In The Black Thumb, composition instructor and newsblogger Patrick Flanagan lands a book publishing contract. His job is to produce a career advice manual. The only problem? Pat’s publisher wants him to keep it upbeat, and Pat knows firsthand how bleak the job market really is.
No, You Can’t be an Astronaut is the book Pat might have come up with. It contains practical career advice, self-assessments, links to job search resources, and up-to-date research. For the right person it can make a great graduation gift. The audiobook is on introductory promo for 99 cents through June 5!
By Melissa Burns
Whether you are just starting out at college or are going to graduate this year, you should think carefully about what your future career is going to be. But probably not too carefully – we don’t live in the age of static jobs, so even if you make a wrong choice today, or made it some years before, it is never too late to change the course. Here is the list of careers that are going to be hot in the next decade – so keep an eye on them!
1. Accountants/Auditors
It may not sound very exciting, but the fact is a fact – with the growing number of small businesses, self-employed people and entrepreneurship, the demand for professional accountants that can service a large number of independent businesses is going to grow as well. All these small firms and sole proprietors won’t be able to employ accountants and auditors full-time, and will need somebody to take care of their books and records.
2. App Developers
Programming in general and app development in particular is a job of the future. This market has exploded in the course of the last few years, and ongoing research and development in such spheres as the Internet of Things, smart home systems, artificial intelligence and so on show that what we’ve seen so far is nothing but a tip of an iceberg. If you get a good education in this sphere, you will have no trouble finding a job with any firm from the list of the top iPhone development companies.
3. Registered Nurses
The world’s population is getting older – the percentage of senior citizens, especially in developed countries, is growing steadily, and is going to noticeably change the world economy sooner than one may expect. All this aging population is going to need somebody to take care of them, and the number of registered nurses capable of doing so is already somewhat insufficient, which is reflected in rapidly growing demand for their services.
4. Medical Specialists and Surgeons
Nursing is not the only sector of healthcare that is going to grow. High-end specialist physicians, and especially surgeons, are among the highest-paid jobs today, and this tendency isn’t going to alter any time soon. Their median pay is already very high and is only going to get higher – however, the level of education necessary to land such a job is not easily attainable as well. Not to mention that it requires a considerable initial investment.
5. Veterinarians
Veterinarians do much more than simply treat dogs, cats and other domestic animals (although it is no small feat in its own right). They also inspect livestock, protect public health, keep our food supply from contamination and disease and in general have a far greater impact on our everyday life than one may think. In recent years, scientific advancements in veterinary medicine have created many new jobs, and their number is only going to expand in the years to come.
Of course, having a degree in one of these spheres doesn’t guarantee total job security, but it certainly is going to be higher than in most other areas.
Melissa Burns graduated from the faculty of Journalism of Iowa State University in 2008. Nowadays she is an entrepreneur and independent journalist. Her sphere of interests includes startups, information technologies and how these ones may be implemented.
– See more at: http://stanford.io/1MaShdK
from The College Puzzle http://stanford.io/1RQMWVz
via IFTTT
During a job interview, many applicants worry that their professional fate rests in the first few moments of the interview. After a few minutes—or even seconds—the interviewer has sized them up and arrived at a decision.
But new research suggests that there may be a different factor for job candidates to worry about: timing. Data gathered by psychological scientists Rachel Frieder (Old Dominion University), Chad Van Iddekinge (Florida State University), and Patrick Raymark (Clemson University) challenge the common belief that interviewers rely on near-instantaneous snap judgements. Instead, their research suggests that a successful interview may depend on your place in the interview schedule.
For the first one or two applicants, interviewers don’t have much information to process, allowing them to make a decision about a candidate’s suitability fairly easily. But, as more candidates are interviewed, interviewers have to remember, process, and compare increasing amounts of information. Therefore, interviewers may resort to using rule-of-thumb strategies, also known as heuristics, to help them make decisions.
“We expected that interviewers would take longer to make decisions about the first few applicants they interviewed and take less time to make decisions as they interviewed additional applicants,” Frieder and colleagues write.
To test this theory, the researchers analyzed data from hundreds of real job interviews conducted at a university career fair. A group of 166 experienced interviewers representing a variety of organizations interviewed a total of 691 students.
Each interviewer conducted an average of six interviews, each scheduled for a 30-minute time slot. Immediately after each interview session, interviewers rated the performance of the job candidate and noted at what point in the interview they had come to their decision.
