CAREER MANAGEMENT NOTES
Career “Terminology” That Helps
Instructor’s Notes for Text Box Three: Objectives to consider and implement to increase
students knowledge, usage and understanding of the concepts.
What we have learned as students in a class, as employees on the job, or by wanting to
become better at any one thing, understanding the terminology of whatever that particular topic is
essential. Good illustrations for student’s are:

When you wanted to become better at football, you had to learn the terminology used
for playing the game.

When you wanted to join the choir, you needed to learn the directors’ terminology for
conducting a successful program.

When you wanted to build a computer, you needed the experience and technical
knowledge of computer terminology to make the finished product successful.
So, if you want to become better at your trade and reach success in your job and personal
life, you have to learn more about the specific terminology that will educate and guide you
through the unfamiliar and learning stages as you become a successful, experienced person. This
transformation will be the result of new, accumulated skills that can make your life and value to
others more rewarding.
STUDENT EXERCISES:
1.
Ask students about the concepts of how organizations are structured. Ask them what they
think the (a) slim & trim, (b) layered, and (3) home office with satellites might look like.
Use the following as explanations of the three ways companies might be structured and
help them to understand how company structure effects hiring decisions, and what a new
hire might expect in how they will be managed, supervised, and the level of decision they
may or may not have.
Company Structure
Slim & Trim-Layered Home Office & Satellites
Slim & Trim
By definition, Company Structure is the way an organization functions based on the toplevel management structure. A company can have single leadership (single owner) and the
decisions regarding the business of the company can be handled quickly without much conferring
and meeting with others. This is a slim upper management structure and by design limits decision
making to few.
This style is often found in a small to mid-size family business. As an employee of this
type of organization, your job may have levels of responsibility that would be more than a larger
company; but, your authority might be less based on company ownership and decision making.
Understanding how this type of structure works is helpful; it may lessen any frustration that might
occur as your responsibilities increase but you lack the authority to make big decisions without
the approval of the company president or owner.
Types of Companies that are Slim & Trim:
Dell Computers
Apple Computers
Layered.
When a company becomes rather large, many departments are formed (e.g., marketing,
finance, customer service, maintenance, executive, etc.) and the layers of the company, from
lower-level functions to higher-level decision making, are formed. In the process, many levels of
management can also be formed to lead groups to perform job duties throughout the company. As
a result, getting approval to spend company dollars on employees working overtime, to spending
more money on advertising has to be approved up the company chain of command. This can
often lead to red tape and frustration when the outcome could be better, but is hindered by the
approval process.
This checks-and-balance approach is why larger companies often become slow and stale
in the industry. Smaller companies often take customers and market shares away because of their
ability to get things done more quickly. Understanding this company structure is important so that
expectations and job performances are maintained, despite the inherent design and flaws of a
layered company.
Types of Companies that Are Layered:
General Motors
General Mills
Procter & Gamble
Home Office & Satellites.
When a company has a product and service that has mass marketing and selling appeal, it
can take the form of a home office base with multiple locations that do business with the
customer. The employee maintains a home office role, doing functions to support the satellite
operations, or the employee works in the field running the store locations based on the company’s
working model.
If you work in the home office, your job duties can be defined by a specific department
and usually not highly staffed. Therefore, you may have many job duties and meetings to attend
that are in support of the entire organization’s goals. This job and its functions are more
structured. Usually department heads of the company work on policies and budgets that are used
throughout the organization. Direction and decisions are made at this level and then administered
to the off site locations.
Employees working at the offsites are asked to work more directly with the public. Duties
usually include opening, maintaining and closing the business. Policies regarding the product and
service are established and carried out so that little decisions are made regarding these issues. The
management of the offsite usually includes a store manager, assistant manager, shift leader and
full-time and part-time staff. Jobs are assigned accordingly and emphasis on training and
following company policy is highly enforced.
Types of Companies that are Home Office/Satellite in Operation:
Subway
McDonalds
Auto Zone
Quick Lube
Human Relations Department (HR Department)
Large Companies-Mid Size Companies-Small Companies
If you locate your business in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Bellingham, Washington, or
Portland, Maine (any town, anywhere), there are specific characteristics about the companies
located there and the depth and style of their Human Resource (HR) Departments. In most cases,
the following is a list of the duties and responsibilities of the HR department:
 Job duties and pay
 Union or non-union shop
 Training and employment development
 Hiring
 Additional/optional benefits like 401K options, medical, dental, etc.
