10 Career Goals to Set for Yourself This Year

10 Career Goals to Set for Yourself This Year10 Career Goals to Set for Yourself This YearFrom very specific and concrete goals, to more broad resolutions, the 10 readers featured below provided us with fantastic career goals for the new year. While the resolutions may not work for everyone, they do offer great advice for different ways you can focus on your career, specifically in the form of flexible work.As a flexible job search service, we love hearing how flexible work has or will make a difference. This not only applies to your career, but your personal life as well. We LOVE work-life balanceRead through the following career resolutions, and the rest of the career resolutions from last months contest here, and binnensee what you can apply to your own job search and careerHere are career goals from users and readers just like youSeek out challenges Work at a job where I am challenging myself and learning new skills. JessicaHelp others and yourself Find a job that will allow my talents to be best used to help others, as well as meet my needs, wants, and desires. JohnPromote yourself effectively This year I am looking forward to promoting my small business more efficiently. AlejandraReinvent your path It is time to reinvent my career path, and I love the flexibility of telecommuting. DebExpect success Perform with an expectation of great success. AngelaLook for exciting opportunities I would like to find a new job that is exciting and challenging. On the side, Id like to find another job to have extra income. ShereenStop procrastinating Just one thing for 2015no procrastination. AlessandraFind steady gigs Overcome the ebbs and flows of contract work and find a telecommuting opportunity that keeps me working year round. KarieFind time for meaningful moments I would like to do meaningful work without missing meaningful moments with my family. JenniferLearn new skills Take some classes on how to use social media in marketing in order to update my skill s. FayeThe great thing about these career goals is that they are applicable to professionals at all career stages and in all industries. Whether you are looking for more flexibility, to grow your business, or expand your skill set, these are great career goals to have all year long.Readers, what are your career goals this year? Share you resolutions, goals, and career aspirations with us in the comment section below

3D Printing Better Root Canals

3D Printing Better Root Canals 3D Printing Better Root Canals 3D Printing Better Root CanalsBioengineers at an Oregon dental school are using 3-D bioprinting to take some of the bite out of root canal therapy. Their fabricated vasculature restores natural blood flow to a treated tooth, leaving it healthier and more resistant to damage and reinfection two major reasons for repeated root canal treatments.More than 15 million people undergo root canal therapy every year. Its a beneficial treatment that relieves pain and lets patients retain their natural teeth longer. But root canals rank right up there with colonoscopy and mammography in the rogues gallery of beneficial but dreaded medical procedures. Whats worse, in a small but significant number of cases, the treated tooth becomes reinfected or damaged and the patient has to undergo another dreaded root canal. X-rays, anesthesia and new materials have made the tooth-saving treatment safer and more comfortable, but no one wants to go through it twice. Once perfected, this new 3-D printing method could keep treated teeth alive and healthier, decreasing the need for second root canals.Prof. Luiz Bertassoni works on the process he helped develop to engineer artificial blood vessels, which are used to help regenerate teeth. Image Kristyna Wentz-Graff/OHSUIn current treatments, the infected blood vessels and nerve tissues inside the root canal are completely removed, replaced with a biomaterial and sealed with a crown. But Luiz Bertassoni, an assistant professor of restorative dentistry and biomedical engineering at Oregon Health Science University (Portland), believes his work could lead to root canal treatments that actually restore a living pre-vascularlized pulp-like tissue construct to the treated tooth.We believe this finding may change the way that root canal treatments are done in the future, he says. (The traditional) process eliminates the tooths blood and nerve supply, rendering it lifeless and void of a ny biological response or defense mechanism. Teeth without that functionality are more likely to be lost much sooner, resulting in bigger problems like the need for dentures or dental implants, he says. Fabrication of artificial blood vessels can be a highly effective strategy for fully regenerating the function of teeth.More for You Read about the latest in bioengineering from ASME.orgBertassoni has already made strides in growing networks of blood vessels and capillaries that could potentially support the fabrication of large, complex human tissues and organs for transplantation. Central to this work wasdevelopment of a3-D micromolding technique using bioprinted agarose vorlage fibers to create capillary-like microchannel networks within hydrogel scaffolds.The current work zeroes in on the dental vasculature to put those earlier findings to work.The work was carried out using extracted human premolars that were shaped into 9-mm-long root fragments and sectioned longitudinally. The interior soft tissues and vasculature were removed. The two halves were reconnected and held in place with laboratory film. The team placed a 500-micrometer-diameter agarose fiber mold created with their specialized3-D printing method into the center of vacant root canal. They then injected a biocompatible gelatin methacryloyl (GelMA) hydrogel scaffold containing dental pulp cells into the canal, surrounding the fiber mold. After the hydrogel was allowed to photopolymerize, the team extracted the fiber mold, leaving a 500-micrometer microchannel in its place. They inserted endothelial colony forming cells grown from the interior lining of blood vessels into this void and allowed them to grow for a week. Afterward, the artificial construct had begun to grow dentin-forming cells near the tooth walls and an artificial vasculature within the root canal.Publishing their findings in Nature Scientific Reports, the authors state, This approach represents a simple, yet effective, strategy t o engineer pre-vascularized dental pulp-like tissue constructs with highly translational outcomes.Michael MacRae is an independent writer. Fabrication of artificial blood vessels can be a highly effective strategy for fully regenerating the function of teeth.Prof. Luiz Bertassoni, Oregon Health Science University

