuals and families who need support. You could be working with elderly people, adults with mental health issues, those learning difficulties, or other types of difficulties. It may be your job to help these people to live independently. Your role might even be to help children who may be in danger. Some social workers help people with the adoption process, or work with offenders. What you focus on is entirely up to you.

6. Emergency Services

The emergency services cover things like the ambulance service, and the fire and rescue. You need to be skilled and able to work under pressure in these situations, often risking your life and sacrificing break times for the sake of others.

7. Public Service

If you work in public service you could be working within the local government or government agencies. Your job will be to make decisions based on what is best for the good of the country and its citizens. You could help millions of people if you choose a public service role – you just have to make the right decisions.

8. Law

There are lots of different jobs in law, although all of them don’t help people directly. Those that do include criminal defense and immigration law. There are two main roles in law; barristers and solicitors. Barristers are often based in court, while solicitors are more office based. It takes time and a lot of study to land a role in law, but if you’re interested in this kind of thing, it could be the perfect way for you to help people.

9. Philanthropy: Careers in Charity

With a career in charity, you could be helping people or even animals. It is usually an office based job, although you may take on tasks outside of the office to spread awareness. You might be taking care of things like fundraising, marketing, or campaigning for the charity. You’ll become an ambassador and it’ll be your job to raise as much money as you can.

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10. Holistic Health Practitioner

A career in therapeutic holistic health such as massage therapy, obtaining a Yoga Teacher Certification, becoming an acupuncturist or working as a chiropractor is another area in which you can certainly help people. Not everyone has the knowledge or ability to know when the mind and body needs to relax in order to fully recover from stress or injuries. A career in one of these fields is certainly beneficial if you find this subject area interesting and have the patience and willingness to help teach others in this field. It can be an effective way to deal with the everyday stresses that life brings.

What Are Your Other Options for a People-Focused Career?

The above are just some of the jobs that you could choose in a people focused career. Other options include Radiotherapy and oncology, where you will be treating cancer. You could choose a career in optometry, which covers the visual system. You could become a paramedic, look into midwifery, or even help people by sorting out their finances. There are no end of ways you can help people. There are always going to be options for you depending on what your interests and passions are. There are jobs researching drugs, the environment, food, and other science related topics. There’s also engineering, where you might be working on things like clean water, and renewable energy. Management consulting roles involve helping people to improve their businesses, and this is helping people just as much as the other roles listed here.