DadOverflow.com

Musings of a dad with too much time on his hands and not enough to do. Wait. Reverse that.

Category: general (Page 15 of 17)

Preparing for college and career

May 23, 2018 /

My eldest is finishing up her junior year of high school; thus, we’re deep in the throes of college planning. It’s quite an intimidating process and I’m doing what I can to educate myself as fast as possible. This post will be Part 1 of N number of posts about the adventure of college and career planning for my kids.

As podcasts are a chief conduit for my learning, I’m always looking for content that speak to the challenge of helping your kids prepare for college and career. One that I’ve found recently is the Plan for College Now podcast. The fourth episode–Get hired! Be the grad every employer will want to hire!–is dense with material for the soon-to-be college graduate, but can easily be applied to high schoolers and even present day laborers. Here are notes I took on this episode that you may find useful.

Think career first

The traditional American template for college planning seems to be: 1) choose a college that feels like the right fit for you, 2) once at that college, choose a major that feels like a good fit, and 3) once in that major, near your graduation date, begin to ponder your career options. This thinking is backwards. Individuals should: 1) first peruse the job market and try to identify several potential careers that might fit their goals, then 2) identify one or more college majors that match such careers and finally 3) match those majors to an appropriate college.

Prepare for the working world

You should constantly be monitoring the job market, especially in order to pick a degree that won’t soon go obsolete. As an aside, I’m reminded of the book Worthless that I read recently imploring youth not to pick degrees that aren’t worth the price of tuition. Someday I’ll have to write a review of that book.

Students should build their set of skills. Mentorships and internships are two important ways to do this. Would developing a specialty in your field of study boost your earning potential and increase your marketability? If so, specialize! The host then rattled off a number of ways you can set up an internship:

Network

Yes, actually talking to people can help you land a great job. Of course, the 21st century puts an interesting spin on this time-tested tradition. You can begin networking by simply talking to family, friends, school career counselors, professors, and school administrators. Another aside: check out this Art of Maniless podcast on the Art of Mingling…I imagine those skills would be very helpful in developing a professional network.

Later in the podcast, the host interviewed an expert of professional networking and she offered these tips for getting started building your network:

  • Tip 1: Focus on the outcomes of building relationships for your future career, not just your current job. This tip certainly speaks to me. I am not an extrovert and so, when I’m happy in my present job, I don’t feel inclined to be social with other professionals. Big mistake. I should always be thinking about building my professional network–you never know what sort of wonderful opportunity might be out there.
  • Tip 2: Communicate what you do, how you do it, and who you do it for so that people can see how they’ll benefit from meeting you.
  • Tip 3: Don’t forget to develop your online profile. Include a picture, too. Remember that your online networking and your profile is your marketing brochure. LinkedIn, of course, seems the obvious place to begin this work.
  • Tip 4: Create a routine of reaching out, especially with LinkedIn requests.

Social Media dos and don’ts

Do: use social media vehicles, such as LinkedIn, to stay in touch with people in particular industries in which you’re interested
Don’t: use social media for foolishness. Don’t be vulgar online, don’t post indiscreet pictures, and be extremely careful about posting your social and political views. There are plenty of stories out there about people losing job opportunities because of foolish things they’ve done online. Heck, in the recent NFL draft, one draftee might have placed his career at stake for stupid statements he posted while in high school. Take this lesson seriously!

Research the job market

The host reeled off a number of awesome tools and sites for researching hot industries and jobs:

Students should ask themselves, what skills are employers looking for in new hires? Apparently, the site Inside Higher Ed has some helpful hints in this area.

Regarding STEM jobs (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math), host Jim Wilkerson had this piece of wisdom:

“It’s a high tech digital world, folks, so you better embrace it because that’s where the jobs are going to be and the good paying jobs, as well.”

Agreed (but I am a little biased).

Employers want employees with excellent written and verbal skills. I certainly concur. Should you wish to improve these skills, check out this list of free writing courses.

Apparently, you can tailor your job market research by geographies of interest or interest in simply working from home. To that end, he mentioned the following resources:

Of course, the work-from-home-thing is rife with scams, so check out these resources to make sure that awesome work-from-home opportunity isn’t too good to be true:

Maintain good physical and financial health

I took some issue with this part of the podcast. The host said, “due to the high cost of financial stress, many companies now do credit checks on all new hires.” Really? Is that even legal? He was suggesting that it can be expensive for companies to hire professionals that are distracted by their personal financial issues and/or succumb to illness from such stress. I suppose that makes sense, but I just can’t see how that would fly in today’s super anti-discrimination climate. The host goes on to talk about the importance of staying physically healthy and certainly offer the appearance of being physically healthy. I’m sure appearing physically ill or unfit (or appearing old, like me) will diminish your job prospects to some degree, but, again, I would guess today’s climate would rail against such things.

Learn about your prospective companies

The host summed up this point pretty succinctly:

“Never go into an interview without looking at their [the company’s] website….Employers are not impressed with candidates who don’t take the time to complete this simple step.”

Research the company to which you are applying and/or interviewing with. Read press releases, read their website, and read about their core values. In your cover letter, include the same language they use in their values statements, mission and goals. Your resume and cover letter should include words from their job description in case they do word matches to compare your resume to their job posting and make sure your resume is tailored for the job to which you’re applying. Here are two more resources he noted to help with this endeavor:

Also, never lie to your prospective employer. You will get caught and it won’t be pretty.

Your attitude

Whether networking or interviewing, project the right attitude: be energetic, confident, make eye contact, and be positive. Think about what value you can offer the company and make sure you speak in these terms.

