How to Plan a Career 11: Within Your Current Company

This continues our series about how to plan a career that will bring happiness & satisfaction

Understanding your favorite skills, your occupational values, your interests, and job titles can help plan a new career, change careers, or plan a career within your current company. You may need additional education or training to improve your status within the company. If so, get it.

To enhance your satisfaction, you still want to compare internal opportunities to your employer description. If not, you may end up somewhere in the company that will leave you unhappy or unsatisfied..

Keep Control of Your Career

Most people dislike their job and would like to make a change. Frequently, they relinquished control of their career to the company. They accept promotions without thought. Sometimes, they stay in the same position waiting for something to happen, rather than making it happen.

So keep control of your career even within the same company. Follow the steps outlined below:

1. Ensure you know what you want as you outlined in your employer description
2. Identify the options within the company for your next change and the one after
3. Build relationships and connections within the company

Identify the Options Within the Company

Consider the following options as you plan a career within your company:

• Upward promotion if such possibilities exist in the organization
• Additional responsibilities within your current position tend to impress management
• Project teams offer opportunities for growth, challenge, and fulfillment
• Lateral transfers provide change and new adventures within the company
• Special assignments present possibilities to build your reputation and visibility
• Skunk works give research oriented or creative people abilities to grow
• Mentoring new employees or new team members adds stature and competence
• Support functions such as sales, marketing, IT, or human resources may suit you

Build Relationships and Connections Within the Company

Identify the project managers, team leaders, and operations managers over the opportunities that interest you. Find ways to show them your ability and impress them you can do the job they want done.

Join me on Friday when we explore building corporate relationships within the company

How to Plan a Career 10: Write Employer Descriptions

This continues our series on how to plan a career that will bring you happiness & satisfaction

That is to write an employer description. An employer description, in reverse of a job description, explains what you want from an employer. Stephen Covey describes this as “begin with the end in mind”. It becomes the template that you compare to all offers. I alluded to it in step 7 when I recommended you prepare a one page description of what you want. I will expand on the idea today.

List the duties you love to perform

• Allocate what percentage of your time you want to spend on each duty you listed.
• That will enhance the chance that you will spend time doing what you love
• It also decreases the possibility that you spend a lot of time doing duties you detest.

Describe the environment you desire in terms of

• Values: that your Occupational Values Test indicated you always value
• Skills: that you will use most frequently to skills you will use least frequently
• Facility: office building, production plant, storefront, outdoors
• Workstation: an office, cubicle, counter, work bay, machine space, assembly space
• Work team: aloof, collaborative, individual oriented, team oriented, no team
• After hour norms: drink, play sports, travel, or do nothing together
• Pressure: high pressure to succeed, calm—no pressure, cooperative success attitude
• Company size: big company environment; big company but small environment, small-business, owner operated, manager operated, government, or self-employed

Define what your want for compensation:

• List a salary range from the minimum salary you will accept to the salary you want
• performance or annual bonuses and frequency of raises
• health benefits, life insurance, 401K or retirement package,
• professional membership dues, subscriptions, and expectation to attend meetings
• training conferences, seminars, materials and other
• car or expense reimbursements
• memberships to country club, health spa, or other
• Work schedule: 8-5 M-F no exceptions, evenings, weekends, flexible, rotating, etc.

Prioritize which of those things are

• Required: You must have these things in your career. If not you will be unhappy
• Highly desirable: You really want this, but will consider dropping it for the right tradeoff
• Preferred: You would like most of these in your career, but will settle for less than all
• Include no designation: You want, but would not regret it if you did not get them

Review what you wrote with family, friends, former colleagues or others working in your field to compare your expectations with their reality. Compare your current and future jobs to your employer description.

Join me on Wednesday to learn more about how to plan a career with your current employer

How to Plan a Career 9: More Training or Education

This continues our series on how to plan a career that enhance satisfaction & earnings

My last post encouraged you to recognize and use the skills, training, and experience you already possess to start your career. You do not have to postpose entering your chosen occupation while getting more training. You can begin in a lower position in the industry using your current skills. Many times the company will add on-the-job training to enhance your ability to perform.

