The Benefits of Informational Interviewing

How to Try On Careers Before You Decide Which Ones to Pursue

Before you go and get all the training or education it requires, or before you go job-hunting for that career, you need to try it on.

This is exactly analogous to shopping at a clothing store and trying on different suits (or dresses) that you see in their window or on their racks. Why do you try them on? Well, the suits or dresses that look terrific in the window don’t always look so hot when you see them on you. The clothes don’t hang quite right, etc.

It’s the same with careers. Ones that sound terrific in books or in your imagination don’t always look so great when you actually see them up close and personal. Continue Reading

VA Offers Training Program for Veterans

Military veterans trying to get back into the workforce can apply for a VA training program, which could lead to future job opportunities.  The following post has more information.

According to a Department of Veterans Affairs press release, 45,000 applications have been approved for the Veteran’s Retraining Assistance Program (VRAP), a new training and education program for unemployed veterans who want to upgrade their skills for high-demand jobs. Another 54,000 slots will be available in FY 2013. VRAP aims to train 99,000 veterans over the next two years in over 200 job skills that the Department of Labor has determined are the most sought-after by employers.

Link:

VA Offers Training Program for Veterans

Five Reasons You Should Enroll in an Executive Education Program

CEOs and senior managers are facing perhaps the most fast paced business environment the world has ever seen. With globalization becoming standard and technology becoming integrated at an unprecedented level, new strategies must be developed faster than ever before. Aspiring CEOs are finding they must constantly stay ahead of the curve. An executive training program is ideal supplemental training to help keep up-and-coming managers prepared for these new challenges. Continue Reading

Three Tips for Teaching Audio Conference Training Sessions

Mary White of Mobile Technical Institute & MTI Business Solutions

Are you planning to teach an audio conference training session? Delivering training to attendees via telephone communication is very different from teaching in a face-to face setting or via a webinar. When you are leading an audio conference, you must engage and educate the participants whether they are listening in on the live session or they’ll be utilizing a recording of the class at some point in the future. Because of the unique nature of this type of training, there are several tips that anyone who teaches audio conferences should keep in mind when developing training that will be delivered in this manner.

3 Audio Conference Facilitator Tips Continue Reading

Must Interns Be Paid?

Whether an employer must pay an intern for their work depends on the experience they will receive. Although the Fair Labor Standards Act requires employers to pay at least the minimum wage to employees, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has developed six criteria for identifying which learners/trainees may be unpaid. Note that the DOL’s use of “learner/trainee” is equivalent to the commonly used term of “intern.”

The six criteria are: Continue Reading

An End to the Talent War?

The second largest school district in the country, and therefore one of the pacesetters, is the Los Angeles Unified School District. This is the nest from which our future workforce emerges. It is on its underpinnings that we rely on getting the best of the best. But LAUSD has long suffered from the black eye of not producing sufficiently trained and educated people from whom recruiters and employers may select their skilled talent.

However this past Friday, in a controversial move, the LAUSD announced its selection for the person to succeed retiring Superintendent Roy Romer. Retired Navy Admiral David Brewer. Brewer, in his acceptance speech, spoke of transforming the school district and the education one can expect from it into a world-class district where the fruits of its effort will be able to think and compete on a global basis.

The LAUSD has in recent years begun to pull itself out of nearly last position as far as academic performance testing, quite the opposite of its position in the late 1950s and 1960s of one of the top-scoring districts in the country.

There are many issues that confront the school district and its administrators in delivering quality education that produces the types of workers and leaders businesses need and demand in today’s and tomorrow’s business environment. With Brewer’s acceptance remarks, it appears he plans to take on these issues and bring his constituency (which he sees as not just the students but the businesses and people within the school district) to winning the war for skilled talent.