Dr M Khalid's global village blog

As a career coach, I get a lot of emails that go something like this: Dear J.T., I lost my job after working for more than ____ years at the same company. In that time, I had a variety of responsibilities. I worked in a half-dozen departments. As the company changed, I would take on new projects as needed. I was a "Jack-of-all-trades." I thought when I lost my job I'd find it easy to get a new one because of all I have done. I've got so many skills and abilities, my resume is three pages long. And yet, I can't seem to get an interview. As I research positions on job boards, I find myself saying, "I can do that!" But, having applied to over 40 jobs, I've yet to get a single interview. What am I doing wrong? The answer is simple: When you try to look like a match for everything, you match nothing. A Job Opening = Specific Problem To Solve When a company has an open position, what they really have is a particular problem that needs to be s...

1. Dental Hygienists Stress tolerance:  71.3 Average annual salary:  $70,210 What they do:  Dental hygienists clean teeth, examine patients for oral diseases such as gingivitis, and provide other preventative dental care. Education requirements:  An associate's degree in dental hygiene and a license in the state they practice in 2. Engineers Stress tolerance:  69.5 Average salary annually:  $92,030 What they do:  Engineers use science and mathematics to come up with economical solutions to technical problems.  Education requirements:  Bachelor's degree 3. Technical Writers Stress tolerance:  69.3 Average annual salary:  $65,500 What they do:  Technical writers produce instruction manuals and other supporting documents to communicate complex and technical information more easily. Education requirements:  Bachelor's degree 4. Urban and Regional Planners Stress tolerance:  69 Average annual salary:  $65,230 What t...

In the past five years the federal government has dismissed more than 2,000 scientists, and hundreds of programs and world-renowned research facilities have lost their funding. Programs that monitored things such as smoke stack emissions, food inspections, oil spills, water quality and climate change have been drastically cut or shut down.   This week, scientists went public with concerns that irreplaceable science could be lost when Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) libraries are closed. DFO plans to shut down seven of its 11 libraries by 2015. Already,  stories have emerged  about books and reports thrown into dumpsters and the general public being allowed to rummage through bookshelves. Fisheries and Oceans library closings called loss to science The government responded that the information will not disappear. On Monday, DFO told CBC News that “all of its copyrighted material has been digitized and that the rest of its collection wi...

French President  Francois Hollande received approval from the country’s constitutional court to proceed with his plan to tax salaries above 1 million euros at 75 percent for this year and next. Under Hollande’s proposal, companies will have to pay a 50 percent duty on wages above 1 million euros ($1.4 million). In combination with other taxes and social charges, the rate will amount to 75 percent of salaries above the threshold, the court wrote in a decision published today. “The companies that pay out remuneration above 1 million euros will, as expected, be called upon for an effort of solidarity on remuneration paid in 2013 and 2014,” the  Economy Ministry  said in an e-mailed statement. Hollande, who once said he “didn’t like” the rich, announced the 75 percent tax in February 2012 as part of his presidential campaign to appeal to his Socialist base. It has become a symbol of his government’s record-high taxation rate. Ref  http://www.bloomberg.com/news...

heating your home office for 8 pence a day- sailing around Britain www.keepturningleft.co.uk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brHqBcZqNzE

Already the world's largest producer of wind power, China plans further massive increases. From a current installed capacity of 75 gigawatts (GW), the aim is to achieve a staggering 200GW by 2020. By contrast, the European Union countries together have just over 90GW of installed wind capacity. The far western province of Xinjiang is one of seven areas designated for wind development. Against a backdrop of snow-capped mountains, turbines are massed in their thousands over the frozen desert. New units are being installed in a frenzy of construction in which the pace of work has been accelerated. Jiang Bo, an engineer with the manufacturer Goldwind, told me: "Seven years ago we could only do one wind turbine in about two days - but our current speed is that we can do two in one day." Fundamental question is the likely contribution of wind power to China's insatiable demand for energy. The most recent figures, for 2012, show that wind only generated...

The US has described new Chinese rules on fishing access to disputed areas of the South China Sea as "provocative and potentially dangerous". Regulations approved by Hainan province of China requiring foreign fishing vessels to ask for permission to enter its waters took effect on 1 January. China claims a U-shaped swathe of the South China Sea, which it puts under the authority of Hainan province. This swathe overlaps areas also claimed by several South East Asian nations. The move comes with tensions already high over China's recent establishment of an Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) that covers East China Sea islands claimed and controlled by Japan, and a rock claimed by South Korea. It also comes as China takes an increasingly assertive stance on its territorial claims across Asia. "The passing of these restrictions on other countries' fishing activities in disputed portions of the South China Sea is a provocative and potentially dange...