As we welcome 2002 and bid farewell
(perhaps good riddance?) to 2001,
we at Quintessential Careers once
again want to thank our visitors and
readers for another successful year.
"Quint" welcomed more than 1.8 million
unique visitors to the site in 2001 and
enjoyed more than 8 million page impressions.
In addition, QuintZine now has more than
4,100 subscribers. Thank you, readers.
Let us hope that 2002 will be a much better
year for job-hunting and career development.
To launch us all on a fresh start, we
bring you in this issue a feature article on
how to conduct a long-distance job search
for those seeking a new job in a new city for the
new year, as well as an article on how to set
goals for the new year.
New City, New Job: How to Conduct a Long-Distance Job Search
by Katharine Hansen and Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D.
You've decided it's time for a fresh start
in a new location. But how do you go about
landing a job in a new locale when your
current location is far from your destination?
Making a geographic move to enhance your career
should not be a hassle if you do some planning
before you move. Our article offers some steps
to consider when mounting a long-distance job search.
Quintessential Career Profiles feature readers
who have interesting career stories to tell.
Did you obtain a job in an unusual way? Has
your career path been out of the ordinary?
Have you held one or more unusual jobs? Has
your job search been especially troublesome,
inspirational, or remarkable? We want to hear
from you! Tell us a little about your career
story, and we may contact you for a full
profile. Write to us
and let us know about you.
(If your e-mail program doesn't let you click on the link above
to open a new e-mail message, just write to
quintzine@quintcareers.com using the subject line
Quintessential_Career_Profiles).
Ad: Create Your Own Web Resume and Portfolio!
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your Web-based resume and career portfolio (20 megabytes), up to 50 email addresses, and lots of publishing
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Goal setting seems to be a perennially hot topic!
Could it be that you hear and read about it so
often because it's a subject that is easy to know
about and difficult to practice?
Learn how to avoid the pitfalls of goal setting,
including the dreaded "New Year's Resolution Syndrome"
by reading the entire article.
In the spirit of fresh starts and relocation,
we salute as our Site of the Issue an outstanding
site for those seeking a new place to live and work.
Sperling's Best Places offers 3,000 City Profiles;
a Cost of Living and Salary Calculator; a tool that
lets you describe your ideal place to live and
compares your preferences with a database of hundreds
of cities, and presents you with rankings for your
further investigation; a ranking of the rankings of
recent "Best Places"-type studies by Forbes, Fortune,
and ZPG; school statistics on 87,000 U.S. public
schools in 16,000 districts; crime rates in 2,500
U.S. cities; and climate profiles for 2,000
cities worldwide.
CollegeGathering.com
-- an online guide for college students -- and college-bound students -- to help you
find useful information about every aspect of college life by reviewing numerous
Websites of interest to college students, including career sites, campus life,
financial aid, and more. Free.
Fish4Jobs --
where job-seekers looking for a job in the U.K. can search for jobs, get email notifications of matching jobs,
find salary information, and other career information (for sales, marketing, IT, engineering, construction, accounting, and secretarial
careers). Also includes a career resources section with help on writing CVs, interviewing, and more.
Free to job-seekers.
GlobalEnergyJobs --
the place for energy industry professionals (in just about all aspects of the energy industry)
looking for new jobs anywhere throughout the world to search for jobs, post your resume (with confidentiality
option), or use a job search agent. Registration is required to use any of the services. Free to job-seekers.
HEALTHeCAREERS.COM (HECC)
-- where health professionals can search for jobs in just about every possible career in healthcare and
social work. Job postings come from a network of healthcare associations. Once registered, you can
post your resume, received email alerts, and email your cover letter and resume to employers. Free to job-seekers.
Find even more career and job site additions to Quintessential Careers by visiting our
Latest
Additions section.
Greg Adelman writes: "I just moved from San Francisco
to Laguna Beach, and I have no job. It has been six months,
and I'm worried that my joblessness is hurting my search. I also am
finding it hard since I do not know a soul down in this
area. What do you suggest doing? I was going to pay an
executive-search company, but it seems very expensive
for something I can probably do myself. What about
headhunters? It seems they all want you to post your
resume. I want someone that I can sit and discuss my
experience with and work with closely. Is this possible
without paying someone?"
