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As a gardener you can be found looking to purchase garden accessories or perhaps marveling at that Alan Titchmarsh garden fork - but it’s worth noting, it’s taken centuries to reach this level. Trimmers and shears are surprisingly recent tools, but as you’re aware, gardens themselves are as old as Man. The activity we know as a common pastime was already developing prior to the dawn of history.
Gardens at that time were created for spirituality, for practical reasons, and of course pleasure. Usually circumscribed by walls of stone, fertile grounds were seeded with flowers, fruit and nut bearing trees, grapes, vegetables, and often pools of fish. Some of this was set aside, holy plants seeded and cultivated in honor of their gods. Additionally, other plants, prized highly by the temples for magical purposes, flourished elsewhere.
Assyrians, Persians and Babylonians mingled together flowers, fruits, water features, and vegetables with nuts and stunning architecture to design beautiful locations. As you’d think, one other culture like this would be the Romans - the Greeks, mind you, focused on the potential for sustenance of their farmsteads rather than the visual. In that era, spades and hoes were the modern, recent labor savers that forks or lawn rakes would be in a later age - real differences even before examining the kind of materials used. They used bronze, stone, iron, copper. The pandemonium after the fall of Rome pushed several civilizations to set aside the basic garden fork and all the other garden tools - save for the churches, who grew some flowers and herbs for pharmaceutical and religious requirements. The public started to grow charming gardens employing flowers, vegetables, and herbs for enjoyment. This habit continued up to the 16th and 17th century, by which point gardens were becoming increasingly formalized and structured. You’ve only got to contemplate the work that goes into a hedge maze to realize this.
Such rules are no longer compulsory, meaning there’s really no reason to fret - enjoy yourself, and don’t be embarrassed about hunting for tips on how to fix that bothersome garden forks deformity or perusing some in-depth garden spade reviews. “Capability” Brown and others looked at the traditions - so set now that they were essentially stagnant - and discarded those that obstructed their plans, bringing together a realistic outlook with appropriate statuary and other such accessories. In the present, the way they appear may have altered but nonetheless we cultivate plants as our forebears used to. You’d be hard pushed to encounter a more relaxing area than a garden paradise.
Standing out at a Job Faire can make a difference in your job hunting. Job Fairs are starting to pick up, and a major job search company is running some nice ones, called Targeted Job Fairs. At a SF Bay Area Career Faire in January, 10 companies as showing up, and a major job search company has 82 career fairs scheduled for 2010 across the States.
How do you stand out at a Career Fair? The rivalry can be sizeable, but you can help yourself jump out from the herd with early homework. At AA-Careers, we have a simplified step-by-step process to prepare. Plan to go? Here’s how to prepare:
First, investigate the organizations that are going and pick your objectives. Use the internet to research the companies that are there beforehand. Go to their sites and see if they have their jobs posted. Pick a tenable number to go after, and get ready to spend about an hour researching each one. It’s hard to do more than eight in a day, and three to five is a much more reasonable target. For each hiring organization, you want to know: key product lines, recent news, and executive names. Try to see if you know anyone at the target companies. You should end up with a page or two of research for each company/job.
Second, if there are job postings on the web, read them to see what the organization is looking for. Create a mapping of your accomplishments and skills to the prerequisites of the job. Make the terminology match. If the hiring company calls customers "clients", your resume should do the same thing. The accomplishments should be written in the style of the hiring organization.
Third, create a ‘short sales pitch’ for each likely company/position combination. Write down a ninety second ‘thumbnail’ that you can repeat verbally showing why you are a key prospect for that job. You’ll use this in your resume and when you meet the team from the company at the job booth.
Fourth, modify your resume for each job type. The objective on your resume should exactly match the position you’re want. The executive summary should be a written form of your “mini sales pitch” for the job. Then choose the achievements and skills that most clearly match the job prerequisites. Especially at a Job Faire, the purpose of your resume is a sales tool for you – to get you on-site job interviews. It should be quick to see that you’re a fit based on your resume.
Fifth, practice your ‘mini-sales-pitch’. Collect your research and the resume for each opportunity - bring a couple of copies for each – and put each in a understandably tagged folder. Keep them in a light briefcase or folio.
Finally, dress and prepare as if you’re doing on-site interviews. Dress well and be fittingly groomed. Avoid strong cologne or perfume…use any cologne or fragrance meagerly, if at all.
Remember to smile, and good hunting!