Horizon Point Consulting

Category: Beyond Work

Beyond Work is our line of resources for people and community leaders looking for something new and innovative outside, be it a new job, career change, or personal development outside of work.

  • Career Spotlight: High School Teacher

    Career Spotlight: High School Teacher

    Do you love kids? Are you a good communicator who has a passion for coaching and developing others? Is organization one of your strengths? If so, then a career as a High School Teacher may be perfect for you.

    On the other hand, if you don’t enjoy being around children or are interested in an enormous salary, becoming a teacher may not be a good fit for you.

    High school teachers help prepare students for life after graduation. They teach academic lessons and various skills that students will need to attend college and to enter the job market. Read more at Bureau of Labor Statistics.

    Check out this article from The Washington Post to find out the 12 Qualities Great Teachers Share.

    What do you need to be a High School Teacher?

    Education:

    A Bachelor’s Degree is required to become a high school teacher.

    If you are a high school student and would like to become a teacher, focus on taking classes in the subject(s) you plan to teach.

    If you are interested in a career change to the education field and already have a Bachelor’s Degree, you can enroll in an alternative certification program and become a teacher in 1-2 years. Find out more at Education Portal.

    Skills:

    High School Teachers know about:

    • Learning Strategies
    • Speaking and Active Listening
    • Critical Thinking
    • Time Management
    • Reading Comprehension
    • Social Perceptiveness

    Is the field growing?

    ONET reports a “Bright Outlook” for High School Teaching Jobs. Careers in this field are expected to have a large number of job openings over the next 10 years.

    According to Teach.com, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education is a great example of an area where there is a high demand for great teachers. Teaching might be an ideal career change for an individual with a degree in one of the STEM areas.

    students

     

    What is the pay like?

     

    High School Teacher Pay

     

    What’s the Holland Code* for a High School Teacher?

     

    Interest code: SAE- Social, Artistic, Enterprising

    Social — Social occupations frequently involve working with, communicating with, and teaching people. These occupations often involve helping or providing service to others.
    Artistic — Artistic occupations frequently involve working with forms, designs and patterns. They often require self-expression and the work can be done without following a clear set of rules.
    Enterprising — Enterprising occupations frequently involve starting up and carrying out projects. These occupations can involve leading people and making many decisions. Sometimes they require risk taking and often deal with business.

     

    Source: http://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/17-2141.00

     

    If you are interested in learning more about becoming a High School Teacher, check out ONET.

     

    Would you want to be a High School Teacher? 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.

  • The Best Books to Give for Every Person on Your Christmas Gift List

    The Best Books to Give for Every Person on Your Christmas Gift List

    My reading list for 2014 has been shorter than my 2013 list for a variety of reasons- new baby, more time spent devoted to working with some wonderful clients and probably, most importantly, due to not setting a goal around reading this year (But that’s a post for another day- stay tuned for lots of good goal setting stuff soon to help us all kick off those New Year’s resolutions in the right fashion.)

    But, I have read some good ones this year and want to recommend my top picks organized for those hard to shop for people in which you may still be searching for the right gift.

     

    For the Business Person: Scale: Seven Proven Principles to Grow Your Business and Get Your Life Back Although the title of the book implies that this book is for business owners, the book is really for anyone that wants to work smarter not harder.

    Favorite quotes from the book:

    “The world doesn’t pay you for the hours you put in; it pays you for the value you create.”

    The right parking space for your company lies at the intersection of three factors: your company’s biggest strengths (your parking space must rely on what you do really well); your market’s deepest desires around your type of product or service (it must be something that your market values); and the open spaces your competitors don’t already own in the mind of your market (it is very expensive to move another company out of a space if they truly already own it). 

    For an article that says the same thing as the above quote for the job seeker check out:  Why Pursuing Your Passion is Not Enough

     

    For the seemingly lost and the youth contemplating direction for his or her future:  Steve Jobs

    Favorite quotes from the book:

    “Jobs also began to feel guilty, he later said, about spending so much of his parents’ money on an education that did not seem worthwhile. ‘All of my working-class parents’ savings were being spent on my college tuition,’ he recounted in a famous commencement address at Stanford. ‘I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out okay.’”

    “There falls a shadow, as T. S. Eliot noted, between the conception and the creation. In the annals of innovation, new ideas are only part of the equation. Execution is just as important.”

    “I’ve learned over the years that when you have really good people you don’t have to baby them,” Jobs later explained. “By expecting them to do great things, you can get them to do great things. The original Mac team taught me that A-plus players like to work together, and they don’t like it if you tolerate B work. Ask any member of that Mac team. They will tell you it was worth the pain.”  

    For more on the thoughts this last quote reflects see: Leadership Lessons from College Football: The “Mediocre” and Team Success

     

    For anyone who wants to be better:  Wellbeing: The Five Essential Elements

    Favorite quote from the book:

    “1.Every day, use your strengths. 2. Identify someone with a shared mission who encourages your growth. Spend more time with this person. 3. Opt into more social time with the people and teams you enjoy being around.”

     

    For the Avid Reader:  Get them an e-reader and encourage them to go digital.  I mostly made the switch to digital after extreme reluctance.  I like a book in my hand and lots on my shelves.  But, I have begun reading on my iPad through the Kindle app and love it. Most notably, I love that I can highlight and save quotes from books I’ve read and find them as references all in one place.   Let me tell you, this blog post was much easier this year with digital files than it was last year because I could easily find and quote my favorites with a click of the mouse.