 Computation and distribution of employee pay
 Educational programs
 Procedures manuals
 Retirement
The list of duties can be short or lengthy and the duties can be few or many. How
companies handle HR functions is often determined by the size of the company.
Small Companies.
The HR Director of a small organization is often more generalist in their approach to
handling and carrying out the duties of the HR Department. This person, in most cases, has all the
HR responsibilities and it is their job to administer them accordingly. In this instance, it can be
said that the person would have a good, general knowledge of HR issues and be able to run the
department successfully.
Mid-Size Companies.
As by description, mid-size companies have more HR functions based on the size of the
company, amount of employees and sales. As a result, the HR department would operate
similarly. A HR director would be responsible for the HR functions, but would also rely on other
employees to handle other areas like payroll and benefits, training and hiring.
While more help is shown in this example, most often the demand for the HR functions
are enormous and the job/duties are handled as best as possible. Overall, few employees are
available to carry out the HR functions. But the HR director is an overseer of the entire HR
function and usually keeps the company in line with compliances, proper hiring, firing and
training, etc.
Large Companies.
Large companies are usually well-staffed in the HR Department and have many
specialists to handle the specific HR duties. This format is necessary to keep the company current
and in line with HR compliance, as well as with keeping with employee benefit programs, union
concerns, insurance needs for employees and customer potential lawsuits, etc.
The benefit is that a person trying to be hired by a perspective new employee can achieve
better results if the person understands how the HR Departments operate. Knowing how small,
mid-size and large companies handle their HR duties can be a real strength in how to approach
the company for employment, as well as being realistic in terms of how they operate in
administering pay, benefits, training, advancement, etc.
Job Description & Pay
Job Duties-Responsibilities-Compensation
Understanding job duties is important to the decision to take on said responsibilities and a
measure or benchmark of the overall success you have in accomplishing the job. In addition to
the stated duties, each job has a certain level of responsibility that goes along with the particular
of job. Finally, a certain level of compensation should be given to the person who performs the
specific job.
Job Duties.
Job duties are usually given for each job title within an organization. The HR Department
usually has a job description that can be found because of their role of hiring and paying each
person for their job performance.
Job Responsibilities.
Job responsibilities are in addition to job duties. If, for example, you are working as the
electrician in a power plant, your job duties may consist of day-to-day tasks. However, your job
responsibility is also to make sure that when you shut power off for repairs or to ensure that no
one comes in contact with a fuse panel; you post this information accordingly. As a person who
understands the implications of electricity and what can happen if it shocks a person, you have
the responsibility and obligation to handle this responsibility accordingly.
Compensation.
Job duties and responsibilities all work together in establishing the proper compensation
that an employee would receive. The compensation can be in direct pay, benefits, and other
methods of compensation that the company deems fair.
STUDENT EXERCISE:
2.
Ask students their opinion about how jobs are found. Use the descriptions of each of the
three types (want ads, word of mouth, and employment agencies) as part of your
discussion. Ask them how they view the strengths and weaknesses of each of the job
search processes.
Employment Agencies
Company Pay-Client Pay-Free Services.
If you have ever used an employment agency, the expertise that they can offer has to be
paid for, and there is more than one way for this to occur. Some employment agencies services
are paid for by the hiring company; the client is therefore free of any charges of using their
services. Some employment agencies ask the client to pay a fee for their services. Sometimes the
fees are shared by both the client and the hiring company.
Company Pay.
If the hiring company is paying for the new employee, usually a brief meeting with the
client (the person looking for employment) and the employment agency executive takes place to
discuss job interests, past job history, resume, and other variables that could affect the outcome of
the hiring. Once completed, the employment agency finds companies that would match the
client’s interest and set up interviews for the perspective employee and employer.
Once this process takes place, the interview is conducted and the process takes it course.
The employment agency executive will keep in contact with the client in terms of the outcome of
any and all interviews, potential hiring status or timelines taking place. Questions by the client
can usually be answered by the employment executive and the outcome is usually positive for
both parties.
Company Pay Employment Agencies:
Snelling Personnel
Keystone
J.E. Wottoua & Associates
Client Pay.
When the relationship is one where the client is going to pay for the perspective hiring to
an unknown company, a set of objectives are discussed up front and a contract is constructed
spelling out what the employment agency will do to assist the client in a career-pursuing job.
