March is a big month for QuintZine and its parent,
Quintessential Careers.
First, it's QuintZine's second anniversary.
To celebrate, we're launching a new distance-learning
section of Quintessential Career, along with articles
to help you determine if distance learning is right
for you. AND we're launching our own distance-learning
course, the first of what we hope will be many.
Next, March is Women's History Month, so we offer
an article on career strategies for women, capsule
book reviews of several recent career books for
women, and an edition of our Quintet of Quick Questions
feature that focuses on women.
As we celebrate our second anniversary, we're proud
to note that Quintessential Careers now boasts more
than 100 college and career articles on our site, many
of which had their origins as QuintZine features.
Check out our articles section.
Have you come a long way, baby? The general
impression is that women are becoming incrementally
more successful in the workforce -- and some of
the news is good. Women are represented in the
workforce in greater numbers than ever and holding
a higher percentage of managerial and executive
jobs than in the past.
Women-owned businesses have
doubled in the last dozen or so years. Some of
the news regarding lack of pay equity and the
ever-present glass ceiling, however, is not so good.
But women have secret weapons, opportunities
to deploy their special strengths, and the
ability to adapt talents typically thought
to be men's domain.
Quintessential Careers Unveils New Distance Learning Section!
Interested in taking courses or even earning a degree
online? Consider distance learning, also known as distance
education, or e-learning. Call it what you like, but don't
call it a fad. Millions of people and more than a third
(and growing) of all higher education institutions are
now involved in some form of distance-learning program.
Distance learning offers many benefits and options for
students who might not be able to get the certification
or degrees you need via traditional education channels.
Our new section of Quintessential Careers is designed to
provide you with all the resources you need to make an
educated decision about whether distance learning is right for you.
Visit our new distance-learning section, where you'll find:
Check out The Quintessential Career Kickstart Course:
A Quick and Comprehensive Course that Will Teach You
Everything You Need to Know Launch a Career
and Find a Job
The Quintessential Career Kickstart Course is
an inexpensive online course that teaches
beginners and career-changers the basics of
job-hunting. You can complete the course at
your own pace, and you will receive plenty of
one-on-one guidance and encouragement from your
instructor, as well as the opportunity to dialog
and network with fellow course-takers.
Employers today are demanding education than ever before! The US Dept
of Education estimates that approximately 85% of the nation's jobs
require a post-secondary education. Your accredited MBA, Bachelors or
AA degree obtained ONLINE via the UNIVERSITY ALLIANCE will carry
significant value in any organization's hiring and career advancement
decisions and will give you the knowledge, skills, and educational edge
to achieve greater personal and professional success - all without
stepping foot in a classroom!
Click here to Advance your Career!
Read all of our Quintessential Reading book reviews.
QuintZine's Q&A with Career Expert Amy E. Ertel
Amy E. Ertel is a career counselor in the Career
Development Office at Tulane Law School, New Orleans.
She is also a private career consultant and a National
Certified Counselor with a Master of Education degree
in counseling.
In the Q&A she did with us, Ertel talks about the
importance for women of having a mentor:
"You need only ask a professional who has had
a mentor about the wealth of learning experiences
working with a mentor can bring to professional life,"
Ertel notes. "This is the person who tells you honestly
what suit looks best on you before your next big job
interview. Your mentor gives you advice about how to
handle that personality conflict at work that has
now become a huge problem. If you do not have someone
that you can call a mentor, find someone. A mentor
can be a colleague, a former or current professor or
supervisor --
basically anyone whom you feel comfortable
talking with on a professional level. Many successful
women I know have mentors throughout their lives.
Their mentors provide a constant source of support
and encouragement to them in their professional
endeavors."
Ertel also talks in her Q&A about the importance of
sending a cover letter to a specific individual, the
rejuvenating aspects of get-togethers with friends, the
rude awakening some workers experience when they have not
thoroughly investigated a company's culture before taking
a job, and how job-seekers can find career happiness based
on what's important to them.
