Job stress is a hot button topic in the employment world these days. Thousands of workers are finding themselves facing major medical problems, due to poor stress management skills.

For Career Success, LLC has set out to help make a difference in the way that American workers handle work and personal stressors in their lives. Their newest project is the "Great Awakening Series" which will feature an assortment of business professionals discussing the best ways to help manage work related stressors.

The second person on the schedule will be Dr. Naras Bhat, an internationally renowned physician, and author. The interview is set to take place on October 24th, at 8PM ET.

Some Time Management Stress Topics Covered Are:

• What is time pressure and where does it come from?
• How time pressure can lead to a type A personality.
• How stress and burn out are connected.
• How conventional time management tools and tactics can help you manage time pressures.
• Tools to manage time pressure.
• Multi-tasking madness: What it is and what you can do about it.

The theme for the day will be: Take Your Time Back From Stress!

Because on Oct. 24th it's "Take Your Time Back Day" which is a major U.S./Canadian initiative to challenge the epidemic of overwork, over-scheduling and time famine that now threatens our health, our families and relationships, our communities and our environment. Learn about it here http://www.timeday.org

Naras Bhat, M.D., F.A.C.P., is a physician, board-certified in Internal Medicine Immunology and Allergy, and also certified in Metabolic Cardiology and Stress Management. He currently teaches at the University of California, Berkeley and was a professor of behavioral medicine at Rosebridge College of Integrative Psychology.

Dr. Bhat is the founder and director of the Cybernetix Medical Institute, located in Concord, California. His active stress and heart disease reversal clinic has training programs for patients, physicians, and health care workers. Dr. Bhat has done extensive research on how stress affects the heart from the perspective of heart-centered physiology, called cardio-neuro-immunology. This work focuses on how the heart rate and blood pressure are changed by emotions.

Dr. Bhat was president of The Biofeedback Society of California (2002) and a board member of the Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback. He has been a professor of Meditation at the University of Natural Medicine. Dr. Bhat's work has been cited in National TV, Time Magazine, Cardiology Today, Business Week, and India Currents. Dr. Bhat has conducted more than 500 seminars on "Do-able Stress Control for the 21st Century" "Reversing Heart Disease' and "Time Management by Attentional Intelligence." He has shared his wisdom internationally with over 100,000 people.

In 2001 Dr. Bhat's presentation at Cambridge University, entitled "Time and Focus Management-Tools for Stress Control," earned him recognition as one of The 2000 Outstanding Scientists of the 21st Century.

Join them on October 24th at 8pm ET for a free teleclass that steals your time back.

Learn how to counter react when society steals your time while implanting you with stress, by signing up here: Click Here Now

It’s time to take your time back for good!

Note: If you’re unable to make the live call the full recording will be available inside the community very shortly after the live call.

To listen to our preview podcast click here now

To Your Career Success,

David Green
Career Private Eye
"Finding Treasure In Your Career"

Posted by For Career Success, LLC. on October 23, 2006 at 9:43 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Some of the interns have read the career development exercises for this month but not yet done it. They may be wondering about the relevance. I'll explain.

We have interests that drive our enjoyment of our work and keep us motivated. Because the interest is keen, we're more likely to do our best work. That then results in our becoming invaluable assets to wherever we are dedicating our energies.

Actually, Net-Temps has an article on the subject of interests and emphasizes the importance of the "Interests" exercise. The teaser says:

Identifying Your Career Building Blocks
A great first step as you begin exploring the possibilities for a passionate career is identifying your building blocks. Take a look at the things that you have really loved doing over the course of your life and break them down into the reasons ~why~.

Having gained a little more insight into the exercise by reading the Net-Temps article, why not go ahead and plunge into the "Interests" discussion as we work toward building the right criteria for landing you your ideal job and career path. This is a building block toward developing a career strategy and a means of mapping where your strengths lie.

Let me explain a little more. It's good to know you want to be a writer, for example. But there are so many types of writers and so many types of writing. Determine what it is about writing and related interests in order to see what parts of writing appeal to you and will keep you captivated. Determine where in the writing stream you want to be and which industry is going to be more significant to you than another. It could be that you've been bypassing something that is right up your alley because the traditional way of speaking of the industry only brings up the traditional images. Break out of the mold and take the time to see more of the picture than the obvious.

