Alternative Career Paths For Professional Educators
There is a broad range of careers that you can pursue with a background in education, many of which you may never have thought of. You can use your teaching skills for career opportunities in higher education, childcare administration, publishing, information science, journalism, sales, marketing, human resources and much more. And this is by no means an exhaustive list; this is just the tip of the iceberg. And it stands to reason that if you can wrangle a gaggle of kindergartners, seventh-graders or first-year college students, you have many of the skills necessary to manage employees in various settings.
Let’s take a closer look at a few of the career options mentioned above to get you thinking in some broadening directions:
Higher Education
Do you feel drawn to the world of academia and higher education? Educators and teachers are able to transition with relative ease into jobs in higher ed- college administration, student affairs, curriculum development, alumni relations and development, human resources, you name it. Having a master’s degree in education as your foundation, your teacher skills are quite transferable in the higher education workplace, both in faculty and administration. You can work toward becoming a professor, perhaps a dean of a department, a director of financial aid; the possibilities are endless. The Chronicle of Higher Education, the go-to publication for Higher Education professionals, can better help you get a grip on the ins and outs of academia.
Curriculum Specialist / Instructional Coordinator
As a teacher, you’ve probably been (or will soon be) intimately involved in planning, preparing coursework and developing syllabi for your classes. If you enjoy that aspect of teaching and want to shape the student learning process on a grander scale, think about becoming an instructional coordinator, or curriculum specialist. You’ll train other teachers, choose textbooks, coordinate the implementation of technology, evaluate existing programs for suitability and success or even develop a unique curriculum to be used by teachers. This is an exciting and creative field, and for many, as rewarding as teaching.
Information Science
As a direct result of the digital revolution, information science is one of the most exciting fields emerging today. Information scientists attend to how people present, access and use information of all kinds. The amount of data and information available is ever expanding, and is increasing across fields and contexts-from the natural and social sciences, to the humanities, to private and public sectors alike. Educators play an important role in how this information is presented and how we access it. Digital libraries, websites, blogs and all types of online user services are emerging that rely on knowing how a person learns and accesses information, and how others respond to it. Opportunities in new media, online publishing and distance education-just to name a few-abound for students trained in educational practice and theory.
Human Resources
Do you enjoy forging professional relationships and team building? You may want to consider human resources development, perhaps as a personnel or labor relations specialist. Human resources, as a job field, is ever-evolving-pulling together elements of psychology, management, financial planning, economy and development to help steer and guide a company toward shared goals. While it’s true that human resources professionals are commonly thought of as bridges between the management and workforce, it can be so much more. So do some investigating yourself; check out this broad and informative overview of careers in human resources, training and labor relations management.
Museum Curator
Are museums your cup of tea? They often employ those with education degrees as archivists, curators and technicians. Museum jobs offer an educational and fascinating alternative to the classroom. An archivist will research, classify and catalog information of all types-photos, news articles, film, video and sound recordings, letters, books and all manner of electronic data. A curator, on the other hand, is more likely to deal with tangible items-art, collectibles, historic objects, bits of nature-and coordinate displays or programs for the public. Museums are the educational cornerstones to our past and future, and museums are always in need of emerging professionals, so check out the American Association of Museums career page to learn more.
You’ve just had a look at a very small slice of the career options available to those with master’s and professional degrees in education. With the ways in which we interact, learn and work changing so rapidly, entire industries are being built around emerging technologies and new economies. Perhaps the wheels have started turning for you and you’ve begun to realize that a master’s degree in education is in no way a limitation on your career options, but instead can prepare you for a whole world of exciting work opportunities. Do your own research, delve deep into your own interests-work will never feel like work as long as you’re doing what you love.
How to Kill Bed Bugs – Tips On How To Get Rid Of Bed Bugs Quickly And Easily
Many of us were put to sleep with the saying, ‘good night, sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite’ as children, but have you ever really thought about what bed bugs were? Bed bugs are not as bad as everyone thinks they are, of course. They don’t carry vicious diseases or imply uncleanliness–bed bugs can be picked up without you ever having to do anything but they are certainly a great deal harder to get rid of than they are to get. Luckily, learning how to kill bedbugs is not hard to do at all, and many of the things that you might have heard about their dogged tenacity to make your life miserable isn’t true at all.
