Special Feature: Before & After: An Inner Self Makeover
Bonus Feature: How To Make Yourself Three Times More Likely to Get Hired
Quintessential Site: Featured Career Web Site of this Issue
Latest Additions: What's New on Quintessential Careers
The Career Doctor: Answering Your Questions
Q TIPS: Quick and Quintessential Tips to Guide Your Job Search
Notes from the Editor: About this Issue...
Spring arrives this week! Time for spring cleaning, including your career.
Our theme this issue is spring makeovers -- for your career and for your life.
Publisher Dr. Randall Hansen offers a comprehensive guide to a spring career
makeover, while regular contributor Life Coach Liz Sumner sets the tone with an
overall guide to makeovers. Career Coach Art Frank provides some little-known interview tips
that may contribute to your spring career makeover.
A bit of spring horn-tooting: Quintessential Careers has been reviewed and chosen to bear the 2003-2004
Golden Web Award in recognition of creativity, integrity and excellence on the Web. The award comes from
the International Association of Web Masters & Designers. This is the second consecutive year we have received this
award and the third time in the last four years.
Happy spring, readers! Watch for our big Third Anniversary issue next time.
Take our "Real World" Survey and be Eligible for a Prize Drawing!
If you've graduated from college in the last three years or so, we encourage you to complete our quick, 12-question
Real World survey to assist us with a couple of upcoming articles. (You can be quoted completely anonymously if you choose).
Those who complete the survey by April 21, 2003, will be eligible for a drawing for a complete Resume or Resume
Makeover and Cover Letter Electronic Package (a value of up to $165) and from our sister site, Quintessential Resumes
and Cover Letters. Winner will be drawn at random on April 22, 2003.
March brings all the signs of the return of spring --
the brown grass begins to green, the weather gets warmer,
and once dormant trees begin to produce buds and new growth.
Spring is a time of renewal, not just for nature, but for
people as well. It's the time of year that we clean the
garage and the attic, a time to shake off the dark and
dreary of winter and clean and polish everything in sight.
So, while you're busy getting your home in order in your annual ritual of spring cleaning, don't you think it might
also be a good time to do the same for your career? Now is a good time to take a hard look at your current job situation,
your job-search progress, and your career management skills. Use the change of seasons to spend some time evaluating your
situation, updating job-search techniques and skills, and making some career plans for the rest of this year -- and
beyond. Finally, remember that you can do this exercise at any time of the year -- not just in the spring!
Makeovers are part of our mythology -- the ugly duckling becomes a swan, the scullery maid goes to the ball and
dazzles the prince. My eyes are always drawn to before-and-after-pictures, and I bet a lot of us share a secret
desire to be the chosen Cinderella.
Why are makeovers so compelling? Perhaps it's because you get to become a whole new person. It's an evolutionary
leap. An instant transformation. Poof, you're someone more fabulous.
We can be our own fairy godmothers with the same life-changing results using the four essential principles of successful makeovers.
Instantly email your resume to 1000s of recruiters,
headhunters, and direct hiring companies! With the most
comprehensive and targeted network of recruiters on the
net, you can rest assured you have taken the steps
necessary to jump start your search. We are so sure
you will be happy that we guarantee our service!
How To Make Yourself Three Times More Likely to Get Hired
by Arthur I. Frank
Research done by the executive-search industry has shown that the first person interviewed gets the job only 17.6
percent of the time. But the last person interviewed is hired almost 56 percent of the time, or more than three times more
frequently.
Find out why and learn another neat trick for
maximizing interview success in the full article.
Ad: Get Help Mapping Out a New Career
Based on years of research, the Jackson Vocational Interest
Survey (JVIS) accurately measures your interests, showing how
they relate to the worlds of study and work, and mapping out
your route to an interesting career.
We are long overdue to feature CareerBuilder as our Site of the Issue. CareerBuilder is not only a Top Ten
Quintessential Careers job site, but also one of the 50 Best of the Best job and resume Web sites as designated
by CAREERXROADS.
CareerBuilder.com offers what it touts as the nation's leading recruitment resource through more than 130 local newspapers,
reaching a combined Sunday print circulation of more than 15 million readers and more than 26 million unique visitors to its newspaper
Web sites online each month.
In October 2002, Gannett Co., Inc., joined forces with Knight Ridder and Tribune Company as equal partners of
CareerBuilder.com. More than 90 Gannett newspapers are now CareerBuilder.com affiliates and CareerBuilder.com powers
the career channel on USATODAY.com.
CareerBuilder offers great Career Resources content in such areas as Before the Interview, Career Assessment,
Coaching/Training, Continuing Education, Executive Recruiters, Financial Assistance, Resume Distribution, Resume Services,
Salary Information, Start Your Own Business, and Work From Home.
Features under the titles of Expert Advice and One-Hour Real-Life Career Makeover also are available.
All this in addition to the ability to post resumes on CareerBuilder and search job postings by keyword, city,
state, job type, web ID (code numbers that appear in print newspaper ads), company, and industry.
