Stock Trader - Job Description

Stock Trader - Job DescriptionStock Trader - Job DescriptionA stock brsenspekulant buys and sells stocks, which represent equity in businesses, on behalf of investors and the firm that employs him or her. We often seetraders in movies frantically yelling out buy and sell orders on the crowded and noisy floor of a stock exchange, like the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). That is not how it works these days. Only a small number of traders still do auction-style trades on the floor of an exchange. fruchtwein spend their days in offices, tradingstocks electronically. They spend their days in front of a computer screen. For more about the move from face-to-face to electronic trading read The Death of the Trading Floorby Stephen D. Simpson (Investopedia). Quick Facts for Stock Traders Securities, commodities, and financial services sales agents, including stock traders, earn a median annual salary of $67,310 (2016).*About 376,000people work in this field (2016).*Securities and investmen t firms employ most of them.This occupation has a good job outlook, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Employment is projected to grow as fast as the average for all occupations between 2016 and 2026. *The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports salary and employment data for Securities, Commodities, and Financial Services Sales Agents in general, rather than specifically for stock traders Job Duties These are some typical job duties employers listed in online ads for stock trader positions onIndeed.com Execute purchases and sales of investment products in a timely and efficient mannerResearch and resolve issues intradingareaCreate new market making strategies for electronically traded productsProvide clients with general information and help with their brokerage accountsMaintain and document activityBuild quality relationships with industry participants How to Become a Stock Trader To work in this occupation you typically need a bachelors degree. Make sure to tak e courses in business, finance, accounting and economics. You will probably receive on-the-job training from the company that hires you. Anyone who wants to sell stocks or other securities must take and pass a test called the Series 7 or, more formally, the General Securities Representative Examination. TheFinancial Industry Regulatory Authority (FIRA)administers this six hour exam. Many employers help their traders prepare for the Series 7. WhatSoft SkillsDo You Need to Succeed in This Career? In addition to a degree and on-the-job training, you must have an aptitude for math to be a stock trader.You also need the followingsoft skills, or personal qualities Listening Skills As a stock trader, you will have to listen carefully to what your clients tell you. Making a mistake because you werent paying attention can be extremely costly.Verbal Communication Skills Your clients will have to make important decisions based on the information you provide.Decision-Making Skills You must be able to think on your feet and make decision swiftly.Critical Thinking Because the consequences of your decisions can be great, it is essential that youweigh all your choices carefully before choosing the best one. Customer Service Skills Your clients must feel comfortable with you. WhatWill Employers ExpectFrom You? Here are some requirementsinjob announcements onIndeed.com Possess a strong work ethic and be able to learn quickly in a fast paced, high pressure environmentGreat attention to detailAggressive, self-motivated individual who functions well in a team environmentAdaptable, willing to learn, and passionateMaintain composure and communicate clearly when under pressureExcel proficient Is This Occupation a Good Fit for You? It is important to consider yourinterests,personality type, andwork-related valueswhen choosing a career. This occupation could be a good fit if you have the following traits Interests(Holland Code) ECS (Enterprising, Conventional, Social)Person ality Type(MBTI PersonalityTypes) ENTJ, ESTJ, ISTJ, ESTPWork-Related Values Achievement, Independence, Working Conditions Occupations With Related Tasks and Activities TitleDescriptionAnnual Salary (2016)Educational RequirementsReal Estate Sales AgentHelps clients buy and sell properties$44,090High school diploma, real estate classes and a licenseSales RepresentativeSells products on behalf of wholesalers or manufacturers$78,980 (technical scientific products)$57,140 (all other products)Minimum of a high school diploma but many employers prefer to hire job candidates who have a bachelors degreeInsurance AgentAssists clients with the purchase of all types of insurance$49,990Employers prefer to hire agents who have a bachelors degree but will consider a high school graduate with proven sales abilitySales EngineersSells complex scientific and technical products to companies$100,000Bachelors degree in engineering or a related field Sources Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Departmen t of Labor,Occupational Outlook Handbook Employment and Training Administration, U.S. Department of Labor,O*NETzugreifbar(visited February20, 2018).