If you want to know the truth about how to eliminate bed bugs, put the mop and bucket down. Contrary to popular belief, bed bugs do not give a care in the world about the cleanliness of their surroundings. They are easily transmitted through clothing, luggage, boxes, and other vehicles from location to location and that is how they survive. Many people try the approach of just abandoning the premises for a while, in hopes that the bed bugs will be gone when they return but unfortunately they are known to live up to a year without a host to feed off of, so you might have to truly abandon your residence for that tactic to work.
A way to kill bed bugs more easily without having to move out of your home is to completely eliminate them; this can be difficult as these little creatures can hide just about anywhere, from behind the light plate on your wall to under your pillow and mattress, and seal up all cracks and crevices in the home–even the area between the wall and the molding where the floor meets the wall. Sealing up these areas decreases the likelihood of the bed bugs finding a place to lay low until the air clears–literally.
After everything has been sealed and exposed, there are a few methods you can use to get rid of bed bugs but the most practical by far is steam cleaning. Most professional exterminators will use steam cleaners to kill the bugs as they can hardly survive at temperatures above 110 degrees Fahrenheit. The heat kills the bugs, and after that it is just up to you to clean up the remains and make sure you don’t ever have to deal with the bed bug problem ever again.
After the bugs have been killed, the problem is no longer how to kill bed bugs but how to keep them gone. If things are done right, rarely do bed bugs re-surface but it is important to always keep an eye out for them when you are traveling, even if you are staying at the Ritz-Carlton or the Waldorf-Astoria. After all, bed bugs do not discriminate and they have a tendency to travel great distances just to make the lives of human beings a tad bit more trying.
7 Tips For Writing Thank You Letters With Class
When I first started tracking the information preferences of people visiting my Writing Help Central Web site I was surprised to find how many folks were seeking information on how to write thank you letters. In fact, “thank you letter” information and sample templates are the fifth ranked destinations at that Web site.
In reality, thank you letters are among the most important letters we will ever write. Whether business or personal, an effective thank you letter needs to be written with sincerity, tact and sensitivity.
Following are a few tips that will help you whenever you encounter thank you letter situations in your business or personal life.
1. Make Sure It’s Appropriate
One of the main issues with respect to thank you letters is to know when to send one. As a general rule, I would say “better to be safe than sorry”. However, make sure there is something noteworthy about the situation. A thank you letter for a routine situation doesn’t make sense and dilutes their meaning.
2. Write It Promptly
It is always best to send a thank you letter as soon as possible after the event for which you are doing the thanking. It will help with the level of sincerity in your letter if the event is still fresh in your mind. In any case, a delayed thank you letter will seem like an obligatory afterthought to the recipient.
3. Remind The Recipient
In your introductory sentence, make it very clear that it is indeed a thank you letter and that it pertains to a specific event, situation and/or person. This will eliminate any confusion on the part of the recipient as to the purpose of the letter.
4. Make It Short and Direct
Get straight to the point and never exceed one page. Thank you letters should be short, direct, sincere, and to the point. In business situations they will always type-written but personal thank you letters can be hand-written or typed, as appropriate to the situation.
5. Make It Personal
By definition, a thank you letter is a sincere personal gesture from one individual to another. It should be expressed as a heartfelt personal sentiment, even when written in a business situation. At the same time, strive to be balanced in approach and don’t be overly effusive.
6. Always Write it To One Person
Always write your thank you letter to an individual, not an organization or group. Even if it’s a situation where a group is involved, write your letter to the senior person in the group and/or the group spokesperson. Ask that person to please pass on your sincere appreciation to the other people in the group, and name them in your letter if possible. (Contrary to advice given by certain so-called experts online, in my experience, writing a group letter is NEVER appropriate and achieves little or nothing).
7. Check Spelling and Grammar
As when writing all letters make sure you carefully check your spelling and grammar. This is even more important for thank you letters, since they are almost always a sincere statement of appreciation from one person to another. Be sure to double check the spelling of all names used in the letter. There’s no quicker way to blow your credibility and sincerity than to misspell someone’s name.
The bottom line on thank you letters is “make it appropriate and sincere”, or there really is no point in sending one.
Functions of Management – "Strategic Manager"
Many critics would say that the term “strategic manager” is an oxymoron. Those critics, however, have a narrow view of what a Manager or management team can do, especially since the best conceived corporate strategies often fail because the organization lacks the capability to execute those strategies. This is precisely why management is strategic. But one must not forget that management is also tactical in nature. Managers can play the role of coach, counselor, advisor, and change agent. This paper will discuss the four functions of management: planning, organizing, leading and controlling.
