4 Resume Tips for Retirees and Seasoned Professionals

4 Resume Tips for Retirees and Seasoned Professionals4 Resume Tips for Retirees and Seasoned Professionals14As if finding a new job wasnt hard enough, mid-life career changes have an additional big obstacle to overcome ageism. Its no secret that many job seekers who are not quite fresh-out-of-college feel the need to overcome certain stigmas. While a resume doesnt show exactly how old a candidate is, recruiters can- and many do- make assumptions based on the dates associated with work experience. One common concern- fair or not- is that more established job seekers may not have current skills or be open to new methods.Here are four resume tips for retirees and seasoned professionalsCurrent SkillsFocus on technology. Find out the new platforms or strategies being used in your industry and make sure you are up to date in their use or implementation. Services like BenchPrep can help you get trained on the latest computer software so youre up to date and prepared.schmelzglas AddressStill holding on to that AOL address because its a pain to switch? Once upon a time that would have shown you to be on the cutting edge, but alas, no more. Sign up for a Gmail account and use it for your job search.Social MediaYou should already know it is great to use social media in your job search. Beyond that, engaging on social media channels shows you are willing and able to stay current.BlogWeve told you why you should blog to get your next job. If you need more encouragement, think about how having a blog is a great way to show that you continue to grow with your industry. Not only do you HAVE a blog, but you give advice about proven strategies for success in your industry.Mid-career job seekers need to be able to demonstrate a willingness to learn new things and an ability to pick up new concepts quickly in order to ease any concerns a recruiter may have.Readers, what are your tips for older workers, retirees, and seasoned professionals? Lets help each other out

10 ways to win a rave performance review

10 ways to win a rave performance review10 ways to win a rave performance reviewBy Kristine Schoonmaker, MyConsultingLife.ComLast week I talked about why I changed my tune on writing my own review. Whether you agree with that approach or not, here are 10 things you can easily do all year long to help support your case for a great rating.1. Tell them where you want to go and enlist their help to get there. 2. Regularly share your progress, challenges and accomplishments. 3. Ask for feedback, accept and actually do something with it. 4. Be proactivetake ownership for scheduling feedback discussions if they dont. 5. Pass along emails or voicemails with kudos from clients or co-workers. 6. Prepare an executive summary of your contributions each year. 7. Quantify the results achieved because of your workin dollars and cents where you can. 8. Manage expectations exceptionally well. 9. Never let them be surprised. 10. Know what really makes a difference in your performance rating and provi de supporting evidence.Kristine Schoonmaker is The Career Lifestyle Coach for Consultants and founder of MyConsultingLife.com. Her bi-weekly ezine Accelerate offers practical insider advice and quick tips from a former consulting exec to help YOU take greater control of your career and stay engaged in your personal life from the road. If youre ready to have it all an amazing career in consulting without giving up the lifestyle, relationships and experiences you want, get your FREE subscription now at www.myconsultinglife.com.

Robotic Dance Instructors Hit the Floor

Robotic Dance Instructors Hit the Floor Robotic Dance Instructors Hit the Floor Robotic Dance Instructors Hit the FloorTwo partners dance and sway to the rhythm, one leading, the other learning and following. This sounds like a typical night on Dancing with the Stars, but what if one of the dancers happened to be a robot? Not only is this becoming a reality, but you might actually find that the non-human in this scenario is a better and mora encouraging teacher than many humans.Diego Felipe Paez Granados began as part of a team at Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan, wanting to turn a robot into, if not a winning contestant on DWS, then at the very least a machine prepared to give adequate dance lessons to an amateur. Now a postdoktorand researcher at the university, Granados (and his robot) has made great strides.Before I was involved, they developed an initial model that was a female dancer that tried to predict the steps of the partner, Granados says of researchers at the universit y. While I was on board it was about the opposite Can the robot teach you and guide you?A schematic design of the dancing robot. Image System Robotics Laboratory, Tohoku UniversityThe mobile robot uses a tripod on top of a base with three multidimensional wheels attached. There are four degrees of freedom that are designed to emulate a male dancer. This is something of a simplification of the human body, but the result is an adequate emulation of a parts motion while dancing. The whole idea of the project is to have real-time control so we can know what the actuators output is, he says. We have sensors and laser-ranged finders to obtain the fifth position.More For You Read about more breakthroughs in robotics from ASME.orgThree actuators in the robots lower body of controls the mobile base, a linear one in the middle part controls the rise and fall of the dance, and three in the upper body reproduce the torso, arm, and shoulder motions. The shoulder is controlled through a four-bar linkage.Admittedly not much of a dancer himself, Granados went to a nearby dance academy to understand dancing and the human interaction involved before building his robot. You gain a new appreciation for dancing, he says.So how does the interaction between human and robot begin?Initially the person goes to the robot with a high position of the arms and then the robot, with a screen for the face, explains the steps and motions that person should do and the names of the steps its going to teach, he says. The person tries freely without the robot, following the screen, then the person tries directly in contact with the robot. The robot initially uses speech to tell the person what they should do and, after several trials, the robot stops using speech. The robot then guides them through the dance and it has a scoring system to show how youre doing at your dancing.Sessions with the robot are typically 30 minutes to an hour.The biggest challenge in the project was not only understanding how a person moves while dancing, but also how to have the robot communicate what the person might be doing wrong and help correct it.Wed like to eventually have a condition avoidance system and navigation through a room. Im also working on putting a better adaptive system into the robot, he says. Right now, it takes five or six sessions to adapt to a person, but I want it faster.The robot so farhas been limited to teaching the waltz. While Granados saysit doesnt yet feel like a human to him, the robots been particularly good for assessing how advanced a person is with their dancing. He hopes this work can expand beyond dancing and branch out into other fields such as bioengineering where it could assist with the movement of exoskeletons.Its fun to hear about peoples reactions, he says. Dancing is meaningful to so many, and this is definitely a different way to learn.Eric Butterman is an independent writer.Im also working on putting a better adaptive system into the robot. Right now , it takes five or six sessions to adapt to a person but I want it faster.Prof. Diego Granados, Tohoku University