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Choosing a laptop is often both exciting and frustrating for customers. The truth of the matter is that most customers just don’t know what to look for in a laptop. They look at the specs and have no idea what the numbers mean. You should start any important purchase with a heft amount of research, figuring out exactly what it is that you are about to purchase, and how you can get the best bang for your buck.

First, Identify what qualities are important to you in a laptop. Is it the size and portability of the laptop? Is it speed? Is it performance? Is it gaming? There are different routes you should take depending on what type of laptop you are looking for.

If you will be using your laptop for school and work, portability is probably what you are looking for. If the laptop will spend most of its time in your house you may be willing to look for a larger, more hefty laptop that performs better.

When you are purchasing your laptop, make sure to ‘un-check’ any extra features you truly don’t think you are going to use. Yea, the built is webcam is cool, but are you really going to use it past the first time you plug in your computer? Probably not in the case of most casual shoppers. Don’t pay for anything you don’t need, and certainly don’t pay for anything you won’t use.

Look at computers that aren’t name brand. Often times off-brand computers will offer nearly the same components, and the same support for a fraction of the price. The real key to saving money on laptops is deciding what is important to you as the buyer. Make sure that you get quotes from several different sources online, because one merchant may offer the same laptop at a substantially lower price.

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Filed under: Computers & Technology

Knowing the salary range of any position is important. It does not matter what position that you are looking to fill you need to understand the salary ranges before deciding the career choice you are going to make. Knowing what to expect can help you to decide what kind of career you want to step into. That is why knowing the average salary for dental assistant is important information when making the decision to become a dental assistant.

In most areas the dental assistant salary ranges are similar. They can vary slightly based on the different areas that you are located in. However, they will not change that much. The average salary for dental assistants is around $30,000. With additional training you can take the steps that are necessary to help increase the salary you will make.

Choosing to become a registered dental assistant, you will find that your pay range will increase by making this change. By having the title as a registered dental assistant the your pay range will increase. This is one of the most efficient ways of increasing your salary.

As with every type of position there is a pay scale. You have the opportunity to increase your pay grade by adding different certifications and experience to your resume. If you want to find out how to increase the dental assistant salary, you need to look at the different pay grades, and the different pay grades depending on the qualifications that you carry. With each of the position levels, you can easily increase the average salary that you will make.

Dental assistant salary ranges will increase depending on the responsibilities that you take on. As with any job the increased responsibility will help to increase the corresponding pay. You do not have to change your title to change your pay rate. You have to increase the responsibilities.

Being a dental assistant is a very rewarding career choice. Taking the time and effort to learn the job and the skills that are required is one of the best steps that you can take. Often times adding in office manager work will help you to increase the average salary for dental assistant. Many of the dental assistants are required to have some sort of office experience. By taking on the additional office management duties you are going to also increase the salary range that you will make.

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Filed under: Careers

A career is not a job. According to Oxford, it is “one’s advancement through life, especially in a profession.” This distinction is important. A job is something you do for sustenance, but a career is your life path. For most people, the ‘perfect’ career is the successful amalgamation of the two.

‘Perfect’ is a hyperbole, of course. If there is a perfect life path out there you don’t want it. Life without challenge or struggle would not just bore you; it would make you a twit. What I mean by the perfect career is a career that fulfills you, and that you enjoy and are proud of. It’s a career that makes the struggles and challenges worthwhile, and unless you’re a survivalist or independently wealthy it’s one that pays the bills.

Only the very lucky decide early what they want to be when they grow up, possess the support and capabilities to realize their dream and love it when they get there. Most of us have a diverse, dynamic array of talents and interests, as well as social and financial pressures that bring struggle to the realization of our perfect careers.

If you don’t know what you want to do but are at a point where you feel it’s time to decide, take a day off to follow yourself around. Interview yourself. Find the nearest job center and fill out interest tests and surveys, or see if they have a career counselor. Find the nearest learning center and check out courses and workshops offered at local colleges and universities or in the community. Write lists: favorite pastimes, things you are good at, secret or not-so-secret obsessions, aspects of work that you enjoy and those that make you grumpy. You likely won’t come up with your perfect career that day, but you’ll have a clearer idea of your field of interest and of some of your available options.

