Jobs you may not think you want but have lots to offer!

Following on from yesterday's blog about what you  thought you wanted for a career but may find less than palatable is the reverse. CareerCast have graded occupations by how desirable they really are by looking at the stress, hours, pay, promotion, security etc factors. Now the commentators on their web site don't really seem to agree that these jobs are not stressful.. but it's only one factor.. just look at how low the unemployment rate is!

Most Underrated Jobs in 2011


When most of us were in elementary school, our teachers taught us to aim high in our careers and strive for such prestigious jobs as doctor, lawyer, pilot and even President. But as we learned in the years that followed, the excitement those jobs promise typically sounds a lot better than the reality. On the other hand, the jobs held by our parents, neighbours and siblings, which seemed like “normal” jobs, may actually provide many more rewards than we ever imagined.
To that end, the CareerCast.com editors reviewed our in-depth Jobs Rated data to identify the most underrated jobs based on a range of criteria. While terms like flashy, glitzy, glamorous and prestigious aren’t typically associated with our list of underrated jobs, these careers have some great advantages that are often overlooked. They’re professions that don’t woo people with the high salaries or notoriety, but instead have characteristics that make them especially worthy. For instance, our most underrated jobs typically have median-to-higher income levels, lower stress, lower environmental dangers and lower physical demands. And even in this tight economy, all share one great attribute: a lower than average unemployment rate.
"I have the best of both worlds. I get to do the work that I want, but I don't have the high demands that a lawyer does,” says Jennifer Dahms, a paralegal at a Milwaukee law firm.. "I wouldn't say that my job is underrated. I would say it's equally balanced. I get to take vacations, leave work and have a life."
While paralegal takes top honors in our ranking, insurance agent isn’t far behind. "I think it's interesting, but not a surprise we made the list," says Sherri Primes, an Orange County, Calif., insurance agent. "It's the only career or job that I've ever had that I feel I get to do something good for people. I can impart change in people’s lives."
In order – with their US unemployment rate attached, the top ten most underrated jobs:

1.      Paralegal 4.6%

2.      Accountant 5.0%

3.      Loan Officer 7.7%

4.      Market research Analyst 7.7%

5.      Software engineer 4.6%

6.      Computer systems analyst 5.9%

7.      Insurance Broker 5.4%

8.      Dietician 3.2%

9.      Dental Hygienist 1.2%

10.  Civil Engineer 3.9%

While the paparazzi may not be knocking down their doors, the following jobs are worth a look if you’re considering changing careers. They also apply if you’re a recent graduate looking for a career that will reward you for many years to come.That is of course if your talents and motivations are suited to those roles!

Top careers you may have thought you wanted but which do not live up to reality!

Top overrated jobs of 2011
My thanks to careercast in the USA for this gem….
There are so many aspects of our world that we can say are overrated. From reality stars (ahem…the Kardashians!) and movies (Avatar) to food (red velvet cake), fashion (hair extensions) and air travel (fees and crowds). We all have our opinions on whom and what just can’t live up to the hype.
So when thinking about our jobs, many of us enjoy careers that the rest of world perceive as great, even though we know the truth. For example, others may see your high salary and not have an understanding of the amount of work you’re required to do. Or perhaps they’re wowed by the prestige of your job title. Or maybe they’re impressed by the perks they think you receive.
To us, overrated jobs are those that on the surface seem to be outstanding, but in reality carry unrecognized downsides that can, at times, make them not so great after all. The jobs look terrific on paper, but tend to include more stress, environmental dangers and physical demands than are typically recognized, and their hiring outlook may be downright depressing.
For example, many of us would agree that senior corporate executives have a fantastic job given their power and prestige, and we have little sympathy for those who set sail with a golden parachute as their company fails. However, senior corporate executives rarely shirk their responsibilities to their employees and shareholders, and they work incredibly long hours and handle massive responsibilities that take a toll on their health and families. Thus, senior corporate executive is at the top of our list of the most overrated jobs.

The top ten jobs that made the list:

1. Corporate Executive (Senior), average income $161,141.00

2. Surgeon, average income $365,258.00

3. Physician, average income $192,065.00

4. Psychiatrist, average income $160,242.00

5. Airplane Pilot (Commercial), average income $106,153.00

6. Attorney, average income $113,211.00

7. Architect, average income $73,193.00

8. Stockbroker, average income $67,470.00

9. Real Estate Agent, average income $40,357.00

10. Photojournalist, average income $40,209.00

11. Flight Attendant, average income $40,000

12. Advertising Account Executive, $62,000

"Ultimately, it's my responsibility to run the company well enough to make sure my employees have a job, not only today but for years to come,” says W. Andrew Motsko, senior corporate executive of an Omaha communications company, who adds: “I get paid to balance the employee’s needs with those of our clients, vendors and shareholders. Even though I'm the boss, I answer to a lot of different people." Mr. Motsko says he feels his job can be overrated because it carries many responsibilities beyond his daily work at the office. “My family life and personal time many times have to take a back seat to the needs of my company.”
While a senior corporate executive takes top honors in our rankings, a job much more widely held - real estate agent – also qualifies for our overrated jobs list. "It's definitely overrated because the demands continue to be 24/7/365 to meet your client's needs," says Bill Dallman, an Arizona real estate agent who admits that the economy has taken its toll on his profession. "Sure, you may get a large paycheck for selling a house, but there's a lot more legal and financial risk to the job than just putting a sign up in the yard and doing home tours. I really enjoy the work and the people, but a person has to understand the demands of time and continuing education that are required to remain successful."
To be sure, a job that’s overrated doesn‘t mean it fails to serve an important function in our society. In fact, these jobs play an integral role in our workplace ecosystem. It’s just that the hype surrounding them sometimes makes these jobs sound much better than they really are. And, yes, we know there are plenty of people in these professions who love their jobs and couldn’t think of any other career they’d rather do. They’re simply willing to live with the fact that their job is overrated.

Four key success factors for top leaders...and ten for failure

Leaders succeed by having strategic vision, and lose by failing to build team culture, Right Management report shows

Insights into the traits that global leaders need to be successful as well as the factors that most likely lead to their derailment according to a survey 1,400 CEOs and HR professionals by global talent and career management consultancy Right Management and the Chally Group.

Respondents cited creating a strategic vision (92%), inspiring others and maintaining leadership responsibility (62%), developing an accurate and comprehensive overview of the business (57%) and wise decision-making (55%) as the four competencies most critical for C-suite positions.

The survey identified the top 10 factors that contribute most to the failure of senior leaders are:
1. Failure to build a relationship or team culture (40%)
2. Mismatch for the culture (32%)
3. Failure to deliver acceptable results (25%)
4. Unable to win support (25%)
5. Lack of appropriate training (23%)
6. Egotistical (15%)
7. Lack of vision (14%)
Sue Roffey-Jones, practice leader at Right Management, said: “Leadership development today is more science than art. In today’s business environment leadership development needs to be grounded in real work and focused on the critical competencies required for success in C-level roles.”
The research revealed that leaders evolve from a wide variety of backgrounds, experience and job functions. Western corporate CEOs are most likely to come from Operations and Finance. When asked what functional areas are most likely to produce a company’s C-level executives, operations were the most likely to be indicated (68%) and Finance was second ranked (56%) with Sales third (49%).
The more specialised functions were less likely to provide the career path to the top. Marketing was less likely (34%), HR (24%), Engineering (22%), IT (13%) and Research and Development only (8%).
But given what research has revealed to be the critical competencies for a CEO, how would a company develop leaders who have demonstrated a track record of ‘Creating a strategic vision’ and ‘Inspiring others and maintaining leadership responsibility’ when these roles are more likely to be the fairly exclusive domain of the CEO.
Data was collected through a quantitative survey of 1,439 CEOs and human resource professionals from 707 organisations. The organisations ranged in size from 500 employees to over 100,000 employees with revenues from less than 25 million US dollars to over 10 billion US dollars. Industries represented varied between public, private and government sectors. Eighty-one percent of the CEOs and 75% of the human resource professionals who participated in the study were from North America.

Article by Dave Woods published in HR Magazine

What happens in an assessment centre.. and what do they do with the results?

An assessment centre is a way of selecting candidates for a role. They might be internal candidates for promotion, external candidates for a job, or it may be internal candidates being assess for their suitability for roles within a new structure. Basically an assessment centre is a number of different ways of assessing someone’s ability to do a job.

Based on the person specification a trained and qualified assessor will choose a number of tests or events that can be assessed. They may be psychometric tools that measure your ability to reason with numbers, or words, they may be problem solving exercises, they may be interactive exercises with other people. Sometimes actors are used to do work simulations. Sometimes you have to do a task in a group. You may be asked to do a personality questionnaire, a presentation or have an interview.

They key thing is that you should be given more than one  opportunity  to demonstrate your ability of each competence, so if you do badly in one exercise you may pick up on another.

Sometimes an assessment centre or  number of psychometric tools are used to pre screen out applicants who do not meet certain criteria. For example if you need to be very numerate to do a role, all the applicants may be asked to do a numerical ability test and only those who score above the cut off point will get to an interview.

A full assessment centre lasting over a day or several days is more likely in a senior role, where organisations like to collect a lot of information about a candidate before making a decisions. They are also used in graduate selection where fewer candidates have work experiences to draw on. Using an assessment centre in this way means that candidates will be screened on their applications before they get invited to attend. You may be asked to do some on line questionnaires before the day; usually this would be a personality questionnaire.

At an assessment centre you will be working with other candidates and doing the same exercises as them. Don’t think that you shod try to compete with them and be overly competitive. Most organisations value team work and interpersonal skills; they will be looking to see how much you are cooperating rather than trying to ‘win’.

