Category: Career & Education

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5 Predictions for the Workplace Post COVID-19

5 Predictions for the Workplace Post COVID-19

COVID-19 has made people’s lives miserable all around the world. We are all struggling with the menace of this virus, which has damaged our businesses, education, economy, and many other aspects of life.

Will we be able to get back to the way we used to live? Or, will we have to adjust to the new norm in our routine lives and business operations?

Let’s find out what the business gurus, experts, and entrepreneurs had to say about the post-covid workplace. Most of them agree and make 5 predictions for the post-covid workplace.

1. Mix of In-Office and Remote Working for the Workplace

Certain studies have shown the results suggesting most people want the future workplace to be hybrid. People will work from an in-office and remote stations, in a mixed fashion. This mode of working will stay and results will gradually start replacing the number of hours worked.

This new yardstick will give rise to hybrid working patterns. Managers and team members will need to develop skills and stay connected with each other without overlapping the information or missing any.

2. Wide-Ranging Economy

As soon as COVID-19 ends there may be a widespread mistrust for reviving the businesses. You should take this with stakeholder capitalism. This may act as a bridge between business and communities which in return will see the companies taking on board all stakeholders, at the time of deciding.

In fact, getting all on board is an effort to build trust and social capital. Everyone will start getting money that will keep the business going. The concept of a wide-ranging economy has many benefits. One of these will help the governments as they won’t be dealing with unemployment and financial strains.

3. Flexible Green Pastures

In the post-Covid-19 world, we will head to find new norms. Many of us are using Covid-19 as a reason to invest more in their environmental policies. EU will spend around US$ 1 Tr for better climate and related changes. Whereas, countries like the US, S Korea, Japan, Canada, and Nigeria are opting for going greener options during covid recovery plans.

This is skill development for going green in all manners. However, there are challenges and multi-faced problems to overcome while going green.

4. COVID-19 Productivity & Protecting People, Not Jobs

Many job experts and business analysts have been vocal about protecting the people. You can get a job through reskilling or up-skilling.

This issue was under discussion in a recent World Economic Forum, summit. As per the summit findings, by 2030 more than half of the young people globally, will lack skills for future jobs. It may be economic to train and deploy the people than abandoning them and then re-hire them.

An urgent focus is required to address the issue without further delays.

5. Recharging your Resilience Batteries

With covid-19, countries, societies, and businesses were forced to transform.Therefore, the e-commerce industry became the new norm, as it took over the control of education, logistics, and healthcare services. This altered their practicing methods and paved the way for entrepreneurs. During this pandemic much bigger and economically strong countries like the US, UK, Germany, France, and Japan saw a rush of new but small businesses in their system.

This was slightly unusual, but researchers suggest that building resilience and adaptability holds the key to success.

Conclusion

It may be stressful to think about where the small business will be five years from now. Whatever the case, things will get better eventually but it will require some drastic changes and patience.

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Career & Education Education Financial Loans

Understanding Student Loan Forgiveness

Understanding Student Loan Forgiveness

When tough times fall, some people are left with no way to stand up to the challenge of their financial obligations. Whatever the reason for these hardships, it’s good to know that there are some ways out of the mire. Student loan forgiveness may be one of these ways.

These days, the necessity of high education is as high as it has ever been. Unfortunately, the cost of higher education is just as high, which leaves some people having to take out expensive student loans- loans which they may eventually have trouble paying.

What is student loan forgiveness? Might you qualify? In this article, we’ll talk all about getting forgiven for your student loans- what it means, who qualifies, and what it will entail for your financial life.

What Is Student Loan Forgiveness?

When people can’t repay a loan, they have a number of options. So, in the case of student loans, you may be able to get your loans forgiven.

Student loan forgiveness essentially means that you are no longer required to pay some or even the entirety of your student loans.

This means that the debt you owe may not end up completely disappearing, and whatever you still owe on the end of everything else will persist. You will still end up having to pay the leftover debt, but the chunk forgiveness takes off may help enormously.

What Kinds of Forgiveness Are There?