Most often these are jobs of higher status and pay, more professional in nature, and require that
the client has a proven job history of duties and accomplishments.
The client in most cases is seeking a new career field and is relying on the employment
agency to use their contacts in the job market help find a new career. In the process, the client is
usually taken through a series of evaluations about their job likes, successes, and ideal job that
they would create if they could. The process can be lengthy. Fee structures are usually around the
$5,000 figure for the services that will be rendered by the employment agency.
Caution should be taken if expectations are not realistic and if the hopes of the new career
are not met with satisfaction. In most cases, the client can use the employment agency’s services
for the remainder of their career pursuits.
Types of Client Pay Employment Agencies:
Haldane
Free Services:
There are many free employment services available to individuals looking for
employment. Local libraries are filled with books and publications on the job search subject.
Local agencies also put on clinics covering employment topics such as interviewing, job search,
resume writing, filling out job applications, etc. Also, using the internet can be a source of
employment assistance, including hiring agencies in your area, how to write a resume, etc.
Employment Want Ads
Word Of Mouth-Posted-Advertised
Finding jobs in most cases in not overly difficult. Finding a career, however, can be a
daunting task. How jobs become know is a process of many variables and understanding how this
process works can be of great benefit.
Word of Mouth.
Hearing about a job directly from someone in the know is a real benefit to the receiver of
this information. Usually the specifics of the job (e.g., duties, pay, and immediate boss) are
known factors that are shared in this process. The most important element of the entire word of
mouth job opportunity is who to talk to about getting an interview, with the potential of securing
the open position.
In most cases, the open position can be filled quickly either by someone in the company
or through the word of moth process. Once a job is posted to the open market, the interviewing
process can take on a new direction. Getting through the process can become more difficult and
the outcome more attuned to candidates interviewed who increase the level of experiences and
successes.
Word of mouth information is usually helpful if you have some connection to someone
within the organization and greatly increases if your skills and experiences are a good match to
the job opening.
Posted.
Jobs that are posted within the contents of the company through newsletters, memos, job
boards, announcements, and other means are intended for a hiring within whenever possible.
Employees are usually familiar with how to evaluate the job listings, departments that would be
involved and the other particulars about the job opening. Compensation and total benefits are also
usually mentioned, since it is available to all employees of the company.
However, in many cases, job postings do have requirements in terms of the duties and
status of employees who qualify. Job postings are a positive for most or all employees as they see
new and better opportunities for advancement in the company where they are already employed.
Advertised.
Jobs that are posted in a company hiring memo, over the internet, placed in local and
national newspapers, and in other local advertising mediums are often times standard hiring
positions that the company can use new employees to fill these positions on a regular basis.
Getting a response to a phone call or sending in a resume can often times be handled by
the company in a slow, file gathering process.
Getting immediate responses can occur but in many cases, the position may already have
a candidate that will be hired and it is in the best interest of the company to post the job to the
public as well.
STUDENT EXERCISE:
3.
Discuss with students the skills most often needed to successfully obtain a job. Ask them
how much experience they might have in each of these areas and how they might define
their skill set.
Self Skills & Attitude
Mechanical-Technical-Verbal-Written
Mechanical skills are very important to how machines and production processes operate.
Having skilled people plan these operations and execute the best possible outcomes has great
value in many organizations. Likewise, technical skills that relate to the technological
performance of a business are also vitally important. Finally, the ability to communicate in both
verbal and written formats is essential to the free trade that exists in the world today. These skills
are of the utmost importance to companies that want to compete at a high level in their respective
industries.
Mechanical/Technical:
Mechanical and technical are often similar but different in the confines of most
organizations. Mechanical skills are used in motors, machinery, electricity, plumbing, carpentry,
machining, etc. Technical may be the blending of some of the mechanical applications to a
company use along with other areas like architectural, computer applications of CAD-CAM,
computer networking, phone usage and the overall effectiveness of the communication uses and
outlets of an organization.
Writing & Verbal:
Written communication is integral to all organizations, as shown in e-mail use, company
newsletters and annual reports to contracts, to employee training. Verbal skills are the methods a
company uses to communicate to both the inside of the company (internally) and to the outside
of the company (externally) How well this is done has a lot to do with the overall leadership of
the company and the expertise of the employees that are hired.
Career Etiquette
Dress-Manners-Professionalism-Responsibility
The importance of knowing expectations regarding your dress, professionalism and
responsibilities on the job is important to the success of your career. Understanding how each of
these can assist you in your job will be discussed.
