Blog Posts by University of Phoenix

Culture shock doesn't just affect tourists bumbling through a foreign land - workers can experience it, too. That feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when your alarm goes off every morning, the sigh you let out as you park your car in front of the office and your flagging job performance could all be signs that you're experiencing organizational culture shock.

Holly Rick, PhD, campus college chair for the School of Advanced Studies at the University of Phoenix Main Campus, suggests asking these five questions during your next job interview to determine if a company is a good fit:

Are salaries and benefits on par with those of competitors?
You should be paid what you're worth. If a potential employer is offering low pay and a slim benefits package, Rick has one piece of advice: "Run."

In certain situations, however, it would be acceptable to take a position with a sub-par salary. "Sometimes," Rick says, "you have to take a step down to get to the next level in your career."

In the age of digital sophistication, job seekers are employing all kinds of gimmicks on their résumés - from infographics to portraits - to get attention.

While some of these fancy features may give you an edge, it's important to do your research first to make sure your résumé matches the culture of the company you're hoping to impress, according to Cassandra Jackson, instructor in the MBA program for the University of Phoenix Detroit Campus and human resource manager for the city of Detroit. Many of these tricks only work in specific fields and for less-conservative companies.

So how do you know if the gimmick is right for you? Jackson weighs in on five résumé tricks and what to consider before using them:

QR codes

Quick Response (QR) codes are those square bar codes that are showing up on products and ads. The codes can be scanned by smartphones to quickly connect users to a website.

By creating a QR code and placing it on your résumé, you can easily direct

Here's some news you're bound to "Like": Facebook - the same site that hosts your embarrassing pictures from last weekend - could help you climb the corporate ladder. And why not? With an estimated 1 billion users on the site, there's a fair chance that the company you work for - as well as the one you want to work for - has a presence there.

Follow these five tips to transform the Facebook® social network into a career network:

Enable your News Feed's "Subscribe" feature.

If you want to use Facebook for career networking, you need to keep your personal and professional lives separate, according to Noland Hoshino, a graduate of the University of Phoenix MBA program and co-founder of digital and social communications company [B]cause Media.

"You can activate a Subscribe feature on your personal account and select the type of content [anyone outside your circle] can see," he explains. Subscribers will only see your public posts, keeping your private life just that -

If you've been toiling in a shrinking industry, don't panic. There may be options for a second act to your career. Here are five surprising industries that are seeing a lot of growth:

Human resources
Consider yourself a true "people person"? Use your people skills in the expanding human resources sector, suggests Sandra Abbey, an MBA program instructor at the University of Phoenix Southern Arizona Campus and senior director for the Tucson Airport Authority. The Bureau of Labor Statistics expects growth in this industry to reach 28.3 percent between 2010 and 2020.

How to get a leg up: A human resource management certificate may help provide you with the skills you need to seek a new career in corporate HR.

Teaching ESL
Recast your interest in providing service to others into the growing field of teaching English as a second language (ESL), Abbey says. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, there has been a monumental swell in students who speak a

If your interaction with faculty members is limited to just the time you're in their classes - and just to discussions about the coursework - you may be missing out on important networking opportunities.

"Any time students can build a rapport with faculty members from the get-go will help them in the long run in various ways," says Amanda Hendricks, external scholarship manager at the University of Phoenix Center for Scholarship Excellence. She offers five tips on how to develop these key relationships:

Take advantage of office hours.
"Whether you are attending school in a virtual or physical environment, you have to find ways to connect with faculty members if you want them to notice you or advise you academically," Hendricks says. Start establishing that connection during office hours or through emails. That foundation, she adds, will ease your anxiety when you need advice, such as on where you should go to graduate school.

Earn a faculty recommendation.
"Family and

You work long hours. You eat junk food purchased from the office vending machine while you multitask. You don't remember the last time you went out for lunch. Does this sound like you?

If you're like many working professionals, chances are you seldom take the traditional lunch break, which is disappearing from American office culture.

But skipping lunch can backfire, according to Dean Hebert, an applied sports psychology coach and entrepreneur who also teaches undergraduate psychology at the University of Phoenix Main Campus.

"If we don't take a break once in a while, we lose focus, make mistakes and become less productive," he explains. Here are five reasons to put lunch back in your routine:

You'll have more energy.
"Taking frequent rest breaks helps combat fatigue, whether we're exercising or working," Hebert says. Just as elite athletes balance intervals of intense exercise with rest periods while training for competition, our brains and bodies also perform

Instead of spending hours posting old prom pictures on social media, you might consider using that time to bolster your career, suggests Virginia Green, owner of The Biz Visions Group and an instructor in the MBA program at the University of Phoenix Southern California Campus.

Employers are paying more attention than ever to social media, Green emphasizes, so it's important to make your time online count if you're seeking a job or want to enhance your professional standing. According to the Jobvite Social Recruiting Survey 2011, 89 percent of companies planned to recruit through social media, up from 83 percent in 2010.

Here are Green's recommendations on the best social media options and how to use them to improve your career:

1. LinkedIn
Why: Green says "absolutely everyone" should have a Linkedin® profile. With 175 million members, "it's the way people are getting jobs."

What to do: Not only should you fill out every aspect of your profile to strengthen your