Feature Article: When It's Time to Go to Grad School (and When It's Not)
Special Feature: Back to School/Back to Campus: How to Make This Year YOUR Year!
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...
How did it get to be back-to-school time already!? Our August issue is traditionally
our Back-to-Campus issue, and this year, our publisher, Dr. Randall Hansen, brings students
-- at any level -- an article designed to make this the best academic year ever. He also addresses students
(and others) who may be considering grad school. How do you know when it's the right time to go to grad school?
Our fearless leader offers guidelines.
--Katharine Hansen, Ph.D., Master Resume Writer, Credentialed Career Master,
Certified Electronic Career Coach, and editor at
kathy(at)quintcareers.com
Feature Article: Grad School Decisions
When It's Time to Go to Grad School (and When It's Not)
by Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D.
Whether good economy or bad, no one should ever rush into the decision on attending graduate
school -- whether for a master's, professional, or doctoral degree. Graduate programs are designed
to enhance, augment, and fine-tune your existing skills and experience, preparing you for more
advanced jobs and work. Going into a graduate program on a whim or without a strong vision
of your future career will seriously dilute the value of your degree -- and perhaps even hurt
your chances of landing a job upon graduation.
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!
Back to School/Back to Campus: How to Make This Year YOUR Year!
by Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D.
As the last days of summer near and schools and college across the country approach the beginning of
another academic year, it's the perfect time for students to look back on the educational experiences (and
outcomes) of the last year or more while making plans to improve performance levels. Doing these
things now can help make this coming academic your year to succeed!
Academic Tips is a very uncluttered site with links to short tips to improve academic success. The main
academic tips category offers suggestions about how to study, university life, general tips, exam tips, memory
techniques, literature tips, speech tips, tips for specific courses, and essay-writing tips. The tips
are enhanced with student comments about the advice.
The site also lists its top-viewed tips areas: note-taking techniques, fight for first year in
college, time-management tips, students-to-students study tips, stress-reduction tips,
test-taking strategies, concentration tips, tips on writing scholarship essays, moral stories
and inspirational stories, guide to writing research papers, travel tips, high-school study tips,
credit-card tips, saving tips, and job-search, resume, and interview tips
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.
CollegeAtlas.org -- a non-commercial site helping aspiring students
make better, more informed choices by providing you with relevant, reliable and up-to-date
information about college and higher education opportunities. Includes articles and tools for
finding and choosing a college. No cost.
Hired4Sure -- a job interview question and answer site moderated
by several career experts. Job-seekers can find employment questions (with answers) that have been
asked all over the world. Every question is categorized according to occupation, industry, and
specific employer. You can even add a question. No cost to job-seekers.
hotcoursesUSA -- provides a wealth of information for students
who are looking for colleges or graduate programs in the US. You can compare your choice of
colleges as well as read independent students reviews. The site's mission is to produce guides
that make it easy for people to find the right school, college, or university. No cost.
50StateJobs.com -- where job-seekers can search job listings
(by location, job category, keywords), browse for job links (private employers, government agencies)
by state, as well as post your resume. No cost to job-seekers.
Find even more career and job site additions to Quintessential Careers by visiting our
Latest Additions section.
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.
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Find programs from all the best schools in the country
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Q TIPS:
Quick and Quintessential Tips to Guide Your Job Search and Work Life
Although we would never advise anyone to choose a college major -- or career -- based on
expected salary (instead, follow your passion), it's just due diligence to research the salary you can
expect from a given career or major. The 20 worst-paying degrees in 2010 are:
The US federal government will hire
300,000 to 400,000 new workers in the next few years. "Fiscal year 2011's budget reflects
the intent to hire more federal employees as soon as possible," writes Bridget Mintz Testa
on Workforce.com. Testa also notes the government plans "dramatic changes in
recruiting practices," such as eliminating lengthy "knowledge, skills, abilities" (KSA)
essays early in the application process.
Read the full article here (registration required).
You might just find it pays to read job ads/postings very carefully. Entrepreneur Mike Michalowicz
describes the "special filtering technique" he has used for years to avoid getting inundated with resumes from
unqualified candidates. In the job posting, Michalowicz writes, "I tell the applicants, 'To prove that you're meticulous,
you have to include the following sentence when you send your resume: 'It is with my utmost respect I hereto
surrender my curriculum vitae for your consideration.'" He then conducts a search of that sentence in the
resumes he receives and eliminates up to 80 percent of the resumes -- because they don't
contain the sentence. Here are Michalowicz's reasons for employing this technique:
"1. Including the sentence shows the applicant has read the entire ad and knows what the job
entails and if they're qualified to fill it.
"2. Many people today are blasting resumes (batch responding) to everyone and their mother. They
don't care what the job is; they're just looking for a paycheck.
"3. Using the sentence shows they pay attention to detail.
"4. Most important, business owners want employees who will do as they're told. If they've used the sentence,
it shows they're more inclined to explicitly follow directions and do what you expect of them."
While this qualifier might seem like the obscure technique of a lone employer, he has written an
article on the Wall Street Journal's site, so other hiring managers
might jump on the bandwagon.
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.
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...
