Career Flux - career exploration

A Career in the Armed Forces – is it for me?

Joining the armed forces can be an incredibly rewarding and exciting career opportunity for those with a passion to serve the country. Joining the army, however, isn’t for everyone but how do you know if it’s for you? If you’ve hit a fork in the road regarding your decision to join the army then here are a few factors to consider before making the crucial decision.

Reasons to Join the Army

There are a lot of incentives in place to make joining the army more attractive to potential new recruits. If you’re looking to study to gain a qualification, you may receive financial bursaries and grants to help you gain your army-related qualification. This can be attractive to many young people with the current university tuition fees being relatively high. Army positions also boast more paid holidays than a typical civilian job, with a minimum of 38 days leave a year.

Many people join the armed forces to feel a sense of self-worth; protecting your country can fill you with pride and can be incredibly rewarding. Helping the most vulnerable people in the world can give you an overwhelming sense of achievement and selflessness.

Skill Requirement

In order to be a member of the armed forces you have to possess a certain skill-set. Army recruiters will look for certain personal qualities, achievements and, in some roles, technical skills.

Physical fitness – although you don’t need to be boasting a pristine physique, you need to be able to run on command and squeeze into awkward positions.

Ability to empathize – as a member of the armed forces you’ll have to work with people from some of the world’s most deprived countries so sensitivity is a necessity. If you’ve worked as a carer before or volunteered for a charity which helps vulnerable people then make sure it’s on your CV.

Be a team player – most jobs ask for this quality but it’s particularly important if you’re looking to start a military career. You have to be able to obey commands and work together with others.

Patriotism – an army recruiter will look for passion for serving the Queen and country in potential soldiers and officers.

A Career in the Armed Forces – is it for me-2

Inspection of Irish Army by Queen - Dublin

Assess Yourself

Although the army can be a fantastic career path it isn’t suitable for everyone. Leaving the army isn’t so easy; military law means your contract is legally binding. Simply going AWOL can land you with a criminal record at the very least so you need to be sure you want to do it before signing up. You can ask military solicitors for help but getting yourself into this situation in the first place isn’t a good idea! You can speak to a career adviser or request an information pack to find out more information and decide whether it’s the right career path for you.

This guest post was written by Stephanie Staszko.

Health and Human Diet Column Writer for Local Newspaper

By Erich Lagasse Leave a Comment

Erich Lagasse works for justjobs.com and is one of their content specialists.

Considered working as a Nutrition Columnist? This interview will take you through the ups and downs you can expect in the position, what it takes to land the job, what you can expect to earn and more. This is a true career story as told to WritingJobs.org and is one of many interviews with writing professionals, which among others include a Blogger and an Editorial Adviser.

I currently work as a health and human diet column writer at a local newspaper, providing nutritional advice to a small, but growing community as quickly as I can understand the latest scientific evidence. I’ve been working at this career for some 5 years now, and it still feels like the day I started.

Factual Information Needed

My day to day work schedule involves surfing the internet for the most recent medical publications and blog posts by informed, analytical researchers, doctors, and nutrition experts, to find common threads and the most factual information possible where the nutrition and health fields are concerned. Once I’ve finished with my browsing, contemplating, fact checking, and the contacting of any relevant sources for permission to use their work, I begin writing. This is followed by a painstaking scrutiny of every word, then a break, and then another painstaking scrutinizing, before I release the rough draft to be painstakingly scrutinized by my editor.

A standard misconception about being a nutritional advice columnist is that we get some form of subsidy from any manner of interested parties, whether they be food companies, supplement manufacturers, or the FDA. All I can say about this is that if a subsidy check is coming, it’s taking its sweet time, as I have yet to receive a dime from anyone but the owners of the paper.

Research Demands Time

I consider myself very satisfied with my career; the only thing that begins to bog me down when I start my day is the research portion. This can sometimes lay me low as I’m forced to not only read and understand vast amounts of data, but I have to contend with the private sector’s emphasis on a spin when it comes to reported scientific facts. If I should find a piece of promising information in a fitness magazine, for example, I have to do twice the legwork to determine if it is, in fact, true, or if the magazine was just trying to butter me up for a sale. Even though I get no incentive to report a certain way, that doesn’t necessarily mean others don’t as well.

