Improving Job Skills Part 3: Thinking Skills

Example: Solving a workplace safety problem...

Thinking Job Skills include creative thinking, problem-solving skills, decision making skills, and visualization. In this part 3 of 6 blog series, we'll explore ways to improve these skills, the second group of Foundation Job Skills found at the Career Key website.

Avoid any occupation or job that simply requires following instructions and little training; employees in those kinds of jobs can be easily replaced.  To see examples of these types of jobs, see O*NET's Job Zone 1 (little to no preparation needed) and some listed in Job Zone 2 (some preparation needed).

When you use thinking skills, you are more valuable as an employee. When you recognize and define problems, invent solutions, and think of better ways to do something, you are marketable.  You'll be a more powerful "free agent"; learn more about how to adopt a "Free Agent Outlook on Work."

Thinking Skills are the second group of Foundation Skills, skills all jobs require in the 21st Century. They are:

Creative Thinking

• Use imagination freely;
• Combining information in new ways;
• Make connections between ideas that seem unrelated.

Problem-Solving

• Recognize problem and identify why it is a problem;
• Create and implement a solution;
• See how well the solution works and revise if needed.

Decision Making Skills

• Identify goals;
• Generate alternatives and gather information about them;
• Choose the best alternative;
• Plan how to carry out your choice.

    See this skill applied to how to make a career decision.

Visualization

• See a building or object by looking at a blueprint, drawing or sketch;
• Imagine how a system works by looking at a schematic drawing.

Activities to Strengthen Thinking Skills

These will help you get started; if you are working on choosing a career or changing careers, think about how these skills are used in the career options that interest you.

Creative Thinking

• Keep a weekly journal of creative ideas. Record each week any problems you notice in an environment like school,  church, an organization you volunteer for, or at work. Are there any processes that don't work very well? Create a solution to the problem.  At the end of a couple of months, go back and read your journal, identifying problems you would like to work on.  Create solutions and present them to a class or to people you work with.  What are the strengths and weaknesses of your solutions?
• Create a new business idea based on your interests and knowledge. How would you market it? What are the strengths and weaknesses of your business idea? (product, service, etc.)  Present your ideas to friends or a class for their feedback. Create a marketing hook, ad or catch phrase for your idea.  Maybe being self-employed is for you?

Problem-Solving

• Identify a problem using the activity in bullet #1 above under Creating Thinking. Research the problem, gathering as much information as you can. Do you know what the problem really is? List everything you know about it - maybe you know more than you think. Contact people who know something about the problem.  Gather and organize all your information before taking action.
• Choose a complex problem and make a problem-solving action plan. Breaking down a complex problem into smaller chunks can help solve it.  Write down all the steps needed to solve a problem can make a larger problem more manageable.  

Decision Making Skills

• Narrow down your career choices using the four steps in Career Key's High-Quality Decision Making article.
• Identify several decisions you made this week.  For example, what you ate, where you went for entertainment, whether you purchased something, or who you invited to a social event. Record what you thought about these decisions: what were the consequences? Did you make the best choice? Could using a decision-making process help you make a better decision the next time?  Is there a major life event choice you face right now where that process could help? (changing jobs, choosing a college, having a baby, etc.)

Visualization

• Draw a road map from your house to your school or workplace without looking at a map.  Add street names and important landmarks.
• Put together a model, item, or toy using instructions (you may do this already!) Legos, model kits, and DIY craft kits are a few ideas.
• Design the floor of a dream house or apartment, creating a blueprint using grid paper. Each quarter or eighth inch block can be 1 foot. Visualize walking through the house. What are your plans' advantages and disadvantages? Are the bedrooms properly placed away from noise? How is the traffic flow?

Make sure to learn how the careers that interest you require these skills by conducting informational interviews. That will help you focus your energies on building skills around the problems and ideas related to that career. These articles will also help you gather career information:
Learn About Occupations
Learn More about the Jobs that Interest Me
Identify Your Skills

Previous posts in this series:
Part 1: Getting Started with Job Skills: 3 Reasons to be Optimistic
Part 2: Improving (Not So) Basic Skills
Next week: Part 3: Improving Your People Skills

How to Improve Job Skills - Part 2: (Not So) Basic Skills

In part 2 of 6, we’ll talk about ways to strengthen basic job skills – in ways that are relevant to students and adults changing careers.  Before you brush aside “basic skills” as too “basic” for you, take a closer look at them. For example, writing skills means more than just the ability to handwrite a sentence. It includes using the computer to communicate ideas and information.