4 Tips for Interviewing Recent Graduates

4 Tips for Interviewing Recent Graduates 4 Tips for Interviewing Recent Graduates Good - on time or slightly early, attentive eye contact Bad- late or very early, no eye contact or a laser stare Of course, if interviewers know those nuts-and-bolts level tactics, job seekers attending the interview probably know those basics too. This goes double for recent college graduates who come freshly prepared from career services centers at their schools. So, how to distinguish from entry-level job seekers who have simply gone through good interview training, versus those who had training but also have the capacity to be great first-year employees?   Here are a few tips to help you dig under the practice-polished surface: 1. Promising job seekers speak positively. Listen to how the job seeker speaks and whether it is mostly positive. Dont just pay attention to his or her thoughts on past internships or summer job experiences (because most interview training will teach candidates to speak positively about this). Also key in to how job seekers speak about themselves. The first full-time job out of school can be a scary prospect for some, and thats okay.   Intimidated or not, the best prospective employees meet challenges head on because they have a positive sense of self worth, which their speech reflects. 2. Great entry-level employees are team players. For the most part, entry-level jobs are not lone-wolf operations. Whether in training with a superior or working to support senior staff, it is rare that the first-year employee will do much totally on his or her own. That being the case, the graduates interviewing for your junior marketing associate or sales team support roles should be able to enthusiastically discuss past experience of working with a team.   Even if the only example they have revolves around a school project, how they feel about operating in a group setting should be readily apparent, for good or bad. 3. Research is the mark of a hard worker.   Have questions for your interviewer is another of those interviewing basics that everyone knows.   You can write off as incurious the job seeker who arrives to your interview with no questions whatsoever about your company or the position (other than what are the hours? or what does it pay?). So how do you discern the questions that mean this job seeker really put effort into pre-interview research? Do some of your own research. Before beginning interviews, take an hour or two and poke around Google. See what immediately pops up about your company or industry, then see whats a little deeper into the links. If a job seeker comes in with a question that can be answered by reading the three-sentence summary section on the Wikipedia article about your industry, you know he or she probably didnt get very far in his or her research before getting distracted. 4. Its easy to fake enthusiasm, but its hard to fake genuine interest. The appearance of enthusiasm isnt tricky to manufacture. A firm handshake with a smile or a voluble Yes, absolutely! to a second interview invitation take no effort and any job seeker with any interviewing know-how can pull it off for 30 minutes or so. More difficult to maintain is deeper intellectual or personal interest in either what your company does or what this entry-level position will allow the job seeker to do or to learn. For this reason, it is crucial to have at least two interviews, preferably with email communication and some sort of brief assignment in between, to gauge the dedication of the entry-level job seeker. If someone interviewing for an executive assistant position at your ad agency seems to know all about your blue chip clients, but just cant keep up the same level of enthusiasm about the responsibilities of those people hell be asked to support, you have a pretty clear indication of where his interests lie, and they arent in the position hes actually interviewing for. Some how-tos for interviewers seem to reside already in the collective subconscious. You would be hard pressed to find a recently coached entry-level interviewer who does not know that showing up in dirty clothing is a bad move. Paying attention to those basics will certainly weed out job seekers who barely put any effort into their interviewing prep.   Further evaluations, such as those above, will help separate the practiced interviewers who might be okay employees from the practiced interviewers who will truly add value to your team.