Student loan forgiveness comes in many forms and is not homogenous across the board in any sense. This means that there are different types of loan forgiveness may occur under different circumstances. Here are a few of those circumstances:

Teacher Loan Forgiveness

To encourage people to teach primary school children, despite the low-paying salaries, oftentimes teacher loan forgiveness will be offered.

Under the terms of teacher loan forgiveness, those who teach five consecutive and complete academic years are eligible for student loan forgiveness of up to $17,500. This means that if your federal student loans tallied up to $30,000, you would have over half of your loans forgiven.

Public Service Loan Forgiveness

Working for a government or non-profit organization may also qualify you for loan forgiveness. After ten years of payments, or 120 qualifying payments, you may benefit from Public Service Loan Forgiveness.

Military Service

Military service may also qualify you for special benefits and repayment plans. These may include interest rate caps and other forms of special loan assistance.

AmeriCorps Benefits

Completing a term of service in AmeriCorps may also qualify you for Segal AmeriCorps Education Award. So, this may help you to repay some of your student loan debt.

Income-Driven Repayment Plans

Under these plans, those under a repayment plan that is based on their income may qualify for forgiveness on any remaining balance on their loans. After you make a certain number of repayments over a certain period of time, they may offer this.

Other Forms of Forgiveness

Other forms of student loan forgiveness may be found on the FSA’s Student Loan Forgiveness page.

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Career & Education Education Financial Loans

Student Loans: How Long Does It Take To Pay It Off?

How Long Does It Take to Pay Off Student Loans?

With the costs of school steadily rising and the necessity of a college education growing even more ruthlessly, many people are choosing to take on student loans. These loans- designed to help people who can’t pay out of pocket get access to education- are a godsend to some.

Still, having a loan hanging over your head is no one’s idea of a fun time. For one, loans tie you to an institution and limit your freedom. You might also feel more vulnerable to things like market instability if your loans are high and your funds low. So, how long will that loan be with you? How long does it take to pay off a student loan?

What Is The Size Of Your Loan?

To figure out how long it might take you to pay off your loan, you should first consider how big your loan is going to be and how much you’ll be able to pay monthly.

Loans are paid off in small installments, with interest and possible fees tacked on. This means that if you have a loan of $30,000, you’ll be paying in small increments of that loan for a period of time.

If you can pay more per month, you’ll end up with a shorter time to repayment. This will also help you in other sectors of your financial help. Student loans may come with different terms and different interest rates, meaning that your loan time might vary depending on who you get it from and what kind of contract you sign onto.

Overall, if you’re able to make larger monthly contributions, your loans will dissipate much faster. Choose to pay them piecemeal, and you could be stuck with them for a much longer period than if you chose to take off big bites.

What Is The Term?

A loan term designates how long you will be taking to pay off any given loan. If your loan has a term of, say, 15 years, that means that your bank has set up your payments so that you will have paid off your loan in that among of time- plus interest.

Many student loans come with a term of about ten years. This means that students who start college in 2022 will optimistically finish off their loans somewhere around 2032- or when they’re 28 years old.

But this estimate doesn’t always pan out. Loan recipients often take 20 years or more to finish paying off their loans, which, again, will depend on how much they’re willing to pay and how much they can spare for their bank or loan service at the end of the month.

So, if you’ve got a loan of $30,000 with a term of ten years, you’ll be paying big parts of that loan every month- plus interest. If you’ve got the same loan with a term of 20 years, you’ll be paying much smaller rates- half as much.

Thus, how long a loan will last is a combination of term length and how much a debtor can pay.

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Career Career & Education

Asked to Take a Pay Cut? What Do You Do Next

Asked to Take a Pay Cut? What Do You Do Next

Pay cuts are an issue that no one likes to talk about or face. This may come at the back of company-driven policies or an overall financial crunch in the market. If you were asked to accept a pay cut in the past, and you could not deal with it well, then don’t worry, as now we can offer you a comprehensive guide on how to deal with this, professionally.

Understanding Pay Cut

First off, you must understand the issue, what’s a pay cut? A pay cut is a reduction in your salary. They often help minimize layoffs or save revenues for the company during tough financial times.

A salary cut can be short term or permanent, it all depends on the company’s financial situation. They tend to badly hamper salary appraisals, bonuses, pensions, etc.