Download the list of skills and their description in the Foundation Job Skills handout at The Career Key website if you haven’t already.  Our affordable printable e-books “Parent’s Role…” and “Advice and Actions for Smart Career Decisions” contain this handout – your eBookstore purchase help support our public service mission.

In the workplace, people use these skills differently than in school – in ways you may not have thought about. There is more to learn than you might think. If you’re just joining this series, I recommend starting with our optimistic Part 1.

Basic Skills are the first group of Foundation Skills, skills all jobs require in the 21st century. They are (click here for the more complete Foundation Skill descriptions):

Reading

• Read for detail quickly and accurately;
• Find meaning of unknown or technical words and phrases; and
• Use the Internet and computers to find information.

Writing

• Communicate thoughts, ideas, information, and messages in writing – on paper and using a computer;
• Record information completely and accurately;
• Check, edit and revise documents for correct information, grammar, etc.
• Using a computer to communicate information.

Math

• Use numbers, fractions, and percentages to solve practical problems;
• Read tables, diagrams and graphs;
• Use computers to communicate data and ideas.

Speaking

• Organize your thoughts and explain how things work, procedures to follow;
• Speak clearly and use the appropriate tone and level of complexity for your audience;
• Ask questions when needed and answer questions from the audience. 

Listening

• Listen carefully to what someone says and how they say it, to understand the content and the feelings the speaker expresses.
• Respond to what a person says in a way that shows you understand them.

Real-Life Example using all the Basic Skills– Police Officer. 

When called to a domestic violence incident, the officer listens carefully while interviewing witnesses and mediating disputes.  The officer explains to the parties what happens next in the process, especially if someone is arrested or a child is put into protective custody.  The officer records and submits witness statements by laptop computer using the Internet.  The officer can be questioned in court by lawyers and judges about the accuracy of that information.

Math skills come into play especially if the police department uses data-driven policing (see a video here). An officer is asked to gather data (location, type of incident, etc.) that is then used to make a graph or visual used to find relationships between types of crimes and location. An officer could be asked to interpret that data. Officers also use math skills in accident reconstruction; they measure the accident scene and show visually how the accident likely occurred.

Activities to Strengthen Basic Skills

These activities are a starting place for you - come up with your own that are the most relevant to a career option that interests you.

Reading

• Go to the library and pick a magazine you might not normally read but has an article that interests you. For example, you might not read the Economist or Vanity Fair but you see an article about a type of business or politics that interests you. Read the article carefully, finding words that you don’t know or are uncertain what they mean.  Try to figure out the word's meaning from the surrounding sentences or context. If you need to check your answer, look it up in a dictionary.  You’ll find that most of the time you can figure out a word’s meaning by “reading for meaning.”
• Use an Internet browser to search for a business near you, like a type of restaurant. What search terms work the best in finding a restaurant?  Is there a difference between browsers? (Try Chrome, Safari or Bing) Do quotation marks around words make a difference?
• Practice reading ideas and picturing them in your mind.  The next time you read a story, try drawing pictures of the people and the settings. Try looking up individual houses or condos for sale in your neighborhood on a real estate website. After reading the description, picture the house in your mind without looking through any online photos of it. Go look at the house and see how it differs from what you pictured.  What information was left out of the ad and why?
•  Also try the graph creation exercise listed below for improving math skills. 

Writing

• Create your own front page news article based on an event (real or fiction). Use your favorite newspaper as an example. Write a catchy headline and include photos with captions relevant to the article.
• Go to the Grammar Girl website and read the “Top 5 Tips” box. Have you ever used the wrong word by mistake?  What rules do you have trouble remembering?  Pick one problem you keep having and practice creating sentences that use the words correctly. 

