Q TIPS: Quick and Quintessential Tips to Guide Your Job Search and Work Life
Publisher's Note: About this Issue...
Two words come to mind when I think of the 15th anniversary of Quintessential Careers.
The first word is thankful. Thankful to you -- and all the many readers and visitors who
have used Quintessential Careers over these past 15 years. Every time we have
hit a plateau, you have pushed us further -- pushed us to strive for not only providing
the best tools for you and all job-seekers to succeed in finding your career passions and
dream jobs, but to push the envelope to be leaders in career and job-search information and opinion.
I no longer have the traffic statistics from those many years ago, but I think we were
happy at the time to have a thousand visitors monthly. Now, we have millions of you reading
our pages, using and sharing our advice with others. The sharing the many, many of you
who have passed along links and/or reprints of our materials to your friends, colleagues,
students, and clients -- is enormously gratifying. Our mission is to empower all job-seekers --
which is an impossibility but your sharing our works always takes us a step closer to achieving that mission!
The second word is amazement. 15 years. Its still hard for me to comprehend. This site
started 15 years ago with a handful of pages -- a few articles and tutorials and now we count
more than 5,200 pages of content. Never in my wildest dreams 15 years ago did I ever think --
dare to think that this site would become MY career passion, my true platform for teaching
others how to succeed in career planning and job seeking.
And so it is with tears in my eyes as I compose this note, that I try and express my gratitude
for the joy I feel in having such a positive impact on so many lives lives of people I will never meet.
Finally, of course, it would be unconscionable of me not to express my deep and heartfelt
appreciation, amazement, joy, and good fortune of having a partner who shares my vision and
who followed me to places she never expected, and who pushes me to make myself and this
site better and better. You know her, of course, as the editor of QuintZine, my partner in business
and in life, Dr. Katharine Hansen.
I hope you enjoy this special 15th anniversary issue; we gathered some of the top career
experts on the planet to share their insights and wisdom with you. Of course, as you
might have come to expect with Quintessential Careers, we also have several other features and tools for you.
Thank you -- and may we all lead the lives we dream to live.
--Randall Hansen, Ph.D., Founder and Publisher, Quintessential Careers
--Katharine Hansen, Ph.D., Master Resume Writer, Credentialed Career Master,
Certified Electronic Career Coach, and editor at
kathy(at)quintcareers.com
Feature Article: Advice from Career Experts
Expert Job-Search Answers and Advice from Career Experts: A Quintessential Careers Special 15th Anniversary Report
compiled by Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D.
Finding a job is a stressful and time-consuming experience
for most job-seekers. Because most folks do not practice job-hunting
skills daily nor keep tabs on current job and employment trends,
we asked our visitors to provide the job-hunting questions that
are most on your minds as you set about looking for a new job.
What follows are the most commonly asked questions for our career experts.
The Career and Job-Search Questions
After soliciting questions from hundreds of job-seekers, we formulated these seven questions for our Career Masterminds:
What are the most common strategic mistakes you see on job-seeker resumes?
Read the responses.
How does a person continually network and job search even when employed with a demanding, full-time job?
Read the responses.
To what extent is job-hopping still an issue that job-seekers need to address?
Read the responses.
How does the job-hunting and interview process change as you move up from lower level positions to upper management?
Read the responses.
What's the best advice for a baby boomer who is thinking of changing careers?
Read the responses.
What's the best advice for a college senior or recent grad that has absolutely no clue what kind of job s/he wants?
Read the responses.
Why do you think so many job-seekers seem not to have caught on to the paradigm shift of reactive job-hunting (tracking down job leads, job boards) to proactive job-hunting (career branding, networking, social media)?
Read the responses.
Best Job-Search Tip
We also solicited the one, best piece of advice -- the critical nugget of information -- that our experts
think every job-seeker needs to know, understand, and practice to get a job. Here's what they said:
Expert Job-Hunting Tips.
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Whether this article is the first you are reading of Quintessential Careers content, or you are
a seasoned veteran of our no-cost, expert articles, tutorials, and tools, this piece, in honor of the
site's 15th anniversary, should provide you with additional insights into the vast
resources we offer all job-seekers.
People sometimes complain, in a funny way, that Quintessential Careers has "too many
resources" and that visiting the site can be "overwhelming." With this thought in mind,
here are the 15 most important places to visit on our site -- a shortcut to the best
features we have to offer you.
