Feature Article: 10 Tips for Successful Career Planning
Special Feature: The Six Stages of Modern Career Development
Quintessential Site: Featured Career Web Site of this Issue
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...
For the steamy days of summer in the U.S., we serve up a bit of QuintZine Lite -- light
reading on an important subject, career planning.
Our feature article suggests making career planning an annual event. Perhaps summer
is a good time for this annual planning, as we gear up for our next issue -- dedicated
to a return to all sorts of career-boosting learning, along with some exciting Quintessential
Careers announcements.
Career planning is not an activity that should be done once -- in high school or college -- and then left behind
as we move forward in our jobs and careers. Rather, career planning is an activity that is best done on a regular basis
-- especially given the data that the average worker will change careers (not jobs) multiple times over his or her
lifetime. And it's never too soon or too late to start your career planning.
Career planning is not a hard activity, not something to be dreaded or put off, but rather an activity that
should be liberating and fulfilling, providing goals to achieve in your current career or plans for beginning a
transition to a new career. Career planning should be a rewarding and positive experience.
Our article offers 10 tips to help you achieve successful career planning.
Read the complete article.
Ad: Get Your Resume on All the Major Job Boards!
To maximize your job opportunities, you'll need to cover a lot of ground. One way to do that is to post your resume
on all the best job boards, large and small. It may take some time, but it's well worth the effort. If you want
to save 60 hours of research and data entry, consider using professional resume-posting service like
ResumeRabbit.com.
After filling in one simple online form, they'll instantly post your resume on up to 85 of the top career sites at once.
Within minutes you'll be seen on Monster, HotJobs, FlipDog, Dice, CareerBuilder and more, where 1.5 million employers
and recruiters search for candidates daily.
Career experts say that people will change careers (not jobs) five to seven times in a lifetime. That's why career management
is an important life skill to develop and cultivate. The six stages of modern career development are:
Assessment
Investigation
Preparation
Commitment
Retention
Transition
Learning the characteristics of each stage in our article
will empower you to navigate through each stage easily
and with more confidence. Read more.
Quintessential Careers Announces New CV Store
Quintessential CVs is Your North American Headquarters for CVs
We produce professional quality career marketing correspondence -- Curriculum Vitae (CVs), cover letters,
resumes, and more -- for job-seekers in all industries at all levels from all over the world. Quintessential CVs
is your premier North American source for:
Curriculum Vita (CVs) for Academic jobs: College/university teaching and administrative positions.
CVs for Scientific jobs: Research and all types of science-oriented jobs.
CVs for Medical jobs: Physicians, nurses, and more.
CVs for International jobs: Whether you seek a position in your own country or any other country around the world,
we can prepare an English-language CV for you that conforms to the CV traditions of your target country or countries.
Launched in 1993, Career.com claims to be the first Internet recruiting service. The site offers job posting, a private resume
database, a CyberFair, JobDigger, job hosting, hot jobs, comprehensive management tools, and a small amount of
career-related content.
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!
BilingualCareer.com --
where bilingual job-seekers (English and at least one other language)
can search job listings (by language, location, industry, keywords),
post your resume, and find job interviewing and resume preparation advice.
Free to job-seekers.
BoomerCareer.com -- the Website
of a career and job publication directed toward U.S. Baby Boomers (1946-64). An interesting
collection of career articles and resources, all written and compiled with the needs and
interests of boomers. Job-seekers can also search job listings and post your resume.
Free to job-seekers.
InsuranceJobChannel -- where
insurance industry professionals (including sales, underwriting, brokerage, and more) can
search job listings (by region and job function), as well post your resume. Job-seekers
can also browse directly to more than 1,000 insurance company career centers. Free to job-seekers.
JobsInMa.com -- where job-seekers searching
for employment in Massachusetts can search job listings (by county, category, job type, and keywords),
browse temporary employment listings, post your resume, view job fair and career events,
and review company/employer profiles. Free to job-seekers.
Find even more career and job site additions to Quintessential Careers by visiting our
Latest Additions section.
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.
Anonymous writes: "I am 33 years old, and I have no idea of what to do with my life in terms of a career. I have had one
long-term job and was fired. The company had to downsize, and my position was gone. I have had to move back home. I am
currently enrolled in school, earning a master's in library science. I am not that enthused about being a librarian. How do I figure
out what to do?"