According to the interviewers’ self-reports, snap judgements were actually very rare: Interviewers reported making a decision within the first minute of the interview only about 5% of the time. This generally happened when an applicant’s performance was either exceptionally good or bad.
Most of the time, interviewers reported making their decision between 5 and 15 minutes into the interview. However, over 20% still hadn’t made up their minds even after the interview was over.
The data showed that interviewers tended to take progressively longer to come to a decision after the first few applicants. However, after talking to about four applicants, the deliberation time began to decrease after each additional applicant.
In other words, as the number of applicants increased, interviewers took longer to deliberate because they had more information to process. The findings suggest that once the cognitive load of all the information got to be too much, around the fourth candidate, they began to rely more on heuristics to come to a quicker, more automatic decision.
“One implication is that interview order may place some applicants at a disadvantage,” the researchers conclude. “For example, applicants interviewing later in the schedule might not get as much opportunity to perform as those earlier in the schedule.”
Other factors also influenced how quickly an interviewer came to a decision. Interviewers who engaged in small talk with applicants tended to make quicker decisions, as did interviewers with more experience.
The researchers caution that they were not able to determine whether interviewers who took longer to make a decision were actually better at choosing high-performing applicants. It’s entirely possible that quick judgements were just as accurate at gauging talent as more deliberate interviews.
However, organizations may benefit from making sure that interviewers give each candidate an equal shot to show their stuff during the interview. The researchers suggest limiting the number of interviews that an interviewer conducts in immediate succession and ensuring there are breaks between interviews.
Reference
Frieder, R. E., Van Iddekinge, C. H., & Raymark, P. H. (2015). How quickly do interviewers reach decisions? An examination of interviewers’ decision‐making time across applicants. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology. doi: 10.1111/joop.12118
from Association for Psychological Science » Minds for Business http://bit.ly/1U5sjcj
Texas State Technical College, spurred by the fact that one third of its state funding is now tied to its graduates’ starting salaries, has eliminated all majors except petroleum engineering developed software that matches graduates’ skills with job requirements. But why should Texas State Technical College students have all the fun? Anyone can try out the Skills Engine here.
Laura Pauling writes about spies, murder and mystery. She’s the author of the young adult Circle of Spies Series, the Prom Impossible Series, the time travel mysteries, Heist and A Royal Heist, and the Holly Hart Cozy Mystery Series: Footprints in the Frosting and Deadly Independence with more coming.
She lives the cover of a suburban mom/author perfectly, from the minivan to the home-baked snickerdoodles, while hiding her secret missions and covert operations. But shh. Don’t tell anyone. And she may or may not actually bake cookies. You decide.
Laura Pauling
Laura stopped by to chat about cheesecake, love, and other mysteries.
cheesecake, love, & other mysteries
I wanted to write a cozy mystery. That much I knew. All I needed was inspiration in the form of an amateur sleuth. As I waited for the creative winds to blow my way, I happened to chat with a friend.
I found my inspiration.
My friend was branching out and starting her own business–selling cheesecakes! I loved it. I loved that with an already established career, kids, a husband, and two dogs, she was getting creative with her life. Pursuing a dream. Putting in the hard work and long hours it takes to launch a business. Making herself vulnerable.
Love, love, loved it. And I found my amateur sleuth. The facts that my sleuth, Holly Hart, bakes cheesecake and has red hair are the only similarities between her and the real-life inspiration.
How could I not be inspired? How could anyone not be inspired? If only in that it proves that we can do anything we put our mind to. It’s never to late to start a business or write that novel or attempt to combine what we love with what we do, whether it be for money or love.
After I found my sleuth, I dove into writing the mysteries. I have four written and two already published. Footprints in the Frosting came out in May, and Deadly Independence went live early June. If you sign up for my newsletter, you’ll receive a free mystery, Murder with a Slice of Cheesecake, which will release in July.
If you could branch out and try something new or follow a dream, what would it be?
Visit Laura at http://laurapauling.com to sign up for her newsletter and receive a free Holly Hart cozy mystery novella.
In high school, Joanne Guidoccio dabbled in poetry, but it would be over three decades before she entertained the idea of writing as a career. In 2008, she took an early retirement from teaching and decided to launch a second career that would tap into her creative side and utilize her well-honed organizational skills. Before long, Joanne was a working writer; her articles and book reviews were published in newspapers, magazines, and online. Eventually she progressed to fiction, where she finds that reinvention is a recurring theme in her novels and short stories.
