Helping your teen get on their career track

I can remember trying to find my first job. I had no idea what to do or how to do it.

Looking back now I wish I had kept better track of all my experiences starting at a much younger age. Even now I find it challenging to remember to keep track of my accomplishments month to month. We know that the habits formed in our youth carry over into adulthood.

I am designing a tool for parents to help their teens keep track of accomplishments throughout high school so that by the time they are in university they have a record they can use for their resume. It will also help them to form the habit of keeping a record of accomplishments.

So I need your help. There a few ways this could be done and I am interested to know which method of tracking you would be most likely to use with your teen?

1. Paper based bound notebook with templates.

2. Web based log in system where the templates are on line and you login to fill them in.

3. An App used on a cell phone.

Please take a minute to answer the survey on the right.

You can also sign up for our student career newsletter.

What problem are we trying to solve?

What problem are we trying to solve?

My former manager asked me this on Thursday. It was in response to the new Public Service Performance Management Agreements, but I think the question applies to what is going on in government and in business. The problem we seem to be trying to solve is perceived apathy- whether it is voter apathy or a workforce that has disengaged, we want people to connect to the systems that they are working within. The funny thing is that people are doing lots and sometimes even more, but yet feel disassociated from the rewards of contributing.

Young people and immigrants (who typically don’t vote) are very active in activities that we would consider to be reflections of engagement- participation in community groups, volunteering, social media, We Day ect. yet they remain hesitant to engage in the formal processes and roles in democracy.

Public servants who are constantly asked to do more with less, have jokes and derision heaped upon them in the media and social media are in fact doing really great jobs delivering service. My road was plowed this morning, even though nasty things are being said about public works budget and management in our local paper.

In the private sector employees still show up at Blackberry and work hard at making it work even though job losses are always looming in the background. The same was true of Nortel when it was in its dying throws.

So what is going on? I think it is that deep down everyone cares about the contribution they are making. No matter what, on some level just saying “to hell with it” isn’t an option. So people work outside and around systems because in the end it is the systems that are broken not the people.

Doing nothing and enjoying it!

 

There is an irony that everyone wants more leisure time and then in the limited leisure time they have they keep themselves ridiculously busy. As a self-professed introvert I am perfectly happy to be by myself doing nothing. The frenetic energy of others doesn’t faze me anymore, however it used to.

I used to feel the need to keep up, to hyper-engage, to fill every moment… and then I realized it made me unhappy and resentful. The ability to be quiet and to enjoy the quiet is being lost (and devalued) in a constantly connected world. Once I began to say no to the dinner invitations, play dates, candle parties and workout sessions a magical thing happened- I reclaimed my life.

It was not always easy to say no. A friend of mine gave me a mantra I now repeat “Nothing to justify, nothing to defend.” When saying no we often feel we need to defend the no. “I can’t go because….” In reality there is no such need to justify why you are not participating. You have the right to simply opt out.

Warning- an interesting thing happens when you do this, you find your true friends. A true friend accepts a no for what it is, a declination of an event, not of them. However others see this as an affront to them, you choosing anything over them is unacceptable. Then they try to make you feel guilty or small. These encounters offer an opportunity for reflection; now that you have carved out some time. Maybe they are just having a bad day, or maybe if you really reflect on it, this person always needs to be in control of the agenda, of you. Eventually, by spending the time to reflect, you will start to see yourself and the relationships in your life as they are, not as you imagine them to be as you whiz through life.  

To learn about yourself and others you need to step away, to get outside of your normal. This is why most training sessions happen outside of your work place. We want to create a new environment where there are no distractions. So think of doing nothing as a life class, where you get away from the distractions, so you can learn something new. What better investment of your time could you make?

Are you READY to communicate via email?

 

Recently an anti-bullying campaign has come up with an acronym to help student decide if what they are about to say it needs to be said. This acronym is T.H.I.N.K. Is what you are about to say True, Helpful, Important, Necessary, Kind? In the workplace this makes sense for the conversations held around the water cooler- but we need something more robust when it comes to corporate emails.

Some days I feel like I am under attack by email. They come in like machine gun fire, often contradicting themselves and the quality of the writing wouldn’t pass my son’s grade 6 teacher. How can we become more thoughtful about what we send? We need to check our emails to see if they are READY to send.

Readable – As people use mobile devices more and more they seem to believe that this terse, truncated from of writing is somehow appropriate for business email. While it is true that “No.” is a complete sentence we should expect sentences to be fully developed and properly punctuated. Paragraphs should be used to separate different ideas or topics. Both spelling and grammar check should be enabled on all outgoing emails.

Engages- When writing you should always have the reader in mind. Too often the author only has themselves in mind. They need to get something out so they do it as quickly as possible with the least amount of effort possible. If you need to communicate something in writing it should engage the reader, welcome them into the topic, explore it and then have the call to action or summary.

Angle- What are you trying to achieve with this email? Show your boss how smart you are, show up your co-workers, poke fun… Email always has an angle. People forward everything they receive in an attempt to show you how busy/important they are, thus clogging up your email and making you unnecessarily busy too! People write emails to put others in their place, either subtly or not so subtly. When you begin an email you should do so fully understanding what your intention is.