I knew one man who attended medical school. His frustration was that he simply did not have the same drive that the other medical students did. What he learned was he truly did have an interest in medicin and healing. But his deepest motivation lay in pharmacology. He went to pharmacy school, in time became the head of a hospital pharmacy, and learned how fulfilling his life choice was.

Equipped with more insight into your interests and the basis for your desire to be involved in these things, you'll want to start (and complete) the career goal exercise. Take some time to analyze your answers regarding your interests. Then also dive into writing about your career (not job) goal.

Posted by Yvonne LaRose, CollegeRecruiter.com - Career Coach on October 22, 2006 at 6:31 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

My heart breaks each time I read an intern blog about the entry-level job their pursuing. So many are seeking filler positions such as data entry, secretarial, order clerk, postal worker. Yet at the other end of the spectrum, each one talks about the degree they've recently earned. What I want to do is have a live session with them to talk about more strategic ways to market their selves, to have more confidence in their abilities and the proper way to demonstrate that confidence, and how to talk about the knowledge and abilities they've gained from the edudation they've ained so that they may enter the initial stages of their true career path. Alas, at this point in time, I cannot have that live session. But I feel it in my bones. The day is coming.

Until the day that I can have that live session with our interns, I'll have to write these blogs and post them in strategic places where I believe the interns will read them. And that is why today I'm posting a new blog in this space.

Kate Lorenz is the Career Editor at CareerBuilder and has done the research I did last year. The difference in our research is that Kate actually had the time to write about her findings regarding the ten dead-end jobs as defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Those BLS findings are another reason I have a heart attack when I read the interns' blog posts.

The BLS projects that the jobs with the highest percentage of decline during the period 2004 to 2014 include (with the exception of farming and ranching) the very jobs that they are presently pursuing. Those jobs are:

• Stock clerks and order fillers
• Sewing machine operators
• Order clerks
• Mail clerks (excluding postal service workers)
• Computer operators (although I believe this translates to word processor)
• Secretaries (excluding legal, medical, and executive)
• Telemarketers
• Word processors and typists
• Credit workers

Our current technology is now referred to as Web 2.0. We have global reach. We communicate with one another 24/7 because of the Internet and the technology we now take for granted and that drives our ability to do so many things. Our generation of interns grew up standing in front of a keyboard and monitor. Clicking a mouse for them was what they did before they took their first bite (not "byte") of finger food. Indeed, their finger food was probably a chat room. These people who are the new breed of worker, are encouraged to do what they rally to be allowed to achieve. They want the opportunity to be involved in planning, communicating, executing, and analyzing. They may not realize it, but they clamor to be admitted into the ranks of skilled workers.

But they do their selves a disservice by limiting their creativity and blindsighting their selves with regard to the types of opportunities that are available to them. I'd like to stand in front of them with a white board and a marker and challenge them to tell me about the careers they want, related and supporting occupations, and steps to reach any of them. I'd like to force them to start taking steps along their career paths and hold them to their marks until they say they've learned about the option and it isn't the right one for them. In the alternative, I'd like to hold them to their marks until they say they've taken step two or three and are well on their way to making it. They've got it.

Until then, I hope they'll use the resources such as informational interviewing, statistics from the BLS, and other tools that will keep them aware of the types of options they have available to their selves. And I hope they'll rise to the challenges they're given here to get them moving in positive directions. They're definitely worth the effort. They're definitely worth more than the dead-end jobs.

Posted by Yvonne LaRose, CollegeRecruiter.com - Career Coach on October 22, 2006 at 4:19 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

I know how much you love Facebook, really, I do. In fact, it might be the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning or the last thing you do at night. It's such a surprise cultural success that everyone from Investor's Business Daily to Bambi Francisco (random blogger with girly name), is talking about it.

Unfortunately, recruiters are also talking about it. You've probably heard the warnings about recruiters searching Facebook or My Space for embarrassing, inappropriate or otherwise questionable activity that might disqulaify a candidate. But what really makes or breaks your case?