Conditions for Pay Cuts

If you are working with a company without a contract, then your employer can offer you a salary cut without reason. Your employer can reduce the number of hours or your working days in a month.

Know your rights

If you have an agreement, your employer cannot reduce your hours or working days for issues like race, gender or religion, etc. So know your rights to avoid such an unpleasant situation for dealing with a pay cut.

What if your employer asked for a pay cut?

Duration for a cut?

In a pay cut situation, companies generally have no definite answer about how long a salary cut will last? Remember, that a cut cannot go on and on, it must end. Companies may know certain financial projects will complete in a few months from now and they can regain financial strength.

You should have this conversation with the company but don’t expect a conclusive response.

Bargain for something in exchange

The discussion should be gentle, for inquiring about working fewer hours for losing part of revenue through a pay cut.

 If the salary cut is imminent, then you should ask the company for something in a bargain for a lower salary. You may ask them for more work-from-home days, or short work hours, etc.

Right Questions

Asking is something you should never be afraid about. You have the right to know about the situation for a salary cut. You can ask them.

  • My job and role will remain the same?
  • Who else is getting this cut?
  • When will it take effect?
  • Is there any health care costs rise?
  • Any change in benefits?
  • If at all, will more cuts will follow?
  • How company will come out of this financial crunch?

What are your plans in a post Pay cut?

Pay cuts and firing have become more of an option ever since Covid-19 hit everyone. So, the companies who are offering pay cuts are also keeping most of the staff, workers, and managers in the best imaginable situation they can. This is just an attempt to avoid losing very loyal members of their staff.

The worst side effect a cut can give, is the hunt for a new job? In the wake of a pay cut, start looking for a job in order to generate revenues to compensate losses.

Conclusion

Just imagine, your company asking for a pay cut. If this is the situation, where you can turn down a cut, take a break from the discussion. You don’t have to reply to your boss immediately. Instead, you should discuss the situation with your family and friends. This will give you sufficient time to prepare an appropriate reply for the company on next day. And then, you can devise a plan for the next job hunt.

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Career Career & Education

Interview Mistakes & What to Say Instead

6 Phone Interview Mistakes & What to Say Instead

Phone interviews can be stressful. They can feel like do-or-die moments that decide whether you get your dream job or live in poverty. In short, it is important you get them right.

So here are a few ways to develop your interviewing skills, from someone who does interviews all the time.

1.  Be More Specific Than Honest

You probably want to know up front: Do you have to be honest during an interview? The answer isn’t easy to swallow, but the truth is no. As long as you can’t get caught, enhance the truth.

But that does not mean lie. It’s illegal to lie during an interview. What you should do instead is take your normal answers and spice them up with details that will make you stand out.

2.  Never Show Fear To The Recruiter

Interviewers are fully aware of how scary interviews are. This makes them perfectly environments in which to evaluate a candidate’s ability to act under pressure.

Hesitation is fine. It can make you seem thoughtful, measured, and patient. But fear is unacceptable. If the recruiter gets the impression you are rushing through an answer, babbling nervously, or cracking under the pressure of having to answer a question, they will notice.

3.  Still, Take Your Time

Many people imagine fear to only manifest as reluctance or the petrification of panic. But more often people who are afraid express this by being jittery, hurried, or over-eager.

If you are asked a question and you draw a blank on the answer, do not panic. Don’t stall for time, ask for it. It takes a lot of courage to ask for time to think of an answer, and your recruiter will appreciate that you are communicating a need to them in a calm, collected manner.

4.  Respond to Red Flags

This is one of the hardest pieces of advice to follow if you have been out of a job for a long time. As much as it sucks to hear, there are some jobs you are better off not getting.

Don’t be afraid to walk out or hang up on an interview if you get the impression a workplace is abusive or incompetently run. Places like that will leave you out to dry without a reference eventually, so it’s better to distance yourself sooner than later.

5.  Remember The Recruiter’s Name

This is an uncommon bit of humanity to exhibit in an interview, but if you remember your recruiter’s name and show that you remember their name, they are far more likely to remember you than if you didn’t.

6.  Don’t be Right, be Human

It’s natural to go into an interview thinking of the recruiter as an emotionless robot who is looking for a candidate that is ideal on paper.