Dialogue- All too often these days emails end with “email mail me if you have any questions”. The interesting thing about this statement is it really limits the possibilities. I have found myself wanting to provide feedback or discuss but questions imply that something was not understood or is unknown. What if I get it and I want this to be a two way street instead of a one way street?  Closings like “Please feel free to provide feedback.” “Does anyone have any thoughts or anything to add?”. Encourages engagement and dialogue which – before email is what we used to do, have conversations.

You sure? Ask yourself this question before you send an email.

·         Are you sure they need it?

·         Are you sure that it will have the desired impact? (Your desire should always be positive- if it isn’t reword your email. Always take the high road.)

·         Are you sure that the grammar and spelling are correct?

 

There is a joke around my office that my outgoing mail is more like dissertations than an email. However I put the same amount of effort into formulating my written ideas in any format as I would having a thoughtful conversation. The net result is not a lot of emails, but when I send them out they draw people into a discussion that they want to have.  

Celebrating Your Decision

Most people make decisions and then sit back and wait to see what happens. It is far better to joyfully and fully embrace your decision. By putting positive, rather than neutral (or worse negative), energy around a decision you generate momentum. Think about decisions that generate this kind of energy- saying yes to a new job, getting engaged, planning a family. All these carry a lot of positive energy that help you stay focused on the goal. They also tend to involve lots of people who help to carry that energy forward. So how can you create this kind of energy for decisions that you are making

Creating positive energy around a decision

Pick at least two things from this list to help you celebrate a decision you have made.

• Go out to dinner with friends to talk about your plans
• Post an announcement on a social media site you use- Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn
• Journal about how you are feeling and what you hope to accomplish
• Post a statement or a quote reminding you of the decision somewhere where you will see it every day. Screensavers, fridges, electronic calendars can all be great places to post.
• Form a group of likeminded people who are implementing their decisions so you can build off their energy.
• Create a blog to share your progress
• Buy or find a bracelet or rubber band that will represent the decision you have made. Wear it at least three times a week to remind yourself of the positive change you are making.

Weighted decision making

Weighted Decision Making Matrix

Weighted decision making in designed to take some of the emotion out of deciding about a new job or career options.  In this model you determine what criteria are important to you in a job. It is important to think about all the factors that would affect your decision like amount of time it takes to get to work, reporting relationships, business travel etc. Once you have determined those factors you then choose weights for those factors.

Case study- Sue

In the following example we find Sue who is trying to decide whether to leave her job. She has a young daughter who has some health problems that require a number of doctors and specialists appointments. Sue wants to not only spend time with her daughter but also be able to schedule appointments in a consistent manner. For her hours of work and work life balance are the most important factors. She gives those factors a 9. Pay and benefits are the next most important factors so she ranks those as 7s. What is not very important to Sue is vacation time, since she only wants to work four days or less a week. She gives this factor a 4.

The weights are the same when evaluating both the current and future position.

The potential new job pays a little bit less than she makes right now and has the same hours of work as she presently has. Since it is a new job she will have the opportunity to learn new things.  In her current job she is an administrative assistant, but she was trained as a graphic artist. The new job allows her to use these talents. Her present job has a company benefits the new job has no benefits at all. She has discussed her family needs with the potential employer and they have agreed that she can make up time that she misses when she has appointments that can’t be rescheduled on her day off.  She would be going from three weeks vacation to 4% vacation pay and a predetermined vacation schedule. Sue is not sure which job is the best job for her. She uses the weighted decision model.

	Sue’s Current Job			Job Option A
	weight	raw score	Total	weight	raw score	Total
Criteria
Pay @ least $25/hr	7	10	70	7	8	56
Less than 30 hours/wk	9	10	90	9	10	90
Learning opportunities	5	5	25	5	6	30
Recognize & use talents	5	2	10	5	8	40
Company paid benefits	7	10	70	7	0	0
Vacation	4	7	28	4	3	12
Work life balance	9	7	63	9	10	90
Less						318
Fear (how afraid are you to change?)					5	5
Change (how much will it upset your life)					5	5
			356			308

Sue subtracts how afraid she is of changing on a scale of 1 to 10 as well as how much the change will disrupt her life from the new job. (There is no change if she stays in her current job).

Based on how she assessed each job, she is better to stay at her current job. With Company paid benefits weighted heavily she will most likely always need to find a job with benefits in order for it to be the right job.

This model can be difficult because you need to assess what you really want and how valuable it is to you in relation to other factors. It allows you to see the trade offs you are making in tangible numbers.

	Current Job			New Job
	weight	raw score	Total	weight	raw score	Total
Criteria
Less
Fear (how afraid are you to change?)
Change (how much will it upset your life)
			0			0

Lost Arts- Being Gracious

Being Gracious

The Oxford dictionary defines being gracious as kind, indulgent,
courteous and beneficent to inferiors -the irony of that statement
will not be lost on most.