Heres what seperates regular bosses from leaders

Here's what seperates regular bosses from leaders Here's what seperates regular bosses from leaders Are leaders born? Or are they created?In the medieval ages, it was believed that leadership qualities were a product of birthright. In the 20th century, this view was eclipsed by the more evolved opinion that leadership was, in fact, a product of nurture.Academic Warren Bennis - the so-called father of modern leadership studies - once stated:“The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born - that there is a genetic factor to leadership. This myth asserts that people simply either have certain charismatic qualities or not. That’s nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born.”Famed football coach Vince Lombardi, meanwhile, held a view underscored by his legendary work ethic: “Leaders aren’t born; they are made,” he said. “They are made just like anything else - through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal.”That’s the common belief now: leadership is not the result of your genetic makeup or a specific kind of personality, but a collection of skills that can be learned and need to be developed and improved.Yet, understanding this, another truth comes to light:Not all those who hold leadership positions are actually good leaders.And the reason is because they don’t work to improve those tangible skills which make for effective leaders.I was once employed as a marketing and sales consultant for a diecast collectibles company. My manager there fell into this camp: he was not a skilled leader. He didn’t exhibit the same work ethic he demanded from his employees. He was neither empathetic nor self-aware, and he made no pains to try to be.It was, all in all, the worst 18 months of my professional career. I terminated my contract early - the only time in my career I didn’t complete an assignment to my satisfaction.Now, I don’t think this man set out purposefully to be a bad leader. Nobody does.Poor leaders become and remain ineffective due to a varie ty of factors: They’ve been put into a bad position - usually by being over-promoted into a job they don’t deserve or can’t handle. They lack confidence in their own job security, and lash out in their reports at their colleagues as a result, never accepting responsibility or taking ownership, as good leaders do. They’ve been managed by poor leaders themselves in the past, and learn over time to mirror those negative traits. They lack either self-awareness, empathy, or a sincere desire to become better. Great leaders, meanwhile, exhibit the opposite traits. They manage positively, coaching employees rather than threatening them. They prove open to and grateful for new ideas. They thank and acknowledge their team members for a job well done. They also take responsibility when things don’t go well and aren’t afraid to broach sticky or politically sensitive topics with leadership since it’s part of their job. They cultivate a culture of ‘what if’? They encourage their teams to find new and better ways of doing things. They inspire people to be better. Finally, they lead by example - and that includes embracing self-development. I’ve been blessed to work for several leaders who’ve exhibited these skills, including my current CEO at AVL Digital. He, most decidedly, is a leader, and not just a boss or manager.The difference, ultimately, boils down to what leaders seek to inspire - respect, trust, and hard work - as well as how they inspire it.The best inspire their employees through active investment in their development, ownership over the results their teams produce, and hard work of their own.Leaders inspire trust through accountability and investment, in other words.Bosses, meanwhile, are generally content to simply have people work for them, lending little credence to their need to grow and develop as contributors.At the end of the day, identifying that difference is important, because it’s only once you understand what being a great leader requires and entails that you can take steps to truly become one yourself.The question we should all be asking ourselves, then, is not, “Am I a leader?” Ra ther, it’s, “What kind of leader do I want to become?” Because as Mr. Lombardi understood, leadership is learnt. Not by attending classes, but through deliberate dedication and practice.This article was originally published on Medium.

