Sunday, December 29, 2019

Learning a Trade You May Still Want to Earn a Bachelors Degree

Learning a Trade You May Still Want to Earn a Bachelors Degree Learning a Trade You May Still Want to Earn a Bachelors Degree The trades industry is hot.According to Tradesmen International, some of the most common jobs for craftsmen are projected toexperience double-digit growth by 2024. For example, openings for millwrights are expected to rise by 15.2 percent, openings for electrician helpers by 18 percent, and openings for solar photovoltaic installers by a whopping 24.3 percentIts no wonder many people seegoing into a trade as a great way to secure lucrative employment without incurring the high costs of student debt.That said,just because you are entering the trades, that doesnt mean you wont want to earn a degree at some point. As with any career, you probably do not want to stay at the bottomof the industrys ladder for very long. You will want to take on managerial and teamberatery roles at some point. To move up, your employer may prefer you have a degree.For example, when I conducted a recent online search for roles in construction management and related positions - e.g., foreman, superintendent, project manager, etc. - I found the majority ofthe job announcements wanted someone with a four-year college degree. According to O*Net, 76 percent of construction management roles require a bachelors degree, 12 percent require some college, and 4 percent require a post-secondary certificate of some sort.Another thing to consider is that many jobs in the trades industry are tough on your back and joints. As you get older, you may find you are struggling to perform tasks at the desired level of skill and efficiency. If you are injured and cannot work at peak performance, moving into a supervisory or leadership role will give you a way to continue working and earning while also sharing your expertise with others.I have also seen many skilled tradespeople move into teaching careers. With the increasing demand for plumbers, vehicle painters, bricklayers, and so on, there is an increased need for instructors to teach the next generation of tradespeople how to do unterstellung jobs. If you want to undertake a teaching role, be prepared to earn a bachelors or masters degree before you get hired.Other Ways to Set Yourself ApartEarning your college degree can be a path tocareer advancement and increased earning potential in the trades, but its not the only way to set yourself apart from other similarly skilledworkers.Once you have a job in the trades, you will want to continue to gain experience in your industry. Seek out additional responsibility by volunteering to lead projects and teams. Obtain the OSHA certifications required for your industry, and learn to use the software and tools necessary to perform your dutiesto the best of your ability.Brush up on your soft skills as well. Active listening, critical thinking, speaking, and complex problem-solving are just a few of the soft skills employers like to see in tradespeople. Ensure your resume shows you can communicate effectively with supervisors and peers, resolve conflicts, negotiate with others, orchestrate schedules, and make decisions.- Think about your long-term career growth when you seek employment in the trades industry. Stay abreast of changes in your career, such as new technologies designed to automate some or all of your tasks. If you want to stay employed in a trade for the long haul, youll need a plan for moving from performing the task to being the one who supervises it.Ensure you are ready to move up by knowing what employers want. Be suspicious of those who tell you you wont need to do any additional training or studying to rise through the ranks. Your current supervisor who doesnt care about your lack of degree may not be your supervisor forever. Plan for long-term growth by taking control of your career trajectory.Jaynine Howardis a military veteran whose work as a career strategist and reinvention specialist has been recognized by professional organizations throughout the nation.

