Tuesday, December 31, 2002

HotJobs 2002 Year in Review

This Overview provides a look into the most popular Industries searched by job hunters, fastest growing industries, US states with the lowest unemployment rates, and US states with the highest unemployment rates.

Monday, December 30, 2002

USA Today - Entertainment | Resolution No. 1: Start with a workable plan

Karen S. Peterson reports that we shouldn't "dismiss New Year's resolutions as trivial." According to psychologist John Norcross, a pioneering change researcher at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania, the key is that "You need to know how to execute a plan, how to form the specific skills to keep you there."

William Knaus of the Center for Creative Change in Longmeadow, Mass., and co-author of Overcoming Procrastination, offers suggestions for a plan for change. Read more...

Setting Goals, New Year's Resolutions: How to measure success

I almost forgot to encourage you to consider this...

Rapping with Small Talk

"Rapport is present when two people speak easily with each other, with a natural rhythm and flow of conversation..." more...

HotJobs.com's Top Five Job Tips of 2002

Sunday, December 29, 2002

Effectiveness Tip of the Week from a weekly email from the folks at FranklinCovey:

Me, Myself, and I

It's time to get a little selfish and focus on you for a moment. When was the last time you did something to make yourself feel good? (And we're not talking about that pint of Chocolate Dream ice cream.) A few tips to treat yourself and your body:

  • Physical: Get a good night's sleep, play your favorite outdoor sport or activity, and enjoy a well-balanced meal.
  • Social/Emotional: Call a friend you haven't seen in a while, volunteer time to charity, or do something nice for someone--anonymously.
  • Mental: Visit a library or museum, solve a brainteaser, puzzle or riddle, or watch an educational show on TV.
  • Spiritual: Spend some time in nature, research your genealogy, or go on a personal "retreat" (like a spa) to rejuvenate yourself.
Benefiting your mind and body - a solo act!

Saturday, December 28, 2002

BusinessWeek Online | What Will Revive IT Spending

According to tech expert David Moschella, "Simple applications for everyday things that everyone uses are key to getting the industry going again." Read more...

Some Good Reading

I was going through my planner, doing some end-of-year cleaning out, and I uncovered a list of books that I thought were worthy to be read at some time:

  • Business Beyond the Box - Applying Your Mind for Breakthrough Results by John O'Keefe
  • Competing on the Edge - Strategy as Structured Chaos by Shona L. Brown & Kathleen Eisenhardt
  • Leadership and the Art of Conversation - Conversation as a Management Tool by Kim Krisco
  • The Leadership Engine - How Winning Companies Build Leaders at Every Level by Noel M. Tichy with Eli B. Cohen
  • The Last Word on Power - Executive Re-Invention for Leaders Who Must Make the Impossible Happen by Tracy Goss
  • The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas Stanley & William Danko

Monday, December 23, 2002

Six Steps to Conquering -- OK, Managing -- Procrastination

Follow Marty Nemko's model and you may procrastinate much less. Read more...

Yahoo! Dailytips - Uncovering a Cover Letter Myth

Your cover letter summarizes your resume, right? Wrong! Some people think that a summary of the resume attached to the resume seems a little repetitive. The purpose of your cover letter, then, is to add a warm handshake to your resume and zero in on why the employer should be interested in you. Your cover letter should put your resume in context, drawing attention to your strengths and present nonresume material that can make a difference between you and your next closest competitor when the interviewing decision is made.

Effectiveness Tip of the Week from a weekly email I receive from the folks at FranklinCovey

First... some relevant quotes, from QuotesBlog:

  • "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler." -- Henry David Thoreau
  • "Awaken your sense, your intuition, your desires. Awaken the parts of yourself that have been sleeping. Life is a dream, and to live it, you must be awake." -- Rachel Snyder
  • "True life is lived when tiny changes occur." -- Leo Tolstoy


Mission Possible

Ever feel like a double agent, living one life and dreaming of another? Be the leader of your life! Sound impossible? It's not, when you have a Personal Mission Statement. Here are some clues:
  • Unique: It's different for everyone. It can be a sentence, paragraph or poem.
  • Focus: It's a clear guide based on your values -- what you want to be and do. Ask yourself this question: "What can I imagine myself doing if time and money were not obstacles?"
  • Passion: It's what excites you most in the world and lifts you up on your soapbox.
Take 5 minutes RIGHT NOW and write as much as you can about your personal mission in life. It doesn't have to be perfect. You can revise this first draft later. Keep it in your planning device and read it morning and evening for the next week. Decide what things you can do during the day to live your mission. (Warning! This message will "self-construct" in 5 minutes...)

