Feature Article: Dealing With Non-Compete Clauses and Agreements
Secondary Feature: High-Powered Jobs Don't Come Without Consequences
A Quintet of Quick Questions: QuintZine's Q&A with a Career Expert: Rob Waite
Quintessential Site: Featured Career Web Site of this Issue
The Career Doctor: Answering Your Questions
What's New on Quintessential Careers: Latest Additions
Q TIPS: Quick and Quintessential Tips to Guide Your Job Search
Notes from the Editor: About this Issue...
Our conversion of our library of articles to provide readers with a print-friendly option is now complete,
with all of our nearly 350 articles now available in printable format.
To celebrate our 10th anniversary, we'd love to enlist your help in selecting our Top 10 articles, and to thank
you for helping us choose the Top 10, a random number of responses will be selected and rewarded with
a QuintCareers.com surprise! To participate, please go to:
Help Us Choose the Top 10 Career Articles!
We again invite you to take a peek at our 10th anniversary site,
10CareerStories.com,
as it develops and culminates in our big November festivities.
--Katharine Hansen, Master Resume Writer, Credentialed Career Master,
Certified Electronic Career Coach, and editor at
kathy@quintcareers.com
Feature Article: Non-Compete Clauses
Dealing With Non-Compete Clauses and Agreements
by Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D.
Non-compete clauses are the business version of a prenuptial agreement. Where in the courtship and
marriage proposal, some folks are caught off guard when asked to sign the pre-nup,
the same can be said in the employee-employer courtship we call interviewing, when as a
condition for hire, the prospective employer asks the job-seeker to sign a non-compete clause.
What are non-compete clauses, why do some employers use them, and how should you handle
a request to sign one? That's
what our article is all about.
Secondary Feature: High-Powered Jobs
High-Powered Jobs Don't Come Without Consequences
by Teena Rose
Katie Couric's announcement that she would be leaving NBC's "Today" to become the
next anchor for CBS News marks the dawn of a new era at the network and for television
news as a whole. The move also shines the spotlight on the issue of women and their role
in high-powered jobs.
The simple fact that Couric's move has been treated as a major news story is evidence of
the progress women have made in the working world, and the distance they still have to go.
The idea of a woman as the lead anchor going solo on the evening news would have been
unheard of 30 years ago.
Rob Waite is a senior executive and author
of The Lost Art of General Management.
Rob Waite declares that the biggest mistake executives make in the job search "starts right up front with the resume.
Most resumes are just simply pitiful. They read like a catalog of activities that the candidate did," Waite notes in the Q&A
interview we did with him. "Businesses don't really care as much about your activities as they care about your accomplishments!
Therefore, a resume must cover your accomplishments that you can quantify numerically."
Read more of Waite's advice, including what he means by the "lost art of management," how his message to six-figure
job-seekers is unique, and his biggest single piece of advice to senior-level candidates in
our full Q&A with him.
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In addition to the ability to post a resume and search for jobs,
6FigureJobs offers executives and senior-level job-seekers free membership
to the site, career advice in the form of archived articles (2-3 a week going back to
2002), an executive newsletter, and links to many resources.
Ashlee writes: "I need your help. I just got a job offer that I have been waiting for, but in the paperwork they sent me,
they included a non-compete clause for me to sign. This was never discussed during the interviews. What is it,
why did they include it, and must I sign it?"
It has been recommended I write a proposal to create a new position for myself to move into. I am having a difficulty
finding a template as to how to create such a document. Can you make any suggestions?"
Mary writes: "I am a 38-year-old, managing a mechanical business. In 2005 I completed a degree in business management and
cannot believe the value received from it. I have gotten a lot from the experience
-- and I want more of it. My goal is to fully understand businesses of all shapes and sizes. How
beneficial would earning an MBA be to achieve my goals?"
Jamie writes: "I am in my second semester (freshman year) of college. It's hard for me because I am working two jobs
and I am taking care of my deceased nephew's two little boys, and I am living on my own, and I am doing this ALL BY MYSELF.