You May Need Additional Training or Education
Nevertheless, your research may surface additional training, education, degrees, licenses, or certifications required to fully enter the career. You can:

• Earn a certificate in just a few months for many occupations.
• You can earn it from a trade school, community college, or from the company that makes the product (Microsoft, PeopleSoft, etc.)
  
• A certificate may allow you to begin working in the field of choice while you get additional education: dental assisting for dentists, drafting for engineers or architects, paralegal for lawyers, medical assistant for doctors, etc.
• Earn an undergraduate or graduate degree if your occupation requires it.
• Bachelor’s degrees now carry the weight that high school diplomas carried in the 1960s & 70s.
• Graduate degrees equal a bachelor’s from the same time.
• Many doctoral programs admit students without requiring a masters
• Many people with undergraduate and graduate degrees work in jobs requiring a high school diploma
• Apprenticeship programs provide great training—with pay—for more than 860 occupations.
• Apprenticeships combine on-the-job with classroom training.
• Ensure that Office of Apprenticeship certifies your apprenticeship
• If you do, your certificate and credential will transfer nationwide.
• Research potential schools or training programs to ensure that
• Employers accept the education or  training provided by that school
  
• Tuition is not exorbitant ($48,000 for a program you can get for $1,200)
  
• Credits and degrees from that school will transfer to other schools

LDS Employment Resource Services offers a good article on Finding the Best School. I suggest you study it.
Read the post on Monday to learn more about planning your career within the same company

How to Plan a Career 8: Use Skills & Training You Possess

This continues my series on how to plan a career that will bring you satisfaction & earnings

Once you decide what occupation you will pursue, you begin preparing to move into the occupation. Hopefully, you reviewed both the Occupational Outlook Handbook and O*NET as part of your decision making process. In addition, I hope you talked to several people working in the occupation that interests you. Then, you studied what you learned and selected a career that will bring the most satisfaction while providing adequately for you and your family.

You Already Bring Some Expertise

You already bring the passion, skills, and expertise to the career if you followed our model.

• You began your research by analyzing what you love to do
• The Motivated Skills Test gave you a list of skill you delight and enjoy using
• You identified skills in which you are highly proficient and competent
• You probably found a way to do the skills that you enjoy doing
• Therefore, you already received both training and experience in some skills

.Getting a 2nd Bachelor’s Degree

You may already posses a college degree. You may have chosen an occupation that typically specifies a different degree than you received. You may think you need to go back to college and get a second bachelor’s degree.

Getting a second bachelor’s degree generally wastes your time and money. There are only four occupations that require a specific Bachelor’s degree to work in that occupation: accounting, engineering, nursing, and information technology. Most companies will accept a specific degree or one “in a related field”.

Instead, invest in a master’s degree or certificate. Graduate degrees carry more legitimacy than two undergraduate degrees. Frequently, a master’s degree will take less time than a second bachelor’s. You can also complete a certificate program in a few weeks or months. They can enhance your degree at a fraction of the cost.

Recognizing the skills, experience, and training you already possess can get you started in your chose occupation. They can get you started.

Join me Friday when we discuss getting more education or training for your future career

How to Plan a Career 7: Putting it All Together

This continues our series on planning a career that bring satisfaction & happiness

Planning a career requires work. The longer you will work, the more time you should invest in planning a career that will provide adequate income, satisfactory responsibilities, and enjoyable experiences. First, you began the process by identifying the values, skills, and interests that are most important to you. Second, you researched occupations through the Occupational Outlook Handbook and O*NET. Now, we’ll put it all together to help you choose what you want to do.