Most Used/Visited Samples and Examples on Quintessential Careers
Quintessential Careers offers a plethora of no-cost college, career, and job-search samples -- everything
from college application essays to resumes by career/job categories to interviewing questions
and answers. The breadth and depth and, most importantly, the quality -- of these samples
is unsurpassed by any other Website.
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.
What if you were limited to just over a dozen books about career and job search to guide you? Which ones are the
most crucial? This limitation really exists for lots of people. Books aren't cheap, and they take up space. Even in an
age when reading and book-buying habits are changing drastically with the availability of downloadable ebooks
and Kindle/Nook versions, it's worthwhile to consider which career and job-search books should form your
core library. Whether you buy hard copies, check them out from the library, or read them on a Kindle-like device,
you may want to zero in on the 15 books that we determined to be the must-haves for job search and career.
15 Quick Tips for Strengthening Your Career Network
by Katharine Hansen, Ph.D.
As part of the celebration of Quintessential Careers's 15th anniversary, we're presenting lists of 15 tips on
some of the most essential topics in college, job search, and career.
Networking -- often dreaded and misunderstood -- remains by far the best way to land a job. Study after study shows
that networking is the most effective way to get a job. The annual Sources of Hire study conducted by the
consulting firm Career Xroads consistently shows that referrals (from employees, employee alumni, vendors, etc.)
make up the largest portion of external hires. How do job-seekers find out about vacant positions? By networking. You can beef up
your networking efforts through better understanding of the process and following some top tips.
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information systems and students can choose from accelerated
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Find programs from all the best schools in the country
-- to best fit your personal, educational, and career needs.
One of the hallmarks of Quintessential Careers has been choosing and linking to the best career
and job-search sites. Four years into our 15-year history, when we started QuintZine, we began
spotlighting these stellar sites in each issue of the newsletter. In 11 years, we've featured 206 sites in
this space. Many of these 206 no longer exist, while others have morphed into something else. Many, though,
are still going strong. Here, we celebrate 15 that remain robust and among our favorites:
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.
Q TIPS:
Quick and Quintessential Tips to Guide Your Job Search and Work Life
Mashable recently offered a nice tool for job-seekers -- "51+ Essential Resources for the Digitally
Savvy Job Hunter" -- which lists links to articles on resumes, how to get a job at specific companies,
job-seeker-specific tips, social-media advice, and more.
Linda Guild, CEO of The Guild Associates, Inc., has founded TAPP (Talented Alliance of
Part-time Professionals) , a membership association created to meet the unique needs of individuals who work
part-time and the companies that employ them. TAPP provides current and future part-time employees
with resources and expertise available 24/7 that enables them to tap into their full potential. These part-time
employment resources include tax and accounting information, part-time employee benefits, motivational
webinars, experts on call, a job board dedicated to part-time jobs and internships, assessment tools,
and much more. TAPP's online community provides a venue for powerful, interactive support and solutions.
There is no cost for a basic individual membership; a premium individual membership is $30 for six months.
IT Business Edge is offering a wonderful, no-cost career-planning tool. Although it is entitled
IT Career Development Plan, there's no reason careerists in other fields can't use it.
Users are taken through four phases:
Time for Self Reflection
Develop Your Career Plan
Implement Your Plan
Establish Your Credibility
Downloadable tools assist in the process:
Personal Attributes Inventory
IT Career Path Flowchart
Personal Training Scorecard
IT Initiatives Portfolio
To access the downloads, users must complete a registration form that is a bit longer than we'd like,
but you need to complete it only once.
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.
Quintessential Careers Career Masterminds
We are honoring our 15 favorite career gurus with the title of Quintessential Careers Career Mastermind.
In turn, they are honoring our readers in a number of ways throughout the rest of the year ... with articles,
tips, and a special feature in our 15th anniversary issue of QuintZine in November.
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.
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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:
* 15 Quick Tips for Career Branding Success
* Career Branding Checklist
* 15 Quick Tips for Working with Headhunters
* Warning Signs You Won't Like Your Next Employer
* New Grads: Roadmap to Work and Play
* Working Night Shifts/Odd Shifts
* De-Stressing Before an Interview
* More Cover-Letter Components
* Crafting Transferable Skills Stories
* Empty Nest Job-seekers
* Quintessential Career Profiles of YOU, our readers
* Q&As with well-known career experts
* Book reviews
. . . and much, much more...
Mashable recently offered a nice tool for job-seekers -- "51+ Essential Resources for the Digitally
Savvy Job Hunter" -- which lists links to articles on resumes, how to get a job at specific companies,
job-seeker-specific tips, social-media advice, and more.