Change is part of the evolutionary cycle of everyday life. Today, more and more organizations are faced with a dynamic and changing environment that is necessary to maintain their existence in the competitive economic world of business. These organizations realize that change is here to stay and know that if they do not change they will not survive. Whether employees like it or not, managers, supervisors, and leaders have to implement organizational changes. Nicolo Machiavelli once said, “There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things” (European History Quotes (2006). In the controlling function of management, managers must be able to provide managerial control, manage technology and innovation, create and manage change. To be successful change agents in any institution, managers must know the technical requirements of the change and understand the attitude and motivational demands for bringing it about. Change agents are risk takers who identify areas of needed change in the organization.
They demonstrate flexibility in goal setting and support and reinforce the individual efforts of subordinates during the change process. In addition, change agents recognize the need for change and identify the options and resources available to implement a change, as well as identify and implement appropriate strategies to minimize and overcome resistance to change (Wiest, D.,April-June 2006). For many organizations, change management initiatives first introduced organizational development (OD) concepts into the organization. In most cases, such change increased the demand for management activities in the area of training and development as the need for new skills emerged; managers have responded by providing such training either directly themselves or by bringing in OD consultants and trainers as needed. The role of the manager grew to become more consultative as the demand for managing change effectively across the organization grew. As a result, managers must assist leaders, staff and employees in planning and managing such “change initiatives” in parts of the organization or for the overall organization, thus engaging in OD work (Hawthorne, P. , 2004). Thus, the need for the organizing function in which managers must help to create an organizational structure with agility, human resources management, and a diverse workforce.
Companies must be prepared to provide assistance to their employees in various situations. Mangers must lead and to do so must be able to provide leadership, motivate for performance, instill teamwork and communicate effectively. Often times it is a good idea for an empathetic and specially trained staff member to act as a counselor. This counselor would need to establish guidelines for the organization’s response to the employee’s situation, to make a list of resources that employees might need. It would also be advisable for the individual to make time for workers who are in need of this benefits or support. Many times this individual is a member of the human resources department. Whether dealing through issues such as death, performance management or employee relations, HR must provide these tactical roles for employees. But the role of counselor or advisor must also reach the levels of upper management. “The hierarchical model emphasizes the HR role as agent and advisor to corporate management while the professional model centers on the management of the relationship between the corporation and critical external groups” (Eisenstat, R. ,Autumn 1996) In many companies, the most basic role for the management function has been as an agent for, as well as an advisor and support to, top management. Managers must be able to think through the implications of business issues.. They must be able to investigate it, analyze it, intellectually incubate it, document it, base recommendations on it, and run it up the flagpole. Managers must concentrate on the critical problems of running the business. With administrative and operational efficiencies in place, the attention of managers has turned to other aspects of management. Faced with rapid and constant change, many organizations are seeking improvements in workforce productivity in order to maintain a competitive advantage and, as a result, turning to their managers to help redesign the management function in fundamental ways.
Managers must not only keep up with the pace of business, but also lead the way. They must move faster than even the fastest business teams, anticipating needs and providing solutions before executives ask for them. The clients and customers consider all of their needs to be top priority. Service quality requires them to be respectful of their requests, and to be as responsive as can be. Certainly they need to enable clients to meet their needs promptly and effectively. But they may do this by referring certain tasks to others who can perform them more quickly and efficiently, because of their expertise and service delivery systems. Managers can use technology (email, direct data base access, etc.) to enable employees and their departments to be more self-sufficient. They may also quickly reframe employees’ requests as problems they themselves can solve, without our further involvement (Walker, J.,Sept 1999). Here lie the many functions of managers.
7 Skills on How to Become a Marketing Manager
There are seven skills needed to work as a marketing manager. Several of these skills revolve around communication with people and some of them require your personal knowledge; such as how to navigate a computer. Nonetheless, this is what employers expect of you. Employers expect these skills to correspond to your work ethic as well as your experience. I have done thorough research throughout three different occupations within the field of becoming a Marketing Manager and all of them required these seven skills in order to be hired. Depending upon how many of these seven skills you possess, you may find yourself being in the right industry and find that you have the skills to be a successful marketing manager.