Friday, December 20, 2002

Don't Catch the Negativity Virus

I need this one myself. Read on!

Encarta eLearning Center | Prepare for a career in
writing


"In today's information age, work for the nation's 340,000 writers and editors abounds. And, whether to fulfill old dreams or to satisfy practical needs, many Americans are moving into editorial roles... The outlook for writers is good. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) predicts that by 2008, editorial opportunities will have increased 21 to 35 percent over 1998, assuming moderate economic growth. Many of the available jobs will be in high-technology and electronics fields and in journalistic outlets in small markets..." read more...

Thursday, December 19, 2002

Interesting(?) Jobs I've Had

  • Computer programmer
  • Test analyst
  • Business analyst
  • Newspaper carrier
  • Environmental Engineer
  • Civil Engineering Co-Op
  • Laboratory assistant
  • City Highway Department Co-op
  • Santa Claus
  • Salvation Army Bell Ringer
  • Telephone Surveyor
  • Facilities Engineering Co-Op
  • Program Planning Co-Op
  • McDonald's Crew Member
  • Wendy's Crew Member
  • Taco Bell Crew Member
  • Lumber Associate for a Hardware Company
  • Pizza Delivery driver
  • Pizza maker

IT Makes the FBI Most-Wanted List

Tischelle George reports that "Amid the slump in IT jobs, the FBI has been hiring, and it plans to pick up the pace. It's even changing some of its hiring practices to get techies in the door... It's also using the Internet for the first time to find the right candidates, posting its agent application at http://www.fbijobs.com...More people are interested in government IT jobs, says Robert Lyons, president of GovITjobs.com, a new online job board specifically for IT consultants looking for government contract work. The amount of data 'the government tries to manage using advanced systems presents a lot of opportunity for IT professionals,' he says."

Wall Street & Technology Online Home Page | IT Career Center

I'm beginning to wonder if all these different career web portals all lead to the same stuff. Eventually we'll find out that McDonald's has their own IT Career Center. Well, maybe not.

Yahoo! Financial News | For Some Professionals, A Brand New Career Is the Best Way to Ring in the New Year

"Whether you use a New Year's resolution for an excuse or just a long-time desire to try out something new, a professional sabbatical may open the door to a new career and a new start in life..." read more...

Wednesday, December 18, 2002

Yahoo! DailyTips Cool Career: Broadcast Technician or
Engineer


"Broadcast engineering is the back door to a field whose front entrance is mobbed -- and you don't even need performing talent..."

Wetfeet.com > Weblog

Have I mentioned this before? Well, in the spirit of overcommunication, check out Wetfeet.com's weblog for some good career management advice.

Help Me Find Work

Strategies for Networking in Nontraditional Settings

I personally believe that networking needs to be where I place the most effort in my job search. Here's more advice from CareerJournal.com...

William Morin writes a great article with tips on 'Nonabusive' Networking...

CareerJournal.com | Advice for Job Seekers: Don't Stop in
December


In this article William L. Handler, the president of Handler & Associates, an executive-search firm in Atlanta, answers questions about job hunting and the dynamics in the marketplace at this time of year. Read more...

Tuesday, December 17, 2002

Job Posting Sites Elsewhere on the Internet

Dick Bolles, author of the perennial "What Color Is Your Parachute?", writes:

The Internet is larger than just the World Wide Web. Outside the Web, lie USENET newsgroups, mailing lists, and a number of other modalities or protocols, as they are called. Many employers find these protocols – especially newsgroups – more effective than the Web, when they're searching for employees, most particularly when they're searching for technical employees. So it is to newsgroups you must go, and not just to the Web, if you're interested in those employers' job listings.

There are newsgroup metasearch sites (on the Web, paradoxically) that will allow you to search a number of these newsgroups or a number of Mailing Lists all at once, rather than having to go to each newsgroup one by one.


Google Groups has messages from several thousand newsgroups. If it's job listings you're looking for, just type in your query, like: jobs AND Bay Area and it will give you the actual job listings that match, in reverse order (most recent, first). You can search within specific groups or search all groups.

FoxNews.com | Yuletide Job Hunting

Marla Lehner reports: "Career experts say with the nation's unemployment rate at 6 percent, the holiday season is an ideal time to meet and greet those who might otherwise be difficult to reach." [emphais added] more...

From QuotesBlog:

"Remember -- you are your own doctor when it comes to having cold feet."