Some fields of interest are deemed socially more desirable than others. If you aim for a career in engineering or business you are unlikely to be met with opposition. However, if you are a collector, an athlete, an inventor, a student of the general sciences or – worse – of the arts, prepare to defend your life’s path. Believe me, it is worth defending. Your dreams depend on it.

Generally when those around you question or discourage your path, they think they are acting in your best interests. These are people who, when they ask what you do, they mean, “how do you make money?” It’s true – while an engineering student is virtually guaranteed a well-paid, permanent position on graduating, the painter or collector of interesting rocks may need to supplement their career with a job, especially in the early years. And so what? When you’ve written your Pulitzer Prize winner, when you’ve run your first Death Race, when you discover your first star, nobody will care that you work at a convenience store.

If you have chosen a unique, creative life path that isn’t necessarily lucrative, it’s time to start busting your hump. If you are a dancer, dance every day. Cultivate relationships in the dancing community. Go to auditions and look for dancing contests, contracts and lessons. In other words, be a dancer. Eventually, you will be paid to dance. Perhaps you will be paid well enough that you no longer have to clean hotel rooms, drive a semi truck or sell real estate to get by. The perfect career, and only about a trillion hours of blood, discipline, practice and fleeting moments of pure grace, beauty and joy to get there.

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Filed under: Careers

They say that most people do complete and total career changes at least once often twice in their lifetimes. Very few people chose the ideal perfect career for themselves when they’re in high school and blissfully happily work those same jobs for the rest of their lives. With the way that technology and everything else changes so fast, I think it’s ridiculous to expect to stay in one job from the time you leave school until you retire. Even staying in the same company can be a huge challenge. So how will you pick your first career? Your next major career change?

The first thing I want you to look at is what kinds of things do you enjoy doing and what you are naturally good at. Imagine that you just won the lottery and you will never have to work again for another day of your life. How would you spend your time? After the shopping sprees and traveling and such grows old, you’re going to have to fill your days up doing something so that you aren’t bored out of your mind. What would you do? What would consume your attention if you could freely bury yourself in it? Is there a way to make a living at that now? Is there a way to incorporate some of that into your current career? Could you begin doing it now as a hobby and grow it into a second income and eventually quit your ‘real job’ to play full time at your new hobby/career?

You obviously have to look at practicality issues. Truth be known my very favorite thing to do is drive convertibles and suntan at the beach. That’s not likely going to ever become a career and it sure as heck isn’t going to pay my bills! You have to look at what you like to do and take a realistic look at whether the market is ever going to pay you an income for doing it. Just because you love doing something doesn’t mean that the world is going to love giving you money for doing it. There are plenty of musicians and artists out there who can’t earn enough to support themselves. It takes more then just a love of your work. Pick a number of different things that you love and narrow the list down by deciding which ones would realistically finance you at the level that you require.

Another thing to consider, especially when you’re choosing your first job is how much education or special training is required. How many kids think that because they love to play basketball that they’ll be the next Michael Jordan? How many put in the kind of work and practice that he did? If you want to be a doctor, then you better seriously contemplate the years of college and the extremely high cost of going to medical school. Down the road, a lot of the experience you get in one career can be transferred to your next career. Customer service skills that you learn while waiting tables will still serve you later when you’re an entrepreneur. If you have a lot of the skills from previous work experience, but not all of them, then you have to figure out how to finance going to night school or whatever else you need to do to change careers. Additional education and skills shouldn’t stop you from changing to a great job that you know you’ll love, but you do need to take it into serious consideration while making the choice.

Many of the community colleges have these cool placement tests that tell you what kinds of work you’d be happy doing. They ask you a bunch of multiple choice questions like if you’d rather work indoors or outside. Do you want to travel as part of your career or stay home? How much weight are you willing to lift? How introverted or extroverted are you? How much money do you want to make? After you answer these questions and a bunch more, the computer system spits out a list of careers that you would be suited to. Keep in mind that what interested you at twenty isn’t likely to be the same as what interests you at forty. I would think that you could do an online search and find some of those tests online. These will give you some ideas you may have never considered. I remember taking one when I was in my early twenties and I ranked extremely high at “Clergy.” I laughed and thought that was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard of. I wanted to be a motivational speaker and it took me a couple of days before I realized that it’s a very similar job description. Whether I’m telling you about God or I’m telling you how to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, it’s the same skills and many of the same daily tasks. I’m preaching a different topic, but I’m still up on my soapbox telling you what to do and telling you how to live, aren’t I? So be open minded to what the test results show.