Prepare a Description of What You Want from Your Career

Compile onto one page the information you gathered from the inventories and exercises you completed. List the following:

1. Values that appeared in the Always Valued column on the Occupational Values Test
2. Skills found in the Thoroughly Delight Using and Like Using rows of the Motivated Skills Test
3. The top three of Holland’s personality traits that apply to you
4. The nature of the work, environment, and location that you want in your career
5. The salary you want to make now and in five years
6. The values and skills listed in the Never Value and Strongly Dislike Using rows of the Occupational Values and Motivated Skills tests

Compare Occupations to Your Description

You may research potential occupations using the tools we described in previous posts. Compare your description to the information you find from the following sources:

1. Occupational Outlook Handbook especially the additional information section
2. O*NET Online especially the graphs showing the importance of each element
3. Interviews with people working in the occupations you found most interesting
4. Gaining work experience in the occupation that interest you most

Your research will help you better understand if certain occupations will satisfy your vocational passion. Thorough study will minimize dissatisfaction and potential earnings. Your research just begins your planning. You will need to prepare with training and education once you understand and select the career that is right for you.

Join me Wednesday for my series on how to gain the skills and education for your career

How to Plan a Career 6: Interview People

This continues our series on how to plan a career you will enjoy and earn a satisfactory wage

Knowing your values, skills, interests, and what you want from a career guides your choice. The Holland Personality Codes, Occupational Outlook Handbook, and O*NET describe occupations in detail. They also refer you to professional and trade associations for additional information. While all these sources provide you with good information, people working in the occupation remain the best source of information.

What Information You Should Gather

Prepare questions that will gather useful information. You can adapt your questions from these:

• What do you enjoy the most about your job? What frustrates you the most?
• What tasks do you spend most of your day performing? Describe a typical day?
• How much do you get to do (one of your motivated skills) a day? Week? Month?
• How much does your job allow/prevent you to (one of your always valued)?
• What do you see the future holding for this occupation? Is it growing or shrinking?
• What advice would you give someone thinking of entering this work?

Who Should You Interview

People doing the work you want to explore are the best source of information. You can also gain valuable information talking to the others who work closely with your desired occupation.

You can find people in professional associations, company web sites, articles about the industry or companies. Your family, friends, associates may know someone working in the occupation or industry. They can refer you to people if you ask

• “Who do you know working as a (desired occupation)? or at (a company)?
• “Who do you know that could give me information about (desired occupation)?”
• “I want to learn more about (desired occupation) who do you suggest I talk to?”

Do not expect a lot of time with the people you interview. You make better progress making 3-4 3-minute phone calls coupled with 4-5 two question emails, than one 30 minute interview. People do not have 30 minutes to give you in one stop.

Come back on Monday when we put it all together on how to decide what you want to do

How to Plan a Career 5: O*NET Career Exploration Tools

This continues our series on how to plan a career that enhances your satisfaction & income
In previous posts we explored the benefits of identifying your interests, vocational passions, and occupational values. We discussed John Holland’s six personality traits: realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, and conventional. We shared what you could find in the Occupational Outlook Handbook.
Multiple Career Exploration Tools in the O*NET Group
The following comes from www.Onetcenter.org

“The O*NET^TM team has designed a set of self-directed career exploration/assessment tools to help workers consider and plan career options, preparation, and transitions more effectively. They also are designed for use by students who are exploring the school-to-work transition. The assessment instruments, which are based on a "whole-person" concept, include:

O*NET Ability Profiler

O*NET Interest Profiler

O*NET Computerized Interest Profiler

O*NET Interest Profiler Short Form

O*NET Work Importance Locator

O*NET Work Importance Profiler”

O*NET Occupation Search Tools

From the web site www.Onetonline.org you find “O*NET OnLine has detailed descriptions of the world of work for use by job seekers, workforce development and HR professionals, students, researchers, and more!” You may

• Find Occupations: Browse groups of similar occupations to explore careers. Choose from industry, field of work, science area, and more
• Advanced Search: Focus on occupations that use a specific tool or software. Explore occupations that need your skills
• Crosswalks: Connect to a wealth of O*NET data. Enter a code or title from another classification to find the related O*NET-SOC occupation

The summary provides a lot of information: tasks performed,  tools and technology used, knowledge required, skills, abilities, work activities and context, education level required, interests, work styles and values. It also describes related occupations, wages and employment trends, and  sources of information.

The details section shows graphs illustrating the relative importance of the tasks, knowledge, skills, abilities work activity, work context, interests, work styles, and work values.