Dress.
In the many organizations that exist in the marketplace, the employee dress can varied by
job duty, company policy and the overall level of professionalism that the company is trying to
portray. A maintenance position usually provides the employee with a uniform based on the work
that is performed. Employees in a production capacity can also be included in the company
uniform program. Managers often times are dressed in dress slacks, dress shoes, and may or may
not need to wear a tie.
The department that the manager works in may also dictate what the manager should
wear. Office staff usually has dress wear for both women and men. Upper level management
tends to dress in suits; however, companies are less formal today than in the past. In the scheme
of dressing for the job, being better dressed and looking more professional is always a good
personal policy.
Once your career is started, looking at employees around you can often help you evaluate
the dress style of the company. Directing any questions to your immediate boss lets them know
you are aware and concerned of the importance of the need to look your best on the job!
Job Application & Resume
Honesty-Accuracy-Neatness
How you portray yourself through the use of a resume can be a tremendous boost to your
career. However, accuracy is the critical word here. Using false job titles, educational
accomplishments, and job accomplishments are dangerous areas for any job applicant. Once
information that is not accurate is uncovered, possible termination and other charges of misuse of
this information can happen, with varying degrees of outcomes.
Honesty.
We always hear the quote “Honesty is the best policy.” This could not be truer with
regards to a personal resume. Your information is in print and can be distributed near and far,
where many possible companies might look at it and use it accordingly. If you cannot perform up
to the level of stated experience or do not have the level of education as shown, your career can
take unexpected diversions, with outcomes that may be dangerous to your short-term and longterm career objectives.
Accuracy.
In addition to honesty, accuracy should be hand-in-hand when used on your resume. If
you have worked at company XYZ, your job title and duties should be an accurate reflection of
your time at that company.
If you attended ABC Community College, your course work and grades should be an
accurate account of your accomplishments at that particular school. In short, honesty should come
first regarding your resume. Your accuracy should best portray what you have accomplished and
at what level. Using this information accurately and honestly can be for the best for all parties
involved.
If you have some shortcomings, talk about them honestly. The perspective company will
be more pleased that you are honest and accurate about your skills and can then be better suited in
how to help strengthen you in these positions. There is not a perfect employee that companies
potentially hire and they understand that. Being honest and accurate only makes better use of your
time and allows for a potentially better and longer outcome.
Neatness.
Finally, skills and accomplishments can be lessened when your resume is not handled in
a neat and professional manner. Make sure your titles are accurate, spelling is correct, and that the
overall presentation is done as best as possible; make sure you tighten any messy areas before you
look for employment. There are services available to assist you with resume writing and
presentation. Considering the potential outcome, this might be an area in which it’s worth seeking
professional help.
Job Interview
Preparation-Execution-Follow Up
Preparation for a job interview has a process of steps to take in advance, but the payoff
can be very beneficial. Execution is the result of your preparation and follow-up is the best
measure to assure the greatest possible outcome of your work.
Preparation.
Putting together a resume is a process. If you have some experience at it, you can
progress through the process each time to put together your resume. In the end, a resume is an
accurate reflection of your current and past accomplishments in both work and educational areas.
When using this information, understand where your strengths and shortcomings lie. A
person with a lot of work experience but with no additional education (community college, fouryear school, university, trade, etc.) may find it difficult to get a higher-level job because of degree
requirements. Likewise, the person with excessive college credits and no practical job
experiences may find it difficult to get the particular level job they are seeking.
As a result, some balance between these two areas can often pay in high dividends.
Consider the following: what are your job experiences and level of college and degree
accomplishments? Do you see a need to work on one, none, or both of these areas? Your resume
is a reflection of your own work and only you can improve upon the expected results.
Execution.
Using your resume can be a great experience. However, how well you execute the writing
of the resume and the interview process, where you discuss this information, has great
implications. It is vital to have a plan to take these steps. Lack of experience can be made up
through practice. Using a professional service can likewise assist in answering questions you
might have regarding the resume-interview process.
Follow-Up.
After you have handled your resume writing accurately and honestly and have executed
the resume during an interview, proper follow-up completes the process. Follow-up might include
a phone call, e-mail, or a personal letter or note to thank the parties involved in the interview
process. This final touch can keep your name fresh in the minds of the hiring executives and
reaffirm your desire to work for this particular company.