Horizon Point Consulting

Category: Career Development

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

  • 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?

  • 3 Steps to Get Your LinkedIn Profile Job Search Ready

    3 Steps to Get Your LinkedIn Profile Job Search Ready

    Ready to start a job search?  Know you need to have a presence on LinkedIn and other social media channels but don’t know where to start?  If you have no idea what LinkedIn is or don’t know where to start to create an account or profile, the first three levels of the LinkedIn plan below can get you well on your way to active social media networking and job search.

    Level 1: Getting Started

    Level 2:  Build your Network

    LinkedIn uses an algorithm for search results that is impacted by the number of connections you have.  Therefore, it is critical to build your connections.  If your profile is good to go, then the next best investment of your time is to grow your network.

    • Send out invitations to connect  (the link describes a variety of methods to connect) with those you know by customizing your invitation to them.
    • Aim to make at least 500 connections.   Create a timeline to manage growing to this number.
    • Endorse your connections. Create a strategy for endorsing 10-20 people at least once a week.  Endorse those skills that you know the person has, don’t just blanket endorse others.
    • Request to connect to 2nd and 3rd degree contacts with introductions.  You have five available introductions at one time.
    • Accept invitations of people you know or have an indirect connection
    • What are groups?
    • Aim to join 10-15 groups
    • Target, search and join groups by:
      • Industry
      • College Alumni
      • Company/Business
      • Conferences
      • Trade Organizations
      • Nonprofit groups
    • Search for Job Openings

    Level 3:  Get Active in your job search

    Once you have your profile in tip-top shape and a growing network to tap into, you can search and apply for openings through LinkedIn.

    How are you utlizing LinkedIn to maximize your job search?

  • Throwing compensation structure out the window

    I’m going to contradict myself (again). I seem to do this a lot, outlining a way to be process oriented by designing a traditional talent management program.  We’ve done this over the last couple of weeks by describing how to do job analysis, job descriptions and design a compensation plan. 

    But the key to knowing how to design any talent management program is to know yourself, or rather know your company. For mid to large companies, having job descriptions and a wage structure to define how you compensate people is more than likely completely necessary. It keeps things consistent, fair and easier to administer. 

    However, in a world where jobs are constantly changing and therefore the knowledge, skills and abilities necessary to define jobs are also constantly changing, defining a job based on hard and fast definitions and then trying to recruit and retain employees based on these hard a fasts may be a tremendous challenge.

    Another approach

    Instead of defining a job and recruiting to that description, find the superstars, those who know how to constantly learn and adapt in a fast-paced world, and hire them, then define the job around them. Pay them what they demand (the superstars know how much they are worth) and then temper their demands with a structure that incentivizes results your company needs them to achieve. 

    Notice this doesn’t mean ever defining the job, but it does mean that you may do it after you make the hire. We’re pretty adamant about defining the job through the behaviors you want people to exhibit and the results you want them to achieve in order to measure and reward performance. 

    We’re in the process as a small company of doing this now. A compensation structure is not what we need to recruit and retain people at this time. What we need is a superstar or two that understands the core of what we do (career development and talent management) and has experience in it, reflects our company values, and is motivated by achieving the results we need achieved.

    One day we may need a defined compensation structure, but right now it isn’t what we need, so we aren’t going to try to cram ourselves into a traditional process that may inhibit our ability to recruit and retain talent. Your company, on the other hand, may need to structure in order to recruit and retain talent. Realizing the outcome we all want is great talent that stays doesn’t mean we all get to that end result the same way.  

    What processes (or unprocesses) do you have in place to make sure you get the talent you need?

  • Career Spotlight: Dental Assisting

    Career Spotlight: Dental Assisting

    Have you always known that you wanted to work in Healthcare, change peoples’ lives, and get to know your community better? Do you want to be a wife and mother who has Fridays off and gets to spend her nights at the ball field watching her children play? Do you want to serve others by providing them with a way to look and feel much better about themselves? Do you want the opportunity to [move up] in your professional career?

    If any of the above describe or are desirable to you, then Dental Assisting may be the career path for you!

    Education Required:  High School Diploma or GED

    If you are in high school, always strive to have strong grades and a solid foundation in Science, Math, English (Grammar) and Reading. All subjects will not only prepare you for college, but any kind of post-high school program. As a potential dental assistant, dentists look for someone who can learn quickly and can educate their patients about not just their teeth, but their overall health. The way you articulate and the grammar that you choose speaks volumes of your educational background and will therefore provide you with a greater chance of landing a job.

    Skills and Personal Qualities:  

    Focus on personal service

    Hard worker

    Punctual and dependable

    Strong ethical background

    Critical and quick thinking

    Ability to learn and move quickly

    Good personal hygiene 

    Ability to get along with others, especially other women

    Is the field growing?

    The dental field is always growing. At a growth rate of 22%, the field is growing much faster than average. As our society has become more educated on their oral healthcare, we have increasingly sought out professional dental care. Therefore, there is always a dental office looking for a trained dental assistant. 

    What is the pay like?

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    In our area, the pay is typically $9-14 starting out. There is always an opportunity to advance in the dental field and to receive a much higher pay. Many assistants go on to become dental hygienists, office managers, or in some cases, dentists. 

    If you are interested in learning more about dental assisting, please visit:

    www.ada.org

    Today’s guest post is from Dr. Maggie McKelvey, DMD. Maggie owns North Alabama Dental Assisting. She graduated summa cum laude from The University of Alabama with a degree in Biochemistry and Math.  She cheered for the Crimson Tide during her time there and was a member of Alpha Chi Omega Sorority.  She received her dental education at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where she graduated within the top of her class. Following graduation, she enhanced her dental experience working in private practice and pediatric clinics in Decatur and surrounding areas.  Dr. McKelvey is a proud member of the American Dental Association, the Alabama Dental Association, and the Academy of General Dentistry. She is passionate about her profession and is so excited to help teach others about a career in the field of Dentistry!

  • 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.