While women's sites, such as iVillage.com
and BellaOnline have good career sections,
Advancing Women is an entire site devoted to
"business and career training, conferences,
diversity recruiting, and strategies to empower
success in the workplace" for women.
Advancing Women, winner of a Lycos Top 5% Award,
Dow Jones Award, Beatrice-Yahoo Top Site, and WWWomen
Best of Net, and listed in Femina as one of three top business
and career sites for women, is a skills-building
organization that provides coaching, mentoring, strategy
and support to empower women to route around traditional
choke points in their careers and to keep advancing to
the highest level of their capabilities. The site places
particular emphasis on the many ways technology overlays
a business and how it can be leveraged to advance one's career.
Site sections include Workplace, AW Career Center, Business
Community, International, Web, Money, News, Networking, Education,
Latina, Grrls, and Advancing Women in Leadership Journal, with in-depth
articles exploring women's issues written by educators.
While marred by some typos, Advancing Women is a bountiful
site for women seeking career success.
eCollege -- has more than 200 educational partners offering courses,
fully accredited degrees (associate's to graduate) and certificate programs -- both on-campus and at a distance -- for all types of students.
Courses include high school level, industry association (real estate, insurance), undergraduate, and graduate. Also provides links for financial
aid and other related needs.
ExecGlobalNet.com
-- a site for executives and managers ($50,000+ annual salary) who want to explore new career opportunities
without jeopardizing your current job.You can choose simply to search jobs posted by executive recruiters or
you can post your profile (which does not include your resume) to make it accessible to executive recruiters.
Also includes some great career resources specifically for managers and executives. Free to job-seekers.
TrueCareers
-- a great site for job-seekers, where you will find job listings, company research, and other
valuable career information (articles, advice, etc.).
You can search for jobs (by keywords, location, salary, employers),
post your resume, and use a job search agent. From SallieMae. Free to job-seekers.
University Alliance -- where you can
earn your accredited MBA, bachelor's or associate's degrees (in numerous disciplines, including business,
healthcare computer information systems), or project management certificate from nationally known universities
(such as Villanova, St. Leo, and others). No classroom attendance required.
Find even more career and job site additions to Quintessential Careers by visiting our
Latest
Additions section.
Tina Maehrer writes: "I have been looking for another
job as I left my most recent job due to gender
discrimination.
#1 I get a lot of interviews, but not the
job offers. What could I be doing wrong?
#2 I do not mention to employer why I quit.
If asked, I tell them 'I am looking at new
long-range opportunities.'
#3 I dress very business-like for all interviews."
Andreas Lauschke writes: "Whoa, what an exhaustive
resource your Web site is! It is the most comprehensive
collection of all aspects of the job-search process
I have found so far.
I have my resume; now comes the difficult stage of
finding recruiters, either from employer companies
themselves, or independent ones ('headhunters').
Do you have any opinions about ResumeZapper or
ResumeBlaster, etc.? They are talking about
thousands of recruiters, and I wonder if all
of them are active. Are there any duds included?
Or would you recommend trying to call headhunters
personally? I could also find hundreds of them over
the Internet. Electronic mass distribution seems
a great tool, but I doubt there is 'meat' behind it."
Teresa Penix writes: "I am teaching 2nd grade
for my second year. Education was a second bachelor's
degree for me. I am teaching five subjects in a school
with low-income children with a principal who expects
high test
scores and paperwork to back it up. It is
extremely time-consuming, disheartening, and I believe,
impossible. I know it takes a special kind of person
to do this, and now I believe I am not that person.
It is too much. I am not scared of hard work, and I
love children, but this job is not worth it. My first
bachelor's degree was in psychology, minor in
communications. I divorced at age 24 and was out
of school for a while. The only job I had in that
field was for 1 1/2 years while I was going to college
as a counselor on midnight shift at a drug and alcohol
re-hab center for teens. I don't know what I want to
do now, but I cannot stay where I am. I think I would
like research. I enjoy planning for teaching (curriculum area).
I really like to teach reading and language arts. I sometimes
think that I would like to leave work at work and not
bring it home. I love gardening. Any suggestions?"