7 skills needed to work as a marketing manager are:
o Strong Interpersonal and Communication Skills
This skill is needed daily. If you cannot interact with people let alone customers, how are you going to ever persuade someone to purchase your product? It will be extremely difficult. Don’t be a stranger, start today by strike up conversations with your friends, mentors, even your professors.
o Must possess the ability to write well
There is a difference between writing well and just plain writing. Writing well enables you to dig deep into your vocabulary and make what your writing interesting for your readers. The ability to understand what is grammatically correct and incorrect will be foreseen through every memorandum or business plan you write.
o Advanced computer skills using the Microsoft Office; Word, Excel, Power-point
These three things are the basic necessary skills one will need in order to operate within an occupation. The inability to type fast and navigate these pages will create an extreme difficultly for you. Computers are becoming a part of human society’s everyday lives so if you have not purchased Microsoft Office, buy it now and begin learning how to use it!
o Be outgoing and optimistic
In order to be comfortable within your work environment, one must be able to interact with others cordially and even at times in a joking manner. Work should be productive but also enjoyable. Being optimistic will start you off on the right foot of everyday. Go into work with the attitude that you’re going to work hard but also be upbeat and excited for your job; more colleagues will like you and you will have the correct mindset to gain customers!
o Team Oriented
You must be able to work well with others. Meetings with other employees and executives will become part of your daily routine. The way to impress the executives will be to show how diligent and how cooperative you and your team worked. If someone isn’t pulling their weight, pull them aside and let me know what they need to be doing.
o Exhibits Problem Solver Qualities
Whether it’s finding a solution with a failing product or resolving a disagreement with your boss, you’ll need to be able to possess the quality of innovation in order to fix the product’s issue or create a new product. Another quality that a problem solver possesses is respect. Showing respect during a misunderstanding will only make you look classy and professional; it can even make you stand out above other employees and how they cope with problems.
o Obtains Presentation and Project Management Skills
Creating power-point presentations and being able to present them properly will impress your employer as well as your colleagues a great deal. There is nothing worse than becoming bored and uncertain of what one is presenting. Make your presentation interesting and make people want to listen to what you’re talking about. The ability to manage a project due date is another tool you will need in order to ensure that you and your team are on schedule.
After combining all of these necessary skills to employers that are vital to your success within this career, you will soon become a successful marketing manager. Possessing and perfecting each of these skills throughout your career can only loft you into becoming a better employee and possibly score you a promotion.
Strategic Management Process – The Operating Stage
The Operating Stage of a strategic management process is the fourth and final stage of the process. During the Operating Stage, a company will stabilize its operating environment, refine its business and market strategy, and identify opportunities for improvement. Coming after the Building Stage, and the growth that normally occurs during it, the Operating Stage can seem boring, like the business has plateaued. However, this feeling is not reality. There is still much work to be done during the Operating Stage, and additional growth in revenue and profitability to be realized.
A key attribute of the Operating Stage is that it forms a feedback loop with the other stages of a strategic management process. After the initial work-through of a strategic management process, a company stays in the Operating Stage forever, or until there is a major revamping of the business. Information is captured in the Operating Stage that is fed back into the other stages in the process, where refinements and adjustments are made as appropriate.
The remainder of this brief article summarizes a few of the more important activities that take place during the Operating Stage.
Making Adjustments
Making adjustments to the outputs of all three of the other stages of a strategic management process can be extremely beneficial if they are done carefully and thoughtfully. Adjustments can serve to refine a company’s market strategy, business philosophy, and performance management system, and are usually the result of decisions made regarding transactions that are raised during the Operating Stage. These of course can be of many different types, but here are a few of the more common adjustments that we have seen:
Tweaking the Market Strategy. Normally, there are no major adjustments to market strategy, but minor refinements can be valuable.
Discontinuing Activities That Are Not Consistent with the Market Strategy. Unfortunately, these adjustments are all too common, and they are difficult decisions for a company to make. However, they are necessary. Continuing activities, whether they be products or services, that are not consistent with a company’s market strategy will only undermine the defined market strategy, and render the entire process invalid.
Further Refinement of Segments and Buyers. This also is typical. As more is known about customers and buying factors, it is natural to use that information to create deeper segmentation of markets. This can be a valuable exercise.It probably goes without saying, but decisions regarding transactional adjustments must be made very quickly and implemented without delay. Transactional decisions should not interfere with the timing of the normal daily business flow.
