3.03 – 3.05 KEY TERMS
1. Accurate: Correct in all details; exact.
2. Action Verb: A verb that shows that something is being done, a word that shows action.
3. Autonomy: Freedom from external control or influence; independence.
4. Baby Boomer Generation: The generation can be segmented into two broadly defined cohorts:
the Leading-Edge Baby Boomers are individuals born between 1946 and 1955, those who came
of age during the Vietnam War era.
5. Chronological: (Of a record of events) starting with the earliest and following the order in which
they occurred.
6. Classify: Arrange (a group of people or things) in classes or categories according to shared
qualities or characteristics.
7. Clerical: (Of a job or person) concerned with or relating to work in an office, especially routine
documentation and administrative tasks.
8. Commute: Travel some distance between one's home and place of work on a regular basis.
9. Compatibility: A state in which two things are able to exist or occur together without problems or
conflict.
10. Competency: The ability to do something successfully or efficiently.
11. Conference Call: A telephone call by which a caller can speak with several people at the same
time.
12. Cover letter: A letter sent with, and explaining the contents of, another document (resume).
13. Critical Thinking: The objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgment.
14. Dictionary of Occupational Titles: Defunct publication produced by the United States
Department of Labor which matched job seekers to jobs from 1938 to the late 1990s. It was then
rendered obsolete and replaced by a database which is largely informed by people who have
direct experience working in each occupation, the Occupational Information Network or the
O*NET.
15. DOL Employment and Training Administration: Mission of the Employment and Training
Administration (ETA) is to contribute to the more efficient functioning of the U.S. labor market by
providing high quality job training, employment, labor market information, and income
maintenance services primarily through state and local workforce development systems (DOL
stands for Department of Labor).
16. Dual Income: A household in which there are two incomes
17. Economic Conditions: The state of the economy in a country or region, change over time in line
with the economic and business cycle, as an economy goes through expansion and contraction.
18. Embargo: An official ban on trade or other commercial activity with a particular country.
19. Employability Skills: The transferable skills needed by an individual to make them 'employable'.
Along with good technical understanding and subject knowledge, employers often outline a set of
skills that they want from an employee.
20. Employment Agencies: An agency that finds employers or employees for those seeking them.
21. Employment Leads: Information about an open position telling you that a company is hiring what person or company, what position they're trying to fill, what job skills and/or education are
required, etc.
22. Employment Security Commission: For more than 50 years, your ESC has played a key role in
North Carolina’s economic vitality, helping employers find the staff they need to carry out their
business; serving as a career resource center for workers at all skill levels and age groups;
supplying labor market data to government officials, researchers and others; and providing
unemployment insurance to people who lose their jobs through no fault of their own.
23. Employment Trends: Show whether employment in a particular area has risen or declined in the
stated years.
24. Entrepreneur: A person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on
greater than normal financial risks in order to do so.
25. Flexibility: Easily changed, able to change or to do different things.
26. Follow Up Letter: A letter sent as a follow-up to an initial letter or to a telephone call, meeting,
etc.
27. Form W-4: Used by your employer to determine the amount of taxes to withhold from your
paycheck, the W-4 Form can help you out at tax time. Here are the details. The W-4 is an Internal
Revenue Service (IRS) form you complete to let your employer know how much money to
withhold from your paycheck for federal taxes.
28. Geographic Mobility: The measure of how populations move over time. Geographic mobility,
population mobility, or more simply mobility is also a statistic that measures migration within a
population.
29. Globalization: A process of interaction and integration among the people, companies, and
governments of different nations, a process driven by international trade and investment and
aided by information technology.
30. Goods: Merchandise; wares; tangible products that satisfy human wants.
31. Hourly Wage: An amount of money paid each hour to compensate an employee for the amount
of time he/she spends working.
32. I-9 Form: Employment eligibility verification form, used for verifying the identity and employment
authorization of individuals hired for employment in the United States.
33. Implication: The conclusion that can be drawn from something, although it is not explicitly stated;
the action or state of being involved in something.
34. Infer: Deduce or conclude (information) from evidence and reasoning rather than from explicit
statements.
35. Informational Interview: A meeting between you and a professional to seek advice & insight on
their career, the industry, and the corporate culture of a potential future workplace; . The purpose
is to help define your career options.
36. Intrinsic: Belonging naturally; ff or relating to the essential nature of a thing
37. Job security: The probability that an individual will keep his or her job; a job with a high level of
job security is such that a person with the jobwould have a small chance of becoming
unemployed.
38. Job-shadowing: Work experience option where students learn about a job by walking through
the work day as a shadow to a competent worker. The job shadowing work experience is a
temporary, unpaid exposure to the workplace in an occupational area of interest to the student.
39. Letter of Application: Also known as a cover letter, is a document sent with your resume to
provide additional information on your skills and experience; provides detailed information on why
are you are qualified for the job you are applying for.