You may use the graphs to compare the data about the occupation with the information you found in your Occupational Values Test and the Motivated Skills Test.

Join me Friday to learn more about comparing what you find about yourself with occupations

How to Plan a Career 4: Occupational Outlook Handbook

This continues a series on ensuring you find happiness and satisfaction in your career

If you followed the exercises in the previous posts, you will have 1) identified the skills that you totally delight using, 2) the vocational personality trait combinations that 3) match your interests and traits to occupations that bring you the greatest satisfaction and achievement. Before we continue, I want to remind you that good career planning begins with your passion, interests, and skills. Do not use today’s post to identify potential or hot jobs and then try to squeeze yourself into them.

How to Navigate the Occupational Outlook Handbook

The Department of Labor publishes the Occupational Outlook Handbook to help you explore careers at www.BLS.gov/oco. You will find the category navigation on the left side of the screen easy to use. Your options include:

• Management
• Professional
• Service
• Sales
• Administrative
• Farming
• Construction
• Installation
• Production
• Transportation
• Armed Forces
• Special Features

Click on the option that interests you. Roll over the option that interests you to reveal the categories. Click on the categories to reveal the list of occupations related to that category.

Information in the Occupational Outlook Handbook

You will find the following information about each occupation listed in the handbook:

• Nature of the Work describes the responsibilities, and working condition typically associated with the occupation
• Training, Other Qualifications, and Advancement defines how to qualify for this occupation
• Employment numbers how many people work in various sectors of the occupation
• Job Outlook tells you if the occupation grows “faster than the average”, “about as fast as average”, or “slower than the average.”
• Projections provides a table showing past, present, & future employment numbers
• Earnings describes salaries for the average and  top & bottom 10%
• Wages links you to local current wage data
• Related Occupations describes similar occupations
• Sources of Additional Information links you to more information from trade and professional associations

The Occupational Outlook Handbook helps you explore vocational options. Use it to verify the occupation matches your skills, passions, and interests.

Join me Wednesday to discover how the O-Net can help you learn more about occupations

How to Plan a Career 3: Holland’s Personality Traits

This continues a series on ensuring you find happiness and satisfaction in your career

Once you discover what you love to do, you need to identify compatible occupational fields. John Holland formulated a set of personality types. The Committee on Scientific Awards wrote “His research shows that personalities seek out and flourish in career environments they fit and that jobs and career environments are classifiable by the personalities that flourish in them”.

You Probably Possess All Six Personality Types

Holland identified six personality types. The acronym RIASEC represents the six types (I use the definitions from the University of Missouri Career Interest Game):

• Realistic (The Do-ers): People who have athletic or mechanical ability, prefer to work with objects, machines, tools, plants, or animals, to be outdoors.
• Investigative (The Thinkers): People who like to observe, learn, investigate, analyze, evaluate or solve problems.
• Artistic (The Creators): People who have artistic, innovating or intuitional abilities and like to work in unstructured situations using their imagination and creativity.
• Social (The Helpers): People who like to work with people to enlighten, inform,help, train, or cure them, or are skilled with words.
• Enterprising (The Persuaders): People who like to work with people, influencing, persuading, performing, leading or managing for organizational goals or economic gain.
• Conventional (The Organizers): People who like to work with data, have clerical or numerical ability, carry out tasks in detail or follow through on others’ instructions.

Most people possess all six types, but emphasize three. For example: some people may combine Realistic, Social, and Enterprising.  RSC would represent their code. Others possess SAI (Social, Artistic, and Investigative).

Several instruments can help you identify your personality types. They include Holland’s Self-Directed Search, The Strong Interest Inventory, Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory, and other self-assessment process.

Classify Jobs & Occupations by Personality Types

You can already access classification for more than 15,000 occupations. The University of Missouri Career Game helps you identify occupations based on Holland’s codes. They link back to the Occupational Outlook Handbook so that you can identify occupations that you would enjoy.