So, start out by brainstorming ideas of things that you would love to do if money was not an issue. Then add to it the results of one of those placement tests. Take the ideas from those two exercises and start looking at the practicalities of marketability and how much education and training are necessary. If you can find a way to do what you love and make a living at it, then you’ve got the key ingredients to creating a life of abundance and prosperity that the rest of the world only dreams of. You don’t have to stay with something just because you used to love it and now you make a lot of money doing it. If you are bored and ready for something new, then start dreaming and planning your next adventure.

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Filed under: Careers

When it comes to modern career development, one thing we can all count on is change. With the advent of technology, telecommuting, and E-commerce, how work is performed is in a state of reinvention. Self-employment and small business development will become more the norm than big business. And career changes will be more frequent due to rapidly changing organizations and industries. Finally, the line between one’s personal and professional life will become even more blurred. Since the modern world of work is rapidly changing to keep up with the demands of our fast-paced lives and lifestyles, here are some characteristics of what the new work contract will look like:

* Seeking more meaning from work. * Equating “career success” with personal satisfaction over paycheck or status. * Everyone will need their own “name-brand.” * Increased use of technology. * Finding work that needs doing. * Changing in the way management and leadership is conducted (less arrogance at the top level, more power on lower levels). * Increased need for networking and self-marketing. * Lifelong “trying on” of various roles, jobs, and industries. * Creating a plan that is flexible, and continually assessing the “fit” of the work. * Increased representation of women and minorities in the workforce. * Changing career fields numerous times in a lifetime. * Self-responsibility: Everyone knowing they have to chart their own career direction.

However, the 21st century career also offers many advantages:

* More career opportunities for everyone. * Freedom to choose from a variety of jobs, tasks, and assignments. * More flexibility in how and where work is performed, i.e. working from home or telecommuting. * More control over your own time. * Greater opportunity to express yourself through your work. * Ability to shape and reshape your life’s work in accordance with your values and interests. * Increased opportunity to develop other skills by working in various industries and environments. * Self-empowerment mindset. * Allows you to create situations or positions where you can fill a need in the world that is not being filled. * Opportunity to present yourself as an independent contractor or vendor with services to offer.

How can you successfully navigate through the turbulent times of change and career uncertainty? By developing resiliency, exercising proactivity, creating excellent self-marketing tools, keeping your skills up-to-date, and finding your unique life balance.

1. Develop resiliency (the ability to bounce back)

Having the right attitude about career change is imperative to your ability to bounce back from setbacks, sudden changes, and twists and turns along your career path. You will experience a lot of career change and transitions, so you may as well get comfortable feeling uncomfortable.

2. Take a proactive approach to your career development

You must constantly be on the lookout for new ways to apply your gifts and talents in the new economy. This requires thinking creatively, actively promoting yourself/business, and being actively involved in how your career progresses. Staying involved in professional associations, and continuous networking are excellent ways to connect with other like-minded professionals.

3. Create first-rate marketing materials

Always keep your resume current. You never know when you are going to want to share it with someone or pass it along. If you are in business for yourself, develop classy business cards and letterhead. Harness the power of the internet by developing an interactive website.

4. Commit to lifelong learning

To keep earning, keep learning. Do not wait until you lose your job or want to look for another position to gain new skills or training. Recognize the need to be open to learning and attend classes related to your area of expertise to keep your skills sharp and marketable. Keep in mind the top skills needed for career success include:Communication, Computer-knowledge, Creativity, Customer Care

5. Find your unique life balance

There are four dimensions to life: love, labor, leisure, learning. Remember that work is just one aspect of your life pie. Be sure to indulge in all of your areas. Because having an overall balanced life is what leads to the most fulfillment.

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Filed under: Careers