You can also search Canadian and international job postings and search in Spanish.
You can even search by field of interest, including admin/corporate, accounting, banking/finance, college,
contract/freelance, customer service, engineering, executive, healthcare, human resources, information technology,
manufacturing, nonprofit, retail, sales/marketing, and science/biotech.
CareerBoard.com --
where job-seekers looking for jobs in Ohio and Wisconsin can search for job listings
(by category, job type, and keyword) as well post up to three versions of your resume.
Job agent also available, as are company profiles. Free to job-seekers.
Global Volunteer Network -- a
great site for those searching for international volunteer educational and
community aid projects. Includes people needed in developing countries
for teaching English, environmental work, health and sanitation, and more. Free to job-seekers.
Medical Staff Recruiters Network --
where physicians, nurses, and allied health professionals can view
thousands of jobs in all specialties from hospitals, clinics, and
practices nationwide. Listings updated daily. Registration required to
use the site. Free to job-seekers.
National Job Fairs --
specializes in sales and management and accounting and financial career fairs,
bringing together employers and job-seekers across the United States. For entry-level
to senior executives. View participating companies and register for events online. Free to job-seekers.
Find even more career and job site additions to Quintessential Careers by visiting our
Latest Additions section.
Ad: The Last Job Search Guide You'll Ever Need
College students and new grads should check out this e-book,
The Last Job Search Guide You'll Ever Need:
How to Find -- and Get -- The Job or Internship of Your Dreams!
The book contains must-read contributions from 149 of North America's top employment experts
and is available risk-free for 90 days.
Trudy writes: "I was looking for information regarding resumes with salary histories. I am applying for a job and it is requesting
salary requirement. I have never had a job that had a salary, only hourly paid wage. How would I add this to my resume? Do you
think it would be OK to add a heading on my resume SALARY: No salary wage. Or what would you do in this case?"
Matthew writes: "I recently read your article, Choosing a
College Major: How to Chart Your Ideal Path. I was wondering if you could give me some advice.
I was looking into a career as a college professor. I was wondering how you got your start teaching at
the university level?
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Q TIPS: Quick and Quintessential Career & Job Tips
Timely Red Alert! In addition to all the limitations and problems with online job boards, now there is a possibly bigger
threat. Job-seekers are being advised to protect their identities when posting resumes on job boards -- not so their current employer
won't see their resume, but so identity thieves can't obtain personal information. Several job sites, including Monster.com,
acknowledge that identity thieves are posting bogus job listings to obtain such information as social security and credit-card numbers.
Some solutions? Don't ever give out critical information about your finances or your social security number. Legitimate employers will
eventually need your social security number, but only after you've been hired. Other suggestions include not including your address on
resumes you post online -- and being very particular about the sites where you do post your resume. Another suggestion is to not allow your
resume to be viewed when you post it, giving you total control about which employers are allowed access to it. Using job-search agents is
another suggestion.
Excerpted from an article by The Five O'Clock Club on Tips for Job Hunting in a Tight Market are the following two tips:
It takes an average of eight follow-up phone calls to get a meeting. After you have written to someone asking for a meeting,
do not leave messages for a person to call you back. Instead, keep on calling. If you're still unsuccessful, try
calling the company operator and ask to speak to the person's assistant or someone who sits near him or her.
A job hunter must have six to 10 job possibilities in the works concurrently. Five O'Clock Club research shows that five of those
will fall away through no fault of your own. For example, a company could decide to hire no one, hire a marketing person instead of
an accounting person, or hire someone's idiot brother-in-law instead of you. It's not your fault.
A recent "Source of Hire" survey revealed the impact the Internet is having on the practice of recruiting.
Top Sources of Hire in 2002:
All Internet Sources: 27 percent
Employee Referrals: 26.6 percent
Newspapers: 4.8 percent
Career Fairs: 3.2 percent
All other sources: 38.4 percent
Gerry Crispin and Mark Mehler's, authors of CareerXroads 2003 The World's leading Reference Guide to Job and Resume Sites on
the Web, have been monitoring the impact of the Internet on recruiting since its inception. For complete study results
and methodology, read more.
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.
QuintZine: Topics in Upcoming Issues
WATCH FOR feature articles on these topics in upcoming
issues of QuintZine:
* Crafting a successful e-mail resume
* The interview as sales call
* Getting the raise you deserve
* 10 things I wish I'd known before starting my first job
* Letters of recommendation
* Employer research: step by step
* Learn about careers through job-shadowing
* 10 job-search reality checks
* Is job flexibility right for you?
* First days on the job: Strategies to get ahead
* Dealing with a bad boss
* Making your case for telecommuting
* Don't wait by the phone: Following up on all job leads
* Dining etiquette
* The relationship between personality and career choice
* What employers are really looking for
* New series: 10 mistakes to avoid in: resumes, cover letters, interviews, salary
negotiation, career change, networking, job-search
* Quintessential Career Profiles of YOU, our readers
* Q&As with well-known career experts
* Book reviews
. . . and much, much more!
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.
