National Edition - May 11, 2008  What type of employee are you? Find out with our personality tests. Jobboom visitors are now eligible for discount rates on e-Career Fit evaluations via our website. Check out the three tests below - they're bound to pique your interest: - eCF Personal Styles Assessment : Discover your strengths, limitations and personal style. - eCF Work Values Assessment : Identify which values are important to you, then capitalize on them to land the perfect job. - eCF Entrepreneur Index : Find out if you've got what it takes to be your own boss. Professional Development Suited for the workplace Much ado's made about business casual, flip-flops and summertime workplace attire. Yet, in this day-and-age, many highly skilled individuals sport tattoos and body piercings that may seem detrimental to their professional ambitions in the conservative and button-down corporate world. One such misfit, a former Goth, changed her look in order to take a stand on the corporate ladder. But, did she sell out or grow up? At some point she realized that she didn't "fit in" anymore. Also companies looking for talented employees have started to place appearances second to skills and abilities. (Source: Northern Colorado Tribune) Do you have any visible tattoos or body piercings? To answer, click here. Newsworthy Whimsy in workplace spurs creativity Zooglers, Google employees in Zurich, are making headlines with their newly designed office space. It's less like a cubicle farm and more like a playground at Chuck E. Cheese's: fire poles, slides, igloos, ski gondolas, pinball and foosball. But is it a re-hash of the dot-com era madness in office décor? In fact, no, it didn't cost any more than a regular office, according to one Zoogler, it just required some imagination. (Source: Canadian Press) Economic fears moving Saudi women into workplace However dismal your job may be, most employees in the Western world can thank their lucky stars that they work in a liberal democracy which supports notions of equal opportunity and gender equality. Elsewhere these concepts are completely foreign, like in Saudi Arabia. While many Western women made their first forays into the workplace nearly a century ago, Saudi Arabia still struggles with the dilemma of how to include its highly-educated women in the country's archconservative workforce. (Source: Reuters) Career Planning When life hands you lemons... So your summer job hunt didn't go as planned. Now you're faced with several months of working inside a giant, fiberglass, citrus fruit down at the mall or flipping burgers at the local fast food joint. Don't despair. It's still a paycheck and perhaps the time won't pass too slowly. Now, on the upside, you're still gaining transferable skills, building your network, learning the value of hard work and finding out more about your likes and dislikes. (Source: Toronto Sun) Work/Life Balance Workin' 9 to noon: 3 days a week Despite their plans to retire in the coming years, older workers will become an integral part of the Canadian workforce. Yet, being semi-retired makes for a busy schedule: bridge on Mondays , shuffle board on Tuesdays, tango on Thursdays, lawn bowling Fridays, and of course, wintering in Florida. So employers are going to have to learn how to accommodate them. In fact, the majority are available in the mornings from 9 a.m. to noon. Does that work for you? (Source: Sun Media Wire Services) Are you... the Johnny Knoxville of your workplace? Your bad behavior may be Jackass-like, "chronic and despicable," and it is probably affecting your company's bottom line. • These problem employees may be men or women who have 10 common characteristics of highly offensive behavior. • They are egotistical, arrogant, erratic, volatile, pretentious, pompous, smarmy (self-serving), controlling, infallible and paranoid. • Keys to working with someone who displays the Jackass Syndrome are having an awareness of the problem, working to make things better instead of being bitter and choosing civility at all times. • After witnessing the costs of this chronic behavior over her career, Stephens wrote a book about ways to overcome it. (Source: The Spectrum) May 12 - 13 Discovery 08 Toronto, ON May 14 Innovations in Healthcare IT Toronto, ON May 20 - 22 Futurallia Québec 2008 Quebec City, QC May 20 - 22 International Development Days Vancouver, BC May 25 - 27 Forests of Change Prince George, BC May 25 - 28 Canadian Skills Competition Calgary, AB May 25 - 28 Rendezvous Canada Vancouver, BC May 28 Self Employment Discovery Workshop Toronto, On May 28 Conquering the Behavioural Interview Oakville, ON May 29 NAPP Job Fair 2008 Toronto, ON May 31 Calgary Education Fair Calgary, AB June 2 - 3 STORE 2008, Canada's Retail Conference Toronto, ON June 5 Healthy Connections 2008 Toronto, ON June 5 People in Motion Toronto, ON June 8 – 10 Apprenticeship – Our Competitive Advantage Victoria, BC June 11 – 12 Western Workplace Health 2008 Calgary, AB June 16 Bio Career Fair San Diego, CA June 23 - 25 Adult Learning Knowledge Centre National Symposium St. John's, NL NOTICE: Jobboom and its sponsors do not necessarily endorse the opinions conveyed in the articles selected for this e-zine and do not assume any legal liability in consequence thereof. Comments: info@jobboom.com Research and editing: Austin Macdonald #noDossier#