Managing Your Job Search | Youff Mag

Managing Your Job Search

by Phakeme Mtheku

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Phakeme, the Founding Director at 189Xchange, the home and job hub for job seekers who have lost their employment as a direct impact of section 189. As an experienced (15 years) Talent Acquisition Specialist, Phakeme is obsessed with positively

impacting the lives of hardworking South Africans through the work that he is most passionate about. Which is positioning Talent with meaningful and gainful employment. Experts often suggest “Looking for a job is a full-time job.” Great cliché, but untrue. Instead an effective job search (plan) should focus on essential activities with strict measurements and benchmarks.

Such as:

• Having a strong communicating strategy.

• Constructing a CV that strikes a perfect balance between your achievements and responsibilities.

• Ensuring that you’re tapping into your network.

• Growing your network.

• And most importantly, applying realistically, for jobs that you’re a strong match for.

We’ll speak about these in detail in our follow up issues and as we go along in this journey together.

SO, why is “Managing the project of search” important?

As with any project, your job search requires that you establish ways to measure your progress. This ensures that you keep track of how well you are executing your search and evaluates the effectiveness of your methods.

KEY productivity measures:

HOW MANY HIRING MANAGERS DID YOU SPEAK TO?

This DOES NOT include HR/recruitment officers and recruitment agencies. Since an  obvious part of your search strategy is to talk to as many appropriate hiring mangers as you can, tracking those conversations is a key productivity measure.

• Follow up with hiring managers every 3 weeks (or as and when agreed by H/M)

• While your primary tactic is to get to the H/M, it is also very important to seek out and talk to people who might lead you to them: friends, peers and others.

SOCIAL MEDIA IS A TOOL!! Use it.

Track and log all interactions in a chart or even simple diary notes.

What to track:

1. Total hours: spent on job search, education, research, email writing, admin and talking to people

(phone and in person).

2. Emails sent out.

3. Total job search conversations and opportunities

FACT: some searches will be shorter than others. Why?

• Luck may be part of the answer, however…

• There are good job markets and there are Tight job markets.

• Consistency on search

• The effectiveness of follow up with H/M (makes you a known candidate, thus increasing your chances of employment)

• Personal barriers.

For more info and more career resources, please visit the 189Xchange website.

Happy hunting!

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Flatlays for Beginners | YOUFF

Flatlays have changed the social media scene, especially Instagram. They are a fun and creative way of taking your content-creating to the next level.  You may have tried to shoot a few flatlays, but they just weren’t coming together, and you just don’t know what went wrong. I’ve got good news for you: making great flatlays is easier than you think.

I will be sharing my tips on how to create the flatlays you see on my Instagram account @cneh_shuga. Keep reading to learn my tips to making engaging flatlays.

What are they? Flatlays are pictures shot from a bird’s eye view, so you hold your phone or camera directly above the middle of your flatlay. Stand on a chair or ladder if you need to get higher. The aim is to position your camera parallel to your flatlay so the lens is aimed straight down. If you’re using an iPhone camera, use the square crop mode and turn on your grid to help line up your shot.

TIP 1: KNOW THE REASON BEHIND YOUR FLATLAYS

Creative flatlays always start when you know what you want to communicate throughthe photograph.What are you trying to accomplish with your flatlay? Are you sharing a new product? What’s the story you’re sharing with your flatlay? These are questions that you need to ask yourself before you start.Your motive behind the flatlay gives you direction and will influence the decisions you make when creating your flatlay.

TIP 2: LIGHTING IS EVERYTHING! 

Natural light is the best form of light to use on  your flatlays when you’re starting out. It's free and available everywhere. The best type of natural light is next to a window on  the shady side of yourhouse or  purely outside in the shade. Try to avoid direct rays of sunshine so that you don’t get harsh shadows or exposure (which can be difficult to edit). However, in some cases, shadows and rays can be beneficial to your picture – it’s all about perception.

TIP 3: A CLEAN BACKGROUND IS YOUR BEST BET

A clean, uncluttered background is is advisable as it gives your flatlay more impact. As a beginner, I’d suggest that you try to avoid using busy patterns or bold coloured backgrounds because they can be distracting and compete with the objects in your flatlay.

You probably already have many amazing backdrops that you can use at home, such as bed sheets, wooden squares, tiles, neutral coloured floors, kitchen countertops, light coloured paper, curtains – literally anything that can act as a blank canvas. Sometimes in other cases, busy patterns and dark colours make the best backgrounds. They surprise me and turn out really good. It’s all about trial and error and seeing what works for you.

TIP 4: HAVE A FOCAL POINT

Most flatlays have a ‘hero’ product or focal point. It’s often the product you’re trying to showcase.In this case, start styling your flatlay by placing your hero product first and then adding the other complementary elements around it. My hero here is Dove, so my complementary elements are an exfoliating brush and a plant. Play around with how your hero relates to the other elements in your picture.