Saurabh Sharma writes: "I am an 20-year-old graduate,
wanting to take up real estate as my career.
I am really interested in this field but lack
the primary information like:
1. Prerequisites.
2. Future Scope.
3. Legalities.
4. Needed knowledge or skills.
I would appreciate if you would reply me with
some sites that explain such basic information."
Q TIPS: Quick and Quintessential Career & Job Tips
Could distance learning provide answers for this
dilemma? Ten years ago, what worried corporate leaders
most was that U.S. competitiveness would be undercut
by inadequate workforce skills, Business Week reports. But
those fears dissipated as the economy boomed in the late
1990s and productivity soared. Now, a new study raises
troubling questions about the country's human capital
once again, as well as about the failure of U.S. schools
to keep pace in an increasingly competitive global economy.
The study, by the Princeton (N.J.)-based Educational Testing
Service (ETS), finds that the literacy of American adults
ranks 10th out of 17 industrialized countries. More
troubling, the U.S. has the largest gap between highly
and poorly educated adults, with immigrants and minorities
making up the largest chunk of those at the bottom.
Since both groups make up a growing share of the workforce,
the U.S. will drop even further behind unless adult
training and education improve sharply.
Read
the full story.
"Sources of Career Success," an article on HR.com
by Peter Heslin, describes subjective factors that
influence career success. They include:
Personality, especially, conscientiousness and extraversion,
which are positively related to job satisfaction, income,
and occupational status.
Education. Heslin cites a survey of 1,388 US executives
that found that educational level, quality, prestige,
and type of degree all predicted subsequent financial success.
Mentoring relationships.
Career tactics, including networking, political influence
behaviors (self-promotion), and a person's proximity to
organizational decision makers.
In another boost to training -- whether of
the classroom or distance variety -- a new survey
released jointly by CompTIA, the Computing Technology
Industry Association, and Prometric, shows that information
technology (IT) training and certification are
elements crucial to increased productivity,
credibility, and compensation for professionals
in the IT industry. The 2001 Global Training
and Certification Study polled nearly
18,000 IT managers, certification candidates,
and certified professionals.
The research showed
that both IT professionals and managers consider
technology training and certification to be critical
to career development and quality control within IT
departments. The survey also indicated that employers
are now taking IT training very seriously. The research
also showed that training and certification often go
hand in hand. Sixty-four percent of certified individuals
believe that both training and certification are beneficial
to professional development, and more than 70 percent
of certified professionals indicated that they would
pursue training even if it did not lead to certification.
Take Our Survey! Please Help Us Help You...
We have a big favor to ask our readers. We'd like to ask you to
take a few minutes to complete a totally anonymous survey.
As we vow in our privacy statement, we absolutely will not
use the information gained in any other way than to make
our Quintessential Careers site even BETTER for our readers.
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).
QuintZine: Topics in Upcoming Issues
WATCH FOR feature articles on these topics in upcoming
issues of QuintZine:
* How to choose a headhunter/recruiter
* Cover letters to recruiters
* How to write a counteroffer letter
* Home-based careers
* How to start a job club
* Interviewing strategies for teens
* Using informational interviews to research companies
* How to use keywords to enhance your resume's effectiveness
* Letters of recommendation and references
* How to create and use a networking card
* How to resign from your job gracefully
* Step-by-step guide to career planning
* 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
the email version of QuintZine by completing our
subscription form.
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RESUMES * JOB SEARCH CORRESPONDENCE FROM TRUSTED EXPERTS * COVER LETTERS
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cover letters, curriculum vitae, thank-you and
follow-up letters, and list-formatted documents,
such as salary histories and reference lists.
We also can provide critiques and makeovers of
your resume or cover letter. Credit cards accepted.
Quintessential Careers also offers writing services
for those who have been asked to give a speech and
need assistance in researching and writing their
remarks.
Need a speaker for your career-oriented conference or
event at your college or organization? The Quintessential
Careers Speakers Bureau can help! Our quintessential experts
can provide presentations/workshops on a variety of
career-related topics.