 

It seems to be en vogue these days to treat others as though they were
inferior whether it is at work, in the grocery store or driving home.
If ever you needed to see where people aren’t gracious just watch cars
trying to merge into traffic during rush hour in any of our major
cities. Being gracious used to be a no brainer, if someone was in
need you helped out. Today however pitching or tuning in requires
putting yourself aside and picking up a lost art.

Being gracious is really about being present with someone, regardless
of who they are or what they are saying. This seems hard to do when
you have a telemarketer on the end of the phone after a long day at
the office. However in most cases that person is trying to pay their
rent or pay their college tuition. They did not choose the job because
of all the perks that come with minimum wage jobs, they are doing
because it is all they have. So being gracious requires you to spend 3
minutes to let them have their say. Then you can politely decline them
without having made them feel inferior.

Being gracious doesn’t mean you have to listen to everything. Think
about the office gossip. You aren’t being gracious when you indulge
them. But the next time a child tries to tell you something that is
REALLY important, and no one could possibly hope to follow the logic-
smile and listen. Be gracious, allow them that moment. You will have
lots of moments for yourself, every once in a while let other people
have theirs.

Who's to blame?

Too often we let other people catch our mistakes instead of recognizing them and learning from them. When this happens we enter into the blame game. In the blame game nobody wins and everybody loses.   

How do you avoid the blame game?

Admitting when you have made a mistake and growing and learning from it allows you to be humble. Admitting a mistake and learning nothing from it is just plain stupid.

How to learn from your mistakes

First assess what really happened without any emotion. Write out the problem and remove any judging, blaming or emphatic words. Here are two examples of the same story.

Judging words

I was running really late for work because the elevator in my building has been slow for the past three weeks. When I finally got out of the lobby an idiot was parked in the loading zone and I had to go all the way around him. By the time I got to the bus stop I had missed the bus. The city has such a poor schedule that I had to wait another 15 minutes for the next bus. My boss is a real stickler for timeliness so even though I was only 15 minutes late, he made me work the extra time- even though I would have done it anyway.

Descriptive words

At 8:30 I left my apartment for work. The elevator took 5 minutes to arrive on my floor. When I left the building I walked around a parked car. The time was 8:40, I know this because my bus was leaving and it arrives at 8:40. I boarded the next bus at 8:55. I arrived at work at 9:15. I worked until 5:15 at my manager’s request.

When you remove all the judging, blaming and emphatic words it becomes easier to see what the real problem was and learn from it. Unfortunately many of us have grown up on a healthy diet of blaming others (I blame reality tv J ) and it becomes hard to see where our responsibility lies. Once you can see your responsibility in the problem you can often find the solution and the learning opportunity.

In this case the employees should have gone to his boss and admitted that he had not left enough time to get to the bus stop. Accepting his responsibility the employee would have learned the lesson and probably offered up the remedy instead of the supervisor having to mention it.

 

Sara Rylott

Ready2fly

Feelings are not facts

I hate downhill skiing mainly because I feel absolutely terrified when I get on a chair lift. Last year I tried again. My skis feel like anchors pulling me down toward the earth. I clung to the safety bar, would not let anyone touch me or talk to me and the tears started to flowing. Being an incredibly logical person, I was telling myself that I am safe, people do this all the time, accidents are incredibly rare…Yet my feelings were totally in charge and they bore no relation to the facts at hand.

It is easy to see that in an example about a phobia of heights how our feelings do not represent the facts. It is harder to see that same concept in our everyday life, but the same thing happens almost daily.

Imagine you are in a meeting with 10 other people. While you are presenting a colleague interrupts you, makes his point, one that calls into dispute what you are saying and then tells the room he has to dash out, but he’ll be right back. You are going to immediately have some feelings about what just happened. You feelings may be hurt, embarrassment, disbelief, anger. These feelings can take over from your logical mind, which will try to tell you, your colleague has always been helpful and supportive, is not normally rude, and is just getting over the flu.

This principle works whether it is a big thing like being embarrassed or a little thing like wanting someone to do something. How many times have parents become angry/ frustrated because their child does not want to eat the dinner presented? The fact is the child does not want to eat, but the emotional reaction of the parent bears no relation to the facts. If a co-worker didn’t want to eat her lunch you would not make a big deal about it, it would not anger you. Yet the child does. This is not to say that we should not encourage children to try new things (thus creating new facts for them). However we should check our thermometer to see if the facts and feelings are matching up.

This requires self discipline and a willingness to examine why you are feeling the way you are. Is it your co-worker, is it the child, is it you. What is really going on?

After my disastrous first attempt on the chair lift, my sons who were eight and ten at the time, gave me lots of hugs and kisses at the top of the hill. They told me how proud they were of me as I stood shaking at the top. At the bottom they expected me to go in and be done with skiing yet again. Instead I kept trying. Each time I was a little less panic stricken. I never did enjoy it, but I kept at it. Robin Sharma says “The mind is a wonderful servant but a terrible master.” For me I was not going up the chairlift to prove anything but to regain control of my mind from my emotions.

 

Think about in your your life where you need to do the same.

Sara Rylott
Ready2fly