Tuesday, December 24, 2019

The Best Answers You Can Give During a Job Interview

The Best Answers You Can Give During a Job InterviewThe Best Answers You Can Give During a Job InterviewIf youve been in the job market for any length of time, youre probably familiar with the standard approach that prospective employers take when it comes to delving into a candidates worthiness for an open position. The interrogationsorry, we mean interview, starts off with a review of your qualifications, the job description and a discussion of essential background topics.After the initial get to know you introductions are completed, things take a turn way south with the introduction of THE questions. Anyone whos seen the inside of a conference room knows what we mean here. The dreaded, open-ended intellectual proddings that were designed by someone, way back when, who thought that leaving things open-ended was the best way to pry into the depths of a candidates personality. Yeah, were not exactly big fans of these types of interview tactics, but your next employer most likely will be which means you should be prepared to answer in order to have the best shot of landing that job offer. Dont worry, though, weve got strategies and tips for tackling the answers like a pro.Tell Me About YourselfThis tricky little query will most likely inject itself during the early part of your interview, possibly as an icebreaker. While you may be tempted to talk about your penchant for knitting or overshare the fact that youve broken 15 bones and had your appendix out, dont be fooled by the casual nature of the question. Interviewers are looking for character traits that make you the perfect candidate for the job both from an experience and personality perspective. Think about what traits you may have that achieve this end. For example, if the position calls for management experience, discuss your role leading the local boy scouts or the fact that youre the head of your local HOA. Another perfectly acceptable trait is to be straightforward and mention your qualifications, back ground, and skillset in a non-illustrative way. Read the situation and your potential interviewer to decide which tact to take.Tell Me About a TimeThis is one that can hang up even the most seasoned of interviewees. When your prospective employer is asking for a specific time you demonstrated x, y or z skill or had to accomplish a specific task, be sure to use this as an opportunity to match up your prior experience with the job description at hand.You most likely have plenty of answers you could roll out if youve been in the career world for any length of time. Our biggest tip here is to prepare by reading and then re-reading the traits called for in the position you are applying for and identify several disclosable situations that best reflect these qualities.Greatest StrengthsWe hope you like talking about yourself because this is the awkward interview question that will have you dolling out self-congratulations like a well-seasoned pro. While this may seem like a no-brainer of a question, there are a few important points to remember. First, the traits your interviewer is after have less to do with your windsurfing hobby and more to do with those financial reports youre going to need to review. Keep this in mind and keep your strengths relevant to the job description. Additionally, be prepared to back up any descriptors with an example, in case of the inevitable tell me more follow-on. If you claim to have incredible attention to detail, line up an example to follow or, better yet, insert a brief one into your initial answer.Biggest WeaknessesWe saved a real humdinger for last. The tell me about your biggest weaknesses is the inevitable lebensabschnittsgefhrte in crime to the request to outline your strengths. Potential employers often view this as an area to trip you up, but with a little preparation, you can actually turn this into a golden opportunity to illustrate your skills.When choosing weaknesses to speak to, aim for qualities that you possess in sp ades but are better in moderation. For example, having the ability to herausforderung solve is a great thing but wasting too much time looking for a solution isnt the best use of time. Try explaining that you often find yourself too tenacious in wanting to see things through to the end but that youve worked on recognizing when its best to bring in back-up in the form of your manager or co-workers opinion in order to compensate and help you problem solve. While open-ended job questions can be a tough subject to tackle for many interviewees, with a little preparation savvy candidates will have nothing to fear. Remember that questions throw the ball back into your court and provide opportunities to promote your best qualities. Use this to your advantage and youll be landing that job of your dreams in no time.

Thursday, December 19, 2019

Women leaders -- the untapped talent in your organization

Women leaders -- the untapped talent in your organizationWomen leaders the untapped talent in your organizationThe business case is clear the research and data show that better results are achieved when you have both an inclusive environment and diverse teams. Sandra Bang, chief diversity and talent strategy officer at Shearman Sterling LLPIs your organization doing everything it can to ensure morewomen are promotedto positions of leadership? Probably bedrngnis, but why? Perhaps youre in a position where you have more candidates than positions, but in todays competitive market, that seems doubtful. mora likely, no one has put in the commitment it takes to identify, train and elevate women into key roles.Follow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moreIn my corporate training, The Invisible Leaders How to Find Them and Let Them Shine, I explain how you can excel, both individually and as an or ganization, by leveraging those hidden leaders already working for you. Its much more than just the right thing to do, but if you or someone in your senior leadership need convincing of the power women leaders bring, read on for just some of the reasons why you need to start valuing your untapped talent right now.1. Incorporate diverse thinking and unique insightsEvery leadership book on the market will advise you to surround yourself with a team of people who both think like you and who think differently. Why? Diverse thinking is a cornerstone of great management because it helps us gather new ideas, find our blind spots and problem-solve most efficiently. Why then, would we undervalue women leaders, who bring great insights and creative thinking to the table? If you truly want a dynamic, innovative team,dont underestimate what your untapped female talent can dofor you and the organization. The best discussions will be had when there are a variety of perspectives in the room.2. Imp rove retention of valuable women leadersPeople leave organizations when they feel they are undervalued, when there are no opportunities, and when they see dim or stagnant prospects for the organization itself. If all your company has to offer its women employees is a grim future where they are passed over and unappreciated for all they do, theyll leave. Instead, keep those valuable team members. Find them, help them advance, and enlist them in the effort to grow the numbers of women rising in the ranks of your organization.3. Create improved productivity and enhanced resultsDo your employees feel valued? All of them? If not, why not? We all work our best when we feel we are a part of something important, and that our effort matters. Unfortunately, not all organizations make notice of women and their endeavours, especially if they tend to achieve results in quieter or less boisterous ways. Imagine if,no matter who you were or what your work style, you felt that your company noticed a nd valued your work? The effect on quality and productivity across the whole organization would be undeniable. If you saw faces like yours among the ranks of senior leadership. If people like you were notably valued, you might be more motivated to do truly great work.4. Encourage recruitment of more brilliant talentImagine what will happen when you gain a reputation foroffering leadership trainingand advancement to capable women. Once word gets out that opportunities abound, the best and the brightest will seek you out whenever positions are posted. Recruiting becomes significantly easier if the untapped, overlooked hidden talent of other organizations realize they can come do great work with you and be valued for it. When enterprising, motivated and brilliant women see themselves represented amongst the ranks of your leadership, theyll know theyve found a place where they too can achieve great things a win-win for employees and the company.Now that youre armed with a host of reaso ns why discovering the untapped women talent already working in your organization, start making a plan on how you are going to identify, coach and elevate the women already doing great work.Youll gain a great reputation for diverse thinking and not only improve your existing talent pool but also attract the best and brightest from your competitors as they lag behind in the struggle for great leadership talent.This article originally appeared on SmartBrief.You might also enjoyNew neuroscience reveals 4 rituals that will make you happyStrangers know your social class in the first seven words you say, study finds10 lessons from Benjamin Franklins daily schedule that will double your productivityThe worst mistakes you can make in an interview, according to 12 CEOs10 habits of mentally strong people

