The right style for the office

A week ago, a good friend ask me to give her some tips to dress accordingly to her office. It seems that she received some critics that her outfit looked like a pijamas, and naturally she didn't want to have that type of comments inside her office. I'm not a fashion expert, but I can share some recommendations regarding how to dress appropriately, not just in the office but in some other events.

1.- Recognize your personal style: Learn about your type of body and personality with which you behave, that should be enough to understand if you are a dynamic and in movement person, or if you are a romantic people. The clothes you choose can project your personality. Also you may want to know about your body failures or your body blessings so you can choose wisely on your clothing.

2.- Fashion fade away: It shouldn't be necessary to invest a lot of money on the last fashion tendency, just choose among the right products that adapt to your life style, personality and type of job. Consider some logical recommendations, like metallic fabrics or sequins are considered appropriate for a night evening but not for an office environment. 

3.- Keep handy a Suit: In almost every office you will need to make a presentation of a project, have client-customer meetings, be at a formal event. Consider to have a black or navy blue suit with which you may enhance your professional image.

4.- Swap between your day/night outfit: For men is easier to add a tie or change for a white shirt. This allows that the suit could be used in day or night. For women adding a blazer or a night necklace/scarf will make the same effect of using your outfit for day or night.

5.- Check out your shoes: Footwear should combine with the clothing, if you are looking for a professional style, consider that the rubber soles are forbidden. It doesn't matter if you are male or female either if you are using high heels or flats. The shoe sole will tale about your formality. Don't ever forget to keep your shoes clean.

6.- Necklines, tight garments or transparencies: Don't wear them for the office if your plan is to have a professional image. If you want to be noticed about your achievements, take care about the look you have in your office.

Please share with us some other tips that you think are important.

Business Opportunity Time

With the end of the year, there are some people that take the opportunity to make some changes on their professional profiles. As I have told before, LinkedIn has become a social media that allows to keep in touch with a lot of people to improve the professional activities. If you learn how this social media behaves, you can take advantage of your contacts and the information they share.

The following post will provide some ideas for you to improve your profile and become a favorite of your contacts in a fast way.

1.- Create a charming profile: Upload a professional executive picture, always remember that LinkedIn is not Facebook, so use an adequate image that remembers your professional activity. Do not use your last party picture, use the one that demonstrates the work that you do. Also write about your professional activities, or if you have little experience, write about your studies. Your contacts will read about it and identify the type of business you may do together.

2.- Participate or create groups: Make contact with the alumni associations, the news releases, professional groups, among different ones, even if you are a shy individual, this groups will allow you to make relations with more people and keep in movement your profile.

3.- Make each of your contacts counts: If you have a special interest in belonging to a group, or do some type of services you must be approachable, so contact the people that are related to your activities. The last week I received the message of one of my contacts, regarding a law initiative that he is promoting. I was interested by the information he sent and about the initiative, I hope he could reach his purpose.

4.- Become a networker: Another option to keep awareness in LinkedIn, is to introduce people that may have inter-related activities. Review their posts and if you find it adequate, do the contact of people looking for business opportunities, job search, or offering products or services.

5.- Keep in touch: With some frequency, post information, share interesting articles, use the information media to publish news in your LinkedIn wall. This will keep in movement your profile and stay in the radar of your contacts for longer time. 

Seize the season opportunities and tell us about your outcomes...

Posada Mix

Christmas season brings a lot of social events among birthdays, graduations, weddings, showers. As days go by, we start laying up some of this events and at some point we want to join with our friends or family to have a good time. This time I want to suggest a way to have some mix events and enjoy different occasions at the same time.

This week we had the "Baby Posada", it was a mix of Christmas Party with Baby Shower. The organization was quite simple because we are a few lady's in this group and we usually see each other with a regular frequency. Marisol was the one who taught about the Posada, but Lily think of joining the event with a baby shower for Marisol, so we had this event to join and seize the opportunity.

The meeting was at Opy's house and she also get in charge of the food and decorations. Marisol took the appetizers, and the rest of us bring presents for the Christmas exchange and the Shower. We also take advantage and take a lot of pictures and sang Christmas Carols.

The fun part of having this Baby Posada, was the relaxed event it was and we also chat about the last events of the month. Each one shared our projects, the activities we have done and our future planes. We also program the following meeting.

I profoundly recommend to do this mix events, specially when the friends share some events, for example a birthday party with the new years toast, baccalaureate party with graduation or the house warming with a campaign closure.

Tell us have you had mix events?