Top Job Thursday

Hate Desk Jobs? Great Careers for Energetic People

Does the idea of sitting at a desk all day sound like torture? Are you an active person who likes to be on their feet and on the move? Then here are some great career choices for you!

Creative Careers

• Cooking/Catering – Spice things up with this energetic career. Whether you’re cooking or catering, you’ll be on the move in the food service industry.
• Florist/Floral Design – This budding career could be yours. Combine your creativity with your energy to create stunning designs for customers.
• Interior Decorating – Get on a ladder to test some drapes, then compare fabrics for a sofa. Learn design skills that will have both your brain and body in motion.
• Photography – Develop a creative new career. From capturing wedding memories to landscape portraits, photographers enjoy busy days.

Education Careers

• Teacher Aide – Shaping young lives takes time and energy. A teacher aide assists teachers with classroom and clerical duties and more.
• Early Childhood Education –Enjoy the contagious fun of educating preschoolers in this lively and rewarding career.
• Child Day Care Management – A day care is about as energetic as you can get! If you love kids, you’ll love burning off energy through playtime and more.

Healthcare Careers

• Fitness & Nutrition – Like staying in shape? Inspire others to get up and moving just like you with this career field.
• Nursing Assistant – No sitting on this job! Nursing assistants interact with patients all day and are always on the move.
• Pharmacy Assistant – Pharmacy’s are increasingly busy places. Help pharmacists locate medicines, cash out customers, stock the pharmacy and more.
• Physical Therapy Aide – Assist physical therapists by keeping the treatment area clean and well organized, help escort patients and more.
• Veterinary Assistant – Between feeding, bathing, administering medicine and helping with exams, your day will fly by. Plus, you get to enjoy being around the animals.

Law Enforcement Careers

• Criminal Justice/Security – Keeping the public safe requires a lot of energy and can keep you out of an office and out with the public.
• Private Investigator – Investigating often requires you to be on your toes-figuratively and sometimes even literally!

Technical Careers

• Auto Mechanic – Learning the tricks of the trade might help others stay seated in their cars, but you’ll definitely be on the move.
• Electrician – It’s not shocking to learn that an electrician has a physically demanding job. Between wiring, circuit breakers and more, you’ll feel the curren of this exciting career.
• Gardening/Landscaping – Get physical in this career while you also enjoy the outdoors. Enjoy the hands on work and beauty you create.
• Locksmith – The key to a happy career is enjoying what you do. Get fulfillment by helping people to keep their homes and businesses secure.
• Plumbing –From doing pipe-fittings to creating detailed plumbing systems, you’ll flush out all your energy!

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Making it Big Monday

Starting A New Job -- What You Need To Know To Succeed

In a recent article, 6 Things New Hires Should Do in the First 30 Days, author Jennifer King provides recommendations on what new hires can do to set themselves up for success. For example, King warns, “You only get one chance to make a first impression. So, before you start introducing yourself to everyone, figure out what you’re going to say when you meet them.” Other suggestions include…

• Understand your role and how you will be evaluated
• Learn the business
• Interview your boss
• Be ambitious, but have restraint
• Be proactive about your onboarding

I enjoyed reading Jennifer’s article because the first 30 days on a job are stressful for just about everyone. While some companies provide highly structured and well thought out onboarding processes, other companies handle this fairly loosely with new employees realizing they will need to fend for themselves.

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To Be Successful – STUDY

I have found the key to being successful when starting a new job is to remember the acronym, “STUDY”:

• S = Survey your surroundings.
• T = Take the time to analyze and learn the most important things; this includes the company’s and your department’s strategic plan, goals and objectives, structure, processes, current projects, and your role and key responsibilities.
• U = Understand the people situation: Who are the key resources? Who’s doing what? Why are they doing them? Be sure to introduce yourself to each person in the department individually to make a personal connection.
• D = Do not make hasty decisions. Being new means you will not yet understand the current situation, facts, or internal politics – this is not a good time to make hasty decisions.
• Y = Yes you can! No matter how overwhelmed you feel in your new position – feel like you’re drinking from a fire hose? – just take a deep breath, remain calm, stay focused, and prioritize, prioritize, prioritize.