Capturing Information for Improvements
Other information captured during the Operating Stage may not be associated with specific transactions, but is equally as valuable, maybe even more so, because more general information lends itself to broader, longer-term strategic decisions. Information is critical to managing a business strategically. So, it is important to capture as much information as possible on a routine basis. Of course after being captured, the information must then be summarized, triaged, and categorized before being fed back into the other stages of the strategic process.
Here again too, the types of information captured can range widely. However, here are a few of the more common categories that we have seen:
Market Feedback. This type of information typically comes from the sales force. There are always customers or other types of stakeholders that do not like a company’s market strategy. Of course, there are also stakeholders that do like it, but those are normally not as vocal. It is important to capture all of this type of information and understand the motivations behind it.
Revenue Enhancements. These opportunities are normally associated with pricing structure, but they can also lead to expansion of markets.
Cost Reductions. At times, these suggestions can be real gems. Most companies are surprised at the suggestions they receive in this category.
Quality Improvements. Enhancements to quality, whether they be for products, services, or delivery, ensure long-term success
Who participates in capturing information? Everyone in the company should be encouraged to participate. The quantity of information that flows in is normally quite large. Therefore, a database application of some type for information capture is normally required. There are typically two methods of capturing information:
Facilitated. In this method, a small group is formed to facilitate the capture of information. This group provides assistance with classifying opportunities and quantifying potential payback. Some companies use outside consultants for this purpose to ensure objectivity. Reports are provided periodically to management for decisions.
Non-Facilitated. In this method, a process is created for employees to follow when submitting suggestions. Employees are responsible for all information submitted, including the quantification of payback. In this method, management normally plays a more significant role in classifying and prioritizing suggestions prior to decisions being made.Over time at some companies, the capture of information can begin to wane. This should not be allowed to happen. The level of information flow during the Operating Stage is a good indicator of how well the strategic management process is working.
Rewarding Performance
Employees who make suggestions, based on specific transactions or otherwise, that are adopted and lead to improvements for the company should be rewarded for those suggestions. These can be treated as an addendum to a company’s performance management system. However, perhaps the best way to handle them if possible, is to work them into the performance measurement system created during the third stage of the strategic management process. This can be time consuming, but it ensures that rewards for suggestions are handled equitably with other performance rewards.
* * * * * *
The final stage of a strategic management process is the Operating Stage. A company that moves through the first three stages of the process, remains in the Operating Stage forever, or until the company’s business is totally revamped. During this final stage in the process, a company captures information that is fed back into the other three stages for management decisions regarding adjustments to key outputs of the process or improvements to operational performance. If implemented properly, the Operating Stage provides a solid foundation for a company to manage strategically and successfully over the long-term.
Top 10 Meeting Ice Breakers
Getting people comfortable in a group setting before a team meeting can be the best investment of ten to 15 minutes of time that you can make. Ice breakers get creative juices flowing, can increase the exchange of ideas, establish team identity, and create a sense of community. All of these items are important in forging top productive teams. But how do you get people to participate and not feel uncomfortable with an ice breaker?
For meetings in a business setting in which participants are professionals, ice breakers that require actions not normally associated with day-to-day behaviors in the office generally make people uncomfortable. Successful ice breakers for these type of groups generally consist of having attendees share memorable information with each other, create innovative ways to get people to introduce themselves to each other, or have group members collectively work on a problem where everyone has to contribute.
We’ve selected our top ten team meeting ice breakers that are sure to get your meeting participants relaxed and ready to focus on your agenda as well as to connect with others in the group.
1. Brainstorm!:Break the meeting into teams of four or five. Give each team a topic. Pick topics that are fun and simple like, “What would you take on a trip to the desert?” or “List things that are purple”. Give your teams two minutes, no more, and tell them “This is a contest and the team with the most items on their list wins.” Encourage the teams to write down as many things as they can and not to discuss anything, just list things as quickly as possible. At the end of two minutes, the team with the most items on their list wins! This helps people to share ideas without fearing what other people will think.
2. Same or Different:
Divide the meeting into teams of three or four and give each team a large sheet of paper and then give each person a different colored marker. Have each person draw a large oval such that each oval overlaps with the other ovals in the center of the piece of paper. Give the group or groups, a theme that pertains to your meeting objectives. Ask the participants to write down at least five or more entries in the non-overlapping and mutually overlapping areas of their ovals. Give them five minutes, no more than that, to talk about their similarities and differences and write them in their own ovals on the paper. If there is more than one group, compare results and identify common themes in both parts of the diagrams and what light these similarities and differences shed on the purpose of the meeting. This helps team members develop an understanding of shared objectives and in a non-confrontational way learn how their views differ from others in the group.