What do they do with the results? The assessors on the centre should be pulling together all the information into a report for the selectors to review. Sometimes this report will recommend whether you go further in the process:  sometimes it is there just to inform the selectors about your competence. Some reports will give numerical scores to all the exercises and then give the assessment centre as a whole a score. That would enable the selectors to have a very clear ‘merit order’ of candidates.  Some firms have a profile of their ideal candidates, based on those who they have appointed previously and who have done well, they will be looking for people whose profiles are similar.

In other assessment centres the report will focus on a narrative report stressing your strengths and areas that need further exploration. This would enable the interviewers to ask you searching questions about those competencies that you have not fully demonstrated in the centre.  This gives you another opportunity to demonstrate your competence.  This approach is more about recognising that individuals bring different strength and weaknesses and that choosing someone is about getting the skills that compliment those of other team members, or that might be specifically needed at that point in time. A year later they might chose someone with a different profile.

There are no hard and fast rules about exactly how the results should or are used. Sometimes failure in one exercise can be the end of the road for a candidate. In another organisation  the selectors may decide to ignore the test results altogether and appoint someone they ‘like the look of’. (OK that begs the question why do the tests at all if you are going to ignore them, but I have seen it happen!)

Are the tests always an accurate portrayal of an individual’s skills and capabilities? Well yes and no! Performance in tests can be an inaccurate predictor of performance for many reasons, not least if the candidate has never done anything like this before. However the people who design the tests spend huge amounts of money and time to get them as good at predicating as possible. Don’t think you are a failure if you do badly.. just get some help to learn how to improve.

For further information on how to improve your performance in tests and assessment centres visit www.maryhopecoaching.co.uk

How to achieve career success

In the USA studies of how people achieve career success identified seven broad strategies:

• ·         Competence in the current job
• ·         Working long and hard
• ·         Developing new skills through training and job experience
• ·         Opportunity development through volunteering to take on new tasks in the work place and networking
• ·         Developing sponsors and supporters, colleagues, mentors and advocates
• ·         Image building so that you appear successful
• ·         Navigating organisational politics to avoid pitfalls and ensure longevity.

So how successful will you be in your career? Do you have the plan, the will and the skill to do all of those things?

Of course some of you may have spotted the flaw in this.. what is the researchers definition of success? Do they mean people who climb to the top of the greasy pole? IS that the only measure of success?

I think that if you are ambitious and want to attain power and influence in an organisation then this is just the advice that I would give you but first you need to challenge any assumptions that this is what success means.

Designing a beautiful bridge, supporting a troubled teenager, ensuring an old person dies with dignity are all fantastic  contributions and are successes. There is no law that says you can’t be a success without achieving a high status role. In fact I’d say that success is what you want it to be. So work out what you really want and not what some old fashioned, outdated concept of career implies you should have. Then work out how to achieve your own personal vision of success.

For more support and advice on how to find out what will make your career a success, go to www.maryhopecoaching.co.uk

Top tips for using your voice to present with gravitas

Top tips for better presentation in interviews.

Lots of people get feedback from interviews that other candidates presented with more ‘gravitas’ and the question is, what on earth is that and how do you get it? Weirdly my favourite thesaurus says the word does not even exist! On the other hand the dictionary relates it to gravity and thus to heaviness. Now I don’t think that people are talking about your weight; I think they are talking about certain seriousness and credibility, a certain way of presenting that means you come over as a serious person with important things to say.

So how can you develop that air of gravitas? Well firstly you do have to have important things to talk about, but you can learn how to add impact and significance to your presentation.

Secondly you may have to play down the ‘lively sense of humour’; yes you want the panel to like you and want to work with you.. they may not be attracted to the overly dull and sober but keep the humour under control.

Thirdly you have to manage your posture and body language appropriately; no flirting or slouching.

Fourthly you have to use a voice that conveys the passion and seriousness that you want to convey. Monotonous, sober tones equal dull. So how do you improve the voice presentation?

Give your voice a gym work out, practice getting plenty of inflection and rhythm into your voice. And depth.

Breath from your diaphragm, pull in your stomach when you breathe out and push them out again to breath in. Use all your lungs and lower your register. Speak to the vase at the other side of the room without getting louder.  Controlling your breathing is critical for projecting your voice and for controlling the nerves; when you are nervous you go into short shallow breaths. Slow it down and breathe deeply.

Practise your use of inflection, take the following sentence:

“Did you give Mark the book yesterday?”

Say it eight times, each time putting the emphasis in a different place. Notice how this changes the meaning of the sentence.  Listen to the way that you use you make your voice go up at the end of the sentence to turn it into a question.

You may have come across my ‘think Switzerland’ technique to help you remember to make your voice rise and fall rather  take a monotonous route.

In the end the content of your presentation of interview should determine the outcome, substance over style; but if you have both you can surely be a winner.

For more support and advice on how to get paid more, promoted faster and feel more satisfied go to www.maryhopecoaching.co.uk