Math

• Learn how to create a graph. Ideally use a software program like Microsoft Word or Google Docs that you would normally be using at work.  Pick a fun subject you’d like to learn more about. For example, what animal moves the fastest? (the cheetah, at 70 mph) Find the speeds of six other animals and create a graph with the data.
• Explore a topic of financial literacy (See www.financiallitnow.org for topics, resources)  Learn how to answer questions, like, if I make a $300 purchase with a credit card with 18% APR interest, how long will it take me to pay of the loan just making a minimum balance payment of $20? (18 months at a total cost of $340)  Can you find a calculator on the Internet that will help you answer that question? 

Speaking

• Practice speaking in front of mirror, where you will see what others see. Notice your facial expressions, posture, eye contact, and gestures. Any interview should be practiced in front of a mirror until your answers become natural and easy.
• Record yourself talking with a friend or giving a presentation. Most cell phones and computers have a way to do this.  When you playback the recording, listen for “you know”, “like” or other mannerisms that are not as professional as you would like. Do you moderate your voice? In making improvements, focus on one thing at time. Practicing in front of a mirror or rehearsing a speech or answer several times will help.

Listening

• Find a partner to help you.  Use active listening skills as your partner describes an emotional situation. Try summarizing and restating to your partner what they said and how they felt, without being judgmental.
• Watch a newscast or television show with your partner.  Afterwards, summarize the plot, describing the major characters and what they did. Ask your partner to critique your summary.

I hope this gives you ideas for creating your own activities to practice these skills, connecting them to the careers that interest you.  Imagine how these skills might be used in a job that interests you. Conduct an informational interviewwith someone in that career and ask him or her how they use those skills in their work.

Next posts:
Part 3 of 6: Improving Your Thinking Skills…
Part 4: Improving Your People Skills

Previous post:
Improving Job Skills, Part 1 of 6: 3 Reasons to be Optimistic

How to Improve Job Skills - Part 1 of 6: 3 Reasons to be Optimistic and Get Started

How strong is your foundation?

This 6-post blog series will help you improve and strengthen Foundation Job Skills.  Whether you are just starting to explore your first career or an adult changing careers, all jobs require the 17 Foundation Skills (free download for non-commercial use*).  In the series, one blog post will cover each of the four groups of Foundation Skills, recommending free or low-cost activities to strengthen them:

- Basic Skills;

- Thinking Skills;

- People Skills; and

- Personal Qualities.

Look at each Foundation Skill – do you think they are accurate? How would you rate yourself for that skill? (Compare yourself to others of the same age)  How does someone use that skill in a career you’re considering?

Start thinking about Foundation Skills, how you can improve yours and show an employer you have them. By the end of this blog series, you’ll also be able to identify your motivated skills, those you enjoy using most, and how to choose a career that makes the most of them.

Even if you have little job experience or have been under-employed, you’ll be surprised how adding to and improving your skills result in a big payoff.

3 Reasons to be Optimistic

1. People want to help you. Family, teachers, counselors, community volunteers, religious leaders, and workers want to help. You just need to ask.  Ask them about their jobs, the skills they use, and people they know.  If you don’t ask, no one can help you.

2. Learning requires action – and the good news is taking action is under your control. If you don’t do anything, you won’t improve and nothing will change.

3. Each activity you do, each week, you will improve.  You will feel more confident and have something to show for your work.

In case you need more motivation to improve your skills, take a look at median pay for these occupations with different skill levels:

Unskilled 

(High School Diploma or Less)

Amusement & Recreation Attendant $18,650

Cashier $18,820

Food Service Workers $19,270

Driver/Sales Worker $22,770

Medium Skilled 

(on the job training, vocational school or associate’s degree)

Acute Care Nurses  $65,950

Barbers $24,190

Chefs, Head Cooks $42,350

Diagnostic Medical Sonographers  $65,210

Plumbers  $47,750

Source: O*NET Job Zones 1, 3 data, 2012

I could list pay for highly skilled jobs but you get the picture.  It doesn’t take a huge jump in education and skills to make a big difference in wages.

