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.

  • 3 Tips for Growing Your Career

    3 Tips for Growing Your Career

    Career growth and transition is an area that I’m not only interested in discussing, it’s something I’m personally invested in as well. I have had some great experiences, and many of the career growth opportunities at first seemed to be due to chance. As time goes on, I have become more strategic about seeking and selecting opportunities for growth and transition. Today we’ll look at both sides of the coin and some strategies you can implement to improve your own results.

    Growing Your Career

    My career started at the ripe old age of 12. I was working for my parents’ machine shop sweeping and doing other various cleanup duties. From there I progressively moved toward the kind of things I wanted to be doing. Here are three quick lessons I learned over time that you need to know:

    1. You need to take charge of your own growth and development. It’s a part of being passionate about what you do. Don’t expect someone else to walk up to you and hand you something to learn right at the exact moment that you need it. Start building your knowledge early and anticipate future stresses on your limits (and plan accordingly). My advice? Push your own boundaries before someone else does it for you.

    2. Find a pain point for others that you’re passionate about solving. It’s funny, because I have always felt like the best opportunities have come to me in areas that others didn’t particularly care for. Then I realized, that’s one of the keys to having work that you love: doing what you love, even when nobody else does. Find a need that you are passionate about filling, and you’ll never have a lack of work.

    3. In the early years, don’t expect to love everything you’re doing. You are picking up valuable skills and experience, but one of the most important things you learn early in your career is what you do not want to do. You learn the kind of culture that fits you. You learn the kind of manager you work best with. And you learn what sort of things you really don’t care much for. There’s a bigger list of things you don’t want to do, so start crossing those off instead of purely seeking out what you want. Over time as you move between positions and companies, you will refine that list until it leads to the type of situation I describe in the section below.

    Transitioning Careers

    A few months back, I transitioned from working as an HR Manager for a defense contractor to a role as an HR Analyst with a consulting and research firm. For those not in HR, that’s a pretty wild shift. I went from “doing” HR every day (recruiting, employee relations, benefits, etc.) to writing, researching, and speaking about best practices in the industry.

    Why the shift?

    For a long time I have had a passion for writing and speaking; however, those activities always had to fit around my day job as a practitioner. When the opportunity came up to become an analyst at Brandon Hall Group, I knew this was the chance I had been looking for to see if those activities were what I wanted to do for the next phase of my career.

    I’m sitting here thinking about what sort of tips and strategies I can share for the transition, but I keep coming back to the three key points above.

    • I took charge of my own career without waiting for someone else to do it for me. You need to do the same.

    • I’m doing what I love. This job offered more opportunities to do what I love, so I jumped at it.

    • I am still doing things that I don’t enjoy as much, but the number of those is less than in my previous roles.

    The whole discussion around career development is bigger than a single blog post, but I’m hoping these thoughts will help you as you move through your career. For most of us it’s not a career ladder–it’s more like a career web. You may move side to side, back, and forward, but when you take the time to look at it holistically, it’s an overall forward progression to doing what you love.

     

    Ben Eubanks is an author, speaker, and HR pro from Huntsville, AL. During the day he works as an HR Analyst with Brandon Hall Group. During the evenings he writes at upstartHR, a blog about talent management, leadership, and business.

  • Passion + Productivity = Give Back

    Passion + Productivity = Give Back

    “Rarely are there ever great achievements without great expectations.” 

    A mid-sized manufacturing firm in a small Alabama community demonstrates the give back mindset through their passion and productivity. This focus has transformed an almost bankrupt company into a thriving and profitable business. Not only that, their passion and productivity prompts them to give back to the community in which they live and work. 

    The company’s mission statement reads, “We are passionate about resolutions that positively impact our customers.” With this mission, the President of the Company states, “We have products and solutions that can help make customers more productive, save money and keep people safe. Why would we not want everyone to know this? We can help enrich the lives of others by what we do. Because we believe this, we can approach our work with not just hard work by an element of intense emotion. This type of enthusiasm is contagious. The longer people work in this environment the more infected they become.”

    Their work does not stop with “intense emotions”. It extends to a focus on productivity as well. “Productivity is a measurable activity. Every week we get together as a team and review a couple dozen key indicators to be certain that we are meeting our internal and external standards. The bottom line of how this is demonstrated is letting our yes be yes and our no be no. Our vision is to be the trusted source for tough mining and industrial rubber solutions. We will bend over backwards, increase productivity, to make certain we keep our promises to one another and to our customers,” states the company President. 

    The focus on passion and productivity extends beyond the walls of the organization and into the community. 

    “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.” 

    The company seeks to spur more passion and productivity in the community by partnering with organizations, churches and schools that impact individuals. 

    Through the Partners in Education Program in their community, the company works with high school students to help them maximize their potential by providing college scholarships, hosting a parent night and providing one-on-one career coaching to students at the school. The combination of these programs helps the school with resources that are not readily available otherwise. The company hopes that these efforts will help students form a plan, create goals and reach their potential in order to become productive citizens. 

  • Career Change for Doctors

    Career Change for Doctors

    Ask a kid what they want to be when they grow up (or better yet, ask his or her parents what they want him or her to be), and I’ll put money on the fact that the kid will tell you they want to be A) A doctor B) A lawyer or C) An Indian Chief. Well, maybe not an Indian Chief, but what person or parent of a child has not at one time aspired to be a physician? 

