Horizon Point Consulting

Author: Mary Ila Ward

  • 3 Steps for Growing Future Leaders with a Job Shadowing or Internship Program

    3 Steps for Growing Future Leaders with a Job Shadowing or Internship Program

    Do you want to grow tomorrow’s talent today? Some of the best companies know the value of an internship program to their talent management strategy. And current research shows that 40% of interns return to the organization they interned with for full-time employment   If you’re a college student, participating in an internship(s) is one of the best methods for ensuring job offers come your way before you graduate.   In fact, choosing a college based on their relationships with top employers and their established, quality internship programs should be a key factor in vetting a college.

    If your organization is considering how to best maintain a talent pipeline, establishing a job shadowing and internship or Co-Op program is a great way to groom and vet talent.  If you’re a university career center professional, establishing relationships with employers, launching successful internship programs is a critical factor in your success.  Starting small and growing a program may be the best route instead of trying to do everything at once.

    Step 1:  If you are an organization, start a job shadowing program through a simple bring your kid(s) to work day once or twice a year.  This can be as simple as having announcing to your staff the day that this will occur and encouraging them to bring their kid(s) to work to observe what they do all day.

    If you want to make the program more robust, consider surveying the students about what they want to be when they grow up and working to match the students interests with people in those roles instead having them simply shadow mom or dad.   Better yet, provide career assessments to students and use that to help match students to talent in your organization.

    Step 2:  Form a partnership business and school partnership to establish a job shadowing day for high school students and an internship or Co-Op program for college students.   Start with one at a time. Work to understand goals of each entity and then design and establish the program meet mutual goals.

    Step 3: This step really goes hand-in-hand with Step 2, but establishing a structured program that best fits the needs of both parties is important.  The structure needs to involve requirements to be a part of the program, application procedures, a calendar for the program and individuals within your company that agree to mentor an intern. Some things to consider when you structure a program are:

    • Model your program after some of the best out there
    • Focus on critical skill development areas where your organization is lacking or will be lacking in talent.  Worried about engineering, computer science or nursing positions, for example, then partner with those departments for your program.  It does not have to be a program that is open to all.  If you’re a college professional, you probably want to establish internships in the “fuzzier” program majors like the liberal arts.  Placement for these majors is more difficult, so establishing relationships with employers who want to take students from these majors is wise.
    • Provide training to those that are acting as mentors to students and allow them time to focus on development of that intern, which may mean removing some responsibilities from them in order to do so.
    • Focus on soft skill development through teambuilding, communication and problem solving activities and assignments.
    • Focus on exposure to a variety of people and experiences throughout the program, including fellow interns.
    • Focus on promoting the company as an employer of choice through exposing interns to the benefits of working with your company.  This may involve education about what “benefits” really are beyond what is traditionally focused on like salary and healthcare.
    • Design a way for high performers to get job offers before their internship experience is over- don’t loose them.   College professionals should help employers structure this, which will help with first destination rates for the school.
    • For college professionals, be careful about the partnerships you create around the issue of paid vs. non-paid internships.   Based on the current legal environment, we recommend you partner only with those who offer paid opportunities given that the definition of a non-paid intern is established, but gray at best.
  • How Personality Assessment Can Help You Be A Better Leader

    How Personality Assessment Can Help You Be A Better Leader

    “This is why I’m not married anymore,” said a participant in a recent leadership training class.   She was partly kidding, but it was obvious that the results of her personality assessment, which were being used to launch the leadership training series we were conducting for her company, had struck a cord.

    Her personality assessment showed that she was a highly dominant, take charge, get it done kind of person.  These characteristics had served her well in her role in finance with the organization, but she realized that maybe her personality had impacted the success of her marriage.

    In another conversation with the director of a college career center, concerns were expressed about students’ ability to know themselves- their strengths and areas for development- and take this knowledge into the workplace in order to succeed.  In designing a leadership workshop for them, our first approach was to implement a personality assessment to help these student leaders with the self-awareness they seem to so desperately need.

    As we’ve often said, self-awareness is the first step in establishing yourself as a leader.   Although it isn’t the only way, personality assessment can help with this self-awareness and then provide a framework for building interpersonal relationships, providing feedback, delegating and a host of other leadership issues.