Author Joanne Guidoccio
Today, Joanne came by to chat about having the right kind of skin. Rhino skin.
Writers especially will appreciate this:
It behooves you to develop a thicker skin.
Toastmaster Rosalind Scantlebury did not mince words at a recent Table Topics Contest. Responding to the prompt—Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me—she focused on an individual’s responsibility not to take things so personally. She peppered her impromptu talk with provocative comments, among them, “What other people think of you is none of your business.”
Definitely inspiring, especially for writers.
Thirty-one years of teaching adolescents thickened my skin considerably, but I faced different challenges when I embarked on a writing career. I had to learn how to deal effectively with critiques and rejection letters from agents and publishers and, most important of all, acquire that coveted rhino skin.
These are some of the strategies in my toolbox:
Get the Back Story
Whenever I attend readings, I pay special attention to the author’s back story. I like hearing the details about his or her writing journey and the challenges encountered along the way. Occasionally, I pick up valuable nuggets of advice that help me along my own journey. For example, Guelph writer Nicholas Ruddock (The Parabolist) established his platform by entering and placing in short story contests. When New York Times bestselling author Louise Penny couldn’t find a Canadian or American agent, she crossed the pond and approached a British agent.
Read Bad Reviews
If I have enjoyed reading a book, I look up the one-star reviews on Amazon. That’s right, I gravitate toward the negative. While shaking my head at the nitpicking and negative comments, I realize that no author is immune from criticism. Not even authors of best-selling novels can please everyone.
Eliminate the Negative
Some writers file and keep all their rejection letters. I suspect they refer to these letters often and get discouraged all over again. It is important to keep accurate records, but it is not necessary to keep these negative reminders around for future reference. After reading a rejection letter, I update the information on a spreadsheet and delete the file.
Throw More Irons Into the Fire
We’ve all heard the advice. Send out the manuscript and then immediately start on another one. Easier said than done. After writing 70K words and looking at multiple drafts of that manuscript, the thought of starting all over again can be daunting. Instead, I like to work on shorter pieces: book reviews, short stories, articles, more blog posts. Entering contests and taking online writing courses also keep my skills sharp. It is important not to sit around waiting for a response. Some action—any action—is needed.
Get Support
I belong to Crime Writers of Canada, Sisters in Crime, Guppies, and Romance Writers of America. I also participate in discussion boards for The Wild Rose Press and Soul Mate Publishing Authors. I try to attend writing workshops, panels and readings offered within a fifty-mile radius. While interacting with these authors, I get valuable advice and feedback about my work. I appreciate all the help I have received, especially from good friend and fellow writer Patricia Anderson. I had only request: “Let it rip!” And she did, but in a constructive way.
From Toronto based freelancer Ian Harvey… “Rejections are part of the game, but this is the only game in which rejection doesn’t mean no. It means not now, or not for me, or not for me right now. It doesn’t mean no forever.”
Get Joanne’s latest, A Season for Killing Blondes.
Historian by training, globe-trotting university project manager by necessity, and fiction writer by the skin of her teeth, Mindy Quigley has had a colorful career.
She has won a number of awards for her short stories, including the 2013 Bloody Scotland prize. Her non-fiction writing includes an academic article co-authored with the researcher who created Dolly the Sheep. More recently, she was project manager of the Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic, a research clinic founded in Scotland by the author J.K. Rowling. Her work as the coordinator of a pastoral services program at the Duke University Medical Center provided the inspiration for her bestselling Reverend Lindsay Harding mystery series.
Author Mindy Quigley
Mindy’s stopped by to talk about how she uses the Cocktail Party Test to guide her writing.
Intrigued? I thought so! Read on:
The Worst Possible Cocktail Party
My husband, Paul, dreads cocktail parties. He’s a mild-mannered, polite British man—a combination of traits that seems to make him easy prey for cocktail-party nutcases. You know the type. The high-strung lady who asks rhetorical questions only to give herself the opportunity to launch into what seem to be well-rehearsed, and incredibly inane, monologues. “Do you like cats? Well, I love them. When I was growing up, we had a cat named Feather who would pee on anything plastic…”
Another type of nutcase who often ends up cornering Paul, usually next to the alcohol table, are those with nutcasia temporaria (a short-term case of the disease). People who’ve recently been divorced or endured a breakup fall into this category. British men like Paul aren’t known for their ability to share their inner lives, nor are they equipped with the skills to deal with people who spew out their tales of failed romance in large, undigested chunks. When confronted with this type of nutcase, Paul often ends up staring uncomfortably into the middle distance, as if trying to endure a particularly thorough dental cleaning.