    For the avid reader who is still reluctant to switch to e-reading:  Give them a subscription to Signed Firsts from Square Booksin Oxford, MS.  This classic bookstore just makes you happy when you walk in.  It is one of the last true, locally owned bookstores and they have a program where you get a book (sometimes two) a month which include ēnew releases, hardback and signed.   They mail them to your door each month and charge you monthly for the book(s) sent.

    What was your best read this year?

  • 4 Tips for reconciling the irony of stress and productivity in the workplace

    4 Tips for reconciling the irony of stress and productivity in the workplace

    What’s impacting performance in the workplace more than anything else these days?  Many people would say it is stress, which is pushing some to the point of full-blown mental health issues.

    Consider how Graeme Cowan, author of Back From the Brink, describes this reality in the Fall 2014 issue of Global Corporate Xpansion Magazine:

    “In a hypercompetitive global economy, organizations must be ‘on’ 24/7. Yet this scramble for perpetual performance is taking a harsh toll on employees. They relentlessly push to get ahead and stay ahead- working longer days, emailing after hours, taking fewer vacations- often with little acknowledgement for their efforts. The result is a workforce that’s not just disengaged (Gallup’s 2013 State of the American Workplace report revealed that 70 percent of U.S. employees fall into this category), but also stressed and depressed. 

    And here’s the irony. The constant hustle aimed at increasing productivity and profitability actually decreases both.”[i]

     

    So what should you do as an employer to combat this irony?

    1. Assess both the level of stress and the causes of stress in your workforce. Developing and administering an organizational survey to assess the level of stress in employees can help you effectively develop a plan to reduce stress levels at the workplace through policies, practices and programs.  You can’t know what to change if you don’t know what the sources of issues are.  In addition, if you do put a plan in place, you can’t know if and how you’ve improved if you don’t have baseline measurements to compare.
    2. Provide stress management training to your staff.  Providing stress management training to your employees can help increase productivity and profitability in the workplace.  Hopefully you have committed to assessing the stress level of your organization (see #1) and have a skilled training provider that can take that information and develop a customized stress management program for your organization.
    3. Analyze your talent management processes, particularly your selection process.  Does it assess people for organizational and job fit?  For more reading on this, check out an article I published inHR Alabama– see page 16. If people aren’t aligned with the organizational purpose and the job purpose, stress is bound to ensue, leading to decreased productivity.
    4. Design policies, procedures and tools that allow people to work smarter not harder and that put controls in place to keep people from falling victim to the toll that working 24/7 takes.  

    For more food for thought on this see:

    Flexibility to Reduce Workplace Stressors

    Should Employers Ban Email after Work Hours?

    Stress Leave

    Need more help as an employee or employer to manage stress?   Download Stress Management: How to Deal with Stress in the Short and Long Term

    Stress Mgmt

  • Career Spotlight: Geneticist

    Career Spotlight: Geneticist

    Do you enjoy biology? Do you also like chemistry and mathematics? Do you think working in a lab conducting experiments and doing research is fun?

    If any of these things describe you, then a career as a Geneticist might be for you!

    What do you need to be a Geneticist?

    Education:

    Becoming a geneticist requires at least a Bachelor’s degree and most likely a Master’s degree or beyond.

    If you are a high school student, make sure you are focused on taking biology, chemistry and mathematics.

    Skills:

    Geneticists know how to:

    • Use scientific rules and methods to solve problems
    • Be active listeners and successfully communicate orally and in writing
    • Be critical thinkers and complex problem solvers

    Is the field growing?

    The projected growth is approximately 2%.

    What is the pay like?

    Graph Geneticist

     

    What’s the Holland Code* for a Geneticist?

    Interest code: IAR- Investigative, Artistic and Realistic

    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.
    Artistic — Artistic occupations frequently involve   working with forms, designs and patterns. They often require self-expression   and the work can be done without following a clear set of rules.
    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/19-1029.03

     

    If you are interested in learning more about Geneticists, check out ONET.

    Would you want to be a Geneticist? 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.

  • Career Spotlight: Most Stressful Jobs

    Career Spotlight: Most Stressful Jobs

    Do you like to live on the edge? If so, you might find your future career on the most stressful jobs list. A recent study suggests that jobs that require you to face unpredictable conditions, immediate dangers and high-stakes situations rank among the most stressful of 2014.

    According to a study from job search site CareerCast, jobs where people are putting their lives on the line are the most stressful. Who tops the list you ask? Military personnel (enlisted and generals), firefighters and airline pilots are all there.

    According to the site, salaries and education levels for the most stressful jobs vary. The median salaries and education required for those jobs are:

    Enlisted Military Personnel – $28,840 (GED or high school diploma)

    Military General – $196,300 (varies: specialized training, may also require a master’s degree)

    Firefighter – $45,250 (training varies: certificate, 2 years or 4 years of college)

    Airline pilot – $114,200 (training varies: license, 2 years or 4 years of college)

    According to ONET, the only one of these careers that will be considered high demand in the next several years is a career as a Firefighter.

    If you are interested in learning more about these careers, check out these links: Military Careers,Firefighter, Airline Pilot.

    Would you want to have one of these most stressful jobs? Why or why not?