Feature Article: College Planning Tutorial: Empowering College-Bound Students
Secondary Feature: 10 Things Colleges Seek From High School Applicants
Quintessential Site: Featured Career Web Site of this Issue
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...
QuintZine has run a College Bound issue every fall of its seven-year existence for
prospective college students who hope to enroll in college the following
fall. This year, we are publishing this issue a little earlier than usual to give students
extra time to take advantage of our planning tools.
And what a planning tool we have in Dr. Randall Hansen's super-comprehensive
College Planning Tutorial. He's given you more than 60 pages of information and planning steps for everything
from finding the right college to obtaining financial aid -- and has even included a glossary of
college-related terminology.
Dr. Hansen also brings you an article on the items that college admissions offices need from student applicants.
And with these two new features, we've reached a total of 3,500 pages on the Quint Careers site!
--Katharine Hansen, Ph.D., Master Resume Writer, Credentialed Career Master,
Certified Electronic Career Coach, and editor at
kathy@quintcareers.com
Feature Article: College Planning
College Planning Tutorial
This no-cost college planning tutorial is designed to give college-bound high school students the understanding, tools,
and resources to successfully apply to college.
Are you planning to attend college? Thinking about trying to find the ideal college for you can be daunting -- but hopefully a little exciting, too!
This 60+ page tutorial is designed to help you walk through all the important steps in choosing a college -- including
college search, college entrance criteria, college application process -- with special attention on the application essay, and financial aid.
10 Things Colleges Seek From High School Applicants
by Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D.
College-bound? This article provides an overview of the kinds of things admissions offices seek from applicants
-- and is especially useful for high school sophomores and juniors as you begin your college planning,
but it can also be useful for seniors as you prepare your college applications.
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.
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Choosing a College Major: Future-Focused Strategies for Finding
a Field Where You'll Excel
Quintessential Careers Publisher Dr. Randall Hansen has a new book!
If you're college-bound, you may already be wondering which major to pursue. This new book is for you!
This guide to majors, careers, and jobs helps students:
plan their futures by examining lifelong interests, skills, and passions
conduct career search through personal and experiential sources
decide on majors and minors by determining what's best for them
Real jobs for real majors. Readers can find practical advice and information on real job titles and careers for college graduates
with just about any college major, from business and the arts, o science and music. Each chapter includes information on
typical majors, background on various careers, skills needed, sample job entry-level job ads, industry resources and professional
associations, employment outlook, salary information, and other features.
A no-cost Canadian scholarship search service devoted to helping high-school seniors,
university, and college students find information on scholarships, bursaries, grants, and other forms
of financial assistance. The site also offers unique scholarships to student members that are
available only on Studentawards.com.
Students can use the search engine to find appropriate financial assistance. No-cost membership
required.
This site also offers an articles section and a collection of discussion forums in which participants talk
about a variety of high-school and college topics.
BrokeScholar --
one of the web's largest scholarship search engines, featuring undergraduate, graduate, and professional
scholarship awards, providing students with access to a database of more than 650,000 scholarships worth $2.5 billion.
Students must complete a personal profile, which leads to a matching service of scholarship opportunities, as
well as an email matching service. No cost to students.
GLPCareers.com --
a job site for the gay community -- including gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender job-seekers --
where you can search job listings (by keyword, job category, location), register and post your
resume, and sign up for an e-newsletter. No cost to job-seekers.
hirebuddy --
where job-seekers can search job listings (by keyword, job category, job type,
and location), post your resume, compare salaries, and register for a job-search agent,
You also have the option or browsing featured jobs and latest jobs. No cost to job-seekers.
RagtradeJobs.com --
a comprehensive fashion industry job board,
where job-seekers searching for jobs in the worldwide fashion industry can
search jobs (by keyword, location, job type), as well as find many useful
job-hunting articles and tips. 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
Do employers care what college you go to? In the accounting field at least, some do, some don't,
according to a recent study by Accountemps, a specialized staffing
service for temporary accounting, finance and bookkeeping professionals.
The university a new accounting graduate attended can catch an employer's attention, but it may not guarantee a job offer.
Chief financial officers (CFOs) polled were split regarding how much weight the prestige of a candidate's alma mater should
be given in hiring decisions. Fifty-one percent of respondents felt the stature of an institution was very important or somewhat important,
whereas 49 percent said it was not important at all.
The survey was conducted by an independent research firm and includes responses from more than 1,400 CFOs from a
stratified random sample of U.S. companies with 20 or more employees.
CFOs were asked, "When evaluating an entry-level accounting or finance job candidate, how important is the prestige of the university
the person attended?" Their responses:
Very important: 13 percent
Somewhat important: 38 percent
Not at all important: 49 percent
"Because many entry-level candidates have little professional experience, hiring managers often consider non-work-related factors,
such as the quality of the applicant's formal education," said Max Messmer,
chairman of Accountemps. "But learning extends beyond the classroom -- valuable skills and knowledge also are gained through extracurricular
activities, internships and jobs held during college."
What skills should you be looking to polish as you begin your college career? Employers responding to the Job Outlook 2007
survey of National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) named communication skills and honesty/integrity as a job-seeker's
most important skills and qualities.
"Communication skills have topped the list for eight years, and honesty and integrity have tied for the top spot for the last three years," says
Marilyn Mackes, NACE executive director.
But the ideal candidate needs to be more than an articulate straight arrow, according to the survey results. Employers also cited strong
interpersonal skills, motivation and initiative, the ability to work well with others, and a strong work ethic as key attributes. (Each
earned a rating of 4.5 or better on a 5-point scale, where 1 is not important and 5 is extremely important.)
An do consider obtaining internship and/or work experience while in school. Nearly three-quarters of employers responding to the
survey indicated they prefer to hire new college graduates who have gained relevant work experience.
Should you consider majoring in business? Many executives wish they had. Thirty-nine percent of executives said if they were in college
today, they would choose a degree in business administration to best prepare for future success. The other top responses were liberal arts
(21 percent), accounting (14 percent) and computer science (11 percent). This same question was asked in surveys in 1990 and 1996.
Although liberal arts was the most popular response in 1990, business administration has claimed
the top spot since 1996. The number of respondents selecting accounting
as the most desirable degree has consistently increased over the years.
The national polls include responses from 150 senior executives
-- including those from human resources, finance and marketing departments
-- with the nation's 1,000 largest companies. They were conducted by
an independent research firm and developed by Accountemps.
Executives were asked, "If you were a college student today and wanted
to prepare for future business success, which one of the following would you study?"
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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QuintZine: Topics in Upcoming Issues
WATCH FOR feature articles on these topics in upcoming
issues of QuintZine:
* Office Politics
* Gossiping at the Office
* Defending Yourself at Work
* How to Transition Back to Work: A Guide for Stay-at-Home Parents
* Women as Breadwinners
* Maternity Leave
* Your Job Search IQ
* Jobs on the Cutting Edge
* Your Blog as a Resume?
* Font Facts: Resume Typography
* Resume Bullet Points: Before and After
* Social/Online Networking from the Recruiter's Perspective
* Salary Negotiation Mistakes to Avoid
* Use Your Resume to Negotiate a Higher Salary
* GLBT Job-search Issues
* The Value of Internships Abroad and Study Abroad
* Top 10 Fears of Job-seekers
* For Job-hunting Success, Develop a Detailed Job-Search Plan
* 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
* 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...
