Main Feature: Are You Ready to Start and Run Your Own Business? A Quintessential Careers Entrepreneurship Assessment
Special Feature: Do You Have What It Takes to be a Patchworker?
Bonus Feature: 15 Quick Tips for Succeeding as a Solopreneur
Quintessential Reading: QuintZine's Review of Career Books: The 9-to-5 Cure
A Quintet of Quick Questions: QuintZine's Q&A with a Career Expert
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 and Work Life
Editor's Note: About this Issue...
The current recession has been good for one thing -- business startups. In 2009 (the most recent year for which
numbers are available), "business startups reached their highest level in 14 years -- even exceeding the
number of startups during the peak 1999-2000 technology boom," reported the Kauffman Index
of Entrepreneurial Activity.
And Kristen Cardinale, whose book, The 9-to-5 Cure, we excerpt and review in this issue, and with whom
we conducted this issue's Q&A, notes that more than 300,000 people started a career in freelancing in 2010.
Could entrepreneurship, solopreneurship, or freelancing be the answer for you? Dr. Randall Hansen's
quiz, Are You Ready to Start and Run Your Own Business?, will help you assess your readiness to
launch an enterprise.
You'll find lots of meaty content for aspiring entrepreneurs in this issue, including another
of our featured "15 Quick Tips" articles celebrating our 15th anniversary.
--Katharine Hansen, Ph.D., Master Resume Writer, Credentialed Career Master,
Certified Electronic Career Coach, and editor at
kathy(at)quintcareers.com
Feature Article: Entrepreneurial Assessment
Are You Ready to Start and Run Your Own Business? A Quintessential Careers Entrepreneurship Assessment
by Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D.
Making the leap from employee to entrepreneur -- from worker to owner -- is both daunting and
exhilarating. If you have a passion for providing a good or service and a desire for the freedom and
lifestyle choice of running your own business, then it's time to at least consider making the move.
While entrepreneurs come in all shapes and sizes, our assessment focuses more on the solopreneur
-- the person considering leaving a steady job to work for him/herself as an independent contractor, freelancer,
consultant, portfolio careerist, or Patchworker.
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!
This article is an excerpt from Kristin Cardinale's new book, The 9-to-5 Cure: Work on Your Own Terms and Reinvent Your Life.
The Patchwork Principle is a freelance career strategy based on the simple idea that working for a number of
employers simultaneously presents unique business opportunities and insulates you from sudden and total
job loss... The Patchworker carries all of the standard responsibilities of the freelancer but has an agenda beyond
earning money: life... A Patchworker is a freelancer who selectively accepts work based on lifestyle factors that
he or she determines to be personally important.
Before you dive in and try out this new career lifestyle, let's take a moment to determine if the Patchwork model
is really the right choice for you. After all, being a Patchworker means owning your own business and running the show,
which is new territory you are wading into if you are currently part of the 9-to-5 world. There are many important considerations
to weigh; let's take a look at some of them in the book excerpt.
Bonus Feature: Entrepreneurial Tips
15 Quick Tips for Succeeding as a Solopreneur
by Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D.
As part of the celebration of Quintessential Careers's 15th anniversary this year, we're presenting
lists of 15 tips on some of the most essential topics in college, job search, and career.
Taking the plunge from employee to business owner can be many things -- exhilarating, liberating, rewarding,
frightening, challenging, time-consuming -- but you can make the experience more positive than negative by
following these 15 quick tips for succeeding as a solopreneur, entrepreneur, freelancer, consultant, portfolio careerist,
Patchworker, or a small-business owner.
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.
It's both refreshing and exciting to see more books published focused on the idea of creating one's own future career. Numerous factors
are leading the way to what could become a major paradigm shift in career planning, working, and even how we live our lives. Some of these
factors include a weakened job market, the disloyalty of employers to employees, and a desire among some workers to control their own fate.
In the past, when someone made the leap from Corporate America, it was typically to some type of entrepreneurial adventure -- either with a
start-up company or opening a franchise. Today, though, the options have broadened tremendously, starting with the concept of
portfolio careers (which has been popular in Europe for years).
Dr. Kristin Cardinale reintroduces this concept to the North American audience using the term Patchwork Careers in her inspiring new book,
The 9-to-5 Cure. The subtitle tells it all: work on your own terms and reinvent your life. The book provides all the information, tools,
and motivation you need to go from working for someone else to working for yourself.
Cardinale states: "… my career lifestyle is one that I chose deliberately because it brings happiness to my life… it is filled with an abundance
of employment opportunities… I live life on my own terms, by choice. I own my time. I call the shots… it is a career lifestyle that is none like I
have ever heard of or known before. I love it, truly."
QuintZine's Q&A with Career Expert:
Dr. Kristin Cardinale
Kristin Cardinale, Ph.D., is the author of The
9-to-5 Cure: Work on Your Own Terms and Reinvent Your Life.
(See our review of the book).
"The biggest myth in today's market is that no work is available," said Kristin Cardinale in the
Q&A we conducted with her, "when in fact it is plentiful; however, it is packaged differently, as freelance work."
Read more of Cardinale's advice --
including more about the freelancing boom, the importance of setting
priorities before going out on your own, using flexibility and immediacy as keys to standing out
in the job market, and deploying the concept of Patchworking --
in our full Q&A with her.