TIP  5: USE SECONDARY PROPS

If your hero product is the star of your flatlay, then the secondary props are the supporting characters and extras in your story. Choose props that support your story by adding context to your hero product without stealing the limelight. Place your secondary props around the major elements of your flatlay to fill in the gaps. Play around with their position and angle. Sometimes you’ll use more props, sometimes you’ll use less – it’s all about balance. Your props shouldn’t take the attention, so keep them minimal and not too loud. Some of the props I love to use:

TIP 6: PLAY AROUND WITH EDITING APPS  

After taking your images, you may need to edit them. Some images require little to no editing, whilst others may require more. There are many amazing photography apps that can be used to edit your photos on your phone. My current favorites are Lightroom, VSCO, Snapseed, and the editing tools native to Instagram itself.

Tweaking the crop, exposure, contrast,saturation, and clarity are the easiest ways to make your flatlays really pop. Play around with the different tools and filters to get the right finish for your vision.

Just like any skill, the more you practice making flatlays, the better you’ll become. There’s really no right or wrong way in photography, so use these tips only as a guide. Once you get more comfortable with how you like to build your flatlays, experiment with new methods and ideas. Overtime, you’ll develop a look and feel to your work based on how you like to prop, light, and edit your images, which will create your own signature style.

Editors’ Note | Youff

Editors’ Note

Spring has sprung...And with Spring comes new beginnings. A new age. A new level , Literally.

Youff Magazine opens a lane to your fitness goals, business goals and even social media goals. An online digital lifestyle platform for the early adopters, aspiring moguls, creative originators and global shakers.

Get to know our editors:

Zisto is a 33 year old single mother with a journalism and marketing background. Her wisdom surpasses her age and her curious mind ensures that she always has a virgin eye and ear. She is an award winning radio personality and believes in changing the world one conversation at a time.

Hope Mbhele, born and raised in south of KwaZulu-Natal is also a radio personality at Gagasi FM and finds joy in research and communication.

She is an event’s host for YouTube channel Deeply Rooted, MC, a natural hair enthusiast and lover of all things creative.

‘We wanted the first Youff issue to represent the  identity of the magazine, and whom better to have on the cover than DBN-GOGO? She is a young black woman making waves in the hearts of the youth and it’s culture. A go getter, hard worker and positively influences her fans to be unapologetically themselves.”

Enjoy! - Hope and Zisto

DBN Gogo DJ Mix | Youff

YOUFF Mix

Authentically Gogo. A mix

Wobbly DJ Mix | Youff

YOUFF Mix

A traphouse mix by the banger boy Wobbly.

KingSfiso DJ Mix | Youff

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Happier times mix by the his holiness King Sifiso

Tech It or Leave It | Youff

Welcome to the Youff tech zone where over the next couple of issues we are going to talk about tech news, gadgets games and anything dope happening in the world of the geeks. For the first issue let’s talk about the worlds most valuable company. Apple

It’s spring in the Southern Hemisphere which means we are about to get a new iPhone unveiled to us. Well with corona maybe not. Apple decided not to unveil a new iPhone at their annual September event this year. This is possibly due to how supply chains and manufacturing around the world was affected by the pandemic. 

There was an official announcement from apple say that the “iPhone 12” or “iPhone 11s”  will be dropped a few weeks later than usual.

It wasn’t all gloom and doom cause for us with apple products its that time of the year the software gets a make over. This year that make over is called iOS 14. I have been using iOS 14 on two iPhones already, because I broke the iPhone 8 and insurance was kind enough to buy me an iPhone 11 (just the 11, with two cameras not three cause I’m a poor man guys) and all I can say is MAKE SPACE to download this super internal boost to the iPhone.

Before I dive into the highlight features, just off the bat I felt a speed up in the phones daily operations, especially while I was still using the beta version on the 8th version of the iPhone. Once I moved over to the iPhone 11 it was not so much about  the speed but the little things that apple has done to make the iOS platform a little better than it was the year before.

You can tell that this is an Apple fan boy writing, but that’s what I truly appreciate about Apple as a company that makes products. They seem to some how make you fall in-love with a product you bought years ago with a software update. 

I hope you enjoy it as much as I do, and no Android users… you can’t download this from the Play Store. 

Main Features:

New Siri, Siri will no longer take up the whole screen thank you very much. She now appears as multicoloured blob with voice recognition.

Widget, yes I know android has had widgets forever but its finally here hooray.

CarPlay wallpapers, I don’t own a car so I don’t care but seeing as people have WhatsApp wallpapers I’m sure this is good news for someone.

Phone calls: you can ignore people!

Set your own default mail or browser app: if you are a weirdo and don t use safari and mail app. You can now use chrome and gmail as default apps for your iPhone.

*Double & triple tap back 

*App library: a new way to organise your apps… like in an android.

*Automatic switching with AirPods. You now just have to open the AirPods next to the device you want to use. Its pretty cool and this is why my next frivolous purchase will be AirPods.

*Obviously new privacy features, and rumour p-i-p for YouTube.

*Notable adds from Apple:

*Apple Fitness+ your own personal trainer powered by your Apple Watch

*Apple one Bundle:

By the time you read this iOS will be out and you would have already tried it. Let us know what you think of the new features and if you found any features we didn’t mention that you really like.