If you're job searching and you don't want to risk it with your online profile, ask yourself these questions:

1) What photos do you have posted?
This sshould be so obvious but it's not. And it's cost some college students great internships or jobs. Simply put--don't put alcohol or nudity related photos on your site. Think about it this way. If it's a photo you wouldn't want Grandma to see, a potential employer won't find it endearing either.

2) What groups do you belong to?
Some groups such as fraternities or sororities are labeled online as such: "Alpha Delta Pi group." But if your group is something rude, inappropriate or unkind, think twice about belonging during your search (or publicizing a membership). You may think the "I need a valet for my yacht" group is hilarious, but a recruiter might not laugh as hard.

3) What preferences do you have listed?
Religion and politics are often topics of conversation we tend to avoid in mixed company. And it may be something you want to avoid on Facebook. It is illegal for an employer to base hiring preferences on these things, but if you list yourself as "very liberal" you might have a tough time getting that Halliburton interview.

4) What blogs or feeds do you subscribe to?
While this may seem strange, your offline interests could make or break your case. If you're getting financial, business or otherwise interesting (art, literature) RSS feeds or linking to such blogs, it could strengthen your case as a well-rounded individual. But you may not seem so well-rounded if you're connecting to off color blogs or feeds.

All of these things are your call--and yes, there's a great argument for whether recruiters should even be invading this space. But they are and right now, there's not much defense you have except to try to be less risky.

- Susan Strayer is an HR and business professional, and former recruiter and hiring manager who has worked with hundreds of Fortune 500 companies. She is the author of The Right Job, Right Now due out in December 2006 from St. Martin's Press.

Posted by Susan Strayer on October 19, 2006 at 1:29 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Here are a few true accounts from the rapidly growing list of students who have been burned by their online identities.

These are from the March 8th issue of USA Today…

Michael Guinn posted pictures of himself in drag on FaceBook which led to stories of his boyfriends and nights out clubbing. One of his schoolmates showed this to an administrator at John Brown University. At most schools this wouldn’t be a problem other than the fact that John Brown is a conservative Christian college. Mr. Guinn was kicked out of John Brown.
Admissions dean Paul Marthers at Reed College in Portland, Ore., says the school denied admission this year to one applicant in part because his entries on blogging site LiveJournal included disparaging comments about Reed.

Two Louisiana State swimmers were kicked off the team last spring for criticizing their coaches on Facebook. A University of Colorado offensive tackle was suspended from a bowl game in December for sending a racially threatening message through Facebook to a Colorado cross-country runner.

An employer who was ready to hire a student from Vermont Technical College in Randolph Center changed his mind after seeing the student's Facebook page, says Lauri Sybel, director of the college career center. Since then, Sybel says she has checked other students' pages to make sure they weren't hurting their job prospects.
The Price of Celebrity

The more famous or popular you are, the more likely you are to be a target of slanderous material.

Do a search for Bill Gates in Google. As of late August 2006, the first page of results show a Web site called “Bill Gates is Dead” as well as a blog entry about the founder of Microsoft along with photos of him doing his sexiest pose.

Anyone who knows a thing or two about search engines can employ something called “Google Bombing”. The most famous example would be President Bush’s bio appearing at the top of the search results for “miserable failure”.

In a similar vain, if you search for “liar” on the Google UK site, a link to the UK’s Prime Minister Tony Blair appears.

Mistaken Identity

“Yeah, well at least your name isn't Michael Bolton. There was nothing wrong with it... until I was about 12 years old and that no-talent ass clown became famous and started winning Grammys.” Michael Bolton – Office Space

Just about everyone shares their name with someone else. Take Eddie Johnson, for example. Here is the former NBA player Eddie Johnson…

Edward (Eddie) Arnet Johnson (born May 1, 1959 in Chicago, Illinois) is a former professional basketball player who spent 17 seasons in the NBA. A sharpshooting 6'7" forward/guard, Johnson attended the University of Illinois before being selected by the Kansas City Kings in the 1981 NBA Draft. Johnson retired from basketball in 1999 with 19,202 career points.– Source Wikipedia.com


Here, also, is Eddie Johnson who was also in the NBA…
Edward "Fast Eddie" Johnson Jr. -- being held in a Florida jail on sexual battery and burglary charges -- is a 6-foot-2, two-time NBA All-Star who played most of his career in Atlanta. An Auburn alum, he retired in 1987 and is 51.