The worst offenders are the nutcases who take advantage of Paul’s soft-spokenness and good manners to “enlighten” him with their views on politics or religion. “America isn’t what it used to be. I mean look at the state of the economy/the environment/local schools/boy bands.
Those Democrats/Republicans/Hippies/Rednecks/guys from One Direction have flushed this country down the toilet.”
I cast my readers in the role of Paul at that cocktail party and myself as a stranger, approaching him near the snack table. With each chapter, I ask myself, am I being a cocktail party nutcase? Here’s what I mean. Say I’ve written a bit of dialogue that’s outrageously clever, full of nimble-minded wordplay and athletic leaps of language. I’ve peppered each sentence with ten-dollar words and Oscar Wilde-esque wit. But when I examine this brilliant bit of dialogue using the cocktail party nutcase test, I may realize that, it is a clear example of the high-strung woman cornering the unsuspecting partygoer. The dialogue probably doesn’t sound very natural, and all those big words probably impose too much unnecessary work on my readers. I’m just talking to hear the sound of my own voice.
Because my books all incorporate true historical elements, I must be careful to avoid nutcasia temporaria, too. In my case, this might manifest itself in my desire to tell my readers every detail of the blow-by-blow, honest-to-gosh true background historical events. After all, I put a lot of research into understanding those events and I want my book learnin’ to show! But the truth is, just like the gory details of some stranger’s marital breakup, the research a writer puts into her books should blend subtly into the background. If I am disgorging chunks of my research like a drunken frat boy in a Wendy’s parking lot, I’m probably suffering from nutcasia temporaria.
The last one, which is probably even more prevalent at family Thanksgiving dinners than at cocktail parties, is the know-it-all jerk, trying to ram his beliefs down your throat. Since my books have a liberal, female hospital chaplain as the main character, this can be an especially delicate dance. I’ve got to be careful to include enough informative little tidbits about her beliefs to reveal her character, but avoid any kind of posturing, proselytizing, or punditry. I want my characters’ views to feel like a finely woven part of who they are, sitting respectfully in the background of their personalities, never demanding center stage. Unless my character is a know-it-all jerk at a cocktail party. Then it’s kosher.
So that’s the cocktail party test. If I can read what I’ve written and think, yeah, Paul would like this cocktail party, I know I’ve succeeded!
Mindy lives in Blacksburg, Virginia, USA, with her Civil War history professor husband, their daughter, and their miniature Schnauzer. You can follow her at
How channeling George Costanza saved one woman’s career:
Acting like George Costanza — specifically, doing the opposite of everything I’d been counseled for the past decade — is what made me solvent once again. And if you, dear reader, are contemplating an exit from academe (as the boulder of this year’s hiring cycle rolls ever so briefly back to the bottom of the hill) a turn as George might be just what you need.
The following may not sound particularly Costanza-like, but it does contain some excellent advice for job seekers, especially freelance writers:
If, however, you want to put your Ph.D. to use in all sorts of other interesting jobs — editing, translation, freelance research, consulting, grant writing, museum work, teaching at a private secondary school — waiting is for chumps. Instead, be chipper but assertive and seek out people who have the sort of jobs you want, and send them short but admiring emails. Get as friendly as possible with all of those people. Do them favors. Prove yourself to be a solid, go-to specimen of a human. Then, months later, when you need a favor from them — a reference; an introduction — they will usually be happy to give it.
“Health was an influential cue across all scenarios, while intelligence only had an effect in half of the presented scenarios. “
Well, at least intelligence wasn’t a negative predictor (The study was done in the Netherlands; I wonder how the same experiment might turn out in the US).
And yes, apparently there is a way to manipulate “intelligent-looking.”
“[H]igh and low apparent intelligence prototypes were created as described in Moore et al. (2011). Briefly, these prototypes were created by regressing ratings of attractiveness, masculinity, health, and perceived age against ratings of perceived intelligence. The faces with the largest positive and negative residuals (i.e., those who were rated as looking much more or less intelligent than predicted by their age, attractiveness, masculinity, and health) were “averaged” using Psychomorph software to create composite high and low perceived intelligence faces…”
Also, if you can figure out a way to make yourself look taller, that helps too.
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