Join me on Monday when we discuss how the Occupational Outlook Handbook can help

How to Plan a Career 2: Find Your Passion

This continues our series on how to plan a career that can capture your passion

Thomas S. Monson advised youth and adults ““My advice . . . is that you should study and prepare for your life’s work in a field that you enjoy, because you are going to spend a good share of your life in that field. It should be one which will challenge your intellect and which will make maximum utilization of your talents and your capabilities. Finally, it should be a field that will supply sufficient remuneration [salary] to provide adequately for your companion and your children” (President Thomas S. Monson, “Life’s Greatest Decisions,” Sept. 7, 2003).

Begin With You

Most people plan a career backwards. They start by trying to find the top 10 growing jobs, something their uncle can get them into, or listings in the paper. They try to adapt to what they see. They fail to recognize how many options exist in the world. They fail to consider what they want to do.

I suggest that you begin your search by analyzing what you love to do, what you value, and what captures your passion. Several simple interest inventories can help you begin your journey of discovery:

• Dick Knowdell’s Career Values Test (free)
• Dick Knowdell’s Motivated Skills Test (free)
• Jung Typology Test (similar to the Myers-Briggs Typology Inventory) (free)
• Keirsey Temperament Sorter (KTS-II) (free)
• University of Missouri Career Game (free)

I also strongly encourage you to read and study What Color is Your Parachute? 2012 Edition by Richard Nelson Bolles. He provides some fascinating exercises in the book to help you discover what you want to do and why.

Join me on Friday when we explore Holland’s RIASEC code to match interests to occupations

How to Plan a Career 1: The World Has Changed

This begins a multi-part series on how to plan a career in today’s chaotic workplace

The world of work changed significantly during the last 40 years. You find yourself in the middle of an economic revolution as large as the industrial revolution. Remember how history in school taught us about the cataclysmic changes wrought as the world transitioned from the agricultural age to the industrial age? Well, we’re doing that again, and while the changes are different, the chaos and turmoil parallel each other well.

Changes in Today’s Workplace

The following list outlines just a few of the issues you will need to adapt to:

• Careers consist of a series of 3-5 year jobs rather than staying at 1 place for 30 years
• Project teams and lateral transfers dominate career paths
• Corporations offer fewer levels for upward promotions
• Careers (not jobs) will change 4-5 times in your work life
• Many of the occupations you may work in have not even been created yet
• Job titles mean less and job descriptions correspond less to the actual work done
• Companies invest less in their employees & pay less for their education and training
• Middle class jobs disappear faster, pensions disappear faster, & raises don’t appear
• Salaries don’t keep up with cost of living & most families need 3 incomes to get by

Good things happen too

Today’s workplace also provides positive opportunities for career paths:

• People still get hired for high paying jobs
• Frequent job changes allow for upward improvement and more money
• You can control your career, your happiness, and your success more than ever
• You have more opportunity to pursue your occupation passion than ever
• Management accepts and rewards good ideas that improve a return on investment
• Ingenuity, self-motivation, and communication skills increase chances for wealth

Changes in the workplace confuse many workers. The sum of changes, however, indicate the need for each of you to take control of your career and plan your own future.

Join me Wednesday when I share tools and procedures to identify the skills you love doing

Barriers to Retirement 7: Family Obligations

This concludes our series on possible barriers to retirement

A final barrier to retirement is family obligations. Many people approaching or in retirement find themselves having to use their money to address emergency family obligations. Frequently, these obligations directly spend the money faster than planned. Other times, the costs arise from indirect reasons.

Family obligations may include taking care of parents, spouses, siblings, children, grandchildren or yourself. While occasionally these emergencies could be prevented, frequently they could not. The purpose of this post is not to assign blame, but to confront the brutal fact that family obligations can erase retirement faster than anticipated.