Both of the boys have health problems, and I can barely afford childcare, I am behind in my classes, and I really want to do well
so I can graduate on time. How can I stay focused in school when I have so much going on in my life?"
AllWebJobs.com --
a job site for Webmasters, Web Designers, Web Producers, Web Developers,
Web Marketers, Web Editors and all Web Professionals where job-seekers can search for job listings,
post your resume, and register for a job-search agent. No cost to job-seekers.
BankingBoard.com --
a job board specializing in the mortgage, banking, title, escrow and real estate industries, where
job-seekers can search for job listings (by job category, location, keywords) and post your resume.
Also includes some career tips. No cost to job-seekers.
FloridaHires.com --
where job-seekers looking for employment in Florida can search job listings
(by keyword, city, and job category), as well as post your resume and register
for a job alert. Part of RegionalHires.com network. No cost to job-seekers.
JobsStat.com --
a nursing and healthcare job-search site where job-seekers can search job
listings (by keyword, job category, employment type, location), post your
resume, and register for a job-search agent. No cost to job-seekers.
Find even more career and job site additions to Quintessential Careers by visiting our
Latest Additions section.
Q TIPS: Quick and Quintessential Career & Job Tips
JobBait.com, which tracks industry trends illustrated in graphs, trend
interpretations, and summaries of changes in the last five years,
reports that construction, financial, business services,
leisure/hospitality and some health-care fields are currently hot.
Not hot are manufacturing and information.
See more at JobBait: Industriy Trends.
A 2006 Leadership IQ study that looked at what great executives
do differently found that the Top 5 executive challenges are:
Creating a culture that embraces and adapts to change.
Attracting, hiring and retaining high-performing employees
Developing a pool of talented managers
Stimulating employees' innovation and creativity
Getting the whole company to understand and execute the strategy
Leadership IQ surveyed 2,000 senior executives to discover these findings.
Senior executives who've been stagnating in their jobs but are ready to leverage an improving job market may want to
take some tips from Executive Power Coach Deb Dib.
Dib suggests creating an executive brand with a strong and relevant value
proposition, covering all bases in the job search (not just
the Internet and/or executive recruiters), using one's network,
learning industry keywords and using them in resumes and
interviewing, proactively developing a job proposal
to break into a desired company, and joining professional
organizations and online communities, such as Netshare,
ExecuNet,
MENG, and
FENG. Dib also advises
developing a team of advocates who will sing your praises,
crafting a resume that shows your brand/value
proposition and Return on Investment, boosting interview
skills, as well as developing an online presence in groups such as
Zoom Info,
LinkedIn,
Ryze,
Ecademy, and
Ziggs. Finally, Dib encourages
execs to have an online portfolio with which to control their online identity and branding.
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.
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career, and job news? Interested in learning more about Quintessential Careers?
Our Press Room
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QuintZine: Topics in Upcoming Issues
WATCH FOR feature articles on these topics in upcoming
issues of QuintZine:
* Deploying Intuition to Find Your Ideal Career
* GLBT Job-search Issues
* The Demand for Good Writing Skills
* Annual College Admissions Panel
* Alternatives to College
* Storytelling that Propels Careers
* Annual Career Doctor Compendium
* The Value of Internships Abroad and Study Abroad
* Top 10 Fears of Job-seekers
* For Job-hunting Success, Develop a Detailed Job-Search Plan
* How to Build a Personal Advisory Board
* Keep Your Career Dreams Alive
* MBA Career Portfolios
* Pre-Hire Background/Credit Checks
* Noncompete Clauses
* Financial Aid/Scholarship Timetable
* Build Confidence and Avoid Insecurity in Job Interviews
* Empty Nest Job-seekers
* Are You Sabotaging Your Job-Search/Career?
* Lifelong Networking
* Networking for the Shy
* Working Night Shifts/Odd Hours
* Quintessential Career Profiles of YOU, our readers
* Q&As with well-known career experts
* Book reviews
. . . and much, much more... including Quintessential Careers' 10th Anniversary!