    With the hope of helping people while at the same time making a lot of money, it’s no wonder being a doctor is a draw. But with changes in healthcare recently and the realization that maybe there are other ways to help people and/or make money, some physicians may just want to bait and switch on their career. 

    If you’re one of these restless doctors, it’s important to consider what drew you to the field of medicine in the first place and consider careers that have characteristics you still desire. Here are a couple of career change options: 

    Medical Missionary

    Were you primarily drawn to the field because you had a deep desire to heal?  If so, medical missions may be an option for you. A desire to travel, get out of your comfort zone and interact with people of different cultures and circumstances is a work value you would be looking to fulfill that you may not be finding in your current work as a physician. In addition, without the access technology in many areas where medical missionaries are needed, you would need to be driven by the desire to solve complex problems with limited resources. 

    If you take a career assessment and see that your highest area is social, this may be the direction you want to consider if you want a change.

    Organizations to check out that hire medical missionaries: 

    MedicalMissions

    Samaritans Purse

    OM

    Healthcare Administrator or Consultant

    In contrast, if you take a career assessment and see that your highest area is enterprising, healthcare administration may be the best change of direction for you to consider.   Healthcare Administrators oversee the business operations of hospitals, medical practices and/or nursing homes. Driven by a desire to create efficiencies, lead and manage people and work to make the entity they are working for profitable, people who are successful in healthcare administration and consulting see the big picture of healthcare and are able to weld the clinical side of healthcare with the business imperative to remain profitable in order to continue to treat and heal patients.  Having a clinical background as a physician can be very beneficial for those in administration and consulting.  

    Professional Organizations in Healthcare Management: 

    American Academy of Medical Administrators

    American College of Healthcare Executives

    Healthcare Administrators Association(primarily geared towards Third Party Administrators-TPA)

    Regardless of whether or not you are a doctor or not, if you itching to make a career change, you need to examine:

    What is missing from what I do now that I want to be able to do on a regular basis?  What skills do I need to use on a regular basis to bring satisfaction?

    What is it that I do now that I want to continue to be able to do? What skills that I want to continue to use are transferable to other fields?

    What type of environment do I want to work in? 

    What careers match with the skills and abilities I want to use and foster an environment that are inline with my work values? 

    A career assessment may help you short through these questions. We can help you with an in-depth assessment that examines your personality and desired skills and abilities to use or you can take a free one here. 

  • 6 Places to Go to Tap into Job Shadowing Opportunities

    6 Places to Go to Tap into Job Shadowing Opportunities

    In a conversation with a university professor today, I was struck by his comment that his high achieving students know what general field they want to go into (finance, engineering, nursing) but they actually have no clue what different career options are available in the fields of study they have chosen and they don’t have a clue what working in these fields would involve on a day-to-day basis.  

    If this is the case, most of us, even the high achievers out there are making careers decisions based on hope and prayer, on what just sounds good, not actually on what we know to be good.  

    Practical learning is the best way to remedy this situation, but most people don’t get practical experience until they get a job in the field.  Once you’ve got a mortgage to pay and mouths to feed, it’s hard to change your mind and switch fields, especially when you’ve invested heavily in your education towards the field.

    As a way to encourage learning about career fields before actually embarking on them, we encourage students to job shadow, Co-Op and or intern. It’s like getting your feet wet before you dive in and realize you don’t like the pool you’re in. 

    To get an opportunity for practical experience, tap into: 

    Family and friends

    Your College Career Center or High School Guidance Office

    Teachers and Professors 

    Community and church groups you are involved in

    Your Community’s Chamber of Commerce or Business Organization

    Junior Achievement

    Bottom line, it doesn’t hurt to ask someone if you can learn more about what they do or to see if there is a program already set up in your area or at your school to coordinate a practical experience for you. Most people are willing to share their expertise and experience to help others make wise decisions and there are a lot of good organizations out there trying to foster this interaction. 

    Once you get an opportunity set up to learn more about a job, our job shadowing questionnaire can help you know what questions to ask to make sure you are getting the info you need to make wise choices about your career.

  • Career Spotlight: Mechanical Engineer

    Career Spotlight: Mechanical Engineer

    Have you always been curious about how machines work? Do you take things a part and put them back together? Do you like to design things? Do you enjoy figuring out why things are broken and fixing them?

    If any of these describe you, then Mechanical Engineering may be the career field that would make you tick.

    What do you need to be a Mechanical Engineer?

    Education:  At least a Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering

    If you are a high school student, make sure you are focused on taking higher-level math and science classes. Be sure to take Calculus and Physics if available at your school.  A drafting class would also be a plus.

    Skills: As referenced on Columbia University’s website, “Perhaps the one skill that is the mechanical engineer’s exclusive domain is the ability to analyze and design objects and systems with motion.”

    Mechanical Engineers know how to:

    • Solve complex problems
    • Create and interpret designs of things as small as a bolt to as a large a complex manufacturing process
    • Research and test the performance of objects, equipment and systems
    • Diagnosis and troubleshoot equipment and machinery

    Is the field growing?

    Nationally, the field is growing 3-7% annually.

    What is the pay like?

    The average annual salary in the United States is $82,000.

    What’s the Holland Code* for a Mechanical Engineer?

    Interest code: IRC- Investigative, Realistic and Conventional

    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.

    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.

    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.

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

    If you are interested in learning more about Mechanical Engineering, check out:

    O*Net

    BLS

    US News

    Would you want to be a Mechanical Engineer? 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.