The proper way to break up with your work wife

The proper way to break up with your work wife The proper way to break up with your work wife Have you ever wondered if it’s time to split from your work wife or husband? Maybe it’s the seven-year-itch; after working together for years and sharing private jokes and lunch leftovers, you’ve lost that loving feeling and wonder if it’s time for a break. Or maybe it’s more vitriolic. It could be the time he took credit for your work, or her inability to take criticism even when her job â€" and yours â€" is in jeopardy.For some people, a work spouse is a close confidant and partner in crime. “My work husband grounded me,” said Trisha D. who chose not to reveal her full name for fear it might negatively impact her career. “And while I trusted him with my most important decisions, after a while I had a sneaking suspicion that he wasn’t just grounding me, he was intentionally grinding me down.” Trisha relied heavily on her work husband for help making important decisions. At a certain point, she started taking his advice over that of her actual husband. “It cause d a huge rift in my personal life,” she said. At that point, Trisha knew it was time to break up with her former work spouse.When he’s not lecturing, M. Chad McBride, Ph.D., Professor Chair, Department of Communication Studies at Creighton University College of Arts Sciences spends a good portion of his time examining the work spouse relationship. To that end, he’s conducted over 40 interviews with people who have broken up with work spouses and compares it to the breakups of a romantic relationship or friendship.“One of the challenges in a work breakup is that if you break up with your real-life partner, you might still have to see them or speak to them occasionally to co-parent or make decisions,” McBride said. “As opposed to the work spouse where you have to work with the same co-worker every single day. It can actually be more difficult to break up with them.”Before deciding to split up with your work wife you also need to realize that there might be fallout from the split throughout the office. McBride said, “You have to really think through and be careful what you say to that person and how you talk about each other to the coworkers and boss.” As with the break up of a marriage, you might have to talk through the story you both want to share with your work family. You might also have to agree not to badmouth each other, or even to present a unified front when asked about the breakup.Trisha said that in her own work break up, she brought in a mediator, someone from the company HR department. She figured in that way she’d preempt any attempts by her former work spouse of undermining her publicly. Ultimately, Trisha thinks she made the right decision. “If people can use a mediator when getting divorced, why not at work?”“Relationships ebb and flow, so it makes sense that sometimes you are more or less close over time,” McBride said. In that case, you end up spending less time together or each of you works on other projects. “ It’s a different kind of breakup, less egregious” according to McBride.But you should keep in mind, that just as in affairs of the heart, some breakups get ugly. And before you dump your office significant other, you should think long and hard about what happens if it all blows up. “In a major contentious breakup, one or both leave the company since it becomes just too hard to work when you’re having problems with a work spouse,” McBride said.Still determined to break up with your work husband or wife? McBride says to “Think through it as carefully as you would a real breakup,” since it’s not like a work friend where you might not have to see each other. How will you react when you see them every day? Find the right way to break up: McBride said if there’s a situation where you can stop working on a project together, it’s a way to ease out of the relationship. Choose the right time: If the office will be closed for a week, consider breaking up just before the holiday. That will give people time to naturally get over their inclination to pry.

Showcasing your Skills for your Next Review

Showcasing your Skills for your Next Review Showcasing your Skills for your Next Review First, while you probably don’t want to be branded as the office suck-up, you do want to constantly display your value to your employer and your willingness to grow and remain competitive. That’s why it is vital to take advantage of all opportunities you have to stand out. Offer suggestions to solve problems, volunteer for large or unpopular projects, and diversify your skill set by helping coworkers with tasks not specifically within your field of expertise. There will always be occasions where you are turned down but you can enhance your reputation by being one of the few who regularly volunteers to participate in tasks outside of the typical daily routine. The best way to keep up with your mounting list of contributions is to track them. Tracking can be as simple as creating a monthly Word document with a table that lists each task you have done that goes beyond the expectations of your job description. Don’t assume that your boss is keeping track of your accomplishments. If you are ever asked about your value to the company during a review, you have a list you can easily consult to show just how much you’ve contributed beyond the bare minimum. Tracking also lets you see when your contributions may be flagging so that you can ramp up your participation in other projects. By regularly monitoring your output, you will always be aware of how you are doing and can even help you create new monthly goals by reminding you of ways you have stepped up in the past. When it is time for an employee review, you will already have all of the information you need to present the positive things you have provided to your company. Now is the time to show it all off and make the best of the face-to-face with your boss by making the case as to why you are the best employee for your job. Of course, make sure your chosen tasks are relevant to your industry and help highlight how irreplaceable you are.

Your Elusive Creative Genius

Your Elusive Creative Genius Your Elusive Creative Genius Elizabeth Gilbert muses on the impossible things we expect from artists and geniuses - and shares the radical idea that, instead of the rare person being a genius, all of us have a genius. Its a funny, personal and surprisingly moving talk. Via TED website