Unfortunately for the first Eddie Johnson, his picture was placed next to the online accusations of sexual battery and burglary in several publications. Edward Arnet Johnson has since had a very difficult time shaking off this case of mistaken identity in the public eye and probably will take some time to clear himself.

Do you have a name doppelganger out there that shares your name but is a sexual predator, murderer, or maybe just a total dork? You need to work to separate yourself from that other ass clown. A little bit later, we will show you ways to do so.

Your Impending Career

“Yes. It is true. I, Michael Scott, am signing up with an online dating service. Thousands of people have done it, and I am going to do it. I need a username, and... I have a great one. "Little Kid Lover". That way people will know exactly where my priorities are at.” Michael Scott – The Office

Nowadays resumes and references will only get you so far. Recruiters and employers are doing search engine background checks on prospective employees.

Multiple sources have reported that companies are employing college interns to research digital dirt on job applicants referencing sites like MySpace and FaceBook. Your peers are even selling you out. Why not? Competition can be fierce. You out of the running only means more jobs for them.

It’s one thing for your friends or family to come across some questionable material on the internet. It may not even be questionable in your eyes. But, if the choice has been narrowed to you or another candidate for the job or internship, your online identity may make or break a company’s decision to hire you.

This is part of an ongoing series of post from the eBook "Not Just Your Space - The College Student’s Guide to Managing Online Reputation" by Tom Drugan of Naymz.com

Please See: Part One: Not Just Your Space - Introduction and Digital Dirt

Posted by Tom Drugan and Naymz.com on October 16, 2006 at 8:40 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

...doesn't mean you can interview.

I've done alot of interviews. At least several hundred as a recruiter and many hundreds more as a career coach. But this morning, as I conducted a mock interview with a student, I was reminded of some of the most obvious mistakes that are the easiest to fix.

So if you're ready to walk out the door for an interview, stop and ask yourself:

1) How do I answer the "tell me about yourself" or "walk me through your resume questions?

If your strategy here is to parrot back your resume or give the interviewer a historical tour ("my parents liked State U., so I went there first and when I graduated I wanted to live in New York so I met this guy who gave me this job...) think again. It's time to sell. Try this recipe:
- "Currently I am senior studying business and marketing with a specific interest in marketing communications...."

-"During my four years here I have done X, Y, and Z to prepare me for a career in marketing communications...."

- "I also did an internship for ABC company where I learned how to research market demographics and their impact on communications...."

-"Which brings me to today and my interest in your company...."

It may seem simple, but it's a world of difference. Sell yourself as a perfect fit.

2) How do you answer the strengths and weaknesses question?

If you hesitate on strengths or ramble on about all of your weaknesses you're not painting a picture of someone that's hireable. Instead:

- List 2-3 clear strengths and provide a brief example of a time you exhibited them.

- Use the positive sandwich! Remind the listener of your strengths (+), suggest 1-2 areas for development (-), and then indicate what you are doing to correct or build on those areas of development (+): "While I am really good at teamwork and have a strong attention to detail, I do feel that one area I can develop is in my leadership experience. I am often hesitant in leadership situations and may take some time to determine the best way to lead a situation. However, in order to develop my leadership skills, I am working to take on more leadership roles in my classes so that I can practice my decision-mkaing and response time as a leader.

3) Are you a rambler?

Almost everyone rambles when they answer questions in personal situations, but this can't be the case in an interview. Tape yourself answering common interview questions and ask yourself:

- Am I answering the question asked?

- Do I have a specific, easy-to-understand example?

- Do I close strong?

If the answer is no, try outlining some of your answers: "This is how I handle situations like that, here is a specific example, and here's how I would handle them at your company."

- Susan Strayer is an HR and business professional, and former recruiter and hiring manager who has worked with hundreds of Fortune 500 companies. She is the author of The Right Job, Right Now due out in December 2006 from St. Martin's Press.

