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The Ins and Outs of Free Writing Contests (free writing contests) Free writing contests are available by the thousands. They are virtually a dime a dozen on the Internet. No matter what your niche is in the writing community there is a free writing contests out there for you. How do you know which ones to enter and which ones are legitimate? That’s simple. You do what you do best-- research. While providing the story for the free writing contest will probably be the easy part, researching the thousands of available contests will be a daunting task. If this is un-chartered water for you, you have the start at the beginning. Finding what free writing contests are available. Grab a notebook or start a word document and list the contests that are available. Beside each contest name you will want to put what kind of writing they are looking for and when it needs to be done by. By doing this first you will be able to eliminate any that do not coincide with your writing niche or with your schedule. Now the free writing contest research begins. Finding out if a contest is worthwhile and legitimate is comparable to running a background check on a person. First check the contest website. Do they have all contact information available? Do they tell you what company is hosting the contest? If they are not, you will have likely found warning number one that it is a scam. So scratch those off your list or at least move them to the bottom until you can find out more information on them. Start asking around to colleagues and writers groups. Search the writing forums and the Internet scam sites. The Better Business Bureau is also a good place to look. Once you narrowed the free writing contests down to the legitimate ones, read the contest rules and regulations. Some contests require you signing over all rights to a story even if you don’t win. Are you willing to do this? Giving up rights to you writing is a lot easier to do when you are getting something in return. After you enter there is no going back, so make sure this is what you want to do. The final thing you need to look for is if the contest is just a cover up to get you to buy services or products. This does not necessarily mean they are a scam or don’t actually award winners. It simply means that they will try to entice you to use their critiquing services or offer you a book at a reduced fee that your work will be published in. Being published sounds like a great deal but is it a book that carries prestige that people are going to see? Many authors think that writing contests will launch their career into a successful endeavor. This is not the case, especially for free writing contests. Even winning the grand prize of a smaller known contest is not going to affect your literary journey. Even though they may not springboard your career, there are good reasons to join writing contests. You will get unbiased opinions and valuable feedback from the judges. If you make it into the higher rounds, editors could also see your writing. Ultimately whether you enter a free writing contest the choice is yours. Just ask you self if the time spent writing and researching the piece you choose to enter is worth writing for free in most cases. The critique and feedback may be the most worthwhile thing you receive from the contest. But then again the judges opinions are a dime a dozen just like the contests.

Can Job Sharing Boost your Employee Profile? Job sharing is one of the newer occurring work arrangements on the job market. It means that two or more people share one full time position. Most often it is two people that work part time on the same position. This kind of work sharing is a great invention for all parents that want to spend more time with their children or for people that are just not made for a full time job. Job sharing is a flexible job option that shares one person’s responsibilities between two people. So, can job sharing boost your employee profile? Yes, of course is the answer to that. The reasons why job sharing boosts your employee profile are widely spread. Job sharing can bring benefits not only to employees but also to employers and companies. Start by looking at the aspect of sharing your work. If you are sharing a full time position load with another person, pressure is less on you. You still have the same deadline, but the pressure is shared and you can work more efficiently on your work assignments. Less stress makes for a happier more relaxed employee that can tackle the work given to him or her easily. This makes the employee a more balanced person. The possibility to stay at home while still having a chance to be part of a company can further your career and keep your skills up to date and this makes for a well balanced worker. Another reason why job sharing might boost your employee profile is that two people working part time actually can get more work done as one full time employee. Why is that? Well, that is very easy. While the full time employee is very tired in the mid afternoon from his already long day, the person coming in for the second half of the day has had time to relax all morning long and therefore can start with new end fresh energy and thoughts on the shared work. Should the position not be shared in half days, but in each taking a few full days, then the people sharing the position are still more relaxed and motivated. They are able to be with their family, able to rest and regenerate or have fun with some of their favorite hobbies. Psychologists and researchers have long praised the effect that a fun family filled time and enough time to be you and relax can boost your employees’ work input as well as their efficiency. In countries where employees have fewer hours per week and more vacation days a year, the work output per person is in general higher and employees are happy and motivated and stay with their company for long periods of time, if not all the way up to retirement. Additionally, if you have a good amount of time off from work, you are most likely a very motivated and happy employee and your boss and fellow employees will see you as a positive person to be around at the work place. Being a leader and motivator is all that a boss can hope for and therefore, sharing the position can immensely boost your profile. For employers, there is also the consideration of your benefits. Some companies might not pay benefits to part time employees and two part time positions will save you money. In this case, your profile is simply boosted by the fact that your employer saves money. Although in some companies, there are benefits for part-time employees and those can be based on different facts, such as hours worked, full-time benefits and more. Before considering sharing your job and entering the world of part-time employment, make sure that this is exactly what you are looking for in a job. Once you are sharing your position, there might not be a way back to full time, at least not within your own company.

Yes, Freebies are Real! If you tell someone that something is free, they immediately start looking for the catch. After all, the words of wisdom “there is no such thing as a free lunch” have usually been proven true for people time and again throughout life, and so a healthy cynicism towards free stuff usually springs up with good reason. If you are one of these skeptical types, however, you may be missing out on some really great stuff. The truth is that you CAN get free things that are really and truly free, and yes, actually worth having. You just have to know where to look. OK, here is where the caveat comes in. The definition of “free” often depends on the definition of “cost.” As any economist can tell you, cost really doesn’t only come down to how much money you have to hand over to get something. There are additional costs, like inconvenience and time spent doing something. And true, some freebies have these “non monetary” kinds of costs associated with them. You have to balance all of the costs with the value of the free stuff you are getting and decide if it is worth it to you. The two biggest costs associated with freebies? Time and convenience are at the top of the list. Time is a big factor in many free offers. Companies want a bit of your time in exchange for their free products. Indeed, some companies literally want hours of your time. Have you ever taken advantage of one of those “free weekend vacation” offers in which you received free accommodation in a beach house or condo for a weekend in exchange for suffering through a long presentation and intense sales pitch? For some people, they can handle the presentation and have no qualms about refusing to buy anything and the free vacation more than makes up for it. Other people would rather pay any price to avoid having to listen to one of these spiels. So, while these weekends are freebies, for some people, they cost too much. More often, a company wants your time in a less obvious way – they want you to spend time filling out forms. These forms may simply be your name, address and email address, or they may be very lengthy, quizzing you about buying habits and the like. The reason the companies want you to do these forms is often for market research, and they are more than happy to give you a freebie in exchange for this. Many people find the time spent filling out these forms will worth it to get a great free product. Convenience is the other cost involved with many freebies. Time and convenience go hand in hand in some cases – after all, it may not be especially convenient to fill out form after form simply because it is time consuming, but convenience takes another hit from freebies in the form of spam email. Often, signing up for a freebie can land you on a spam email list, and for some people, getting tons of spam is so inconvenient that they would rather pay full price. The truth about all of these costs of freebies is that the freebie is in the eye of the beholder. You have to decide what you are willing to put up with in order to get a free product. Once you know the limits to your freebie costs, than you can cash in on some really great products that don’t cost you a dime. When you spend five minutes filling out a form and get rewarded with a free DVD player that you have been wanting, you will realize that there are free things out there to be had.