20+ Skills That Will Look Great on Your Resume

20+ Skills That Will Look Great on Your Resume 20+ Skills That Will Look Great on Your Resume Given that we just published an article about the skills you should not list on your resume, it may be helpful to present the opposite side as well. Just what skills, exactly, will make your resume stand out from competitors?This new infographic from online resume builder Novorsum comes at exactly the right time, containing as it does a list of more than 20 skills you may want to consider including on your resume before you send it out again.Of course, you dont want to claim any skills you dont actually have, but if you can credibly assert you possess any of the following skills, then you should definitely add them to your resume ASAP.Master the art of closing deals and making placements. Take our Recruiter Certification Program today. Were SHRM certified. Learn at your own pace during this 12-week program. Access over 20 courses. Great for those who want to break into recruiting, or recru iters who want to further their career.

Making the Grid Really Smart

Making the Grid Really Smart Making the Grid Really Smart There have been a great many smart people promoting the smart grid, or the transformation of the nations electric grid into one that anticipates and interacts with user demand. Over the past six years, a combination of utilities, industries, and the federal government actually put together the nations largest smart grid, a demonstration project in the Pacific Northwest. The fledgling system, a two-way interactive model to better connect energy providers and users, sprawled over five states as a dozen participating utilities integrated a wealth of new equipment and technologies including smart meters and transformers, batteries and even controllable therfruchtweinats. But its backbone, and what researchers say is key to further development, is a new signaling and communication system called transactive control that facilitated and coordinated the needs of the network.The five-year, $178-million Pacific Northwest Smart Grid Demo nstration Project centered on development of transactive control, conceived by Battelle-led Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Its development of a two-way interactive smart grid is being bolstered with a slug of federal research dollars aimed at establishing a comprehensive research and development effort anchored by the National Laboratories and the Department of Energy. The Bonneville Power Administration shared responsibility of the grid demonstration with Battelle.Solar panels and wind turbines at the Renewable Energy Park, a part of the Pacific Northwest Smart Grid Demonstration Project. ruf PNNLControlsTransactive control is an automated system that connects energy providers and users, constantly exchanging information on the availability of power and price. For the demonstration, signals were sent every five minutes using information on bulk generation including hydropower, wind and thermal power. Utilities could then send the signals to assets or smart equipment such as electric hot water heaters, smart meters, or grid-scale batteries. When the transactive signals predicted peak power demand and corresponding high-energy costs, the projects smart grid technologies responded by reducing power use and lowering demand. Mostly.While project participants are happy with results, they point to some glitches and areas needing further work. First, better tools are needed to ensure data is of high quality and the equipment generating data works correctly. Many participants were bedrngnis prepared to deal with the quantity of data generated and sometimes mislabeled it, according to the projects final report.It was evident to us that utilities are having challenges in the introduction of data-rich technology into their systems, says Ron Melton, who led the demonstration for Battelle. There was a lot of noise in the data. There is a need within industry for better tools to operate equipment with all of these sensors. We just dont have the tools now to do that well.It also reported a need for smart grid technologies to be designed to work together and called for smart grid standards to be developed. The report noted tremendous effort to make equipment from various vendors work together.One of the challenges most utilities face is that they run with very thin staffs, says Melton. Vendors need to make it easy to do these things.As an example, Melton points to Portland General Electrics installation of a 5-MW, 1.25-MWh battery, estimated to save the utility up to $146,000 annually by providing an alternative power source during periods of peak power demand, up to 300 times per year. Melton says the battery and inverters were purchased from different vendors and took the utility about ten times longer to assemble and complete than expected. There are not well-developed interoperability standards, he says.Further, smart grid technologies need to mature and stabilize for deployment to proceed. The report noted that some equipment manufacturers went out of business during the five-year demonstration, which ended in late 2014. Some equipment simply failed.Finally, officials say public involvement is key to a successful smart grid. For instance, Flathead Electric Cooperative, a Montana utility, started its Peak Time program, offering to install water heaters and equipment in residences that help reduce peak time costs. Users obtained a monthly credit and the equipment was installed at no cost to the owner.Pullman smart grid demonstration project. Image Avista UtilitiesSensors and MoreDuring the project, utilities and customers installed $80 million in smart grid equipment. Fifty-five different technologies were evaluated, many showing they can reduce energy use and cut power bills. Besides Portland General Electrics 5-MW lithium ion battery, the utility connected to a local solar project and installed new controls to build a micro grid. Nearby customers now can voluntarily reduce power usage and avoid times of peak power dem and.Avista Utilities installed smart meters with remote capabilities allowing it to start and stop electric service in Pullman, WA. The utility claims the meters could eliminate mora than 2,000 service calls per year and save $235,000 annually.The University of Washington in Seattle upped the number of electricity meters monitoring the flow of power to its main campus of some 250 buildings from seven to 200. The new meters give managers a much more granular view of how energy is used and where it is needed.SuccessResearchers were most pleased with the success of transactive control testing, validating that the technique works, notes Melton. As part of the project, Alstom Grid built a model of the regional grid that ran in parallel with the actual grid, using real data and estimations. IBM created another model to evaluate impact of the control system beyond the project and the regional grid. Tests showed the regions peak power demand could be reduced some 7.8 percent if 30 percent o f the regional grid used transactive demand response equipment.In the Northwest, wind is the most abundant renewable energy source. The modeling showed transactive energy controls can lower the regions overall costs by integrating it into the system when it is abundant and inexpensive.One of the challenges in applying transactive control technology is integrating numbers of different devices. There is a need to interface with various devices, and now it is largely done by hand, says Melton. We still need to develop custom interfaces with existing battery storage or SCADA, for example. That takes a fair amount of effort. Theres a need for better operability standards.For the next step, DOE through its Grid Modernization Laboratory Consortium, in January awarded $220 million to national laboratories for another string of grid research projects. Among them, PNNL will create a new grid architecture to determine how each part of the grid affects others. Separately, it will develop protoc ols to test how distributed smart devices can help balance supply and demand to maintain the frequency and voltage required for grid stability.Learn about the latest energy solutions at ASMEs Power Energy Conference and Exhibition. For Further Discussion There was a lot of noise in the data. There is a need within industry for better tools to operate equipment with all of these sensors. We just dont have the tools now to do that well.Ron Melton, Battelle

