City Slicker’s Alternative Business Career Search Alert!
Serious job seekers may be surprised to learn that their most exciting alternative business career search options could best be uncovered in small town America.
The Milken Institute, a private think tank, annually ranks the job growth in cities, according to Time Magazine. 11 of the top 20 cities had populations well under 1 million.
The study showed that many smaller regions share characteristics that act as job magnets. These include lower costs, tax breaks for employers, funding for entrepreneurs and a deepening pool of skilled and educated workers.
Many are college towns, seats of government, or home to a big company that nourishes others. Thanks to the internet and to satellite technology, a company in Iowa can be as connected as one in Los Angeles.
So, if you thought all the job opportunities are to be found in large cities exclusively, the evidence shows the contrary is true. And if you’re looking around, this may be the right time to consider that small town environment you always dreamed about.
Job seekers who once thought their alternative business career search was in major cities and turned their noses up at small town positions . . . well, times have changed and now they’re eagerly seeking small town opportunities while pickings in the big cities are suddenly slimmer.
How do these towns come up with desirable jobs? How can they fulfill your alternative business career search aspirations?
Companies don’t move to these small towns on a whim. It generally takes money in the form of incentives. For example, Arkansas has spent 0 million on roads and airports around Fayetteville over the past decade. Cities like Fort Myers and Santa Fe offer tax abatement packages to big and small business in exchange for creating jobs.
If you’re in the job market, small town America may be your best alternative business career search choice. Of course, acclimating to smaller-town life can take time, especially for former city slickers. But, for a lot of folks, their biggest concern is that small town job opportunities may suddenly get very popular.
Whatever your geographical preferences, there’s one very important tip you’ll need to understand. You will NOT be successful if you insist on using old-fashioned job search techniques!
That’s because hiring decision-makers in small towns or large cities are not going to rely on your resume to make a hiring decision about you. That means you must be prepared to take advantage of powerful alternative job search strategies.
For example, you must discover how to develop and nuture “career partners.” These invaluable personal contacts can literally bring opportunities right to your doorstep. And you can be in the enviable position of selecting your next job rather than settling for it.
“Career partners” is just one of the many innovative techniques that can have you entertaining high-paying job offers in as little as two weeks!
Home Business Career
When thinking about a “career” or referring to the term as such how many people actually know the meaning of the word? When referring to the word or phrase “career” and not having a dictionary in front of me the words progress, promotion and opportunities spring up immediately. With the rush of city life not to mention sitting in traffic a lot of people are thinking of starting a business or venture working from home. But how many people actually think of a home business career? Is there a difference? Well the only difference in the two statements mentioned above is the word “career” and not to make a big issue out of nothing there is a subtle difference.
To work from home or having a home business does not mean a person has a career as such because you might find yourself slaving away doing work for somebody else and actually make somebody else rich and not making any progress yourself. The only criteria you actually fulfill is the fact that you are working from home. On the other hand you might still be working from home for a boss but be entitled to a promotion or make progress in life therefore in a way a person actually has a home business career.
However it might be safe to say that whenever a person refers to having a home business career one can assume that a person is self employed and needn’t answer to a boss for that matter. Another assumption made is that a person working from home is always in some form of computer based business and along with that is off course the internet. Once again that needn’t be the case as a lot of home business careers are based on ventures or ideas outside the computer industry.
For one thing the internet and technology industry does make having a home based business much easier in terms of capital outlay, space occupied and ease of operation in general to name a few. But one thing is certain having an internet or computer home based business does not mean it doesn’t require hard work or dedication for that matter. It doesn’t mean things just happen because computers are involved and everything runs on autopilot with no interference from the pilot. In fact because of this so called easy home business there are literally millions of people trying to make a career out of running an online business but the actual reality is that it requires some dedication and work.
A home business career is something that has to be constantly worked on and developed and like any business needs a hands on manager or owner to oversee the day to day operations of the business.
