National Edition - July 20, 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 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. - eCF Plus Combo: Order the eCF Personal Styles Assessment and eCF Work Values Assessment at the same time and receive a 33% discount off the regular price. Newsworthy Sandwich board is new tool in job search Polishing your resume, agonizing over cover letters… Well, forget all that. Let the job offers come to you. Go viral, and advertise yourself as an employee by donning a sandwich board and parading around downtown, like one enterprising New Yorker did. It takes a whole lot of guts and basic knowledge in arts and crafts! It’s best to keep the sign professional, don’t go overboard with collage. Now he’s fielding interested calls from all over the place, like a recruiter in Singapore. (Source: Reuters) Workplace Challenges Give us mavericks—not Creativity and individualism are overrated in the workplace. In fact, your boss doesn’t think you’re an avant-garde genius, he really thinks you’re just a little off-the-wall. Talented but unconventional people need space to operate (“Let a playa play!”), but this is a major challenge for corporate leaders, who’d rather see their businesses run like finely tuned, well-oiled machines. A new study shows that there is often a scary discrepancy between the kind of employee a company advertises for and who they’re willing to hire. As a boss, you’re really not looking for any maverick entrepreneurs, who, according to one expert, likely come from troubled backgrounds. (Source: Financial Times) Do you consider yourself an entrepreneur? To answer, click here. Trendspotting Behavioural Interviews Oh behave! This new job interview technique can leave job seekers befuddled, fumbling for their accomplishments and stabbing at possible “right” answers. Now, here’s an exhaustive toolkit with links to several articles to help keen individuals nail these tricky situations. Learn the STAR approach to behavioural interviews, a pneumonic device which could help curb an interviewee’s tendencies towards rambling. (Source: Possibilities Online Employment Resource Centre) Career Planning Katimavik: A journey of self discovery While Americans have Outward Bound and NOLS for outdoor leadership and wilderness education, Canadians have Katimavik, their very own version of the coming-of-age, vision-quest experience for youth. An initiative of Pierre Trudeau’s, Katimavik is open to 17-21 year-olds. It’s a nine-month stint that integrates personal and professional development through volunteer work for non-profit organizations across Canada. (Source: Jobboom, Career Zone) Looking for Work Avoiding Extremes The job seeker lives in a boom-bust economy, from the skin-tingling highs of landing an interview to the devastating lows of feeling another opportunity slip away. Perhaps it’s healthier to avoid these extremes. In fact, it’s probably best to approach the job hunt with the detachment of a Buddhist monk. Only, mention it in conversation like one of a number of hobbies or peripheral interests. It can be dangerous to appear completely disinterested. Yet, keeping an even keel will probably let you focus on staying “on message,”—what a wonderful candidate you truly are. (Source: Jobboom, Career Zone) Do you... flaunt it? This workplace advice from a lipstick feminist will surely make more traditional feminists cringe. It’s about flirting your way through the corporate world. A fun and frisky flirt is what every girl needs and don’t fool yourself, you can still get ahead that way. I’ve flirted throughout my career and it never boomeranged. Pretty and smart is still an unbeatable work combination. And, truthfully I got some great inside tidbits by playing along as “one of the boys,” but definitely being one of the girls. Powerful men are readily seduced by the attention and devotion of clever women for whom flirting is an art form. When performed correctly, flirting is a technique that can have a big pay off in the work world. (Source: Main Street) July 24 Do You Have a Mentor? Toronto, ON July 27 - 31 World Veterinary Congress Vancouver, BC August 3 - 6 National Agriculture Awareness Conference St. John's, NL August 7 Grants & Loans Information Sessions Montreal, QC August 10 - 14 World Library and Information Congress Quebec City, QC August 18 - 21 Call Centre Week Canada Toronto, ON August 21 - 24 11th Annual Social Justice Summer Retreat Algonquin Park, ON August 25 - 28 21st World Congress of Rehabilitation International Quebec City, QC September 13 - 14 Go Abroad Fair Vancouver, BC September 19 - 26 National Biotechnology Week Canada-wide September 22 - 26 Toronto Tech Week Toronto, ON 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#