Prepare as Best You Can

You can prepare for some of these family obligations with the following steps:

• Take out long-term care insurance on you and your spouse on your 60th birthday
• Ensure that your parents take out long-term care insurance on themselves, or give it to them as a birthday or anniversary gift. My brother-in-law took out a policy on his mother that saved the family hundreds of thousands of dollars and provide a good standard of living for 4 years after she had a stroke.
• Create educational savings accounts for your grandchildren while you are working
• Discuss among siblings or children how to share responsibilities before they become emergencies
• Establish a trust to protect some of your money, while giving you freedom to use it as needed
• Set guidelines for your children about what you can do, and what you cannot do, if they have problems. Dave Ramsey says never lend to family members—good advice

No one can foresee every emergency, divorce, or foreclosure. Yet, we can prepare for them. I encourage you to review some of these web sites for more ideas: The Sandwich Generation, GoBankingRates, MarketWatch, SeniorLiving, AXAEquitable, and Kiplinger.

Join us Monday when we begin a series examining planning your career in today’s workplace

Barriers to Retirement 6: Working and Bridging

This continues our series on barriers to retirement by exploring work as a new option (This post should have been published on February 1)

We explored 5 traditional sources to fund your retirement: 1) a pension, 2) Social Security, 3) home equity, 4) savings, and 5) investments. Many people will not find enough money to fund their retirement. Today, we will explore the emerging sixth source of funding retirement—one that will redefine the concept of retirement—working.

I work with a lot of people aged 60-80 years old. We have seen an increase of older workers returning to the workforce. I know of two assisted living communities who appointed an employment specialist to help residents find jobs. I personally know more than 100 people over the age of 75 who went back to work in the past 12 months.

Continuing to Work: Both a Requirement and a Choice

So many senior citizens are returning to the workforce that economist created a title for the phenomenon—bridge employment. Bridging means that you work less hours doing the same job you did before, in some cases for the same employer.

Some retirees must go back to work for financial reasons: insufficient retirement, collapsing investments, medical catastrophes, and problems with other family members that drain their retirement. The Journal of Occupational Health found that seniors that must go back to work enjoy it less and usually must find work in different fields.

Other retirees choose bridge employment health reasons. Anita Gutierrez-Folch quotes Time Magazine’s Wellness blog that people who bridge “may be less likely to face major diseases and more likely to keep up daily functions, compared with those who go straight from a full-time career into full-time retirement.”

Long-life spans constitute another reason many retirees continue to work. They get bored after several years of inactivity. While many find activity in service situations, others choose to return to the work place. They find satisfaction, fulfillment, and purpose in work.

So, whether for financial, health, or entertainment reasons. Work has become the sixth source of retirement. It will be interesting to see how this development affects the decade long prediction that the retiring baby boomers will leave a massive void in the workplace. What if they don’t retire?

Join me later today when I conclude my examination of retirement with some possible solutions

Barriers to Retirement 5: Jeopardized Investments

This continues our series on barriers to retirement (This post should have been published on January 30)

While many depend on the first four elements of retirement: 1) a pension, 2) Social Security, 3) home equity, and 4) savings; most ignore 5) investing. This portion of our series will focus on personal investments .

Teaching Our Children to Invest

Let me illustrate differing approaches to investing. When my son turned 12, we taught him to change his savings from a piggy bank to a credit union account to earn interest. In other words his money would grow. My parents also bought him a share of Euro Disney.

His two best friends had different experiences. One boy’s father introduced him, at age 12, to the piggy bank. Prior to, the boy spent what he received. The second boy had opened his credit union account when he was 8. At 12, his father introduced him to mutual funds and encouraged him to invest $25 a month in mutual funds.

This story represents the difference between people. Some teach their children to save and invest—to make their money work for them and grow. Others teach their children to save and grow at a much smaller rate. Still others do not teach their children anything about money management.

Jeopardized Investments Affect Retirement

Typical investments, for those that do invest, include:

• Mutual funds (group ownership of multiple companies)
• Stocks (shared ownership of corporations)
• Bonds (investments in government and other debt instruments)
• Real estate (commercial, industrial, and residential—but not their prime residence)
• Certificates
• Precious metals, jewels, art, collectables and more
• Other investment tools and instruments

Consider what has happened to each of these types of investments.

In conclusion, most people do not invest, and many that do lost money on their investments. Jeopardized or non-existent investments may be a barrier to retirement. If you did not invest in the past, start now.

Join me later today when I explore "bridging” the new 6th element of retirement