Feature Article: Job-Hunting's Parallels With Dating: Steps on How to Find Your Next Successful Employer Relationship
Special Feature: Turning Your Hobby into a Full-Time Business? Answer These Questions First
Bonus Feature: Getting a Book Published -- Is It Worth It?
Quintessential Site: Featured Career Web Site of this Issue
Latest Additions: What's New on Quintessential Careers
Q TIPS: Quick and Quintessential Tips to Guide Your Job Search
Editor's Note: About this Issue...
While our feature article comparing job-hunting to dating is a nod to Valentine's Day,
this issue's main theme is entrepreneurship. The recession has inspired many to try going into business for themselves.
Hence, publisher Dr. Randall Hansen looks at turning a hobby into a business. And I look at
a different kind of entrepreneurship -- being an author and whether getting published is worthwhile.
Sending out Valentine's love to our readers!
PS: Next month marks the 10th anniversary of QuintZine. We'd love to hear from any
readers who have been with us since March 2000.
--Katharine Hansen, Ph.D., Master Resume Writer, Credentialed Career Master,
Certified Electronic Career Coach, and editor at
kathy(at)quintcareers.com
Feature Article: Job-Hunting Like Dating
Job-Hunting's Parallels With Dating: Steps on How to Find Your Next Successful Employer Relationship
by Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D.
Who can forget the excitement and hope of finding a new relationship? Those early encounters filled
with so much anticipation and nervous energy? The fun of meeting new people and the hope of finding
the one? The thrill of the hunt -- with the goal of finding that one special... employer.
Yes, dating and job-hunting do in fact share many similarities. Think it's a stretch? In both dating
and job-hunting, you have strangers thrown together seeking to find a spark -- trying to find common ground
and a rapport that makes both parties want to meet again and eventually be together for a long-term commitment.
If you have great people skills and have had much success in dating and relationships, then certain
elements of job-hunting (such as networking and interviewing) should come naturally to you. If, on the
other hand, you have struggled with relationships, this article will give you some good pointers to
succeeding in the job market.
Three major steps guide both dating and job-hunting. The first step is researching prospects and finding
the perfect match. The second step is succeeding in building interest and a connection with the other
person(s). The third step is agreeing to be together and making the long-term commitment.
Have Your Resume Ready in Case of Job Loss in the Current Economic Climate.
QUINTESSENTIAL RESUMES AND COVER LETTERS, powered by About Jobs Resume Writing Service, provides solutions
with unmatched quality in the areas of professional resume writing. In fact, in 2009, during one of
the worst recessions in history, they still achieved a 98.7% effectiveness rate!
Turning Your Hobby into a Full-Time Business? Answer These Questions First
by Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D.
In my travels around the country, I've met numerous individuals who worked full-time but had dreams of
turning a part-time hobby into something that could allow them to quit their jobs and financially support
their current lifestyle. The entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well across the U.S.
No question, no matter how good your skills or how in demand your product or service, taking the plunge
into self-employment is a major decision -- and one that you should not take lightly.
Find a Job, Post Your Resume -- on our Job Portal!
Even in a bad economy, there are still job postings and career opportunities!!
Go now to search for jobs, post your resume, build an online portfolio, receive career consultation,
and learn about continuing education opportunities.
After a particularly miserable recent experience with a publisher that I'll call "Evil Publishing Company,"
I started to question my path as an author. I've had eight books published. I'm not rich. I'm not
famous. I haven't been on Oprah.
Well, now of course I didn't really expect any of those things. So why had I written all these
books and what did I have to show for my labors? More importantly, had other writers had terrible
experiences with publishers that made them ask whether publishing was worth it? I asked many
of them. I found a few surprises, some gems of enlightenment, and many encouraging words for
others who might be considering trying to get a book published. The authors I talked to had all
published in the careers and job-search sector, but their experiences are likely representative
of any type of nonfiction author.
Though the publishing game is increasingly competitive, most authors I talked to had little
difficulty getting published. No one was self-supporting from publishing books, let alone getting rich --
but virtually all the authors had seen ancillary business benefits as an outgrowth of publishing.
Almost all authors pointed to minimal marketing and promotional support from their publishers,
and some were surprised by these paltry marketing efforts. Most had positive experiences with their
publishers. Most urged other would-be authors to take the plunge. A few had decided -- for diverse
reasons -- to self-publish.
ZeroMillion.com's mission is to encourage and support entrepreneurial endeavors internationally;
to be a top resource for all levels of businessmen, businesswomen, entrepreneurs, and marketers and;
to facilitate discussion, communication, networking, and peer assistance though an online community
of businessmen, businesswomen, entrepreneurs, and marketers at all levels of knowledge.
The site offers tons of articles on starting a
business, no-cost e-books, a discussion forum,
and more.
Ad: Increase Your Marketability with More Education
Increase Your Marketability by Obtaining Additional
Education, Training, Certifications
The number people enrolling in online education programs to advance their knowledge and their career
is increasing enormously.
Should you be one of them?
Programs range from business to management to computer
information systems and students can choose from accelerated
courses and full or part-time programs.
Find programs from all the best schools in the country
-- to best fit your personal, educational, and career needs.