3. Fact or Fiction:
Have everyone write down three surprising things about themselves, two of which are true, and one of which is made up. Each person, in turn, reads their list and then the rest of the group votes on which “fact” they feel is the “false” one. If the group does not correctly pick a person’s made up “fact”, then that person wins. A group can have more than one winner. At the end, the whole group votes on which of the “winners” of the final round, had the most deceiving “fact”. This helps people get to know and remember their colleagues.
4. Free Association:
The object of this ice breaker is to have small groups generate as many words or phrases as they can that are related to a particular topic that focuses on the objective of your meeting. Give the group or groups a key word you want them to associate with and then give them two minutes to list, as quickly as possible, as many words or thoughts that pop into their heads. For example, if your company is trying to decide on whether to reduce travel and increase the use of teleconferencing, you might use the word “teleconferencing” and have people list as many words or phrases they can that they associate with the key word. For example they might say: “saves money”, “saves time”, “impersonal”, “need to see other people”, “get distracted”, “sound quality”…. This reveals what people are thinking, similarities in viewpoints, and possibly even problem areas or topics that need addressing or further discussion.
5. Nametags:
Prepare nametags for each person and put them in a box. As people walk into the room, each person picks a nametag (not their own). When everyone is present, participants are told to find the person whose nametag they drew and introduce and say a few interesting things about themselves. When everyone has their own nametag, each person in the group will introduce the person whose nametag they were initially given and mention something of interest about that person. This helps participants get to know and remember each other.
6. Desert Island:
Group people in teams of five or six and tell them they will be marooned on a desert island. Give them 30 seconds to list all the things they think they should take and each person has to contribute at least three items. At the end of 30 seconds, tell the teams they can only take three things. Have the person who suggested each item on the list tell why they suggested it and defend why their item should be one of the chosen three. This helps the team learn about how each of them thinks, get to know each other’s values, and how they solve problems.
7. Commonality Plus:
Group your meeting participants at tables. At each table ask the group to list ten ways that everyone in that group is similar. Let them know that they cannot list body parts or clothing and that what they select cannot have anything to do with work. One person at the table should be tasked to make their list. At the end of your time limit have the group share their list with all meeting members. This is a great opportunity for your meeting attendees to learn about each other’s hobbies, families, and common interests.
8. Line Up:
As people enter your meeting hand each one a piece of paper with a different number written on it. Ask the group to arrange themselves in numeric order without using their voices, hands, or showing their number. This helps the team to think of other ways to communicate with each other and to work together to achieve a common goal.
9. Meet and Greet Shoe Pile:
This works great in large groups and is a variation of the name tag ice breaker. Have everyone take off one of their shoes and throw it into a pile. Have each group member pick up a shoe and walk around the meeting room greeting other people as they try to match their selected shoe to the one another team member is wearing. This is a great way for new people to meet several members in a group.
10. First or Worst:
Have each member tell the group their first or worst job in turn. This easy to use ice breaker works great with teleconferences too and allows team members to spark conversation with each other and to have some fun commenting on the jobs that they have each done. Many of our top ten ice breakers can be used for on-site meetings and teleconferences alike. The nature of ice breakers is to get the group to talk, to share, and to get to know each other in a casual exchange. The best and most successful teams start with a little bit of fun; learning how to value what each member brings into the group. Ice breakers can help facilitate this exchange of information and comfort in doing so at the very start of the team forging process.
Importance of Career Planning
Career means profession, which we want to adopt for earning livelihood, and planning means proper flow or to make proper decisions.
Pre- planning in our life plays very important role in every aspect of life, to work in a proper flow, and pre-planning for career, which we want to pursue in our future ahead after acquiring certain level of degree is also very necessary in today’s competitive world.
According to the Thorndike dictionary
“A goal that you desire to achieve in a selected field or occupation with a well-thought out plan, to get you there is called Career Planning.”
The world is now moving very fast, and the time has come when this meritocratic society accepts only those, having right qualification and right skills.
Olden days are gone, when just a degree would help an individual to get high profile job by giving bribe or using some other mean. Now it’s high time, when the transparency in job recruitment has taken place.