Overcome 3 Common Mistakes
The three most common mistakes I see newly hired employees making are: (1) not creating a game plan for their first 90 days on the job, (2) not sitting down with their new boss to determine how they can best work together, and (3) not taking the time to understand the company and department’s strategic plan.
To avoid these mistakes:

• Create a 30/60/90 day game plan. This is a document (usually in Excel or Word) that you break into 30-day time increments to capture what you plan to accomplish. Your 30/60/90 game plan should include the key tasks, projects, and initiatives you need to complete, prioritized over your first 90 days on the job. Meet with your manager to ensure he/she shares the same performance expectations and relevant timelines/deadlines.
• Ask your boss, “How can we best work together?” Establish a positive working relationship by learning your manager’s leadership style and preferred method of working and communicating – and then flex yourself to work with their style.
• Ask for key information about the company. Sit down with your manager and have them explain: The company and department’s strategic plans along with strategic goals/objectives, the department’s organization chart and the roles/responsibilities of each person, and the key department projects.

Get Organized
Getting started is all about getting organized. Taking the time to carefully think through and plan out your first 30, 60, and 90 days on the job will help you decrease the stress normally felt when starting a new position. It will also help you earn respect and credibility faster, and, ensure you become as efficient and effective as possible in the shortest amount of time. You can do it!

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Top Job Thursday

10 Jobs for Social Butterflies

Your whole life, you've been told you are a "people person." You smile at everyone and can talk to anyone, and social gatherings are your favorite pastime.

Indeed, you are no stranger to group interaction; in fact, you thrive on it. Your worst nightmare is sitting in a cubicle, talking to no one but yourself all day long, in a job that utilizes only your typing skills. So why let your fantastic people skills go to waste in a job where you can't be yourself or make use of your strengths?
So which jobs are best suited for social butterflies? Here are 10 jobs that will accommodate your personality:*

1. Public relations specialist
Annual earnings: $41,549
Socially friendly because: Every day, PR folks respond to the media, whether it's to a request, an accusation or simply making a public statement. They also establish and maintain relationships with clients, reach out to new ones and, depending on whom they work for, they act as the face and voice behind people and organizations.

2. School counselor
Annual earnings: $47,262
Socially friendly because: Their job depends on interaction with students, parents and other faculty. They need to be able to relate to students, whether it's discussing bad behaviors, academic conduct or more intense issues like sex education and drug awareness. On the same token, counselors need to maintain a healthy relationship with parents, approaching conversations about their children with honesty and tact.

3. Mediator
Annual earnings: $48,840
Socially friendly because: Mediators are the neutral party in legal disputes for people who would rather settle their cases outside of court. You must be able to keep conversations amicable, listen attentively and keep your patience. Most importantly, it is your job to offer suggestions on how to settle a dispute, but it's up to the involved parties to resolve it. Therefore, you need to make sure you're communicating openly and honestly in order to do your job effectively.

4. School administrators, elementary and secondary school
Annual earnings: $74,092
Socially friendly because: You meet with parents and faculty to discuss educational activities, policies, and student behavioral or learning problems. In addition, when issues go beyond a teacher or school counselor, you must be able to advise students about personal, academic, vocational or behavioral issues.

5. Employee training director
Annual earnings: $84,145
Socially friendly because: Training directors not only develop and implement training programs for new employees at an organization, they also educate the trainers who instruct new workers directly. If they can't interact successfully with these trainers, you can bet the new employees won't be around for long.

6. Demonstrator
Annual earnings: $34,457
Socially friendly because: Your sole responsibility is to engage with customers by demonstrating, sampling and explaining products to increase sales. Something tells us that you won't make it far if you can only offer a sweet smile and attractive face.

7. Instructional coordinators
Annual Earnings: $62,528
Socially friendly because: They need to be able to talk easily with educational committees and advisory groups to learn about certain subject areas and curriculum. Then, they need to know how to communicate that knowledge to others by conducting teacher training programs and conferences dealing with new classroom procedures, instructional materials and equipment, and teaching aids.

8. Recruiter
Annual earnings: $48,657
Socially friendly because: To be successful, recruiters must actively seek out candidates to fill job openings. Once they do, they must interview and screen applicants, as well as contact them discuss employment possibilities, consideration and selection. Once they have a relationship with the job seeker, they also coach them on interview skills and about the company.

9. Employment interviewer
Annual earnings: $48,657
Socially friendly because: They're responsible for matching job applicants with the appropriate openings in companies, so interviewers better be a good judge of character. They need to use their people skills to detect genuinely strong candidates from those who just interview well.

10. Life coach
Annual earnings: $64,523
Socially friendly because: People from all walks of life, from desperate housewives to struggling careerists are enlisting the help of life coaches to determine and achieve personal goals. Since most life coaches are self-employed, you can't be shy about getting your name out there; you must be able to successfully market yourself and your practices.

To view original article CLICK HERE