Readers’ Response Makes It Worthwhile

When I get e-mails from readers that found real value in my pieces, or report changes in chronic illnesses, or even just fat loss from the information I present, it makes it worth more than just the zeros in my pay check. While I don’t get nearly enough reader feedback to make me feel like I’m truly making a difference, if I could see with my own eyes the number of lives I’ve touched for the better, I think I could truly hang up my hat and call it home.

Obesity Wake-up Call

I, like many Americans, grew up obese. This realization didn’t come until much later in life. Not to say I didn’t know I was fat, but when I got a glimpse of how close I actually was to childhood diabetes, it really hit me how little I, and my family, knew about proper nutrition. I take this to heart nearly each time I sit down to write the information that I hope will spread out like a thought virus amongst the people of my home town.

Avoiding Disinformation

I studied nutrition at my university, and always had a passion for getting to the truth of what makes us healthy and what makes us, well, not. Devoting my time to this endeavor took so much time and required so much dedication, in the light of the nearly mountainous wall of disinformation created by interest groups, subsidized food industries and even governmental organizations that I knew I had to do more. It only made sense to get paid for it. I always look back at my formative times and wish that I had written a blog on my findings, and reached out to others that had my same passion in other related fields, because that’s what a lot of my off the job work-related effort goes to.

Respect Thy Seniors

My first print article reached the editor’s office and was promptly denied due to it being a little too edgy. I pushed past her advice and basically bullied her into printing it, only to get an incredible amount of flak from not only other staffers, but readers, as well. It was then that I learned that your editor knows her reader base, and going against her advice is just starting fires.

Respect your seniors, or pay the consequences of non-vicarious education!

Passion Keeps Me Going

It’s been fairly hum drum so far, thankfully. Spreading the good word about how to live right is, and I think always will be, my passion. If I don’t get up to do this job, I might as well not get up at all. Some of the e-mails I mentioned earlier concerning readers that hit their body image or weight loss goals always make me smile, too.

Finding a clinical finding that I like and that would jive with a lot of my other beliefs, only to realize that it was funded by a private supplement company and is rife with poor empirical practices happens way too often and always gets me in a bad mood.

I do this job at home even when I’m not getting paid, so I find little stress in it. My life is my work, at this point. Columnists in small papers can start at 35 to 40 thousand a year, at my experience level, and with the readers I pull, it’s more. I make more than enough to be happy, I’ve found. I rarely take days off, as my job is very low stress.

A college degree is necessary, whether it be in journalism or nutrition, and past experience in writing is required. I hope you like being wrong! I would be doing exactly what I’m doing now, except syndicated and with a reader base that is informed enough to not only follow my advice, but to challenge it and prove me wrong.

Filed Under: Guest Experts, Real Workplace Stories Tagged With: Career, career exploration, Job, Real Workplace Stories, Work

Retired Registered Nurse Shares Her Experience

By Patricia C Leave a Comment

Patricia C works for LatPro.com, DiversityJobs.com and JustJobs.com and is one of their content specialists. She has a degree in International Relations and enjoys learning from other cultures and traveling.

Considered working as a Registered Nurse? This interview will take you through the ups and downs you can expect in the position, what it takes to land the job, what you can expect to earn and more. This is a true career story as told to nursingjobs.net/ and is one of many interviews with nursing professionals which among others include a Nursing Supervisor, a Neonatal Registered Nurse, and everything in between.

I am a retired registered nurse who obtained an Associate Degree in Nursing in 1979 from a local university and immediately went to work in a hospital in the area. Over the years, I moved around to other hospitals, usually for a better schedule or a bonus offering, and continued my education until I finally obtained a Bachelor of Science in Nursing in 1991.

When I graduated in 1979 and went to work, I was in for a rude awakening. My husband did not want me to work shift work so the only way to work the day shift was to work on a PRN (as needed) basis. While my classmates were assigned to permanent units that became familiar to them, I was forced to walk into nursing service every morning and be assigned to a different and unfamiliar floor.

I was literally thrown to the sharks because it did not matter whether I was a new graduate or not, I was expected to know and function as well as a registered nurse who had been working for the hospital for years. I barely knew what I was doing even though I had been through clinical training in college, so I stayed in panic mode most of the time. When you work PRN, you are usually given the worst patients on the floor.