Erika Martinez writes: "I have recently graduated
from the University of Connecticut where I earned
a B.A./Psychology major. My work experience is limited
to food service and education (I supervised the patient
dining room of a psych hospital and worked as an aide
in a special ed school). I intend to go on to graduate
school but would like some office experience while I
decide what area of study to pursue. I am uncertain about
which specific positions I am qualified for; I hope you can
help point me in the right direction! Thank you for your time."
Steve writes: "I am a Branch Manager for a large
retail bank in New England. I have been in banking
for eight years, and I have experience in various
areas.
My banking career started as a telephone sales
representative (one year), transitioned to the
Training Division as a training associate for new
hires (three years) and transitioned again to branch
retail banking, where I worked my way up to manager
of a very busy, full-service, supermarket branch
(four years/two years as manager).
"Retail banking does not hold the same appeal
for me that it once did. The hours are long,
and stress levels are high. The challenges
offered in branch management just aren't
appealing. I feel like I am just a babysitter
and that I am not using my skills to their full
advantage. I would like to get out of retail
and I am having trouble determining where to
go and how to get there. What suggestions do
you have for someone in my position?"
D. A. Rodriguez writes: "There is no way for
me to hide the fact that I've had seven jobs in
the last seven years. Although I have great credentials,
no one will hire me -- I actually have a job paying
a third less than what I'm used to making. Do I stick
it out for a year? Do I try to finish my CPA license
in this state (varies from state to state). Do I go
back to school at night for IT?"
Q TIPS: Quick and Quintessential Career & Job Tips
In our article about how to conduct a long-distance
job search, we suggest checking out college career centers
in your targeted new city. To expand on that idea, career
columnist Carol Kleiman points out that community college
career centers can be a great resource and are often open
to the public because they are subsidized by public tax dollars.
A fee may be charged for services, but it won't be as expensive
as a private career counselor. And, of course, this community-college
suggestion applies to all job-seekers, not just those searching
from a distance.
A tip that syndicated columnists Kate Wendleton and
Dale Dauten found important enough to include in their
"Best Tips of 2001" column relates to our recent article
about maximizing Internet job-hunting. "Job-hunters aren't
trying to deceive a company into hiring them for a job for
which they have few qualifications," Wendleton and Dauten write.
"No, they read an ad and think, 'I could do that,'" and then,
'What have I got to lose by sending a resume?' Most of them
are right: They probably could do the work. But companies want
to hire those with proof, usually by having done the job
somewhere else. When managers take a chance on the
underqualified, they are usually current employees or
friends/relatives, not strangers with resumes." We said in
our article that job-seekers who submit resumes in response
to online ads for jobs for which they are not qualified clog up
the process, making it harder for those who ARE qualified.
Bottom line: Unless you truly believe you can make a case for
yourself, and the job is your absolute dream, don't apply for jobs
you don't qualify for.
The old rule about not lying on your resume was hammered
home recently by the fiasco surrounding would-be Notre Dame
football coach George O'Leery, who was punted out of his new
job coaching the Irish after one week when it was discovered
he had lied on his resume about having a master's degree and
fibbed about details of his own football-playing career. The
moral of O'Leery's story is that even 20 years later, these
untruths can come back to haunt you. O'Leery had many years
to right the wrongs on his resume, and he should have done so.
Read his tale of woe.
WATCH FOR feature articles on these topics in upcoming
issues of QuintZine:
* Identifying your workplace values
* How to choose a headhunter/recruiter
* How to write a counteroffer letter
* Home-based careers
* Career strategies for women
* How to start a job club
* How to use keywords to enhance your resume's effectiveness
* Letters of recommendation and references
* Should you get an MBA?
* The biggest myths in job-hunting
* How to resign from your job gracefully
* Quintessential Career Profiles of YOU, our readers
* Q&As with well-known career experts
* Book reviews
. . . and much, much more!
Don't ever want to miss another issue of QuintZine? Get a free subscription to
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subscription form.
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