This site, part of the family of Empowering Sites that includes Quint Careers, proclaims: "No Gimmicks.
Nothing to Buy. Just straightforward advice to improve your marketing, PR, and SEO efforts."
It's a terrific venue (if we do say so ourselves) for learning about marketing, whether for
yourself (personal/career branding) or your business (large or small). The mission of this site focuses empowering
your marketing efforts.
Enhance My Marketing offers empowering marketing, public relations (PR), and SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
articles, insights, tips, links, and tools -- all to boost the user's success.
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.
Accounting Jobs -- a job board and career
resource dedicated to accounting and finance professionals, where job-seekers can browse or
search (by keyword, location) job listings, post your resume, and register for alerts. Career
resources include videos, salary information, and paid services. Job board no cost to job-seekers.
AllHealthcareJobs.com --
a job board for healthcare professionals, where job-seekers can search job listings
(by keyword, specialty, location), post your resume, create a job alert,
and find career advice. No cost to job-seekers.
Environmental Career Opportunities -- where
job-seekers can find hundreds of job listings -- which you can browse by state or job category --
in natural resources and conservation; environmental science; environmental advocacy;
environmental law, policy, and regulation; and even environmental internships. You can also
register for job alerts or subscribe to bimonthly jobs newsletter. No cost to job-seekers.
Mojo40 --
a blog designed to help professionals aged 40 and above to get your career mojo back -- it's about
"getting you unstuck in your career, no matter where you are in the process, and giving you practical advice"
to succeed. Whether stuck, recareering, or thinking of freelancing or consulting, check out the advice.
No cost to job-seekers.
Find even more career and job site additions to Quintessential Careers by visiting our
Latest Additions section.
We'd Love You to Link to Quintessential Careers!
If your school, organization, business or other
entity has a Website, 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.
Q TIPS:
Quick and Quintessential Tips to Guide Your Job Search and Work Life
Startup America is the White House initiative to
celebrate, inspire, and accelerate high-growth
entrepreneurship throughout the nation.
This coordinated public/private effort brings together an alliance of the country’s most
innovative entrepreneurs, corporations, universities, foundations, and other leaders, working in concert
with a wide range of federal agencies to dramatically increase the prevalence and success of America’s entrepreneurs.
Startup America aims to:
Expand access to capital for high-growth startups
throughout the country;
Expand entrepreneurship education and mentorship
programs that empower more Americans not just to get a job, but to create jobs;
Strengthen commercialization of the about
$148 billion in annual federally-funded research and development, which can generate innovative
startups and entirely new industries;
Identify and remove unnecessary barriers to
high-growth startups; and
Expand collaborations between large companies
and startups.
Approximately 25 percent of today's franchisees are female, reports Matt Wilson, citing data from
Pricewaterhouse Coopers and the International Franchise Association. Franchisors are taking note
and starting to specifically target their business opportunities at female franchisees," Wilson writes.
He notes that FranchiseHelp.com conducted an informal poll to find out which franchises were most attractive to
females looking to start their own business.
On the site, FranNet, Ronald Lorne Smith offers a two-part series on the Top Ten Traits of Effective
Business Owners. Find Part 1
and Part 2.
As the jobs slump continues, "many unemployed and underemployed people will need to create their
own jobs by starting their own little enterprises, business opportunities, or entrepreneurial ventures," Jay
Block writes on Personal Branding Blog. "But whether you work for yourself or are still fortunate to be employed,
you must not only begin to think and act like an entrepreneur, you must master value-based entrepreneurial skill sets." Block
discusses the idea of value-based entrepreneurial skills and
offers a list of eight principles to brand yourself an
entrepreneur.
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.
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:
* Warning Signs You Won't Like Your Next Employer
* Contrasting Good Job-Search to Weak Job-Search Techniques
* 15 Quick Tips for Find a New Job
* 15 Quick Tips for Landing a Job at Graduation
* College Grad Career Preparedness Final Exam
* New Grads: Roadmap to Work and Play
* Working Night Shifts/Odd Shifts
* De-Stressing Before an Interview
* 15 Quick Tips for Acing the Job Interview
* Cover Letter "Rules" 2.0: Reframing Cover-Letter Guidelines for Today’s Job Search
* 15 Quick Tips for a Winning Resume
* More Cover-Letter Components
* Crafting Transferable Skills Stories
* 15 Quick Tips for Fighting Age Discrimination and the Overqualified Label
* Older Workers Struggling at Job-Search: Is It Age Discrimination?
* Empty Nest Job-seekers
* How to Stay Motivated at Work
* 15 Quick Tips for Gaining Valuable Experience in College
* Major Stress: Quiz for Choosing a Major/Career
* 15 Quick Tips for Excelling at Work
* 15 Quick Tips for Obtaining Your Next Promotion
* 15 Quick Tips for Getting Accepted into College
* Another Option After High School: Vocational/Trade Schools
* Fourth Annual Job Action Day
* 15 Quick Tips for Career Branding Success
* Career Branding Checklist
* Special Quint Careers 15th Anniversary Issue
* 15 Career Gurus
* 15 Indispensable Career Books
* 15 tips, samples, tools, and more.
* 15 Quick Tips Strengthening Your Career Network
* 15 Quick Tips for Working with Headhunters
* Quintessential Career Profiles of YOU, our readers
* Q&As with well-known career experts
* Book reviews
. . . and much, much more...