That is the job of the robot that scans resumes for keywords. Indeed, every step of the job process up until the interview lacks humanity. But once you’re at the interview it behooves you to represent yourself not as the best employee, but the best person you can be.

Good luck in the job market. Now more than ever, you’ll need it.

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Career Career & Education

How To Negotiate A Really Lowball Job Offer

It happens to the best of us every now and again. You get an offer that just seems designed to insult you. You probably feel frustrated, upset, and significantly unheard and undervalued. The first step is to not jump to conclusions and to react in as neutral a way as possible initially. Then, here are some techniques to cope and negotiate.

1.   Ask For Some Time To Consider

This is a great passive tactic to implement immediately. Ask them for a couple of days to consider the offer, and give them a definite time frame in which they can expect a response. A good general idea is about 2-3 business days. This gives you time to mull and doesn’t waste their time, but also lets them know in a passive way that the offer wasn’t immediately acceptable.

2.   Decide On Your Strategy

This is where you will decide if you’re going to express your disappointment outright or counter with a more reasonable offer. Many people will choose to negotiate first, in the hopes of getting a position that they really want, while making some compromises. Others will count it as a loss, but send a message expressing that disappointment and offering to consider if the conditions were improved.

3.   Determine If The Job Is Worth It

There may be cases where it just isn’t worth the hassle of going back and forth. There are some signals that your negotiations would be unsuccessful. Some of these factors include the employer insisting that the offer is the best they can do, further research indicating that the offer was fair, when you won’t be able to negotiate with a level head, or if the position simply isn’t worth the emotional strain.

4.   Counter & Know What’s Important To You

When you counter, make sure you go in with a plan that you can use for some framework. Know what’s important to you at a job, if they can’t offer more money, can they offer additional vacation time? If they can’t offer that, what can they do to make the offer more appealing? Sometimes you will be surprised at the perks they will offer that won’t end up on your paycheck.

5.   Know Your Job Market

You can’t decide what is and isn’t a fair offer if you don’t have a thorough knowledge of the salary range for the position nationwide as well as regionally and locally. Be sure you aren’t just throwing numbers at them in the hopes that they’ll bite. You may even be in the market for things like stock options or other equity in the company.

6.   Know Your Value

This is another area where research is incredibly valuable. Knowing how much you, your skills, background, experience, and so on are worth, can help you squeeze every bit of value out of a prospective offer. Even take into account how badly the company needs you, or needs to fill the position. A position with high turnover may be worth a higher bid.

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Career & Education Education Financial Loans

How Student Loans Affect Credit

How Student Loans Affect Credit

How Do They Affect Your Credit?

Student loans can have a major effect on your credit score. Taking out loans and paying them back will vastly improve your credit score, but it is detrimental when you so much as miss a payment—in fact, it can drop your score by more than 100 points!

The credit score affected is the one of the person who took the loan out; sometimes by parents and others by co-sign with parent and child. For example, if your parent took out a loan to help you pay for school, it would only affect their credit, not yours.

When You Are Missing or Behind on Payments

Most student loans are installments, which means that you pay a certain amount for an allotted time period. The good news is that your score won’t start to decrease until after the missed payment has been reported by the lender:

  • Federal student loan servicers can wait up to 90 days to report
  • Private student loan servicers can wait up to 30 days
  • They still have the option of charging immediately, however

Another consequence of missing/late payments is that it can increase your debt-to-income ratio (DTI):

  • It represents the amount of your monthly income that goes towards paying off debts (higher is worse)
  • Since the amount of debt you owe accounts for a large portion of your credit score, the DTI is a good reflection of your debt repayment status, though it does not directly change your credit score
  • Too much installment debt (ie. student loan debt), can impact your ability to take out more loans in the future because it determines whether or not you can afford their payments

In the worst-case scenario, you could end up in default:

  • Federal student loans usually consider this to begin at 270 days behind, and private at 120 days
  • This stays on your credit report for seven years
  • You will likely face collection and legal action in order to collect on the debt

If your student loan payments become unfeasible and you are becoming concerned about going into default, there are several options:

  • You may contact the lender to see if there is an alternative payment plan available. For example, extended deferment period or income-driven repayment.
    • This is based off of your current income
  • See if you are eligible for a student loan forgiveness program—this can get rid of your student loan debt
  • Look into refinancing your student loans (replacing existing debt with another lower-costing loan through a private lender)
  • This may decrease your monthly payments, but it can also extend your payment period by a number of years, which then adds to your interest costs

Student Loans and Improving Credit

Though there are many negative consequences to neglecting your student loans, there is also the potential for achieving greatness within your credit. Because most college students haven’t yet had many credit cards or loans taken out—if any—they could serve as the foundation for your credit history. Granted they are paid regularly and on time:

  • Student loans can be add to your credit mix (types of credit used) to increase eligibility for future loans—lenders like to see diversity in credit history
  • They can also add to positive payment history, which is the bulk of your credit score
    • Some lenders even allow for small payments during deferment, which is when you are not required to make payments yet
    • This is usually when you are enrolled in school and the subsequent grace period
    • However, if you choose to start paying these installments during deferment, they still show up as payments in your credit history, thus raising your score

Conclusion

As long as you make sure to pay your student loans off on time and in full, they can be an extremely beneficial asset when building a line of credit. If you neglect them, however, it will take years to recover from the damage. Making a solid plan for your future payments or reallocating your finances are the best ways to assure that your student loans work in your favor rather than against you.

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Career & Education Debt Education Financial Loans

Student Loans for Bad Credit

student loans for bad credit

When you are figuring out how you will be funding your education for the next several years, having bad credit can really impact your options. Federal student loans are a great option to start with, but they only go so far, and many still have a tuition gap to fill. If there is a concern with the credit history and score for the student applying, there are still some viable methods for getting the funding needed to get the education they are aiming for.

The federal loans do not require any credit history and they have a wide variety of flexible repayment options. However, borrowing limits are often too low for many state or private universities, and so there are still significant costs due from the student before term. Often private lenders will require student borrowers to have a credit score minimum of 690, which can exclude many potential students. Here are some tips for those with bad credit, or simply limited credit history:

1.   Always Start With Federal Loans

No matter what the credit condition of the applicant, they should always start with the FAFSA and federal student loan programs. This will also put the student through an eligibility check for additional funding sources such as grants and scholarships, as well as work-study programs. The interest rates of federal loans are often fixed and below 5%. One of the additional bonuses is the flexible repayment options, like income-based repayment.

2.   Do Everything You Can To Get A Co-Signer

This will dramatically improve the overall interest rates and terms of all loans that the student will qualify for, and will often allow them to qualify for additional loans their credit alone would not allow. The big caveat with this is that it is frequently difficult to find anyone other than perhaps a parent or grandparent to be your cosigner. This is because the cosigner will become responsible for the debt as well if the primary signer defaults.

3.   Compare The Basic Features And Interest

Many of the independent companies will have a wide variety of interest rates and terms that will largely be dependant on the applicant’s credit specifics. Providers such as Ascent have interest rates that range from below 7% to over 14% on fixed rates, and 5.8% to 12.9% on a variable, while other popular bad credit student loan providers A.M. Money Private Student Loan and MPOWER Private Student Loan both strictly offer fixed-rate loans only.

A.M. Money Private Student Loan, MPOWER Private Student Loan, and Funding U Private Student Loan are all providers that will be able to service loans for without requiring a minimum credit score. They offer a variety of fixed interest rates as well as terms for their student loans. They will each use slightly different criteria to gauge loan approval, such as GPA, and some students with special status like DACA. Limitations often include availability limited by state or by the school.

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Career & Education Credit Education Financial Loans

Can You Pay Off Student Loans with a Credit Card?

paying off student loans with a credit card

Introduction

Though it may sound tempting, as the average person with student loan debt has about $30,000 of it, paying with a credit card is a bad idea long-term. It is technically possible to do this, but it comes highly unrecommended by any financial professional.

What Happens When You Try to Pay Loans with a Credit Card?

First off, federal student loan services don’t let you pay directly with a credit card; you must use an intermediary, which is essentially a middle man for lenders and buyers. The private loan services let you pay directly, but there is often a sizeable fee for doing so.