Saturday, December 14, 2019

These Brothers Know Oars

These Brothers Know Oars These Brothers Know Oars These Dreissigacker brothers have been quite the rowers. Older brother Dick found his way on to the 1972 Olympic team and both he and younger brother Peter were in the 1976 Olympic trials. But both these men, who also happen to be engineers, later took on a new challenge making oars better. The younger brother took some time to explain how these co-founders of Morrisville, Vermont-based Concept2 pushed into oar innovation.Hey, You Forgot the OarOne of the interesting things is oars at one time were left behind in terms of rowing equipment, Peter says. Everyone seemed mora interested in the boats. There welches a time when boats and oars all were made of wood but then they began using Kevlar and more for boats. We reinforced oars with carbon and made a lightweight blade portion, a hybrid that was somewhat lighter than a full oar. The idea was to lighten the inertia of the oar as you go through the stroke. Once we got our feet wet, we h ad planned on going to the next step and creating a completely synthetic oar which would be a big change.Concept2s three most popular blade types. Image Concept2The synthetic oar advantage was that it was about 75% of the weight of wood, he says. Other disadvantages of wood was durability and maintenance. Wooden could have warping and get dings in the varnish, he says.1990 saw blade design changes. Making the blade larger sounds simple but we needed to be able to maximize surface area of the blade and still row functionally, he says. The molded shape we started from was basically similar to the late seventies and eighties but we changed the perimeter and it was asymmetric for rowing functionalities.The next change partly came from a little out of town Norway to be exact. There was a consultant for aerospace companies, who, as a hobby, did a lot of work with sports and efficiency and aerodynamics and hydrodynamics, he says. He was from Norway and contacted us and said he had put all this information into computers. We made some tweaks to his input and found it improved our speed. In the water, the tip of his design was more like a space shuttle, more like a blunt point. We chopped off that point somewhat and it helped. In addition to that effect, there was the input of another hydrodynamic guy which helped lead to vortex generating features.Rowing with the Younger GenerationA future goal for the company is creating a low-cost oar that would have a strong focus on getting young people involved. Rowing can be a great alternative sport, he says. Were working on an all-carbon shaft with an injection-molded blade. Our voreingestellt racing blade is quite involved with carbon skin and the core material and its a costly process.The hope is to share a little bit of the rowing passion, which once landed the brothers among the rowing elite and has kept them working together for decades. Rowing can get you hooked and its something you might have a chance to do all the way into later life, he says. Rowing is also noncontact and its not the same thing stroke after stroke. Its a complex motion that involves muscle memory and its a lot of fun.Eric Butterman is an independent writer. For Further Discussion One of the interesting things is oars at one time were left behind in terms of rowing equipment. Everyone seemed more interested in the boats.Peter Dreissigacker, Concept2

Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Administrative Resume Secrets

