Feature Article: Handy (and Strategic) Tips for Dealing With Office Politics
Special Feature: Facing Your Performance Review in a Down Economy
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...
QuintZine and its parent, Quintessential Careers, have relocated! In fact, moving the company
from DeLand, FL, to lovely Kettle Falls, WA, was such an undertaking that we skipped last
month's issue of QuintZine. The dust is still settling, but the tranquility and beauty of our
new headquarters should inspire the Quint team to bring you better content than ever.
This month, we offer a workplace issue, with an article by publisher Dr. Randall S.
Hansen on handling office politics and one by regular contributor Joe Turner on facing
your performance review in an economic downturn ... plus all our regular features.
Here's to new beginnings! We're having a terrific one at QuintCareers' new home.
We wish a new beginning -- whether new job, new career, new self-awareness, or a
new outlook -- to all our readers.
--Katharine Hansen, Ph.D., Master Resume Writer, Credentialed Career Master,
Certified Electronic Career Coach, and editor at
kathy(at)quintcareers.com
Feature Article: Dealing With Office Politics
Handy (and Strategic) Tips for Dealing With Office Politics
by Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D.
It's safe to say that no matter where you work -- regardless of the industry or profession --
you will encounter the inner dynamics of people plotting and scheming and jockeying for position
and power... something called office or workplace politics.
Workers have three options when faced with a politically charged workforce: disavow that
politics actually exists; decide to ignore the political landscape; choose to work within
the system. In reality, the first two options have the same (often negative) consequences,
while the third can provide you with insight and success.
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!
If you're expecting a performance review soon, understand that there's no place to hide nowadays.
Over the years, the corporate performance review has been seen as the ticket to our
annual raise or quarterly bonus. That notion has become almost automatic in our thinking,
but it will be a big mistake in an economic downturn.
This obsolete way of thinking will certainly net you less in compensation or bonus, if
you receive any. If you expect an automatic raise or promotion, your employer may
doubt your continued viability, especially if corporate revenue is shrinking.
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.
eBossWatch, launched in June 2007, strives to help people avoid hostile work environments and
workplace bullying. Because it is extremely difficult during the job-interview process to
discover the true atmosphere at a potential employer and the true nature of a potential
manager, eBossWatch is a critical job-search resource for people who are considering a career change.
eBossWatch enables you to anonymously rate your boss using a respectable and focused
evaluation form so that job-seekers can search for bosses at potential workplaces and can
receive reports detailing the ratings that each boss has received.
The site has just launched a new, fee-based Boss Background Check service that enables
job-seekers to conduct background checks on potential bosses and employers.
Read the
press release here.
With the exception of the Boss Background Check ($19.95), the site carries no cost for job-seekers.
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.
Discover Policing -- offers comprehensive information
on law enforcement careers (sworn and civilian), along with a full-featured job board where job-seekers can search job listings, post a resume,
and register a job-search alert. Managed by the International Association of Chiefs of Police and funded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance.
No cost to job-seekers.
jobsSLP.com -- a job board for speech and audiology
professionals, where job-seekers can search job listings (by keyword, location, type, setting),
as well as post your resume. No cost to job-seekers.
PTJobs.com -- a job board dedicated to physical therapists,
physical therapy assistants, and other physical therapy professionals -- where job-seekers can search job
listings (by keyword, location, type, setting), as well as post your resume. No cost to job-seekers.
WhatSalary.com -- a site for job-seekers in the
U.S., U.K., Ireland, and France to research salaries by job title and company. The site offers information
on 3 million salaries -- from 20,000 job titles and about 100,000 employers. Job-seekers can also
search job listings (by keyword, location). 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
If ethical behavior had been taught to employees and reinforced as a must-have soft skill, could we
have prevented the current economic meltdown?
Corporate coach and author Peggy Klaus explored this question in a recent Klaus and Associates survey.
Although 87 percent of respondents believe that a lack of ethics led to the current economic disaster,
there's hope for the future: a reassuring 80 percent think that ethics can be taught.
Sixty-seven percent of the survey respondents pointed a finger at the profit-hungry business environment as a
contributing factor to a rise in unethical behavior, with 59 percent agreeing that shady conduct in the workplace
derives more from company culture than from individual employees. Translation: It's imperative for organizations
to promote an ethical culture on a company-wide scale.
Read more about the survey,
and find practical ideas and tips for keeping your own professional ethics in tip-top shape as we navigate
our way out of the recession.
We've often contended that one of that best ways to truly understand job-search and workplace issues
is to read material directed at those involved in hiring and watching over the workforce. CareerOverview
has identified "50 best blogs for HR Wisdom," covering general HR, workplace, technology, leadership,
legal, recruiting, and compensation.
The Twitter hashtag #JobHuntChat is growing rapidly, reports The Talent Buzz, noting that "you can experience
the chat every Monday night at 10 pm EST."
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!
Follow QuintCareers; Read the Latest Advice
Follow QuintCareers Latest Job Tips and Career News on Twitter
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.
If your school, organization, business or other
entity has a Web site, we welcome you to link to Quintessential Careers.
If you already have a link from your site, we want you to know we
appreciate it. If you don't have a link to us, please
send a request to your site's Webmaster to establish a
link to Quintessential Careers. Thanks so much!
For more details (including sample HTML copy), see our
Link to Us page.
Need a career expert for a story or article you're working on? Searching for college,
career, and job news? Interested in learning more about Quintessential Careers?
Our Press Room
is your one-stop location for getting the information and resources you need.
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
* 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...