When you pay student loans with a credit card:

  • You give up student loan protections
    • Includes consolidation, deferment, forbearance, or loan forgiveness
  • Potentially move your debt to a credit product with an even higher interest rate than your student loans
    • Credit card rates sun substantially higher than student loan insurance rates—sometimes by 20% or more
  • You will likely be charged a fee (with interest)

Credit card companies do not design plans that let you pay off debt quickly because it is not lucrative. If you make a student loan payment and don’t pay it off by the time your credit card bill comes, you’ll be charged for interest both through the card and the student loan service.

What are the Best Ways to Use a Credit Card to Pay off Student Loans?

Some cards offer cash back rewards points that you can then use towards your student loans:

  • Look for cards with long-term cash back benefits (these are best for people with excellent credit)
  • If you are paying through an intermediary, make sure your credit card’s rewards program exceeds the intermediary’s fee
    • For example, Plastiq has a 2.85% fee for every transaction, so your card’s rewards program would need to be greater than 2.85% of your total payments
    • As most cards only give 1% to 2% on your purchases, this is fiscally unwise

You also have the option of making a balance transfer, which moves your payment over from the student loan lender and the credit card company.However, you do not often earn rewards with balance transfers.

  • Though you could get a temporary 0% interest rate, it often just buys time until you would have to pay even higher interest
  • Another downside to doing a balance transfer is that there is, of course, a fee—usually near 5%!

If a balance transfer isn’t an option, another is to use a convenience check:

  • These are drawn against your credit limit instead of your bank account
  • The student loan service processes this similarly to any other payment
  • But, you’ll still have to repay the money, and fees start at 3% to 4%

Conclusion

The only time it makes logical sense to pay your loans with a credit card is if you are, beyond a shadow of a doubt, able to pay off your balance in full every month. Or, if you find a card with a no-fee balance transfer that starts off with a 0% APR (annual percentage rate; the amount you pay each year to borrow money) financing, you may also benefit from this practice.But again, this must be paid off immediately lest the costs outweigh the benefits—make sure to stay on top of your loans and credit to avoid paying even more in the long run!

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Career Career & Education

How to Diversify Your Income With a 9-5 Job

9-5 job opportunities outside side-gig

Many people dream of making more money than what their 9-5 job makes them. Whether it’s to get to a goal faster or as a way to move away from making money on the 9-5 schedule entirely, there are several ways to make money on the side that won’t take away from your regular work schedule.

The gig economy and side hustles have exploded in recent years. All you need is the drive to extend your money-making efforts outside of normal working hours. Some jobs require creativity but others just require your time. Here are some ways to diversify your income, regardless of your extra abilities.

Take Surveys

There are several places where you can get paid to take surveys. Marketing companies want to ensure that their campaigns are effective. Many survey places give out points that you can convert to money. All you have to do is watch a video and take a survey to get the points.

The money taking surveys doesn’t net a huge amount, typically you can make about $100 a month, but that can go a long way to meeting a financial goal. It also only requires your time and ability to be honest about your opinions on what you just watched.

Driving Services

With ride services like Uber and Lyft, it’s very easy to make extra money as long as you know how to drive and have your own car. You can drive as often as you want for as long as you want. Everything is done through the mobile app so you don’t need anything extra.

The amount that you make depends on how often you’re willing to drive. You can work whenever though, driving people to and from the airport or home after a night out. This way of making money offers a lot of flexibility.

Get Creative

If you have a creative streak, you can use that to make extra money. Whether you are a photographer, drawer, painter, or jeweler, you can put those skills to good use and make money. You can sell your creations online through Etsy and operate a business.

The money you make here depends heavily on how much people are willing to pay for your art. It will also depend on how much time you devote to new creations. If you create a lot of unique pieces that people are willing to pay for, you can have a successful side business quickly.

Conclusion

Making more money through side businesses can be a great way to work towards a specific goal or to have more money to budget with regularly. No matter what additional skills you have, as long as you have time you can make extra money outside of your regular 9-5 work schedule.

These side-hustles can lead to something bigger or simply contribute to some extra household income for a bit. Either way, you can work on additional skills and money without t