Posted by Susan Strayer on October 9, 2006 at 3:10 PM | Leave a Comment (1)

This will be an ongoing series of post from the eBook "Not Just Your Space - The College Student’s Guide to Managing Online Reputation" by Tom Drugan of Naymz.com

Introduction
So, you’re looking for a job or that coveted internship. Or maybe you might be thinking of heading off to Grad School or Law School. You have your resume all polished up, your one and only pinstriped suit dry cleaned and pressed to perfection, your “Top 50 Interview Questions” all memorized, and a six-pack of Red Bull. You’re ready to rock. You are big money, big business. You’ve got everything covered, right?

Wrong.

Have you Googled yourself lately?

I’m talking about going to Google and conducting a search for your first and last name. You know, ego-surf. Vanity search. What comes up? Most likely the information is…

Outdated
Embarrassing
Flat-out wrong
Not even you!

By the time you finish reading this book, you’ll know the risks of having personal information online, how to find it, clean it up, and easily monitor it in the future.

Digital Dirt

If you’re in college, you most likely have a MySpace page, FaceBook profile, Blog, or all of the above. If you aren’t a complete nerd, odds are that you probably have some incriminating photos, dubious comments, and questionable friends on these sites.

If you are a nerd, don’t stop reading just yet. No one is safe. Ever wonder if your World of Warcraft enemy, ex-girlfriend/ boyfriend, or that meat-head frat guy might be talking about you on these sites?

Have you pondered who might find this incriminating information about you? According to ExecuNet, a leading recruiting firm, 78% of executive recruiters routinely use search engines to learn more about candidates and 35% have eliminated candidates based on the information they found.

It’s not just employers who are digging around. Teachers, parents, friends, girlfriends, boyfriends, and classmates can all access this information in various ways. According to USA Today, police are now being trained on how to use FaceBook so they can investigate complaints about students. Police have shut down parties and busted underage drinkers because of the information they have found.

Many of our parents, bosses and professors were college students at one time. They talked about the same things you do in the locker room or while hanging out after class. They took incriminating pictures of each other. They may have dabbled in recreational drugs or had a few beers before turning the legal drinking age. They might have written about the boundaries they tested, but it was probably in the back of a yearbook or on a bathroom stall.

The difference between the two generations is that our elders did not have the technology available to post this information for 1.6 Billion internet users to find.

Search Engine Watch reports there are 25 to 50 million proper name searches performed each day. Results from a random sample of 1,000 names from Naymz.com, showed an average of 13.4 searches are conducted daily on each name via Google, Yahoo, and MSN. According to comScore, these three engines compromise 85.3% of all searches conducted online as of July 2006. This indicates that each day somebody is searching to find the skinny on you. So, what are they finding? If you’re not careful, you could end up regretting not cleaning up your online identity.

Social-Networking Insanity

FaceBook MySpace Friendster Blogger Flickr YouTube

These are just a few of the hundreds of sites that allow anyone with internet access to instantly publish personal information about themselves and others. Those in the industry refer to these as “user-generated-content” sites. Personal information can also be found about people in online message boards, forums, personal Web sites, or news groups. In many cases, this information is harmful and malicious.

There are also a slew of “Girls Gone Wild” wannabe Web sites scouring the internet to find your worst stories and pictures and expose them to millions of people. Here are few addresses to keep you entertained for hours (assuming you aren’t surprised by finding yourself featured). Proceed with caution . . . . . .

www.drunkuniversity.com
www.boozetime.com
www.collegedrunkfest.com
www.ebaumsworld.com

The growth of these sites over the past few years is staggering:

They have become so big and controversial there is currently a bill circulating the U.S. House of Representatives which proposes to ban use of all social-networking sites (i.e., MySpace) in public schools and libraries.

So, you have a MySpace or FaceBook page with a few drunk photos and maybe a good story or two. You don’t need to worry about those, right? Nobody’s ever going to find them. Think again …..

Tom Drugan
Co-Founder of Naymz.com

This has been entry #1 in a series to come over the next few weeks.

Posted by Tom Drugan and Naymz.com on October 4, 2006 at 9:55 AM | Leave a Comment (0)