Career counseling · Old blog

Career counseling #3: the University

Codrin PO

The year has almost come to an end. 2015 is just a couple of days away and everybody is preparing their New Year`s resolutions (myself included).

I find it only fitting to write a post about how those college years should help you get the job of your dream after you graduate.

Everybody told me, after I graduated, that I should have done an internship, volunteered anywhere, with any organization just to get a head start. People also told me that I should have worked in college, if not for my financial independence, at least for a better looking resume. The advice is in the rest of the article

Not too personal · Old blog

#GettingPersonal Greg`s back

Codrin PO

Greg is a person who doesn’t have too many friends. He is actually not a very sociable person. He would prefer to stay at home and watch movies (or whatever) then go out and party.

The very few friends he has are persons that understand this. But, from time to time, they don`t.

Greg`s friends have recently annoyed him because they didn’t behave very friendly. This wouldn’t be a problem for an ordinary person, but, for Greg, it`s a catastrophe. A normal person would discuss with his friends. Greg prefers to withdraw in his mind and think of possibilities, options and outcomes. His mind is spinning so out-of-control that he soon forgets what it was all about.

This is Greg.

Not too personal · Old blog

#GettingPersonal The job description

Codrin PO

I’ve thought a bit before choosing the category for this article. It was between #CareerCounseling and #GettingPersonal. I chose the latter.

My grandparents, and many other people who started working in the 60`s, 70`s, have told me how easy it was to get a job. There were lots of jobs and very few people to occupy them. It was enough to go into a factory/store (or anywhere else), ask for a job and get it.

In the past few years, I applied to quite a few jobs and I`ve read lots of job descriptions.

What surprises me all the time is that employers ask for stuff that are completely unreal.  READ SOME SURPRISING JOB DESCRIPTIONS!

Not too personal · Old blog

#GettingPersonal: past or future decisions

Codrin PO

There comes a time in a person`s life when he realizes that they totally screwed up a decision in the past. And that decision haunts him now. There are two ways in which a normal person reacts.

1. “The past is the past” – this is the most common. People say that a decision in the past cannot be changed so we now live in the present and look only towards the future.

2. “I don’t care” – this is the new style way. I took the decision, I don’t care anymore about it or if it was good or bad. DEFINITELY READ MORE!

Misconceptions · Old blog

Misconception #2: The rich people from abroad

Codrin PO1 Comment

I am from Romania, one of those Eastern European countries that people either don’t know they exist or they confuse it with another one (the capital is Bucharest, not Budapest). Millions of Romanians left in the past years to work abroad. Doctors, teachers, construction workers. You name it, they’re abroad working. This happened because the average salary in Romania is of about 390 Euros/month, money with which you need to pay rent (or a credit for a house/apartment), utilities and buy food.

In 2012, I left abroad to work. I got a 2-year contract as a postdoc researcher in a Belgian university. I earned a little over 2,000 Euros/month. For Wallonia (the French part of Belgium), the salary was decent. We could rent a nice apartment with almost everything we needed. READ MORE