Financial Jobs -- a job board for financial
professionals (including accounting, banking, finance, and insurance), where you can search job postings
(by keyword, job category, state), as well as upload your resume, and register for job alerts. No cost to job-seekers.
HireMe.ca -- a job board for job-seekers searching
for jobs in the Toronto area, where you can search job postings (by job type, function, title, location).
The site's mission is to provide job-seekers with a comprehensive database of quality jobs, useful
information on finding jobs and career development. No cost to job-seekers.
Undress For Success and the Telework Research Network -- a
great resource for work-at-home and telework information, tools, advice, work-from-home scams, and more.
Partly a tool for selling the book Undress For Success, aimed at empowering employees to negotiate, find, or
create work-at-home opportunities. No cost to job-seekers.
VM People -- a job board for the virtualization and cloud computing industry,
where job-seekers can search job postings (by keyword, job title, job type, location), as well as upload your personal profile and CV, as
well as register for email job alerts. No cost to job-seekers.
Find even more career and job site additions to Quintessential Careers by visiting our
Latest Additions section.
Find Your Career Future. Learn More About Yourself
Career Maze is designed to help every job seeker, at every level, make smarter
career choices. Individualized to reflect your unique personality and written in
"plain English," it is thorough and easy to complete.
Once completing the assessmemt, your 2-part report includes:
A specific, career-relevant discussion of your workplace personality
A list of job types compatible with your personality
Career Maze encourages you to think about tapping your full potential to find your future.
Q TIPS:
Quick and Quintessential Tips to Guide Your Job Search and Work Life
Not long ago, Amanda Hite of Talent Revolution observed that "Baby Boomers aren't retiring. They're
starting businesses. Gen-Y'rs are graduating college only to be disappointed by the lack of opportunity
within the job market. And X'ers are having early mid-life [crises] like I did and wondering 'Am I missing
out on something here? Should I be opting out of corporate America and chase my dreams?'" In the blog
posting, Hite asks readers for tips for aspiring entrepreneurs -- and gets a bunch of them in response.
Check them out here.
Are you cut out to be an entrepreneur? That's what Susan Britton Whitcomb asks in an article with that
title. Here are the 10 questions she poses to would-be entrepreneurs:
What is your purpose for being in (or opening a new) business?
What do you really want?
What can you do?
What will you do?
What do you want your business to look like this time next year? What will be in place that
isn't present now? What will you have more of? What will you have less of?
Now think about how you'd like your business to look well into the future (depending on where
you are in life, this might be 5, 10, 20, or 30 years from now). What are some of the highlights?
Ideally, what image/brand would you like colleagues and clients to have of you?
What are the problems, as opposed to the needs, of your clients?
What do you need to do to prepare yourself to serve clients better?
What opportunities are out there that you are not taking advantage of?
One approach to entrepreneurship is to buy a franchise business. The site
FranchiseHelp offers at quiz that helps you determine whether you have the
necessary qualities to succeed as a franchisee:
Franchise Quiz.
Quintessential Careers Press Announces Our Latest Book: The Quintessential Guide to
Job Search 2.0: Advancing Your Career Through Online Social Media.
The
Quintessential Guide to Job Search 2.0: Advancing Your Career Through Online Social Media,
by Katharine Hansen, Ph.D., and Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D., provides six chapters to guide you
through the next revolution in online job search. Since job boards, vestiges of the first
revolution in online job search, should still be part of the job-seeker's toolkit, this
book helps you navigate those while also considering the future of job boards. The book
looks at building your personal brand, teaches you to make the most of social-media venues
in the job search, guides you in creating a digital presence, suggests you consider blogging,
and discusses ways to integrate multimedia elements into your job search.
Ad: Does Your Organization Have Positions to Fill?
Find Qualified Candidates Today!
The Quintessential Careers Job-Hunting Portal is a great place for organizations that have job
openings to post those openings and review job-seeker resumes.
Our national resume database contains more than 500,000 active resumes of candidates seeking employment.
Numerous job-posting packages are available.
If your organization is looking to hire, use the power behind our
portal! Learn more today!
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Also follow @KatCareerGal for regular career-related tweets.
QuintCareers Network of Empowering Blogs
What are QuintCareers empowering blogs?
The Career Doctor Blog:
Especially for those who miss our former regular feature, Ask the Career Doctor, this blog each day features a question and answer from The
Career Doctor, Randall S. Hansen, PhD.
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send a request to your site's Webmaster to establish a
link to Quintessential Careers. Thanks so much!
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QuintZine: Topics in Upcoming Issues
WATCH FOR feature articles on these topics in upcoming issues of QuintZine:
* Entrepreneurship Quiz
* Warning Signs You Won't Like Your Next Employer
* Contrasting Good and Bad Job-Search Techniques
* New Grads: Roadmap to Work and Play
* Working Night Shifts/Odd Shifts
* Tips for Dealing with Office Politics
* De-Stressing Before an Interview
* More Cover-Letter Components
* Empty Nest Job-seekers
* How to Stay Motivated at Work
* Quintessential Career Profiles of YOU, our readers
* Q&As with well-known career experts
* Book reviews
. . . and much, much more...