Feature Article: Ten Surefire Ways to Organize Your Job Search
Quintessential Site: Featured Career Web Site of this Issue
Career Kick! A column by Teena Rose
Latest Additions: What's New on Quintessential Careers
Q TIPS: Quick and Quintessential Tips to Guide Your Job Search
Notes from the Editor: About this Issue...
A belated Happy New Year to our readers.
In this issue, we introduce a new regular column, Career Kick!, by contributor Teena Rose.
Did you resolve this year to find a new job -- but you don't feel organized enough to do it yet?
Our feature article could be just what you need to plow through the chaos
and get your job search off the ground.
--Katharine Hansen, Master Resume Writer, Credentialed Career Master,
Certified Electronic Career Coach, and editor at
kathy@quintcareers.com
Feature Article: Organizing Job-Search
Ten Surefire Ways to Organize Your Job Search
by Katharine Hansen
You've decided to look for a new job, but life just feels too chaotic, and you don't know where to begin.
It's time to transcend inertia. Convince yourself that getting organized isn't that hard, and then do it quickly
and efficiently. You'll feel much better once you clear away mental and physical clutter and build your
job-search momentum.
CHIMBY is a vertical search engine that lets job-seekers search more than 300 career advice sites at once.
CHIMBY crawls the sites of career coaches, career blogs, and other media sources to provide
answers to career-advice questions. Each source is hand-picked to ensure fresh, relevant results from
an exclusive club of career-advice experts.
CHIMBY crawls many sites such as QuintCareers, Career Journal, Weddles and more. The site also indexes
a number of new career blogs written by recruiters and career coaches.
Continuing Careers
-- a career and job site dedicated to helping recent retirees who are not ready to stop
working find your next job. The site is fairly easy to navigate -- just find the state you are interested in
and browse the job listings -- and includes a number of resources to help you in your job-search.
No cost to job-seekers.
Higher Education Jobs --
a job site for job-seekers seeking employment (teaching and administrative positions, as
well as post doc and graduate assistant positions) in higher education, including
universities, colleges, and other academic organizations. Search job listings and
post your resume. No cost to job-seekers.
Job Interview Questions --
this site is all about helping job-seekers with the job interview,
and includes tips on such topics as the type of questions to expect, sample questions, how to negotiate your salary,
interview tips and many more for job-seekers as you prepare for interviews. No cost to job-seekers.
uVolunteer --
an international volunteer travel organization that arranges short- to mid-term volunteer
placements for individuals and groups -- in fields such as teaching, community development,
eco-tourism, conservation, environment, and technology -- wanting to volunteer in rural and urban communities
in Latin America, including Bolivia, Costa Rica, and Ecuador. No cost to job-seekers.
Find even more career and job site additions to Quintessential Careers by visiting our
Latest Additions section.
Ad: Get a New or Improved Resume Today!
QUINTESSENTIAL RESUMES AND COVER LETTERS has been re-launched!
Are you thinking about engaging the services of a professional writer for your resume, CV, cover letter,
thank-you letter, or other career-marketing correspondence? Before you take this step,
consider how a professional resume writer could benefit you.
As your career grew and broadened, it seemed like nothing could go wrong. You were in high demand.
Everyone wanted you. The resume and cover letter you routinely updated yourself were making the phone
ring off the hook. Maybe you once walked into an interview knowing in a split minute that you were hired and you were!
Maybe you were once hired site unseen. But, much like the high-priced technology stocks of the 1990s, your bubble burst.
Suddenly, you feel like yesterday's deli sandwich that wasn't refrigerated properly. The meat, your
career, is no longer the favorite on the menu. The lettuce, your knowledge and skills, aren't as crisp and shiny
as they once were. The condiments, your spark and commitment, are now bland or tasteless.
It appears the working world has moved on without you. No one wants to be unneeded. Nobody wants to be that
moldy sandwich just waiting for someone to discard.
Okay, so you're not a sandwich. What has happened, however, is that your packaging isn't drawing the right
attention and your placement in the fridge is keeping you from competing with the turkeys and the roast-beefs.
What might also surprise you is being the looked-over sandwich is exactly the position you want.
Q TIPS: Quick and Quintessential Career & Job Tips
Don't feel you have the ideal job? You're far from alone as a recent CareerBuilder.com national consumer employment
survey conducted by Harris Interactive reveals nearly four out of five U.S. workers (84 percent) are not currently in their
dream job. More than 6,000 respondents were polled, weighing in with their thoughts and insights regarding top dream job choices
for various professions and regions.
Salary was one of the least important factors in determining a dream job. Money ranked third (12 percent) compared to having
fun at work (39 percent), which topped the list, followed by making a difference in society (17 percent). Rounding out the bottom three
attributes were traveling and seeing the world (5 percent) and being creative within a position (5 percent).
Childhood dream jobs, characterized by excitement and imagination played a major role in defining career paths as most respondents
polled dreamed of growing up to be a firefighter (22 percent), princess (17 percent) or professional dancer (16 percent). Tied at 14 percent
were those who wanted to be a cowboy or President.
Findings by Profession:
Across all professions, police and firefighters reported the highest incident of feeling they have their dream jobs (35 percent).
They are followed closely by teachers (32 percent), real estate professionals (28 percent) and engineers (25 percent).
Those in travel and nurses also ranked near the top at 22 percent and 18 percent respectively.
Those sectors with the least number of workers feeling they have their dream jobs include accommodations/food services
(9 percent), manufacturing (9 percent) and retail (10 percent).
It's not too late to set goals for the year, and MyGoals.com
is a Web site for setting, managing, and reaching personal and professional goals. While the goal-setting
tools are fee-based, the site does offer a no-cost 10-day trial, as well as goal-setting tips and articles.
Employers make snap decisions and are very picky these days, says bestselling author Robin Ryan
(http://www.RobinRyan.com),
a Seattle career counselor, whose technique is outlined in her book,
60 Seconds & You're Hired! (Penguin). So if you don't sell yourself
fast they move on to the next candidate, Ryan notes.
"Employers only remember a few things about a candidate after the interview,"
says Ryan. "Using the 60 Second Sell focuses the employer's attention
toward remembering a candidate's most important attributes.
To create your 60 Second Sell, analyze the job duties the employer
wants accomplished, and then select your top five selling points --
your strongest abilities to do the job. Link these five points together
using a few sentences that can be spoken in 60 seconds.
Ryan also advises:
Prepare thoroughly for the interview. Research the employer's needs, and prepare examples of how you've done that kind of
work in the past. Computer and communication skills are traits that rank on high on employers' lists.
Prepare a list of questions to ask the employer. Cover job duties and management styles but avoid asking
about salary or benefits. Job duty questions impress employers, showing that you are really interested in their job. Display enthusiasm
by maintaining eye contact and smiling -- nonverbal behavior counts for a lot.
Practice answering questions in advance and give examples frequently. To engage employers, job hunters must be positive,
concise, and demonstrate their abilities in less than 60 seconds, which takes practice, as does answering questions like "What is
your greatest weakness?" or "Tell me about a co-worker you didn't like or work well with."
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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Our Press Room
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QuintZine: Topics in Upcoming Issues
WATCH FOR feature articles on these topics in upcoming
issues of QuintZine:
* GLBT Job-search Issues
* The Demand for Good Writing Skills
* 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
* 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...
