9 May 2009 
Practice Test #2 for Business 100
Following link contains a brief practice test — the test review does not contain questions from all chapters. This practice test is designed to provide the Alert Student with a level of exposure to the difficulty of actual test questions.
What To Do When Out of Work?
Take a Class.
The best time to look for a job is when you have a job.
Question: But what if you don’t have a job?
How to look?
And what to do meanwhile?
Answer: Go back to school.
Alert Reader, FaceBook and Twitter Friend, Janet, asks Your Business Blogger(R) about a common challenge:
What do I do about gaps in employment history; gaps on my resume?
If you are in this situation here’s what the job seeker can do to ‘mind the gap.’
Enroll in a course at your local community college.
Your Business Blogger(R)
The Washington Post
Continuous learning is, well, continuous.
And it doesn’t have to be expensive.
Here are three F.A.B.’s, the Features, Advantages and Benefits of going back to class.
If you have a job or not.
First Feature
Meet a professor
Advantage
Learn subject matter.
Learn presentation — interview — life skills.
Get referrals.
Benefit
Cheaper than a personal coach.
Get a character reference letter.
Get employed faster
Second Feature
Meet other inquisitive minds
Advantage
Expand your Friend contact database.
Challenge assumptions.
Increased network of contacts for job referrals.
Benefit
Faster learning.
Cheaper than a job placement agency.
Get employed faster
Third Feature
Regularly scheduled class times.
Advantage
Encourages the student to get out of bed, out of the house.
Provides structure to the job seekers’ week.
Forces the student to walk past career counselors’ office.
Benefit
Get more done in less time.
Spend less time in Starbucks.
Get employed faster.
The purpose of continuing education is the gaining of new knowledge, skills and abilities. But this is even more important when one is out of work. A perspective employer is going to ask you a number of questions.
The first interview question will be, “What are you doing now?”
The perfect answer is, “As I look for my next position, I am taking a business refresher course at my local community college.”
Remember: the best time to find a job is when you are working — going to class is your job.
You may be unemployed, but you are busy: You are using your time wisely while you look for work.
As it happens, the Northern Virginia Community College has the perfect solution to help you find your next job.
Sit in my class.
NOVA has openings in my Business 200 class, Principles of Management. We will meet every Monday & Wednesday nights at the Arlington Campus, near the Ballston Metro. Beginning July 1 for six weeks.
Alert Readers know that Your Business Blogger(R) charges outrageous fees for a two day management seminar.
The same instructor at NOVA will set you back about 100 bucks a credit hour or about 500 bucks fully loaded for a three credit-hour class.
Course topics covered in Principles of Management:
1. Intro to Management
2. History of Management
3. Organizational Environments and Culture
4. Ethics and Social Responsibility
5. Planning and Decision Making
6. Organizational Strategy
7. Innovation and Change
8. Global Management
9. Designing Adaptive Organizations
10. Managing Teams
11. Managing Human Resource System
12. Managing Individuals and a Diverse Workforce
13. Motivation
14. Leadership
15. Managing Communication
16. Control
17. Managing Information
18. Managing Service and Manufacturing Operations
Call now to register. Operators are standing by.
Or apply on-line.
This after hours, summer evening class is the perfect career-management strategy and allows the attendee to job-hunt early in the day.
Come join my class. And get employed faster.
Thank you (foot)notes:
For more on your job search: tattoos, lying, resume enhancement and trick questions follow links below.
Read Job Search? PASS This Test
See how “Sarah” is getting it right. To get your next job, assignment or project PASS this test! See how the mythical composite Sarah learned new behaviors to find new opportunities.
As first appeared in The Daily Progress, Charlottesville, Virginia, January 20, 2002
To get a job, first get a plan and then get busy…
Your Business Blogger(R) is of a certain age from a certain generation with teenage children and is confused by various body art. I do not understand tattoos. (Except on my dad, who was in the Navy…) A future employer also may not understand body art. Not even Starbucks. Tiny URL: http://tiny.cc/4FMr3
What is the first question hiring managers ask themselves? Get a Blog; Get Hired — And the First Question
The Lie: A Guide to Fibbing in the Job Interview, it’s not what you think.
