Today’s Dynamic
Workplace:
Are your students
prepared?
Rita Jones
Orange Coast College
Creating Effective
Programs
1.
Provide an overview of workplace
trends and necessary career
development skills for the 21st
century
2.
Share resources that have been
developed to implement
effective career development
strategies
3.
Demonstrate effective career
development activities
The Critical
Importance of Career
Development
•
Most career decision-making is
unintentional and uninformed.
•
Research conducted shows
that:
– 65% of working adults do not
believe they are in the right job.
(NCDA/Gallup 1999)
At PostSecondary Level:
• 60% of high school graduates go
to post-secondary by the age of
24 but what happens to
them???
• 40% change programs or quit in
the first year
• 50% NOT in jobs related to their
major two years after graduation
There is a
Need for a
New Kind of
Career
Development
Changing Work
Dynamic
A Few Wake-Up Statistics
• The average twenty-something
entering the job market for the first
time this year can expect, on
average, 9 to 13 job changes in a
working lifetime.
• The average job in America now
lasts only 3.6 years.
• An average of 3 to 5 radical career
shifts within a working lifetime.
Changes Since
1977
•
•
•
•
•
Competition is now global.
Customers are exponentially more fickle.
Job security is dead.
Life balance is harder to find.
A new two-tiered society:
– “Haves” are the information
workers.
– “Have nots” are the routine
production & service workers.
• Effective work has to be both high-tech &
high-touch.
Six Survival
Qualities
In a world like that, how do you survive &
thrive?
Six key qualities that will take on an
increasingly make-or-break quality in the
next 25 years:
– Portability
– Diversification
– Entrepreneurship
– Buoyancy
– Balance
– Connectivity
Portability
• Portability means “have skills,
will travel.”
• Have a set of marketable
problem-solving skills that you
keep sharp and polished, so
you’ll always be in demand.
A Few Words About
Skills
• Know Your Strength
– Peter Drucker: “It’s much easier to move
from competence to excellence than it is
to move from mediocrity to competence.”
– Build on your strengths, rather than
wasting energy trying to shore up your
weaknesses.
• Portability “knowing what’s in your backpack”
• Your storehouse of abilities, knowledge, skills
and marketable traits that you carry with you
from job to job. Think of this as your
“transition survival kit.”
How do we help
students develop
“portable skills”?
Career Development
Tools for FREE!!
• Coast Careers
– www.coastcareers.com
• Work-Based Learning
– http://wblconnections.com
• QT: Quik Tips, Tools &
Timesavers
– http://wblconnections.com
Experiencing a QT
• Complete the “At My Best”
worksheet
• Turn paper over and draw three
columns,
• Fill them in with
Things I do splendidly
Things I do adequately
Things I should not do without supervision
How could this information be
helpful to you?
Diversification
• Diversification means that you simultaneously
develop from 3 to 5 generalizable, transferable
skill sets.
• Keys to effective diversification:
– Pick skill sets that are different, yet
rationally related.
– Pick skill sets that represent natural gifts.
• Your best transferable skills probably started
emerging by the time you were 5 or 6 years
old.
• If you’re stuck, ask yourself, “What were you
good at in grade school?”
How do we help
students develop
more “diversified”
skill sets?
Think
Entrepreneurship
Remind students:
• a paycheck is not an
entitlement, but the natural
outgrowth of someone (a
customer) being satisfied
enough with something (a
desired product or service) that
s/he will part with cold, hard
cash in return for it
How do we help
students understand
what it takes to be
an entrepreneur?
Buoyancy
• Buoyancy, or resilience, means the “ability
to bounce back from hard times, to see the
possibility rather than the threat side of
change, to keep growing and learning, to
see meaning rather than meaninglessness
in the patterns of your life.” It is as much of
an attitude as a skill, as much art as
science.
• It is the best statistical predictor of such
desirable traits as longevity, mental
health, and even career success.
Balance
Work in our culture is about three things:
• Make a living.
– Paying the bills, saving for retirement.
• Making a life.
– A lifestyle, a way of spending or structuring time.
Think hard about this one, because money is
gained by making lifestyle sacrifices.
• Making a difference.
– Your mission, your purpose, your psychological
legacy.
What does it take
to develop
buoyancy and
balance?
Connectivity
• “No man is an island,” wrote
John Donne in one of his most
famous lines.
• Connectivity matters because
you can't do everything, and you
need to work with others who
are weak where you're strong
(and vice versa).
• It matters because people hire
people whom they know and
trust or are known to someone
they know and trust.
Helping students
learn to connect…
Try this…..
“The most dependable and up-to-date information on
jobs and careers is not found in books or on the
Internet. It’s found by going out and talking to
people.”
-Richard Bolles: What Color Is Your Parachute
• In the Career Journey Road
Map booklet turn to:
p.16 “Informational Interview”
Capture
coastcareers.home
page
Students Need
Lifelong Skills
• Self-reliance
• Resiliency
• Ability to find work we love in
times of constant workforce
change
• Ability to maintain balance
between work and other life
roles
Career Development
Tools for FREE!!
• Coast Careers
– www.coastcareers.com
• Work-Based Learning
– http://wblconnections.com
• QT: Quik Tips, Tools &
Timesavers
– http://wblconnections.com
Capture Discover
Capture Identify
your skills
Capture Job
Outlook 2004
QT
• Target Audience
– Anyone who interacts with
students
• Faculty
• Counselors
• Career Center Staff
• Format
– Did You Know?
– Try This:
– Want More?
QT
• Check out our On The QT newsletters for
great activities for your classroom! Here
are the topics:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Concentration
Time Management
Communication
Find out what they know
Networking
Active Listening
Informational Interview
Internships
How to be an "A"
Student
• Critical Thinking
•Ethics
•Manners
•Problem Solving
•Diversity
•Transferable Skills
•Writing Emails
•Collaborative Learning
•Leadership
•Career Journey 1
Capture as many
student lessons as
possible on one
screen
Capture Classroom
Activities Page
Capture Faculty
Connections
ROI…. for students
with Career
Development skills
• More successful in the
workplace
• Make more money
• Fewer health problems
• Produce more goods and
services
• Experience shorter
unemployment periods
ROI for us….
Students do better in classes,
have higher retention and
graduation rates
and keep coming back!
Contact Information
• Rita Jones
– RitaJones@cccd.edu