Challenges and competition are the part of today’s society, and therefore, Career Planning is the only task, which can guide us to do what we want to do in our life, rather than just aimlessly changing job all the time in future.
We have seen many Pakistani, who after completing Intermediate don’t know where to go, what to do and we have also seen graduates, who aimlessly do graduation without any specialization. As a result, they earns just in 6-8 figures.
Career Planning is one of the broader aspects of learning in our existence. We all have some intentions and we all think to have stability in our future lives, and for that purpose, CAREER PLANNING serves as a key to success.
Career Planning makes a person to think suitably about their positive and negative aspects. All about their interest, about their creativity becomes possible through proper analyzing ourselves.
Career Planning basically starts, when a person finishes Secondary/ Higher Secondary level of education. After that level, a person could opt for that educational degree, which would help them out to have a good job opportunity according to their skills at the right time.
Career Planning helps us to design and formulate our future smoothly. Like, If a person wants to be a banker, then he or she would choose to go for ACCA or CA or MBA in finance after completing Intermediate in commerce and Graduation in commerce/ business administration.. Else he/ she would go for CAT course or Masters in Commerce or even upto doctorate level.
This pre-planning would be effective and would give him/her benefits after achieving educational targets effectively. It also helps us to evaluate our own personality, which helps us to know that which kind of job would suit us according to our need and capabilities.
In short, Career Planning is like mapping our future. Without proper planning, no one could think of getting a desired job in future.
Think what we want to do and finding out more about the kind of training, education, and skills we will need to achieve our career goal is the core objective of career planning.
It help us knowing the nature of the jobs that interest us, such as educational requirements, salary, working conditions, fringe benefits, promotion chances, future prospectus, and help us focusing in the right dimension.
Career planning directs us, motivates us, and helps us to accomplish what we want. A career goal is a specific vision such as an architect or a teacher or a career goal can be a particular field, which we want to work in, such as Media, Education, Medicine, Engineering etc.
For those who will think about their future and career after completing education without any long term desired goals are the one, whose all attempt might end in smoke.
There are some cases and situation, which bound a person to pre-plan in advance, such like family high family business status, lack of interest in studies or traditional job, low motivation, low financial status etc or some past educational traumas, which had made a person to plan after wards.
Career planning is a life time process we are always learning and growing, and as we do, our interests and needs also change. Career planning is not just making plans to obtain our career, but it also help us to make many adjustments there will be along the ways we learn throughout our lives.
Those who have successful careers like educators, business man, manager, pilot, architect, banker, doctor etc are the one, who has made their ways through proper guidance.
No doubt, that our parents have some wishes and expectations from us, but we have our own too. Therefore, we should also consider others opinion. For that we could take guidance from an educational counselor to get better guidance towards new dimensional fields as well. Teacher, professionals, career guidance websites, Head educational consultants can also guide us, to have a better approach for our future.
We must have freedom of speaking and freedom of choosing our career as we have to lead our lives which interest us. We must try to have an open mind in order to choose the right career on right time.
According to one renowned professor,
“Few of us like to opt for those degree courses, which their family or friend has advised them to adopt and this inappropriate knowledge trapped them into a great mistake and
In this way, they are unable to get good job opportunities according to their interests. Only Proper Career Guidance would help an individual to be on the right path before hand. Few of us try to seek the right path and take guidance from family or teacher to tell them what is good for them, which career is in demand and which career suits their interest.”
The future is un-predictable, however, we could still make our place in this meritocratic world by making career goals and plans in advance, for getting better opportunities in today’s pluralistic and globalize world.
We must pre-plan our goals under the supervision of professionals in conscious state of mind, so that we could strategically maintain our goals and follow it towards the path of successful future.
Basic Management Skills – What Makes a Good Manager?
Basic management skills are necessary to run a small business. Some business owners believe that leading vs managing is most important. In reality, you need to be able to both lead and manage.
What makes a good manager? There are definite business management styles and skills to focus on; specifically for small business owners. If you’re the owner or manager of a small business, it’s important to understand what those basic management skills are and to try to incorporate them into your own behaviors. Why? Because some skills are more successful than others and because some styles will engage your employees, while others will dis-engage them.
Business management skills such as planning, decision making, problem solving, controlling and directing, and measuring and reporting are needed for the daily operation.