    Here are some assessment tools/vendors we use based on client needs (Note: It’s important to know which personality assessment is right to use based on your organization’s needs.   You should define the needs first- are you wanting to facilitate teambuilding, leadership coaching or training, make better hiring decisions, etc.- then pick the best assessment, not the other way around.):

    Hogan Assessments

    DiSC Assessments

    Tools from Assessment Associates International

    Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

    How as a personality assessment helped you at work or in your personal life?

  • 3 Ways to Keep Your Adult Kids from Moving Back in with You

    The statistics are startling.  In 2009, 80% of college graduates moved back in with their parents according to CNN Money.  That’s just because the economy was so bad then you say.

    Probably not.

    Market Watch reported that a Pew Research Center Analysis determined that in 2012, 36% of adults ages 18-36 live at home with their parents.   That’s more than 1/3 of young adults in America not out on their own.  If you consider someone over 30 a “young adult”.  And Tim Elmore reports in his new book, 12 Huge Mistakes Parents Can Avoid, that in 2013 85% of college students planned to move back home after graduating.

    Many parents ask me what they can do to help their student be successful in college.  I think the better question is how can we help college prepare them to be successful as independent adults?

    In order to enable flight into the real world instead of a retreat back home, there are three things we need to focus on:

    1. Help them find a career path where their skills and talents are needed in the market place.  Not having a job or not having a job that pays enough to afford to live independently causes students to move home.  If we help them determine career direction and set them up to pursue that direction through their college experiences, then they will be more likely to find quality employment.
    2. Make them work.  With the above being said, just having an educational credential that is linked to a marketable field is not enough.   I recently had a parent of a college graduate call us to ask for help in getting his son’s resume in order to help him to pursue a job.  He had graduated from a top program in a marketable field, but had no job prospects.  He had moved back home with his parents.   When we got an initial draft of his resume from him, it was obvious why he wasn’t having any luck.   At age 24, the kid hadn’t worked a day in his life. On top of that, he didn’t have much involvement in student or leadership activities while in college.   We couldn’t make up experience for him to put on his resume. Simply pursuing an internship in the field of his major at the very least (where I know for a fact there are firms all over the campus he attended clamoring for interns and full-time employees) would have given him opportunities in his field and potential job prospects post graduation, not to mention the opportunity to learn skills and garner experience that can’t be developed only in the classroom.  As Dr. Elmore says in his book, “Work shapes us. Being productive is innately good for human beings.” In addition, working and being responsible for some of their own finances teaches valuable skills and can help with one of the reasons students can’t afford to go out on their own- student loan debt.
    3. Don’t do it for them.   The kid that couldn’t get a job in his field wasn’t calling me about his resume. His dad was.  After talking to his dad two or three times to try to arrange things, I finally asked him to tell his son to call me directly.   If his son had been given responsibility for his future without the crutch of his parents couch and his dad calling to get his resume drafted and pay for it, he might be out on his own now.  It’s just an example of a larger pattern in promoting lack of motivation and drive by doing and fixing everything for our kids.  We enable a can’t do instead a can-do attitude.

    I say this just as much as reminder to myself as a parent than anything. As I listen to my three-and-a-half year old scream that he can’t put his shoes and socks on by himself when I know his is fully capable of doing it on his own my mind flashes to him as a 30 year old at home on our couch.   I calmly tell him he can do it himself and walk away, hoping this doesn’t make us late. I haven’t always chosen this route.

    If your student is headed to college, who is filling out their college applications, writing their scholarship essays, asking for recommendations from teachers and scheduling college visits?  If we are doing all this for them as 17 and 18 year olds, what makes us think they are going to take ownership of things when they graduate from college (if they are even able to graduate by their own efforts) at 22 or 23?

    It’s sometimes easier said than done, but if we all want our kids to be successful in life, not just in college, we need to remind ourselves to think long term by helping them:

    • Discover who they are and help them match that to a need in the marketplace
    • Make them work to help them learn the value of being productive early on
    • Provide them with opportunities to do things on their own, without us constantly rescuing. This includes allowing them to fail when they don’t take responsibility for doing things on their own.

    Interested in more related topics? You may also like:

    Help Your Child Discover

    College Prep Checklist

    Help Your Child Create a Pros and Cons List not a Good or Bad List

    Be a Coach to Your Child

    What are you doing today to prepare your child for tomorrow?