Here’s what your interviewer is really looking for, Job Interview: How To Tell If the Candidate Will Lie, Cheat, Steal?
There is actually controversy on hiring competence, Hiring Super Stars vs Tolerating Turkeys
Be sure to ask some questions in your job interview, Job Interview: 3 Questions for Your Prospective Boss.
Yes, High School still counts. Forever. What’s the One Best Question to Ask a Job Candidate?
Why Were You Really Hired? The Two Qualities That Count.
Follow me on Twitter: @JackYoest
Watch The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey; short video
Tiny URL: http://tiny.cc/OfxjP
5 May 2009
Happy Anniversary: Decade Two
Jack and Charmaine This is wedding anniversary week in the Yoest household: We celebrate for 7 days.
Men’s Health magazine reminds us why marriage works. The April issue from last year has six compelling reasons to marry, by Anna Maltby.
Anna is a woman.
But the advice is still good,
If you are susceptible to vice, find a wife. She’ll save you from yourself — and improve your life — in a variety of ways…
1. Increase your pay
A Virginia Commonwealth University study found that married men earn 22 percent more than their similarly experienced but single colleagues.[VCU is a terrific school located in Richmond, Virginia. Usually Conservative. Good.]
2. Speed up your next promotion
Married men receive higher performance ratings and faster promotions than bachelors, a 2005 study of U.S. Navy officers reported.[If the Army wanted you to have a wife, it would have issued you one, goes the old joke -- it looks like the military is a-changing its perception of the value of a helpmeet.]
3. Keep you out of trouble
According to a recent U.S. Department of Justice report, male victims of violent crime are nearly four times more likely more likely to be single than married.[Your Business Blogger(R) has not been in a bar fight since getting married. But every few years I got to get the caps replaced on those cracked up front teeth from an altercation back in single days. And I wish that ringing in my ears would stop...]
4. Satisfy you in bed
In 2006, British researchers reviewed the sexual habits of men in 38 countries and found that in every country, married men have more sex.5. Help you beat cancer
In a Norwegian study, divorced and never-married male cancer patients had 11 and 16 percent higher mortality rates, respectively, than married men.[Charmaine is forever pestering me to get a(nother!) physical. Goodness, I had one back in the 90's. And the colonoscopies every 5 years are her idea too. Such a pain in the ...]
6. Help you live longer
A UCLA study found that people in generally excellent health were 88 percent more likely to die over the 8-year study period if they were single.
The accountability and friendship of marriage works.
Please excuse me now, I’ve got some yard work to do.
As one academic studying the men-marriage-maturity transformation wrote, “A rake, now out raking leaves,”
Thank you (foot)notes:
But we actually celebrate two anniversaries.
Two constants every man needs.
His car.
His woman.
Jack and Charmaine 1990 (Order may not be important to some.)
Even as Charmaine and I are moving into our 20th year of marriage toward that death do us part part; the other anniversary is a milestone of over two decades.
Alert Readers are thinking, I know Jack — how did he do it?
How did he survive all those years?
Without a coffee cup holder…?
The Germans do not believe that people should drive and drink…coffee. Ergo, no coffee cup holder in that old model.
So the ride has been a series of spilled hot fluids. And I would do it again.
Kisses Sweeter Than Wine – Andy Williams, Peter Paul & Mary
20 years; one owner
Your Business Blogger(R) and The Dude
Financial Expert Larry Burkett believes that a man should own but one car and run that car ’til the wheels fall off then repair and repeat.
Replacing is poor stewardship of resources.
It is also Biblical and is based on the Babe Bargain: A man should be the husband of but one wife.
Replacing is poor stewardship of resources.
A car and a girl. What more could a guy want?
Larry Burkett continues,
Let’s face it. The majority of new automobile sales in America are made because of the buyers’ wants, not needs. Often they are just tired of their cars; they look old and out of date, or they need repairs to put them back into top condition, or their neighbors or coworkers have acquired new cars.
Lyrics to KISSES SWEETER THAN WINE here. My favorite version is by Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt.
In May of 1987 Your Business Blogger(R) bought a new car from American Service Center in Arlington, Virginia from former Redskin football player Joe Tereshinski.
My two investments; my two May anniversaries.
Follow us on Twitter: @JackYoest; @CharmaineYoest