MSN Careers | How interviews are like first dates

MSN Careers looks at how these two different things are similar. An important quote from the story: "Faulty thinking about the competition is a mistake. You are unique and should be confident in your strengths and positive qualities."

Monday, December 16, 2002

How You Got Here

I've been looking through the referrer logs, and I found out that this website is currently third in the list of the Yahoo! search results for "job search websites in dayton ohio." Another Yahoo! search for "challenger job hunting method" shows this blog as second in the list. But it was 25th in the list of search results for "google job."

I sure hope that the Google Viewer gains popularity. With that tool, you get to preview the web pages in your search results.

Job-hunting expenses are deductible

In MSN Money's article, "The top 10 overlooked deductions," number 4 is "Let the IRS subsidize your job search."

Job-hunting expenses are deductible. If you're out of work, or even if you're still employed but looking for a new job, all of your job hunting expenses are deductible as miscellaneous itemized deductions. Such expenses would include resumes, phone calls, postage, travel costs and any other expenses related to your attempt to get a new job. If you’ve done a lot of driving in your job search in 2002, you can deduct mileage for your 2002 return at a rate of 36.5 cents a mile. For 2003, the mileage rate falls to 36 cents a mile.

Creativity here can be rewarding. For example, if you take a friend to lunch in an attempt to use him as a reference or referral, you can use the cost of the lunch as a job-hunting expense.

Effectiveness Tip of the Week from an email I receive from the folks at FranklinCovey

Your Personal Cornucopia

Take stock of your personal cornucopia. Is it abundant and bountiful? To live a rich life, it's imperative to believe in your ability to prosper -- that you are deserving. Once understood and embraced, an abundance mentality allows you to see your life and your relationships from a new perspective. It's about sharing the wealth and focusing on the universal truth that there is truly enough in this world for everyone. A few tips:

  • Ponder how and what it would take to interact more successfully in your every day life.
  • Let wisdom inspire you to become more generous with yourself and others in order to reap the benefits.
  • Get rid of "all about me" and develop an everyone-can-win-mindset.


Some related quotes, also posted at QuotesBlog:
  • "I am he as you are we and we are all together." -- John Lennon and Paul McCartney
  • "Can you stop viewing the world through I-glasses?" -- from The Portable 7 Habits
  • "This is your life, your one and only life -- so take excellence very personally." -- Scott Johnson

Wednesday, December 11, 2002

Job Search Agents

MSN Careers and other sites offer the ability for you to get targeted job openings by email.

At the same time, it is a good idea to find which are the best sites and learn what the limitations of all job opening sites on the Internet are. Dick Bolles' Job Hunter's Bible is a valuable resource for, among other things, the following:

MSN Careers | Ten Classic Resume Bloopers

Kim Isaacs recommends that we proofread our resumes meticulously and let others proofread it, especially for malapropisms like these ten real life classic resume bloopers.

Monday, December 09, 2002

MSN Money - CNBC | Secrets you can keep from your employer

Liz Pulliam Weston writes:

An employer's background check can dig up some pretty embarrassing dirt, but how much it will miss may be the biggest surprise. You can fudge on many things except your education and your most recent arrests.
Read more...

Effectiveness Tip of the Week from a weekly email I get from the folks at FranklinCovey

Rocks 'n' Roles!

Identifying roles and assigning specific weekly goals to each one will help you balance. A role is a key responsibility or relationship in your life. Here's what to do:

  • List at least two of your most important personal or professional roles, (i.e. parent, manager, volunteer).
  • Ask yourself "What is the one most important thing I can do in each role this week that will help me balance?" These goals or rocks form a solid foundation on which you build your weekly activities. Example: "Designer--Read 30 minutes from trade magazine."
  • Make specific appointments for each goal in your planning device. As things come up during the week, prioritize and schedule around your goals. Your week will rock!

Wednesday, December 04, 2002

Blogging the Christian Internet

Neat!

The latest Internet for Christians newsletter has a section about Christian blogging. Blogs4God.com is mentioned. My weblogs

are a part of that community.

Here's a Thought

Would you apply to work for a company who has been laying people off or otherwise hasn't been doing that well? I believe that it is possible to land a job inside one of those companies.

What do you think?

Tuesday, December 03, 2002

Get Comfortable Networking!

Ooh! What a neat article from MSN Careers about Comfortable Networking! Read, digest, and become it!

Monday, December 02, 2002

blogs4God

Definitely something to add to the 'To Do List'.