  • 4 Ways to Take LinkedIn to the Next Level

    4 Ways to Take LinkedIn to the Next Level

    You’ve gotten a LinkedIn account set up, created a stand-out profile, built your network and have started searching for jobs.  Now what?

    Ideally your job search should lead to people seeking you out instead of you having to search and apply for openings.  This is done by creating a stellar profile and maintaining a personal brand that is consistent with your career goals.   Be active in your use of LinkedIn so that people will come to you.

    1. Manage your Skills & Endorsements to ensure the ones you want to be known for are seen (How to reorderthem)
    2. Get Active with Groups
    3. Get Active with Recommendation
    4. Be a Content Driver

    Have you taken your use of LinkedIn to the next level?  If so, what results have you seen?

  • Career Spotlight: Systems Analyst

    Being in the business of helping people find jobs leads to people sending you lots of emails of job openings.   We also subscribe to a job club listserv, and get about 10-20 job postings from the group a day.

    This morning I had about 15 job opening emails in my inbox.   Two-thirds of them were IT related openings.  One of the most common job titles is “Systems Analyst” or some version thereof.

    If you like to solve problems, troubleshoot and test solutions, tinker with things until you get them right and enjoy math and science, pursuing a career as a Systems Analyst may be the right field for you.    System Analysts also have to be good listeners in order to understand what end users need out of a computer program or package and then take that information to work with programmers to create, test and troubleshoot IT solutions that make the end users’ lives easier.

    What do I need to be a Systems Analyst?

    Education:  Required: Most jobs in the field require at least a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Management Information Systems or a related field of study.

    If you are a high school student, make sure you are focused on taking advanced level math and science classes as well as computer science classes if they are offered.   Involve yourself in activities the require you to work with others on a team to solve problems and come up with solutions.  This will help you hone your listening, teamwork, problem solving and communication skills.

    Skills:

    Here’s a sample of responsibilities a Systems Analyst would perform on the job from one of the postings in my inbox.  This gives a good idea of what skills you would need to be able to perform on the job:

    “Primary Responsibilities include:

    -Support, monitor, test and resolve hardware and software problems

    -Manage server cluster environments including configuration of shares and permissions.

    -Perform system installation and configuration

    -Evaluate, test, and install system upgrades and patches.

    -Support and maintain end user requirements, including troubleshooting, account maintenance and training.

    -Document and test procedures and configuration documentation used in the execution of routine day to day activities.

    -Maintain, monitor, analyze system components and make recommendations regarding computer system security, monitor network, computer and disk utilization.

    -Conduct software and hardware evaluations, provide technical analysis and implement systems to meet IT goals

    -Work with a team to automate management tasks, streamline processes and perform standard administration functions as needed”

    Is the field growing?

    Yes! At a much faster than average rate of 22%+ nationwide between 2012-2022.

    What is the pay like?

    Not too shabby!

    systems analyst salary

    • “High” indicates 90% of workers earn less and 10% earn more.
    • “Median” indicates 50% of workers earn less and 50% earn more.
    • “Low” indicates 10% of workers earn less and 90% earn more.

    “N/A” indicates the data is not available.

    Source: http://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/15-1121.00

    What’s the Holland Code* for a Systems Analyst?

    Interest code: ICR

    Investigative — Investigative occupations frequently involve working with ideas, and require an extensive amount of thinking. These occupations can involve searching for facts and figuring out problems mentally.

    Conventional — Conventional occupations frequently involve following set procedures and routines. These occupations can include working with data and details more than with ideas. Usually there is a clear line of authority to follow.

    Realistic — Realistic occupations frequently involve work activities that include practical, hands-on problems and solutions. They often deal with plants, animals, and real-world materials like wood, tools, and machinery. Many of the occupations require working outside, and do not involve a lot of paperwork or working closely with others.

     Source: http://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/15-1121.00

    What if I want to learn more about becoming a Systems Analyst?

    Check out:

    ONET

    BLS

    US News  It’s number #2 on their best technology jobs list

    Would you want to be a Systems Analyst? Why or why not?

    *Holland Codes are a way to classify a person based on their skills and interests as well as jobs based on the nature of the work.  If you have an interest in knowing what your Holland Code is in order to match yourself to careers to pursue, you can read more about our assessment process.