Every one of us would like to find a perfect job to develop a professional career and realize our personal value. Nowadays, we rarely obtain news from traditional sources like the newspaper or magazines otherwise we have all turned to the website. In the age of information, we can get what we need/want from the Internet including that elusive job.

I would like to share some experience about searching jobs online and some tips to help you find your ideal job.

1. The email you send to the company should be concise and to the point. You have to ably express your strengths and personality in brief without being verbose. You had better clarify the position you want to apply on the subject and give a brief introduction of yourself in the body text.

2. Get better your CV and make it unique for each job application. As you search for your job online, the first impression for the interviewer is your CV. The quality of the CV reflects your personal conduct and your attitude to the job. A perfect CV will leave a good impression on the employer. If you apply to many similar jobs in different companies, you need to adjust the content of your CV according to the match the company you are applying to.

3. Search for information on authority websites. It is always better to find the recruitment announcement in the official web page of the company. But if you do not have an ideal company to search, you can turn to some authority website that offer jobs or post free ads on such kind of platform so that the employers will look for your information and contact you.

4. You can establish your CV online. While sending out your cover letters, you can simply share a link for recruiters to visit your personal website to further attract their attention. The personal website should be well established with your personal information, CV, your study results, your work experience, etc.

5. Be careful of your personal information. The Internet is huge and there are some risks of revealing your personal information. Take precautions to protect your personal information.

I hope some of the advice will help you find a nice job and I wish you all the good luck in your career.

Have you ever wondered which forms of online marketing produce the best results?

Here’s a case study on what works as far as Internet marketing is concerned.

“More and more the internet is becoming a primary marketing tool for many businesses, and those who have not yet taken the plunge are starting to get left behind. Most businesses accept the fact that without an online presence it’s hard to stay afloat, but with all the choices out there it’s easy to end up treading water, and instead of gaining more customers you can end up drowning in Tweets and Facebook posts that never seem to produce results.

To help those just getting their toes wet in the online ocean, we’ve put together a case study that shows you exactly what works and what doesn’t work when promoting your business online. The study below follows a start-up summer camp through their first year of business. The camp has four different camp specialties, each with it’s own website: Windsurfing, Photography, Climbing and Outdoor Adventure. The camp has a fifth website to act as a landing page. Over the course of 6 months they tried different marketing techniques, spending similar amounts of capital on each option.”

The best

1. Blogging
2. Online directories
3. Google Ads

The Worst

1. Spam email
2. LinkedIn
3. Deal Sites (Groupon, Rupu and co.)

Does this tally with your own experiences? What do you think?

Read the full Case Study

Today I came across a very interesting new service: NationHela.

So what is NationHela? According to them:

NationHela is a new, simpler and more convenient international money transfer service that allows you to receive money, from anywhere in the world, straight to your NationHela prepaid Visa card and mobile phone. A prepaid card is one in which you need to load money first in order to use and therefore keeps you in total control of what you spend. A prepaid card is different from a debit card or credit card in that it is not linked to your bank account nor can you spend money that you don’t have. Just like carrying cash in your pocket, you only spend what you have, but in a safer and more convenient way.

The NationHela card is available in Kenya at DTB branches, NationHela agents and at Nakumatt supermarkets. Individuals based in the diaspora will be able to log in here to send funds directly to a Kenyan NationHela account.

You can also top up your account in Kenya at any NationHela agent location or through M-PESA. All funds in your NationHela account are accessible through your NationHela prepaid VISA card or your mobile phone.

The most interesting thing about NationHela?

Simply log on to www.nationHela.com and send money home instantly from your Paypal account, Debit or Credit Card ( Inclusive of Visa, Mastercard and Amex).

Could this mean that one can finally easily withdraw from PayPal Kenya? Dear readers, has anyone of you tried this method to withdraw from PayPal?

Update: An interesting point of view by J. Nyagudi:

Think of it this way.

I’m a Kenyan and I want to withdraw through Paypal, so I take a trip
to London and open an account with XYZ bank in London, and have a visa
card attached to it. I then tell the bank that I will be using the
VISA card on international ATM’s POSs etc. I also open up (or update)
my Paypal account to confirm the bank for withdrawals and so on and so
on.

I then take the 8 hour flight back to Nairobi with visa card on hand.
From then whenever i want to withdraw i just “push” to my UK bank
account which i can withdraw from any visa ATM here in Kenya.