Wendy writes: "I have to write a letter asking for a raise. This is our company policy. I have been trying to find some
examples because no one I have talked to has ever had to write a letter for a raise. I was wondering if you knew of any books
or journals containing any examples of such letters."
Adrianne writes: "I am in the preliminary stages of a job search, and I found your article on researching a company to be very useful.
I also understand that
cover letters should be specific. But to avoid writing 'Dear sir/madam,' I wonder what one can do if the
company's human-resources department does not want to divulge the name of who is assessing the applicants?"
Marlene writes: "I will be earning a master's degree in mental-health counseling in December. I have a disability
that renders me unable to work full-time. I have sent out a couple of resumes but have not been contacted. How do I explain
to the potential employers that just because I will be working part-time does not mean I am not serious about the job. My first
job I worked for four years. My second job I worked for 10 years. I am on my third job now for almost five years."
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Q TIPS: Quick and Quintessential Career & Job Tips
More companies than ever are recruiting candidates on their own company Web sites, reports Kris Maher of The Wall Street Journal.
Even if companies are cutting back on costly newspaper ads, more are posting jobs on their corporate sites, reports Maher, citing
Gerry Crispin, a principal of CareerXroads, a Kendall Park, NJ, recruiting-technology consulting firm, who estimates job-seekers
can find up to 90 percent of the openings that exist at a given time by sifting through the career pages on employers' Web sites,
in addition to searching other Internet sites and traditional media. Writes Maher: "It's customary for many companies to post an opening
on an internal Web site available only to employees so that staffers can see it for about a week, before posting it on the external corporate
Web site, where outsiders can spot it... After the first week, some job postings may be sent to job boards as well. After about two weeks,
company recruiters are more apt to place a newspaper ad or hire a recruiter to locate candidates. Ideally, you want to apply for a
position soon after employees become aware of it, before it's posted beyond the corporate Web site. Job-seekers who stick
to big commercial job boards, such as Monster.com, HotJobs.com, and CareerBuilder.com, are sure to miss many openings that are posted only
on corporate Web sites. One way to find openings that aren't listed on job boards is to visit sites that aggregate jobs from corporate sites,
such as DirectEmployers.com."
Some of America's leading companies will be recruiting experienced professionals and college seniors for a wide-range of positions
in all fields at several Women For Hire events this fall. Admission is free, and job-seekers are invited with resumes in hand
to come prepared to meet HR representatives from top companies throughout the country in every prominent line of business.
All majors and fields of experience are encouraged to attend. Women for Hire advises attendees to research the participating
companies to familiarized themselves with employer business structures,
staffing needs, and requirements. A list of the positions being recruited for is available on
Women for Hire's Website
by clicking on the city in which you plan to attend an event.
Business attire is required. No pre-registration is required.
Simply present one copy of your resume for admittance.
Have plenty of copies available to distribute to the companies
you're interested in. Don't forget to submit a copy of your
resume to the Women for Hire site.
Cities, venues, and dates:
Boston - October 16 (Swissotel)
New York - October 21 (Manhattan Center)
Atlanta - October 30 (Cobb Galleria)
Dallas - November 4 (Adam's Mark)
Chicago - November 6 (Navy Pier)
Washington, D.C. - November 13 (Sheraton Crystal City)
All events are from 10 am to 4 pm.
Here's what recruiters of MBA candidates value in recent grads -- according to information gathered by
Harris Interactive and offered in The Wall Street Journal Guide to the Top Business Schools in 2003. The percentage
of recruiters that feel these skills/characteristics are important in MBA grads:
Communication and interpersonal skills (90 percent)
Ability to work well within a team (87 percent)
Analytical and problem-solving skills (86 percent)
Ability to drive results (81 percent)
Leadership potential (74 percent)
Fit with corporate culture (73 percent)
Strategic thinking (65 percent)
Lowest rated?
entrepreneurial skills (26 percent)
strong international perspective (21 percent)
awareness of corporate citizenship issues, such as
corporate and social responsibility (15 percent)
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.
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:
* Can earning a certification boost your career?
* Letters of recommendation
* Dealing with a bad boss
* Don't wait by the phone: Following up on all job leads
* Dining etiquette
* 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.