7 Tips for Handling a Blemish on Your Resume

7 Tips for Handling a Blemish on Your Resume7 Tips for Handling a Blemish on Your ResumeSometimes your professional past isnt as squeaky clean as youd like. You might have an embarrassing gap between jobs, or maybe you were fired and worry about how to explain that to potential employers. Interviews are like landmines How do you avoid those areas of discrepancy on your resume or put yourself in a positive light, despite your past mistakes?1. Avoid the temptation to lie. Lying never got anyone the job, so resist the urge to cover up your past errors. Instead, try to avoid the topic unless your interviewer brings it up. Dont be the one to bring up any weak points in your work history, but if they do come up, handle them gracefully, says Keren Douek, director of recruitment services at JobDreaming.com. Dont lie, but dont linger, either. Answer any questions directly, but dont feel the need to elaborate too much or go into a great amount of detail.2. Focus on the positive. Your interview er doesnt expect you to be perfect, so dont try to sweep your mistakes under the rug. Instead, guide the conversation to what you learned from your mistakes, says Amit De, CEO and co-founder of Careerleaf.Along with honesty, job seekers should directly assess what they learned from the experience and how they have improved. They can also talk about the plan they have set in place for unterstellung actions to never occur again.3. Be prepared. The worst thing you could do in an interview is stumble when youre asked about the blemish on your resume. Instead, Nicole Lindsay of DiversityMBAPrep.com says, be prepared with a response. Expect that the question item will come up.Lindsay says its a good idea to consult with a mentor or peer to determine the best way to describe the issue so that it doesnt send up red flags for a potential employer. Having a succinct way of explaining what happened can keep you from being embarrassed, and most employers will simply move on to the next question .4. Find the best wording. Sometimes its not what you say, but how you say it. Lindsay says you should use words that minimize the magnitude of the issue- use let go instead of fired, use not forthright instead of lied. Smoother wording can help you even out bumps in your background.5. Be the bigger person. It can be tempting to dive into a he said/she said situation, especially if you feel you werent in the wrong. But you should resist. Douek says Be the bigger person. If youre asked about a negative work experience or a business relationship that didnt end well, dont get petty or get caught up telling your side of the story. Keep your explanation simple and light. You dont want to come across as bitter, even if you secretly are.6. If you were fired ... Theres no need to go into detail as to why you were let go, unless a potential employer asks point blank. Again, use softer wording, and focus on your accomplishments rather than the negatives of your past work history.7. End on a p ositive note. What you want a hiring manager to remember about you is how great you are, and why youre qualified for this role. Regardless of the topic, come up with a way to give it a positive spin, Douek says. If you were let go from a previous position, you could talk about how you gained so much from the experience, you understand why they had to make cutbacks, or how the zeiteinteilung was right for you because you were ready for the next step in your career, she says.Bottom line is The problem spots on your resume should not be huge issues if youre qualified and enthusiastic about the job. Dont dwell on mistakes youve made in the past. That way, the employer wont either.Corrected on 11/21/2012 A previous version of this article misattributed a quote. Its Amit De, CEO and co-founder of Careerleaf, who gives advice on how to focus on the positive during an interview.Lindsay Olson is a founding partner and public relations recruiter with Paradigm Staffing and Hoojobs.com, a niche job board for public relations, communications, and social media jobs. She blogs at LindsayOlson.com, where she discusses recruiting and job search issues.