Now parter that bank with a bank here; so that it can issue visa cards
on behalf of the UK bank (long distance agency banking) (look closely
at the BIN of the card), DTB is here to make the CBKs here happy, and
as they always say, talk to a bank, if they are happy we are happy
since we regulate them.

and there you have it

As more and more employers are making the shift to listing potential jobs on online job boards instead of traditional media, it is becoming harder for job seekers to flesh out which ad postings are legitimate jobs and which are nothing more than a scam. Because job scams seem to be on the rise it’s imperative for job seekers to do some research ahead of time before applying for each and every job listing that seems to fit their criteria. Here are five tell-tale signs that the job you’re applying for might not actually be a real offer:

1. The job requires a sign-up fee. No legitimate job will require its employees to pay for a position, and any that says they do is likely just after your money and will disappear once you’ve paid. No matter how good the offer sounds, if it requires a fee of any sort then it’s probably a scam. The employer is supposed to pay you; you aren’t supposed to pay the employer.
2. There are misspellings in the ad. One way to spot scammers is frequent punctuation errors and word misspellings. This is because their postings are usually generated by a bot somewhere. Any respectable employer will take the time to post a well-written ad that has been proof-read ahead of time and is free from errors. And even if it isn’t a scam, do you really want to work for someone that doesn’t care enough to double check their ad posting for errors? Probably not.
3. A quick internet search turns up the company’s name + the word scam. You should research any company you’re applying for ahead of time, and a quick internet search can usually tell you if it’s worth your time or not. If the search engine results generate the company’s name with any ties to being a scam it’s probably an ad that you want to skip responding to.
4. The ad promises extreme profits in the first week. Anything guaranteeing that you’re going to make hundreds of thousands of dollars right off the bat is more than likely hoping to rope you in with the lure of quick riches and then scam you once you’ve taken the bait. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
5. Red flag words. According to privacyrights.org, there are specific words that typically show up in job listings on Monster that denote a job scam. These words are generally “package-forwarding”, “money transfers”, “wiring funds”, “eBay”, “PayPal”, and “Foreign Agent Agreement”. If any of these words turns up in the ad listing it’s time for you to move onto the next.

Don’t let the desire to find a new job cloud your vision when it comes to job scams. These warning signs are all indicative that the ad you’re reading and applying for is probably not there to provide you with an actual job, and is really just there to get your money or your identity.

About the Author:
This guest post is contributed by Debra Johnson, blogger and editor of nanny housekeeper. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: – jdebra84 @ gmail.com.

A while back, I had written this:

In case you have not realised it yet, computer programming skills are as necessary for success today as reading and writing have been for the past few centuries.

In fact, “You’re a second-class citizen if you don’t know how to read and write today, and in twenty or thirty years the same will be true for people who don’t have basic computer programming skills. Those who don’t understand–at the very least–the concepts of order-of-execution, variables, data structures and recursion will be as socially and economically disadvantaged as the illiterate are now.

I have been taking CS 101: BUILDING A SEARCH ENGINE from Udacity for a few weeks now. I must be honest and say that the course represents one of the very best learning experiences I have ever had. The course instructor, Professor David Evans, is naturally gifted at teaching complex ideas in simple terms.

If you have ever wanted to learn how to program, you have the most golden opportunity to do it now. Have you ever been frustrated when you hired a “techie” who played around with you? This is your opportunity to make sure it does not happen again. Are you an aspiring entrepreneur? Learning to code is never a wrong move. Especially in today’s world.

Just to show you how accessible a good ICT education is today, following the CS101 class, Udacity are introducing the following (among others):

CS253 – WEB APPLICATION ENGINEERING
Description: Web applications have the power to provide useful services to millions of people worldwide. In this class, you will learn how to build your own blog application starting from the basics of how the web works and how to set up a web application and process user input, to how to use databases, manage user accounts, interact with other web services, and make your application scale to support large numbers of users.

CS262 – PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
Description: This class will give you an introduction to fundamentals of programming languages. In seven weeks, you will build your own simple web browser complete with the ability to parse and understand HTML and JavaScript. You will learn key concepts such as how to specify and process valid strings, sentences and program structures. Then, you will design and build an interpreter – a program that simulates other programs.

Yes, you read right. In about 14 weeks you can go to a complete and utter beginner to someone who can create their own simple web browser. How cool is that?

Personally, I think this is a godsend for us in the “developing world”. In my opinion, our tertiary education systems are not at an acceptable level of quality, especially for computer science and similar disciplines. Udacity and others like it represent a great, great opportunity for us.

Nicolas Pottier of Nyaruka puts it best:

Suddenly, the very best education is available to everyone. Suddenly it doesn’t matter if you live in America or Rwanda, the opportunity is yours. And that’s why I think the greatest effect of Udacity will be felt not in America, not in Europe, but in developing countries like Rwanda. Because the improvement in quality over what is offered here is astronomical.

I fully expect that everybody who finishes the eight week Udacity course will be better prepared than those who finish four year university programs in Rwanda. And that’s not unique to Rwanda. Every developing country suddenly got a world class computer science school donated to them. [Read More]

Are you as excited as I am?

You remember those ads you see on the streets that go like: “Daktari Mtanzania anayetibu magonjwa 75…..?

Well, have a look at this:

I will cast a powerful SPELL to get you whatever you want for $5
Spell Caster, Master Shaman Crystal Indigo will perform an extremely powerful spiritual spell for ANY need that you desire. Want to find your true soul mate? Want an ex- lover back? Need more money? Want to lose weight fast? Do you have a serious problem that needs fixing?The spell I cast will quickly and dramatically change your life!

YES, now you can get services za “Daktari” online, for $5…

Link: I will cast a powerful SPELL to get you whatever you want for $5

What do you think?