Anonymity the secret killer of company culture

Anonymity the secret killer of company culture Anonymity the secret killer of company culture The end of every year at my company used to hit me with a sudden bout of anxiety. Not because of any particular thing to do with the business; December is usually our best month. It’s because that’s when my partners and I would solicit anonymous reviews from our employeesâ€"a practice we’re now winding down.The fact that those reviews filled me with fear and loathing isn’t why we’re axing them, though. It’s leaders’ jobs to respond to their teams’ concerns, take tough criticism to heart, and move everybody forward. We decided to end the practice because the anonymity was hindering that crucial “moving everybody forward” part.Follow Ladders on Flipboard!Follow Ladders’ magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and more!If the past year’s HR crises have proved anything, it’s that employees need safe places where they can report workplaces issues and trust that they’ll be dealt with. That absolutely demands confi dentiality and in some cases anonymity. But those two things aren’t identical, mutually exclusive, or even mutually reinforcing. Here’s how my company learned the hard way.HELPFUL INSIGHTS VERSUS HURT FEELINGSSome of the things in my review would be nice:“Keep up the good work.”“Thanks for focusing so much on company culture.”“I would love to get him in front of more of our bigger clients next year.”This made me feel good, although I wished I knew who said it so I could thank them.But then there would be feedback like this (and these come from my actual 2016 review):“He needs to be more professional and grow up.”“He sometimes undermines his own leadership.”“Does he even know what he’s doing?”We’d instituted anonymous reviews of our senior leaders because we wanted to get better and didn’t want anybody to feel afraid to speak up. But many of the reviews left us with little but hurt feelings: In  which situations did I need to be more professional?Wha t  particular things  was I doing to undermine my leadership? I take criticism like this seriously, but without the ability to ask follow-up questions, I couldn’t take any actions on it. Yet I knew that asking for more specificity would reveal reviewers’ identities. Lacking that, a snide, vague remark like, “Does he even know what he’s doing?” just made me want to find the asshole who said it and put greasy fingerprints all over their computer screen.And so our anonymous review process, set up to make people feel safe while giving us information to help us improve, only made us unhappy.A similar thing used to happen at our quarterly meetings when we founders would answer questions shared anonymously by employees. Many would be great: “What’s the product road map for next year?” “Is there a plan to do something about not enough room on the bike rack?” “Which of the founders can grow a better beard?” (The answer is Dave.)But inevitably there’d be a couple sna rky questions: “When are we going to get competent leadership?” Some revealed that an employee was feeling strung thin (“Why do some people get to slack off while I bust my ass?”) or heartbreakingly isolated (“I don’t feel accepted on my team”). Since we didn’t know who, we felt powerless to help. Plus, even if 98% of the company was happy, that embittered 2% managed to emotionally hijack the conversation.Samuel Culbert of UCLA has spent his entire career re-envisioning management to address issues like the ones we’d walked right into with our anonymous review process. His new book,  Good People, Bad Managers: How Work Culture Corrupts Good Intentions, shows how many common practices that are meant to help employees feel safe actually make things worse. One of the biggest culprits, he says, is anonymity.A slew of companies and apps (like  Blind,  Sarahah,  Sayat.me, and  Suggestion Ox) exist based on the idea that anonymous reviews help people and organizations get better. The employee engagement gurus at Hppy  claim  that anonymity allows employees to “express themselves freely and provide valuable insights,” and that “an anonymous feedback instrument gives you real power” to combat issues that threaten your organization.However, as Culbert sees it, “the idea that anonymous feedback can be constructive is based on assumptions that betray human-nature common sense”â€"including: Anonymity reinforces the idea that it’s risky to speak up. It can be mistaken for objectivity, despite making it easier to push an opinion as fact, grind an axe, or peddle an outright lie. Because it doesn’t allow for follow-up, anonymity can make dubious statements the final word. “It assumes people giving feedback are unbiased,” Culbert says. “It’s the same logic that contends hate mail should be believed.” Of course, sometimes it should be! But probably not all the time, and the key is being able to tell the difference. Anonymous feedback presumes that the people who receive it will interpret it the way the people providing it intended, which Culbert argues they won’t: “One manager’s ‘team player’ is another manager’s ‘conflict avoider’.” Anonymity can set off an emotionally charged hunt for the person behind them, sowing frustration and fear rather than a good-faith effort to find solutions. Anonymous feedback is often completely inactionable. With no chance for a conversation, it’s impossible to tease out the nuances or check to see whether any remedies are working. In other words, as Culbert bluntly puts it, “It’s a stupid exercise that destroys goodwill and teamwork.”IS ANONYMITY EVER VALUABLE?Harvard Business Review  has reported  on numerous studies finding that “when employees can voice their concerns freely, organizations see increased retention and stronger performance.”  