The floor I would be assigned to might have forty patients with only three registered nurses and four nurse’s aides assigned to the floor that day. One nurse would run the desk, since this was before unit secretaries existed, and the other two would be responsible for twenty patients each with only nurse’s aides to help with the patients. I had to give all of the medications while a nightmare situation would be transpiring in the pharmacy department, do all the procedures, start and maintain all of the IVs, carry out all of the doctor’s orders, handle any emergency that might arise, and document in the charts about everything that transpired with the patient during the day.

If I could go back through my college years again, I would complain more about my clinical training in college. The tuition for my college education was extremely high and I feel as if I got swindled during my clinical experience. The classroom instructors were very good and the whole class scored high on our state board exams but possessing book knowledge does not always translate well in the real world if you have not had competent instructions in a clinical setting. I had to learn the hard way how to take care of patients after I went to work.

I finally convinced my husband that I had to work shift work and was assigned to a permanent floor which relieved some of my stress. This also qualified me for a pay increase and a generous benefit package that included sick pay and vacation time.

I eventually transferred to the intensive care unit of the hospital. Over the years, even when I have worked in other hospitals, I have primarily worked in the cardiac care units because I am fascinated with this specialty. A nurse that works in any type of intensive care unit must learn to operate complex equipment and carry out numerous special procedures. A nurse must intelligently interpret the data obtained from the monitors and equipment that is attached to the patients so that they can decide if the numbers are abnormal and whether a call should be placed to the doctor or to simply use the standing orders left on the chart. EKG monitors in CCU are very important devices since the rhythms displayed reflect how well the heart is functioning. An erroneous interpretation can put a patient in harm’s way.

During most of my career I was usually assigned the charge nurse position because I am a responsible and decisive person who works well with other nurses. On two evaluations, one of my head nurses proclaimed that I was a head nurse’s dream. I was working the midnight shift at that time. She based this statement on the fact that after I took charge of that shift, the doctors had stopped knocking her office door down every morning to complain about too many calls being placed to them during the night. I always managed to resolve most of the problems that arose with the patients and rarely placed a call to a doctor at night.

Being a charge nurse is not easy and takes good social skills to function effectively. I am a Caucasian female who has worked with several other races throughout my nursing career. When evaluating other nurses, I do not base my opinion of them due to their race or skin color but usually judge them on their merits and their ability to work in a harmonious manner with the rest of the nursing team.

While I had a lot of negative experiences in nursing, I would not trade my decision to become a nurse for anything in the world. It is my understanding that the nursing profession has improved dramatically and that the nurses are treated with more respect. I have been told that the newly graduated nurses are more assertive in demanding their rights and standing up for themselves. This is my biggest regret while working as a registered nurse; I simply did as I was told and should have made more of an effort to improve my working conditions.

Filed Under: Guest Experts, Real Workplace Stories Tagged With: Career, career exploration, Job

Theater Careers: Behind The Curtain

By Annie Rose Favreau Leave a Comment

Annie Favreau writes and works for Inside Jobs, a career exploration site “where people can explore what opportunities exist and learn what paths can take them there.”

When you hear “careers in theater,” acting is probably the job that comes to mind first. As the most visible participants in a theatrical production, thespians can really hog the professional limelight. But treading the boards is a notoriously tricky career, filled with long hours, low wages, and studio apartments. So what are some of the other— less visible, but also less insecure (read: more pay)—professions that make the magic happen on stage? Here are five to consider:

Annie Rose Favreau (the author) plays Tilly, the triste protagonist in Sarah Ruhl's musically inclined "Melancholy Play." Photo courtesy: Garrett Mukai - The Spectator

1) Stage Managers are the air traffic controllers of a play. During rehearsals, they work with the director and designers, recording the lighting, sound, and actor cues. When the curtain goes up, they call the cues from the light booth, coordinating with the backstage assistant stage manager to make sure the production runs smoothly. Since most professional directors do not see a show after it opens, it’s the stage manager’s task to ensure that the director’s original artistic vision is reproduced night after night.

Must have: Patience, authority, and organizational skills.

Most have: A BA, usually in stage management, theater, or theater design.

Show me the money: Stage managers work on a project basis, but the salary can be high for a theater job, clocking in between $42,890–$111,250.

2) If you’re a more technically minded person, a career in lighting design could be a good match. Lighting Designers plan out the placement, movement, and timing of each light on a theater’s grid. Working alongside the director and other designers, their goal is to create a cohesive aesthetic for a production.

Must have: Creative vision, electrical skills, and an eye for detail.