Up Next Week... Part 2: (Not So) Basic Skills.  Practical ways to improve your Reading, Writing, Mathematics, Speaking and Listening Skills.
Part 3: Improving Your Thinking Skills
Part 4: Improving Your People Skills

*If you would like to purchase a license to use the Foundation Job Skills commercially (or financially support our public service work), visit our eBookstore to purchase these handouts and e-books you can print:

Advice and Actions for Making Smart Career Decisions; and 

How Parents Can Help Their Children's Career Development

College and Career Success: Is Your State a Leader or Laggard?

Promising careers require some post-high school training and education; students and parents need to be educated consumers. While there is a lot of criticism about graduation rates and unsavory recruitment practices at for-profit colleges, there is plenty of criticism to go around for public colleges' performance.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Institute for a Competitive Workforce (ICW) just released its "Leaders and Laggards" State-by-State Report Card on Public Postsecondary Education.  Be sure to click on your state's individual report card and overall recommendations.

You can see a summary of findings on the Career Tech Blog - these are the three that stuck out the most to me:

"Four-Year Completion Rates
In most states, only half of students at four-year public colleges complete a degree, in 17 states, less than half of all first-time bachelors-seeking students complete a degree within six years";

"Two-Year Completion Rates
...more than half of states have a two-year completion rate at or below 25 percent"..: and

"Linking Postsecondary Data to Labor Market
Only 22 states have systems in place to track the success of graduates once they enter the labor force and to make those data public..."


While others focus on big-picture, long-term, bureaucratic change (good luck!), I'm more focused on how we can help individual students, parents, and counselors improve their chances of success now. The best practical takeaway from this report is for students and parents to learn their state's strengths and weaknesses in providing education. If nothing else, you'll know what to look for and avoid, and what to expect as far as your state's performance. And when you go through the process of choosing a school or program, you'll know to ask for more information about graduation rates and support for students looking for a job post-graduation.

I don't know that I've given up on government for problem-solving (or trust the for-profit sector to do it either) - but it's clear to me that if you are or have a child in secondary school or college right now, it's up to you to help yourself choose a career or college major you won't regret. Gathering the best quality information you can is part of making good decisions.

My Mom's Careers: A Celebration

Jeanine Wehr Jones, ESL Teacher

I'd like to take a moment to celebrate my mom's career paths: mother, elementary school teacher, librarian, ESL teacher, and Career Key supporter (helping my father, Dr. Lawrence K. Jones).  Thanks to her, I had a great childhood and an excellent role model. Being a mom, making a living, and keeping a household running smoothly is challenging. To read the whole story of Mom's career choices, please see my original Mother's Day post in 2010.

But I left out a critical part of the story - her part-time Berlitz International position teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) while raising my brother and me.  During that time, she had students from Japan, Egypt, Taiwan, El Salvador, Pakistan, and other countries.  She loves other cultures, different types of people, and learning their stories.

I remember as a kid having potlucks at our house with her students, sharing wonderful ethnic foods with friendly and warm company.  I know Mom enjoyed sharing her knowledge of Turkish cooking too.

Jeanine and her ESL students

Mom's vivacious personality wins over even the most shy of people; her humor is infectious.  So in the classroom she was able to liven things up while helping people feel comfortable learning a language in a different cultural world.

So I wish Mom a Happy Mother's Day and say thank you for working so hard to help other people while making our family and Career Key successful.

My Mom, Dad, and I, with our Vietnamese and Saudi Arabian
Career Key partners, at the International Counseling Congress in Istanbul, 2008

Will You Be Shut Out of Popular Education and Career Choices? 3 Tips for Career Planning Success

When changing careers or choosing a career, you may be considering a career option in which many people are interested. What if a required education program has too many applicants, a lot of prerequisites, or is just very selective?

Competition to get into some education programs required for in-demand careers can be stiff.  Funding is being cut for community colleges and public universities, making the situation worse. Take, for example, these statistics for a top career options like nursing:

American Association of Colleges of Nursing says 75,000 qualified nursing school applicants turned away in 2011. 

Dig deep into choosing a career, college major and training program – as early as possible. And once you know what’s involved and the better prepared you are, the better your chances of getting into the program you want.