One study showed, for example, that teams at financial-services companies whose members spoke up more had much better financial results than others.For my upcoming book  Dream Teams, I conducted a national study of employee/employer dynamics at 500 U.S. companies, surveying a total of 879 employees. One of the strongest findings was that the ability to speak freely, disagree with others’ opinions, and express one’s point of view each correlated strongly with how innovative the company was. The more people could speak up, the more groundbreaking the company’s progress.The #MeToo movement is a perfect example of this on a national scale. For decades, countl ess women (and many men) have not spoken up about workplace sexual assault and harassment  because, among other things, they risked personal or professional retaliation  for stepping forward. Now that our culture is (albeit fitfully and unevenly)  making it safer to speak out about inappropriate workplace behavior, more people are coming forward with their stories. But it took dozens of trailblazers brave enough to put their names behind their stories for things to begin to change; it’s unlikely that Harvey Weinstein would ever have been outed for his alleged crimes if only anonymous people had accused him.In fact, there are only two categories of instances where anonymity tends to be helpful in resolving workplace issues: Anonymity can allow people to express unpopular ideas that might not otherwise get surfaced but are useful for sparking debate and different thinking. If it’s not safe to go against the grain, an anonymous idea box can be helpful. However, if the team dynamic is right, it should be safe to express unpopular ideas anyway. Anonymity can be important for reporting HR issues, like sexual harassment, in environments where coming forward is risky or unsafe for the victim. Unfortunately, if a specific issue is to be resolved, the identity of the accuser often has to be revealed confidentially to investigators. Not only does anonymous reporting make that difficult, it can even undermine trust that confidential allegations will be looked into seriously. This puts victims of mistreatment in a double bind,  leading too many to simply not report issues. The real goal should be to make your workplace safer for people to speak up non-anonymously, even if they need to do so confidentially. This distinction is crucial. To get there, you really have just two options: If appropriate, train the offender to change their behavior. Terminate them. Whichever course you take, its outcome needs to be visible to others. That’s the only way you’ll instill confidence in your team members that speaking up has a positive impact. Otherwise, if you ignore or tolerate the behavior (and again, sometimes anonymous feedback leaves you no other choices), you’ll poison your company culture. And people will want to be anonymous again.COMBATING FEAR WITH CANDOR“The antidote to fear is acceptance,” says Jim Dethmer, founder of the  Conscious Leadership Group. Creating an accepting environment is primarily leaders’ responsibility, but everyone in an organization contributes. To do this, Dethmer suggests each of us do the following: Practice listening.  â€œThe key to acceptance is non-judgmental listening,” he explains. “People’s fear decreases when they experience someone really listening to them and seeking to understand them deeply.” Hone your self-awareness.  Are you entering situations and confrontations in a way that creates fear? “This level of self-awareness, personal responsibility, and ownership goes a long way for creating trust-based versus fear-based cultures,” Dethmer says. Ask for candid feedback.  Inviting candor helps people feel more comfortable using it, and helps you to be less defensive when you hear things you don’t want to hear. Offer constructive feedback in a supportive way.  â€œThat shows others how to be candid,” Dethmer says. “Conscious candor done well breeds more candor.” About a year ago, a student of Dethmer’s conscious leadership philosophy joined the C-suite of our company. She helped us teach each other how to deliver feedback in ways that make others less defensive. Through a series of town hall discussions with our employees, she helped us get the company on board with removing anonymity and implementing candor (paired where necessary, of course, with confidentiality).All this helped us start a culture shift. It was always a pretty good place to work (I think), and we still have some habits to work out of our system. But the mind-set change so far has helped many previously unhappy employees breathe easier at work, and cut down negativity.Now I just have to work on that beard.Shane  Snow  is the bestselling author of  Dream Teams  and a  global keynote speaker  on innovation, teamwork, and human behavior.You might also enjoy… New neuroscience reveals 4 rituals that will make you happy Strangers know your social class in the first seven words you say, study finds 10 lessons from Benjamin Franklin’s daily schedule that will double your productivity The worst mistakes you can make in an interview, according to 12 CEOs 10 habits of mentally strong people