4 Reasons You Should Customize Your LinkedIn URL

4 Reasons You Should Customize Your LinkedIn web-adresse4 Reasons You Should Customize Your LinkedIn internetadresseEveryone who creates a LinkedIn profile is automatically assigned a URL. And it does not look attractive at all. It should be changed right away. We explain the four reasons why you should customize your LinkedIn URL, which will make your experience using LinkedIn (and others looking for you) much more enjoyable.What LinkedIn URL needs changingYou can tell when a person has not changed their LinkedIn URL because it looks something like thishttps//www.linkedin.com/in/your-name-7549b81/When is the last time you ever did a search for someone online using a series of numbers? No one does it. So, it is time to change your LinkedIn URL and heres why.1. It just looks better and easier to readLinkedIn URLs that are customized specifically for your name are easier to add on resumes, email signature, or other marketing materials. It may binnenseem like a small detail but it shows you are paying attention to detail and not just creating an account, only to forget about it. Those who use LinkedIn to screen candidates can tell who pays attention to this small, yet very important detail.This looks betterhttps//www.linkedin.com/in/your-nameThan thishttps//www.linkedin.com/in/your-name-7549b812. Custom URLs make you easier to findIf a hiring manager or employer remembers your name and not your website or lost your resume, a custom URL can work in your favor. Your URL should be so simple that all a person has to do is Google your name, see the top results, maybe see your LinkedIn headline, then go to the right LinkedIn profile with your name in the URL.Note Due to commonly used names it is a good idea to have a great LinkedIn profile photo. This leads to the next reason.3. Grab it while its hot. Custom URLs are first-come-first-served.Grab your custom URL quickly before someone else does. Those named John or Jane Smith probably had their chances of getting their o wn customized public URL disappear quickly. Unfortunately, once a person claims a URL it cannot be used by anyone unless the following happensThe owner changes it to something elseYou wait 180 days for the URL to become available againTip If you see someone has a URL you desire, message them and see if something can be worked out. This was the case when a staff member at Find My Profession discovered his URL was in use by someone with the same name. After a few friendly messages and connecting, they both worked out who would use what URL. They agreed to these URLshttps//www.linkedin.com/in/stevenlowell/ (Find My Profession staff)https//www.linkedin.com/in/stevelowell/ (Public speaker with the same name)Will people mucksmuschenstill make a mistake and find the wrong person from time to time? Yes, but both profiles are easy to find by name search. There are others with similar names, too, but they are using hyphens and maybe a bit tougher to find by typing in a URL.Note You can only c hange your LinkedIn profile URL five times, every 180 days. Work out the changes before customizing the URL.4. Boosts your social media credibilityNothing says, Create it and forget it like seeing a URL that has not been changed. No one will bother to network with a person who barely uses a LinkedIn account. If you know how to change the URL on your LinkedIn profile it shows you think about the followingProfessional social media footprintThe importance of others finding youThe importance of what others think when viewing your profileMaking an effort to present your best self onlineAt the end of the day, this may seem like a small thing. But if you are in the business of hiring someone and you need to get in contact with them quickly, you will see why this is a big thing the moment you cannot find who you are looking for (or if you do find them and their URL ends in 8675309).