“Always keep your eye on the goal: a good job offer once you graduate.” (Jim Wilkerson)

Again, this was a great podcast brimming over with valuable resources to help your child or even yourself succeed in the job market. The only other thing I would add that doesn’t seem to get mentioned in these types of discussions is Entrepreneurship. I try to always make sure my kids know that there is a second option: come up with a great idea and build a business around it yourself. Keep your options open and understand that there’s more than one route to success.

Did I forget something?

May 3, 2018 /

Not to name names, but a certain family member occasionally forgets important items as he/she rushes out of the house at the start of the day. I, too, am not immune to such forgetfulness: from time-to-time, I find myself turning around a block or two from the house just to reassure myself that the garage door is closed or coffee maker is off or whatever. In an effort to reduce or eliminate these frustrations, here are some techniques I try to employ most mornings:

1. Keep your important possessions in the same locations

“That’s your home. Are you too good for your home?!”

Happy Gilmore

All your important possessions, work-related and otherwise, should have a home. Wallet, car keys, office badge, cell phone, etc. Designate a home for these items and keep your items in their homes at all times until you need them; otherwise, you’ll burn important minutes searching for your wayward items.

2. Make a checklist

After a third time of driving to my kid’s school to drop off a forgotten lunch–cutting into my work commute–I created a morning (and evening) checklist for each child, taped it to the refrigerator, and made each one go through it every morning. It worked for the most part. Such things should work for you, too.

3. Establish a sequence of events and make it a habit

I’ve established a set sequence every morning: make the kid breakfast, get changed for the day, unload/load the dishwasher, hit the bus stop, etc. Sticking to that order helps ensure I don’t forget anything important.

4. Establish a magic number

My magic number if four: 1) wallet, 2) keys, 3) cell phone, 4) coffee mug. Every morning, I count off these four items before I leave the house and every evening I count off these four items before I leave the office.

5. Verbalize when you’ve accomplished a task

If I’m not careful, as I start to pull out of my suburb or, even worse, onto the highway, I’ll start asking myself, “did I close the garage door?” Or, “did I turn off the coffee maker?” Arrghh! To conquer that second-guessing, as I close the garage door or turn off the coffee maker, I find it effective to say out loud: “I’ve closed the garage door!” Or, “I’ve turned off the coffee maker!” I will say these statements out loud to ingrain the fact in my brain. I try to make sure no one else is around to hear lest I scare the neighbors.

6. Set up alarms for yourself on your phone

I have a recurring alarm set up on my phone that goes on when it’s time to walk with the kid out to the bus stop. I have another set up weekly to remind me to take out the garbage (a snippet of The Coasters, Yakety Yak). Alarms are a great tool for remembering your responsibilities. Have some fun with your alarms, too. I highly recommend Zedge for downloading awesome ringtones and notifications.

7. Set up events and notifications in your calendar

The wife and I make heavy use of Google calendar for tracking all our events and activities. One helpful feature of Google calendar is event reminders: for any event you create, you can attach a “reminder” in the form of either an email or notification. For my more important events, I’ll select “notification” and then decide on when I need to be notified. If the event’s simply a reminder to do something–like call the cable company and threaten to cut the cord if they don’t lower my rates–I may want my reminder to be “on time”. If the event’s a dentist appointment for the kids, I might set it for 24 hours in advance so that I have time to clear my work schedule for that hour. When you’re on your laptop, notifications can be annoying; however, if you set up your calendar on your phone, notifications will usually appear in your system tray with a little chime and can be a helpful reminder tool.

8. Prepare the night before

Nighttime preparation is critical for a successful morning rush. Consider these techniques: A) pack up whatever items you can including lunches, school and work materials, gym clothes, etc. and places these items in their respective homes (see #1), B) perform whatever tasks you can the night before to lessen the morning rush including shaving and showering, choosing your clothes for the next day, etc. and C) rehearse your morning process the night before. Rehearsing your morning can be particularly helpful for unusual mornings, such as getting ready for a morning airplane flight, leaving early for a conference or college visit, and so forth.

9. Wear a watch

Am I showing my age by advocating wearing a watch? For a while, I tried the whole rely-solely-on-my-phone-for-the-time thing, but I don’t always have my phone with me or it’s inconveniently shoved in my pocket. A watch is a great way to keep you abreast of the time and help you stay on schedule, reducing the risk of forgetting tasks and items in the morning rush.

10. Get your kids (and/or spouse) to help

Your kids should be performing morning tasks, anyway: feeding and letting out the dog, unloading the dishwasher, packing their lunches, etc. Enlist their help!

Borrowed time

April 9, 2018 /

I’m a big fan of jupyter notebooks and anaconda.  The other day, I was reading a blog post from Continuum/Anaconda founder Travis Oliphant about his decision to leave the company.  I found this quote particularly stirring:

“As a founder over 40 with modest means, I had a family of 6 children who relied on me. That family had teenage children who needed my attention and pre-school and elementary-school children that I could not simply leave only in the hands of my wife. I look back and sometimes wonder how we pulled it off. The truth probably lies in the time we borrowed: time from exercise, time from sleep, time from vacations, and time from family.”

Here, Travis seems to sum up some of the theme of this blog: my family and our creature comforts–our need for food, housing, clothing, etc.–have claim to much of my time.  And, of course, my time is bound by my mortality.  I have to creatively borrow against those claims to occasionally pursue other subjects I find interesting.  While I’m no founder of a great company like Anaconda, I’d like to think that if Travis was able to make something as great as he did despite his immense time commitments, maybe I can, too.

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2024 DadOverflow.com

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