Most have: Experience in the field (a BA in theater or lighting design won’t hurt, but it’s not necessary if you’ve got the professional chops).

Show me the money: On average, lighting designers bring home between $49,338–$82,054.

3) Sound Designers create the audio experience of a show. Depending on the requirements of a production, they might spend time mixing music, recording or finding sound effects, or working with the director to explore how the sound elements help heighten the audience’s experience. Alternatively, some sound designers focus on the technical side of things, placing microphones, balancing volume, or equalizing the bass and treble.

Must have: Keen hearing, creativity, and in-depth knowledge of sound equipment.

Most have: Experience in the field (like lighting designers, sound designers often have a BA, but a degree is not required).

Show me the money: If a sound designer’s working on Broadway, the benefits can be high, but most make between $32,450–$67,010.

4) Costume Designers are a crucial part of the production team: costumes are the fastest way to give visual information, like the economic status of a character or the time period, to the audience. Whether re-purposing clothing from past performance or creating new outfits from scratch, costume designers are in charge of all the worn pieces and props.

Must have: Style, historical knowledge of clothing design, sewing and garment construction skills.

Most have: At least a 2-year degree in fashion or costume design.

Show me the money: Costume designers’ annual salary generally hits between $44,110–$90,020.

5) Director positions come in two major areas: Directors of specific plays, and Artistic Directors who oversee the entire season of a theater. Both positions are highly collaborative: Directors work closely with actors and designers to bring their vision of the production to life. Artistic directors are the strategic thinkers responsible for developing and executing the mission and vision of a theater company. They guide the selection of plays, the development of budgets, and the overall brand of the organization.

Must have: Vision, organizational skills, and people skills.

Most have: At minimum a BA in theater or arts administration.

Show me the money: With yearly wages between $42,890–$111,250, directing roles are often the highest paid positions in a theater company.

Want to find out more about careers in theater? Go here.

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Filed Under: Career and Job Research Tools, Guest Experts Tagged With: Career, career exploration, Careers

Good Career Opportunities Follow Good Career Planning

By Mona Samar Leave a Comment

There is no stretching the truth when saying that good career opportunities follow good career planning. It is not uncommon to be in a situation where you are in the midst of a job search or career change and seemingly going nowhere and you learn about Cousin Stacy landing a plum job with a famous Interior Designer. While you are still digesting the news and decide to call her to congratulate her, along comes your friend Tom beaming with joy. He tells you that finally he has been accepted as the Travel Writer at a magazine he had been trying to join. Someone else might just have been promoted to a higher level while you are still deciding where to apply for a job. At such times, it seems that everyone around you is getting great career opportunities except yourself. Rest assured that this kind of thinking is just a limited vision mind set because of your seemingly uncertain circumstances at that point in time. None of the people that you heard about getting ahead in their careers were served those ‘great’ career opportunities on a platter. If you were able and willing to dig deep into their story, you are bound to discover the careful career planning, hard work and patience put in by them over a period of time.

The lesson learnt here is that as a job seeker you can come upon good career opportunities too – with a well thought out career plan. To make such a plan and execute it, consider the following three actions that form a good career plan in its bare essential form.

1. Identify Yourself

Have you ever identified yourself and found out who is the person that you are? By that it is not meant here that you are a ‘nice, friendly person who wishes everyone well’. In the present context, identifying yourself means recognizing your true job worthiness. This is determined among other factors by:

All or any interests like, for example, reading, traveling, curiosity in science, computing, building boats, fascination with honeybees, environment, dress designing etc and strengths relating to those interests
Your natural and acquired talents like singing or being able to sell anything to anyone
Skills developed by you or gained through experience like organizational skills and communications skills
School/College courses attended if any
Any vocational training undertaken like fork lift driving or first-aid training
Job experience if previously employed
What you really like doing and sometimes get compliments for
Accomplishments that gave you a sense of satisfaction and pride
Your values and principles that you would never like to compromise
Activities that you consider fun and enjoyable ranging from social activities to sports

If you push yourself to answer all the above in an honest way, you would find that a composite picture of who you actually are would emerge in front of you. This perception would instil in you an inner confidence and make you aware of your potential worth as a whole in society. You have to create this ‘10 megapixel picture’ of yourself if you successfully want to move to the next steps and to your ultimate destination, that is, creating great career opportunities for yourself.

