Malama Tsimenis says incivility in the classroom runs the gamut from carrying on disruptive conversations and text messaging to verbal hostility. In her workshops with colleagues at the University of Toronto, she warns that this sort of behaviour can have serious consequences and offers suggestions for preventing and responding to it. Dr. Tsimenis, a humanities lecturer at U of T, recently shared her thoughts with University Affairs.

UA: What is classroom incivility?

MT: To me, it’s any behaviour that jeopardizes or undermines students’ learning experiences and hijacks the atmosphere in which learning takes place.

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Here are some things to consider…

At times, I talk to people who found new jobs very quickly earlier in their careers, however, have now been at their last company for a number of years and progressed to higher level positions. They are frustrated that its taking them longer to find a new job, forgetting there are fewer of appropriate jobs out there. Friends and family are so surprised they are struggling since they consider them so highly qualified. T

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Primarily, companies require candidates to submit applications via their online systems to improve convenience for all parties involved. But believe it or not, if you’re serious about getting a callback, applying online simply isn’t good enough.

Getting Back to Application Basics

The process of applying for a job has always been a bit of a tedious one, which is why many candidates—and employers for that matter—felt a sense of relief when new programs emerged that allowed applicants to submit their materials over the Internet.

Unfortunately, turning in applications online is an impersonal process that results in some resumes never being viewed by human eyes. As a valu

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The truth it is that do a reading for someone is an enormous responsibility because they listen to what you say and act upon it. If you are asked to advise them on whether or not something will happen or what they should do it is very important that you give them the right information, so I do not approve of treating it as a game or a hobby. Do it properly or do not do it at all.

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The last time that I worked in an office was when I was an intern at Orvis. Since then I’ve had to learn how to get things done at home, and I’ve gotten pretty good at it. Still, I try to force myself to work out of the house at least once a week. I usually do this through Jelly Chicago, a co-working group that meets every Wednesday, but I also occasionally work at a coffee shop or my gym’s quiet room. Sometimes

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Ive been writing about job interviews, from both sides of the desk, for twenty-five years and without a doubt, the toughest interview question going the rounds in 2012 is, “Your job exists to help your employer achieve and maintain profitability. How do your efforts support these goals?” Its a question that can only be answered when you really understand the guts of the job you are pursuing.

The question actually has two parts. The first part, your job exists to help your employer achieve and maintain profitability, shouldnt be too difficultbecause it is a statement of fact: all jobs exist to support profitability.

You need to think through whether your job is chiefly concerned with generating revenue, protecting assets, improving productivity in some way, or is perhaps a combination of these imperatives.

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Cover letters are kind of hard to write.  Maybe they are more of a pain, really, than they are hard to write. And anything that is a pain to job seekers is questioned… “waa, waa, do we really need to spend more than 3 minutes on this thing?  Waa…”

It seems that if we have to take more than a few clicks to do something in our job search, it’s a waste of our time.

Not true with cover letters.

Let me share an experience I had this morning.  It was with a LinkedIn introduction, not a cover letter, but the concept is similar.

I got a LinkedIn introduction request from someone who I didn’t recognize.  Turns out, I have

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The Times article, which had home-page billing, contrasted the “sharp divide” between the Republican presidential front-runner’s take on for-profits with that of the Obama Administration, which has pursued tighter regulation of the industry. It also described two Romney campaign boosters who have ties to the university.

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The question about your weaknesses comes fairly soon after the interview begins and typically after such a question as, What are your accomplishments? or What are your strengths? Those two questions—if delivered correctly—let you sell yourself. They’re positive questions. Then—to contrast them—comes the awkward question about weaknesses. This question is not easy for the interviewer to ask, and it’s even more difficult for most people to answer.

So, what is the interviewer after? He wants to tes

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1. You do not make your job search personal

What this means is that you’re still sending out generic resumes with no target. Instead, get personal. Find

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Once you’ve finished a personality test and taken the time to fully understand the results, take your resume up a notch by highlighting some of the strengths that come naturally to you right up front in your summary/brand statement. In doing so, you and your employer will be able to identify what makes you unique to other applicants. Y

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Yesterday I was feeling stressed.  You see this morning is my child’s first Field Day and she is excited to have one of her parents come and watch and play.

• As my husband is traveling…that would be me.
• I would really like to get a run in.
• I have 2 clients currently and one potential who would like my help…yesterday.
• There is a luncheon happening nearby that I would like to attend.
• I usually make sure to get in a pilates session once a week and have not yet done so this week.
• My little one has baseball at 4p.

And that’s when my heads starts twirling and my stress level rises and I start to get upset. Until…I reme

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I can’t tell you how many bad careers sites I’ve seen over the past 4+ years. Companies with beautiful, easy to use websites often have jobs pages that make you want to poke your eyes out. Even the simple ones that just have a few paragraphs about the company and a listing of jobs are disappointing. Why can’t companies actually put some effort into convincing you to work for them? 360i certainly puts in the effort. I recently landed on their newly relaunched careers page via a link from Twitter, and I was thoroughly impressed. 360i

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This is a crucial step to keeping your meeting on track. “For every one hour of meeting time you have planned, I would suggest one hour of preparation,” says Dr. Massaro. She

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Career Resolution #2 – Protect your job and boost your employability

Do you know why your job exists? Strip away all the window dressing and at its core, your job exists for one simple reason: to identify, prevent and solve problems within its area of responsibility, in order to help the company make money, save money or otherwise improve productivity.

Try to see yourself and your work in this light: You are a problem solver with a particular area of expertise.

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