40. Manufacturing: Make (something) on a large scale using machinery.
41. Master: Having or showing very great skill or proficiency.
42. Myth: A widely held but false belief or idea.
43. Networking: Interact with other people to exchange information and develop contacts, especially
to further one's career.
44. Non-traditional Career: A non-traditional occupation is defined as any occupation in which
women or men comprise less than 25% of the workforce. Today, many women and men are
breaking down barriers to pursue careers.
45. North American Industry Classification System (NAICS): Standard used by Federal statistical
agencies in classifying business establishments for the purpose of collecting, analyzing, and
publishing statistical data related to the U.S. business economy.
46. North Carolina Department of Public Instruction: Implement the state's public school laws and
the State Board of Education's policies and procedures governing pre-kindergarten through 12th
grade public education. The guiding mission of the North Carolina State Board of Education is that
every public school student will graduate from high school, globally competitive for work and
postsecondary education and prepared for life in the 21st Century.
47. Occupational Info Network (O*NET): A free online database that contains hundreds of
occupational definitions to help students, job seekers, businesses and workforce development
professionals to understand today's world of work in the United States.
48. Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH): A publication of the United States Department of
Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics that includes information about the nature of work, working
conditions, training and education, earnings, and job outlook for hundreds of different occupations.
49. Organizational Design: Step-by-step methodology which identifies dysfunctional aspects of
work flow, procedures, structures and systems, realigns them to fit current business realities/goals
and then develops plans to implement the new changes.
50. Periodical: A magazine or newspaper published at regular intervals.
51. Pre-employment Tests: Tests that organizations give to job applicants to help them hire
employees who are productive, dependable, and low-turnover.
52. Primary Research: Any type of research that you go out, generate, collect yourself. Examples
include surveys, asking questions, conducting trials, interviews, observations, etc.
53. Problem Solving: The process of finding solutions to difficult or complex issues.
54. Resource: A stock or supply of money, materials, staff, and other assets that can be drawn on by
a person in order to function effectively.
55. Resume: A brief account of a person’s education, qualifications, and previous experience,
typically sent with a job application.
56. Salary: A fixed regular payment, typically paid on a monthly or biweekly basis but often
expressed as an annual sum, made by an employer to an employee, especially a professional or
white-collar worker.
57. Secondary Research: Also known as desk research; involves the summary, collation and/or
synthesis of existing research; based on the findings from other people's research.
58. Self-Employment: A situation in which an individual works for himself or herself instead of
working for an employer that pays a salary or a wage. A self-employed individual earns their
income through conducting profitable operations from a trade or business that they operate
directly.
59. Service Learning: A teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community
service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility,
and strengthen communities
60. Services: Intangible products such as accounting, banking, cleaning, consultancy, education,
insurance, expertise, medical treatment, or transportation. We pay someone to do something for
us because: we do not want to do it, don’t have the time or don't have the expertise.
61. Shift work: Recurring periods in which different groups of workers do the same job in rotation
62. Skill Verbs: Use these verbs to describe your skills and accomplishments when writing your
resume and cover letters -- to increase the strength of your writing and make potential employers
take notice!
63. Societal Changes: Social change, refers to any significant alteration over time in behavior
patterns and cultural values and norms.
64. Societal Needs: To a large degree reflected in industrial needs (for innovation, improved
standards, low cost production methods, knowledge about the human body, better access to data
and academic knowledge)
65. Standard Occupational Classification (SOC): System is used by Federal statistical agencies to
classify workers into occupational categories for the purpose of collecting, calculating, or
disseminating data. All workers are classified into one of 840 detailed occupations according to
their occupational definition. To facilitate classification, detailed occupations are combined to form
461 broad occupations, 97 minor groups, and 23 major groups.
66. Strategy: A plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim.
67. Tariff: A tax or duty to be paid on a particular class of imports or exports.
68. Technology Management: The field concerned with the supervision of personnel across the
technical spectrum and a wide variety of complex technological systems.
69. Telecommuting: Work from home, making use of the Internet, e-mail, and the telephone.
70. Trade: A skilled job, typically one requiring manual skills and special training (i.e. plumber,
electrician, auto mechanic, hvac, construction).
71. Trade: A skilled job, typically one requiring manual skills and special training.
72. Traditional Career: Earlier, women were confined to traditional roles such as housewives but
now they also want to contribute to the family budget. The only hassle is that women in the job
market have often been confined to undertake traditional jobs rather than being allowed to
undertake challenging jobs that men usually take up.
73. Trends: A general direction in which something is developing or changing
74. Unbiased: Showing no prejudice for or against something; impartial.
75. Video/Voice Conferencing: Means to conduct a conference between two or more participants at
different sites by using computer networks to transmit audio and video data.
76. Webinar: A seminar conducted over the Internet