Using their small business plan, effective managers direct the business operation. Communications, benchmarking, tracking and measuring are tactics and strategies that they use to check their direction, to adjust the plan (if necessary), and to move the business forward. Good managers act to achieve the desired results; and they manage people and resources to get where they want to go.
Understanding what makes a good manager, means understanding what motivates employees. How do you build an environment and culture that encourages employees to participate? How do you increase employee productivity and employee satisfaction; simultaneously? How do you recruit the best talent, and then keep them? How do you train your staff to solve problems, make decisions, and involve others in the process? These are just some of the challenges, and responsibilities, of managing.
As a manager, you need to understand what the common business management styles are (autocratic, paternalistic, democratic, and passive are the most common styles). And you need to understand what your style is, and how that style affects business results.
Four Business Management Styles:
Autocratic: The manager makes all the decisions; a “command and control” (militaristic) management style. Focus is on business; doesn’t want any personal ‘stuff’ to get in the way. The benefit is that decisions are made quickly. The cost is in high employee turn-over as employees find this style difficult, and stressful.
Paternalistic: The manager makes all decisions (or most of them) but focuses on what’s best for employees. The benefit is that employees feel the business is taking care of them. The cost is that employees don’t take care of business – they are uninvolved and have little at risk.
Democratic: The manager wants input from the whole ‘team’ and majority rules. Often good decisions are made and employees feel involved in the business (the benefit to this style) but the process is very slow and you can’t always make everyone happy.
Passive: The manager abdicates responsibility to the employees; and calls it delegation. The benefit is that employees often step forward and learn in this environment. The cost is that the direction is scattered and there can be numerous false starts because there is no real manager.
Managers typically use more than one style, depending on the situation. If brainstorming creative new product ideas is today’s focus, then the manager may want to use a democratic or passive style. If a decision about keeping or firing an under-performing employee must be made, the manager may need to use an autocratic or paternalistic style (hopefully not a democratic or passive style).
In most small businesses, the business owner is also the manager and the leader. In your business, make sure that you have a good understanding of your own business management styles, skills and qualities and learn how to control them and use them as necessary.
The Best Debt Negotiation Companies
What should you expect from the best debt negotiation companies?
The best debt negotiation companies can work with basically anyone to reduce the amount of their debt. By negotiating with collection agencies and creditors to reduce the amount of debt, clients are able to settle their debt for 30 – 70% of the original balance. Other forms of debt elimination simply move the debt from an unsecured card, to a secured asset. This lowers the interest rate, which is a good thing. But it doesn’t eliminate the debt. Its still there, but now its against your home or other hard asset.
Look for a company that is always looking out for their clients. They are members of the Better Business Bureau, or of an organization like the Consumer Recovery Network. These companies will make sure that their clients become debt free in the shortest possible time.
Make sure you ask plenty of questions. Become an informed consumer.
The best debt negotiation companies won’t make promises they have no way of keeping. They cannot “guarantee” that they will be able to arrange reductions in the balance of all of your debt. Some creditors just won’t deal. While most credit card debt can be reduced substantially, there are creditors that simply will not budge. Many debts can be settled for pennies on the dollar, in fact most – but by no means, all. I’m just being honest here.
A knowledgeable company wont tell you to completely break off all contact with your creditors. I’ve actually talked to clients who had worked with programs that told them to tell the creditor to never call them again. The problem with this strategy is that it leaves the creditor very little options for collecting the debt. It will most likely speed up the process of legal action. While it may be advisable to tell your creditors to not call you at work, you certainly don’t want to break off contact entirely. Keep the lines of communication open. It makes it much easier to resolve the debt.
The best debt negotiation companies won’t guarantee that they will be able to remove information from your credit report, when that information is perfectly accurate. Many collection agencies, and creditors, will remove information after they are paid. They really have no vested interest in leaving it there. Why would they care, they have their money. So negotiating that the creditors listing be removed or altered as a part of the settlement works in a large number of cases, but not 100 percent of the time.
The caveat to this, is that you may only need to remove a couple of negative accounts to raise your score to an acceptable level. So you may not need to remove 100 percent of the negative data to have a positive effect.
The best debt negotiation companies will give you the costs up front.
Professional help with debt negotiation can be a tremendous asset in alleviating problem debt. These companies can also cause a number of problems. If you have decided to negotiate, eliminate and settle your debt, the best debt negotiation companies are the best place to start.