Administrative Resume Secrets The Balance made a valuable collection of skills which are important for administrative professionals. Administrative skills are required for a number of jobs, that range from office assistants to secretaries to office managers. As the use of the administrative assistant is crucial to keeping an office on track, it seems sensible that the vetting and hiring procedure is also more involved. Following that, it must impress the hiring manager with information which is related to them. You should try and give only snapshots of your skills, hence the hiring officer could choose whether you would fit with the organization or not. To abflug with, you might have to to demonstrate that you have sufficient skills the hiring officer is searching for in the administrative assistant. The parte of a secretary, or administrative assistant demands sharply-honed soft skills together with technical ability. You listed all of the correct executive assistant resume qualifications. The administrative assistant position entails a great deal of responsibilities. To put it differently, whatever links your top executive assistant resume to the work description. Most administrative positions involve a good deal of writing. The below drafted administrative resume example will assist you in understanding all these sections in detail and also assist you in drafting an effective resume. Employed as an administrative assistant will be able to help you make a sufficient amount of money and is believed to be a strong career path for everyone with a passion of working with numerous files and secretarial work. He is a vital aide for any executive office. Samples and writing advice will help of a challenging work, must be quite first section. Resume should be simple to deliver excellent patient care and abilities. Resume writing can be challenging. The average mistake job applicants usually commit is by rambling on about how being in the corporatio n can nourish their career rather than vice versa. Now, the question arises as to ways to present your excellent abilities and talents to the prospective employer without joining the organization. The majority of the questions during your resume will be associated with the preceding job that you had and hence you need to be well prepared for it. After the HR manager will observe that your resume is highly geared to their business or industry, they will have a far greater impression of you. Administrator has a big role whilst taking any huge choice. Administrative job is just one of the most commanding jobs in the business that needs strong controlling power and good managerial skills. Professional certifications are available and could be worthwhile for career advancement. Clearly, EAs start out somewhere, and there are a couple of jobs which are closely related. Organization Administrative jobs of all sorts have to be extremely organized. If you produce a generic one for conve nience and submit it for every type of administrative assistant position, its very likely that you arent going to be viewed as relevant for the job. An administrative assistant is like a personal assistant. Administrative work is growing increasingly reliant on software. Many times, administrative workers have an opportunity to move up within their very own company or maybe to move on to new professional opportunities. If youre interested in using your updated resume to locate an excellent new administrative position, Vanguard Staffing can provide help. All information necessary needs to be supplied to make it simpler for the prospective employer to be in a position to get in touch with you at any moment. Additional skills may include the amount of language you speak.

Thursday, December 5, 2019

Rumored Hype on Resume Writing in Dc Exposed

Rumored Hype on Resume Writing in Dc Exposed You have to realise that you probably will bedrngnis discover your ideal position on your very first endeavor. If you set time and effort into your resume, the possibilities are good your possible employer will choose the opportunity to give it careful consideration. The resume help given by SoCalResumes is an effortless way for job hunters to find a leg up on the competition. The resume writing tafelgeschirr is going to need to learn if you are in possession of a current resume or not. In the past few years, the LinkedIn professional network has turned into a preferred supply of premium jobs. Well, your resume may want to get optimized before it will become suitable for the web. There are several different resume formats and prices and youll need to appear through what the resume writing service has to offer to determine precisely what it is you want. The Nuiances of Resume Writing in Dc No matter which type of job youre seekin g, there are 3 primary principles of Resume Writing that you want to stay in mind. DMV Resume Services is among the few resume writing services that provide a 4-hour turnaround time. Your Resume is crucial to your whole future. Writing your own resume can be hard. Lies Youve Been Told About Resume Writing in Dc Folks only understand the demand for an amazing Resume when theyre fed up and choose a job or career change. Projects Give the facts of academic projects you undertook. Resume Writing in Dc Fundamentals Explained In addition, it may lead to future employers wondering in the event that youll say the exact things about them. At exactly the same time, its the reason why so many job applicants dont land their dream positions. You do not have to be worried about your personal details that could be viewed, as we handle the matter on a safe network. Additionally, it means that you may search jobs sitting comfortably before your PC. All are related to who you are and wh at you can provide in your new career. The very best career advice the certified resume writers of SoCalResumes can offer on how best to recover from losing your occupation is to concentrate on the future. Which is the reason why it was perplexing I wasnt a teacher or an author. What You Dont Know About Resume Writing in Dc Use the above mentioned advice, and you are definitely going to succeed. Receiving a PLEN scholarship can greatly help your capability to attend a seminar, but creating a comprehensive budget will help you comprehend the cash you will need to raise in the event you dont get a PLEN scholarship or will need to find extra funding elsewhere. There are several places youll be able to look if you require assistance with writing a resume, including searching through social media sites for freelancers. The feedback will be useful for you in fine tuning your resume. Resume Writing in Dc at a Glance There are a few things you shouldnt include in your resume. You clarify what type of job that you need and why youre qualified, which then inspires confident job-search conversations. Without a stellar resume, the reply is basically no. Allow it to be error-free and utilize simple language for simple comprehension.