3 Tips for Career Planning Success:

1.  Fully research your career options, including related occupations. Reading these Career Key articles will help:

• Getting Started (3 Steps to Choosing a Career) 
• Learn about Occupations 
•  Learn More About the Jobs that Interest Me 

How can you find similar occupations?

• Explore careers in the same Holland personality type and Career Key work group in Career Key’s “Match Your Personality with Careers” article. You can also do that during the Career Key's valid career test. If you are short on time or money, there may be similar occupations requiring fewer years of education. Maybe that career can be a stepping stone on the way to a final career goal.
• Click the “similar occupations” tab at the Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH) entry for a career. Try it with pharmacist.

Example:

On Career Key’s career lists, Pharmacist is found in the “Health Sciences” group under the Investigative personality type.  See all the related careers and groups.

OOH Entry for Pharmacist

2.  Fully research your education options, including different types of degrees/programs and the schools that offer them. The OOH will be a big help, especially the tabs “How to Become One” and “Contacts for More Info.” Make sure the program environment, what we call “college major environment” fits your personality. We recommend many ways to learn more about these environments.

How do you find good quality information about education programs?

Usually under the OOH's tab “Contacts for More Info,” it will link to a national association of the colleges or program providers for the required education and training programs. Rely on that organization website first before consulting commercial sites you find via Internet searches for “_____ degrees”

For example, the OOH's “Contacts for More Information” for Pharmacist links to the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy.  Under Resources and Student Center “Is Pharmacy for You?” I found a huge “Admissions” section with lots of informative FAQs and a whole free PDF book “Pharmacy School Admission Requirements” you can download.

 CareerOneStop’s “Education and Training Finder” can help you find information about education programs required for specific occupations located in your state, region or zip code too. 

3.  Have a back up plan if your first choices do not work out.

If you make a high-quality career decision (follow the link for 4 steps to follow and a free Decision Balance Sheet download), you’ll know what your backup choices are, information about them, and their pros and cons.

Even though it may cost more money to apply to more, less attractive schools, it's worthwhile insurance against rejection and disappointment.

And if you are unable to get into any school you are considering, working in the same industry that interests you (say Healthcare) but in a different occupation than you originally envisioned may open your eyes to new careers and opportunities you hadn’t known about.

It’s a challenge to stay positive and confident when career planning in a difficult economy. Adopting the Free Agent Outlook on Work may help – particularly principles 5 and 6:

5.  Be Loyal to Yourself and Your Family, and

6. Think “Right Thoughts.”

Career Key Career Test & New Career Information Links to the 2012-2013 Occupational Outlook Handbook

The Career Key's valid career test and online career assessment now links to the latest career information from the new 2012-13 Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH) released late last week. When Career Key test takers create their personal job option list of matching occupations, each job or career is linked with career information (job requirements, education and training, salary, etc) from the new OOH.

New entry and look for "High School Teachers" in the Occupational Outlook Handboook.

Our career information update was also made to one of our most popular articles, "Match Your Personality with Careers." It shows hundreds of occupations by Holland personality type and Career Key work group.  Users of our paper-pencil Career Key career test often use this article to get online career information about matching careers and jobs that interest them.

Best features of the new OOH, in my opinion:

• It's easier to read, with the most important information clearly up front in the summary. (Pay, Education, Job Outlook);
• A Tab format for browsing with easy to understand labels like "What They Do" and "How to Become One";
• More attractive, photo-heavy listing of "Similar Occupations,"
• The content in "What They Do", "Work Environment," and "How to Become One" - the details are practical and helpful, truly giving a flavor of the work environment.

We have preferred the career information in the OOH to the O*NET for quite some time. There are some content differences and advantages to using both, which I explained in a June 2011 post:

"Comparing Top Career Information Resources: Occupational Outlook Handbook and O*NET's My Next Move."

Taking into account the new OOH look, my advice for exploring government career information is still the same: 

• Start with the OOH for better detail and quality of information; the new OOH format just makes it a lot easier to explore and navigate. 
• Use the O*NET (or America's CareerInfoNet) for links to more specific, local (state and metropolitan area) salary and education information.