2. Decide and Select Target Career

The second step is identifying a job or job field, preferably in a career that you would follow for a long time if not forever. Here again, you have to look inside of yourself and listen to what your gut feeling says about the kind of work you want to perform for a living. Do not be hesitant to consider any option just because you think no one has ever suggested that to you or if your uncle Bob told you not to do that kind of work. It is you who are going to work and you who is going to get paid. Nothing else matters. In order to make this selection, you would need to sort out the jumbled feelings that are inevitable to crop up before you. You can use some or all of the following to reach a decision:

While some people have a strong inner voice telling them what is their calling in life, most of the rest of us have to do some soul searching
If you are just starting out at a young age, consult your career counselor at your educational institution if one is available or a parent
Talking to family and friends at this stage helps, but decide according to your informed understanding instead of someone else dictating you to do something for a career
If you have completed your studies but do not have a clear direction to follow, try volunteering for an organization related to your education
Decide whether you want to go in for fame or fortune, or both, or whether both fame and money would matter only after you first find self fulfillment
Do a thorough research on careers or jobs that you think would take you to cloud nine and find out if it is really so; use online resources and your local library and research about people who already tread that path and see how do they feel now
Self doubt and apprehension are bound to creep in if you are a normal human being but never forget that Abraham Lincoln or Bill Gates did not just jump through a magic door to success (maybe Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg did, but he is an exceptional one of a handful people out of nearly 7 billion in the world including you and I right now!)
A very healthy resource to use is Occupational Outlook Handbook by Bureau of Labor Statistics of the United States Department of Labor; you’ll find in it, among other things, earnings, expected job prospects and working conditions relating to virtually every career available
Finally, make a shortened list of any occupation you want to follow and start conduction informational interviews with people already working in that field
All the above actions, if taken in earnest, would create a clear cut goal/s for you to start aiming at and help create an enthusiasm instead of doubts and uncertainty resulting in meaningful career opportunities for you

3. Design and Execute Action Plan and Take the Plunge

Now that you have a ‘10 megapixel picture’ from step #1 and also a targeted career/job from step #2, its time to design and execute your career action plan. Remember, if your self assessment and clearly identified areas of career interest are well documented and are now on your desk or on a computer file, they are not going to bring career opportunities to your door on their own. It is time to drop any hesitancy and doubts and getting up and taking concrete action. Some of the actions to begin your quest can be:

Based on what you found out about yourself and your desired job, decide if they match or do you have enough education or training for the same
If you need additional training, what should that be, where is it available and when are the earliest starting dates
Join that course or training if it is suitable for you to undertake the above in view of your current financial needs and/or time constraints, like for example, have you already maxed your credit or if you have to take care of an infant, otherwise you might have to do with what you’ve got at present by way of qualifications
If the above are sorted already, it is time to write a strong Resume and Cover Letter that you can either do yourself with inputs and advice from a knowledgeable source like a school career adviser, an elder in the family, a friend with an established career in your chosen field or, if you can afford, a professional resume writer
Now launch your job search in full earnest using every source at your disposal, that include among many others, online job boards, newspaper ads, employment offices, government funded employment centers, recruitment agencies, college employment resources and career/job fairs
For best results to get solid job leads, in addition to the before mentioned and above all of them, is Networking that involves looking for jobs through real people like friends, friends of friends, family, old school mates, past co-workers, social media like LinkedIn and Twitter, setting up appointments for informational interviews, career counselors, approaching employers directly and practically talking to anybody who you socialize with including your hair dresser and grocer
Concurrently with starting your job search, you should start preparing for potential interviews as well in advance by researching possible questions to be asked and preparing your answers
Practice your interview skills regularly in front of a mirror or practice a mock interview session with a friend or family member and you’ll be pleasantly surprised later how much that helped you at the actual interview
Instead of just waiting for responses from employers, as it may take a few weeks to get your job search yielding tangible results, find out opportunities to volunteer in a related field that would get you into a ‘job groove’ and also will be seen positively by all employers
Finally, if your dream job is taking a while to happen, you may opt to take up an available ‘survival job’ if financial constraints are pressing you with the only precaution to be taken being that it doesn’t completely throw you off from your original targets and career goals

All the above steps taken with a burning desire and motivation will definitely take you to your destination. Keep in mind also that no career can be called a ‘perfect’ career universally. Only informed individuals finding success in their chosen field by working hard and persistently can claim self fulfillment through great career opportunities while making their living. Good luck.