(c) Make Easy Money Directory 2009
Find More Business Careers Articles
Learn from the School of Hard Knocks to Gain Business Career Success
One of my college roommates had a brother who was a graduate business student and often visited our rooms. Since one of my possible career choices was to work in business, I asked this business student many questions about his studies and career choices. Everything he said expanded my knowledge and made me more interested in a business career.
This information meant a lot to me because I grew up in a small city where there were only two large employers, the Santa Fe Railway and the U.S. Air Force. Neither organization provided opportunities to learn about executive success in a large corporation.
When I began graduate business studies, I was pretty smug, thinking that I knew just what needed to be done: Get a prestigious degree and wait for highly attractive employers to bid for my services.
Talking with the other business students made me realize that I had a lot to learn about career success. I didn’t even understand what executives did in different industries.
My complacent eyes were opened wide one day when a management consultant from the famous McKinsey firm made a presentation. At the end of the discussion, I asked one of the other students who got to do what this presenter did for a living. My classmate quickly responded, “Strategy consultants.” I asked, “What’s a strategy consultant?” He responded that these were people who worked for McKinsey or The Boston Consulting Group. I remembered those answers and later applied to both firms, not quite knowing what to expect.
Even with all of this knowledge, I was totally unclear about how you went from being a management consultant to having a successful business career working for a large corporation. I guessed that someday a client might hire you. And that’s what did happen to me after I became a strategy consultant.
The key lesson from my experience is that you can have a wonderful education at a university and still lack important knowledge about the most fundamental elements of developing your business career.
Students typically prefer to get information about potential careers from fellow students and professors, but research shows that students and professors provide incomplete information. It’s better to also speak with people who have been developing a career for a decade or so to find out what lessons they learned in the school of hard knocks.
I was recently reminded of this source of information to make more effective business career plans when I corresponded with Dr. Robert Hartinger, a banking executive in Germany who is a Ph.D. graduate of Rushmore University. Dr. Hartinger kindly agreed to share his career experiences and lessons with me so that I could pass them along to you.
Dr. Hartinger started off presuming that the quality of your education was very important to career success. After graduating from his business program at a German university, he soon learned that you have few occasions to apply any of the theoretical knowledge that most schools provide. As a result, new graduates are stuffed full of knowledge and theory that has little relevance to what their employers need.
Instead, degrees qualify people to be considered for certain jobs. Many employers pride themselves on hiring from certain schools and restricting top jobs to those with the most advanced graduate degrees.
Traditional schooling provides few insights into what various industries and types of jobs are like. If students aren’t careful, they’ll seek a type of work that they won’t like. There are two alternatives available:
1. Examine industries and jobs carefully to set the right objectives.
2. Study at a school where you get practical experience in applying theoretical knowledge which gives you a sense of what a career doing that work might be like.
Dr. Hartinger doesn’t rule out the first alternative, but he’s confident that the second one is essential. If possible do both, but at least do the second. From what you learn, he also recommends that you focus on just a few opportunities. Otherwise, your attention and energies will be too widely scattered.
A lot of business success depends on your personality. That’s something that graduate schools often ignore. Outgoing people with pleasing, helpful personalities will do a lot better than grumpy, self-absorbed geniuses who rarely talk to anyone.
Many studies show that the ability to connect to other people in the organization greatly helps both job effectiveness and advancement. Why? It’s simple: You can’t know all of the answers, but with help from others you can do a great job.
But it’s not enough to simply be a connection point within the organization. You also need to add skills that improve your effectiveness.
Here’s where online learning can make a difference. People don’t care where you learn a skill; they are just pleased when you add one that’s relevant to your situation.
Today, many companies offer financial assistance for those who wish to learn new skills. When that assistance is provided over the Internet, costs are reduced and you can take more courses than those who enroll in classroom-based courses. In addition, learning while you work allows you the chance to apply what you are learning. In that way, you can sift through lots of theoretical knowledge to get just what you need. Dr. Hartinger also notes that if an online school offers flexibility in designing courses, your skill improvement can be even greater.