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."

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

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:

• Fairy Godmother Report on job listing sites
• Statistics on the effectiveness of actual commercial web sites
• General job posting sites
• Regional job posting sites
• Fields-places that focus on a particular field
• Meta-sites - search many sites from one site
• Outside the Web - other places on the Internet to find job postings

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.

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!

Blogging the Christian Internet

Neat!

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

• Journey Inside My Mind,
• Letters to God,
• QuotesBlog,
• Get That Job!, and
• Streams of Consciousness

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?

Get Comfortable Networking!

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

blogs4God

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

MSN Careers | Knowing When It's Time To Go

Roberta Chinsky Matuson lists 8 signs that indicate it may be time to look for another job.

Job Hunting Success Story

I have a job hunting success story to share. In September I attended a couple Job Fairs, one at the Dayton Convention Center and one at the Dayton Job Center. I cannot remember exactly which one it was, but I left my resume with the folks from Manpower Professional.

This past Wednesday I received a phone call about an opportunity with Lexis Nexis, doing some Excel VBA work, for which it sounds like I'm aptly qualified. I start working there tomorrow!

The assignment will last about one month, but hopefully I can extend my time there and use this opportunity as a springboard into something more permanent, especially once I see how things are going inside the company. I keep getting emails stating that they have a number of open positions, and I even applied for a couple.

Now, let's hear some of your job hunting success stories!

Job-Search Prescriptions gleaned from the wisdom of others, found on QuotesBlog:

• The secret of success
• Perspective
• Vision
• Just do something!
• Maybe your plan of action needs some change
• Worrying?
• Your attitude is showing
• Give your best right now
• Take the intiative
• Make your own luck

New-teacher.com

"New-teacher.com is a resource site for education students, student teachers, first-year teachers, teacher certification candidates, and those who think maybe, just maybe, they'd like to be an educator someday. It is the goal of this site to help new and 'wannabe' teachers find information, inspiration, and tools to become fulfilled, effective, growing professionals for our kids."

Occupational Outlook Handbook

Have you checked this out? This site is developed and maintained by the US Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics. A virtual clearinghouse of all types of occupations, you can search for any occupation and find out the following types of information:

• Significant Points
• Nature of the Work
• Working Conditions
• Employment statistics
• Training, Other Qualifications, and Advancement
• Job Outlook
• Earnings
• Related Occupations
• Sources of Additional Information, and
• O*NET Codes

Interesting Quote found at The Job Hunter's Bible:

"Know then thyself; presume not the Web to scan, until you know what you love to do, and have evolved a plan." - Richard Nelson Bolles (with apologies to Alexander Pope)

also posted to QuotesBlog

FireHunt - The Web's Blazing Portal

This website happened to be set as the homepage for the PC I am using at the Job Center today. I have never heard of it before. This begs the question: is there a metablog or some type of site that just has portals?