{"id":534,"date":"2010-07-04T09:34:37","date_gmt":"2010-07-04T16:34:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/?p=534"},"modified":"2010-07-04T09:40:07","modified_gmt":"2010-07-04T16:40:07","slug":"new-economy-new-skills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/?p=534","title":{"rendered":"New Economy New Skills"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

The PracticaL Mentor<\/p><\/div>\n

This is the Fourth of July weekend, and the day the United States celebrates its birth as an independent nation.\u00a0 This may be a good time to reflect on the state of the national and global economy, and its impact on your career.\u00a0 One of my favorite lines is from the beginning of the Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us\u2026\u201d\u00a0 .<\/p>\n

These words penned in the 1800\u2019s, for me, capture the essence of the human condition.\u00a0 How does one decide how to move forward in such a time of uncertainty?\u00a0 Perhaps it depends on how you are viewing the world right now.<\/p>\n

While it is necessary to take the economic environment into consideration, it should not be viewed as an insurmountable barrier.\u00a0 In fact, the current state of events should convince anyone who still thinks they do not need formal skills and training to re-examine their career strategy.\u00a0 The days of quitting high school to get a job are vanishing, and will probably never return. As in the 1800\u2019s the world has once again taken a quantum leap in technology placing increased intellectual demands on workers.<\/p>\n

In the days of Charles Dickens it was the industrial revolution that was sweeping the world. Factories were replacing cottage industries and displacing livelihoods, which had been the norm for centuries.\u00a0 Instead of learning a craft from your parents or neighbor, the new economy demanded new skills. \u00a0Although education was becoming increasingly important, it was not until after World War II, that the US Federal Government started taking an active role in fostering and improving the education in the United States.\u00a0 Although there is now a focus on education in the United States, the high school education rate is actually declining.\u00a0 What type of careers do you think awaits a high school drop out in this economy?<\/p>\n

Although the economy is bad, it should not deter you from your career goals.\u00a0 If you do not have a career strategy this may be a good time to develop one. This may be one of the most wide spread recessions in recent history, but it is by no means the only one.\u00a0 The US job market has been in a state of flux since the 70\u2019s when the economy started shifting from a manufacturing to a service ordination.\u00a0 Those who made the transition flourished, while most of those who resisted suffered the consequences.\u00a0 One key element in making career transitions is to stay current in required underlying skills.\u00a0 For example, computer programs and tools continue to evolve.\u00a0 Staying current in basic computer skills is important to easily adapting to career and industry changes.\u00a0 Changing careers is always challenging, but is compounded when you have to first learn the underlying skills.\u00a0 For example, a few years ago I signed up for an engineering course. The course was centered on using a particular engineering computer program that I had never used.\u00a0 I had to drop out because I could not learn the required computer program fast enough to keep up with the class.\u00a0 Although the computer program was not required to perform by assigned job tasks, it is a standard requirement for current engineering students.\u00a0 Consequently, to retrain into a different engineering area I would have to first learn to use the required underlying computer programs before attending engineering classes.\u00a0 My company offered courses on this computer program when it was being introduced into the engineering community, but I did not take advantage of the opportunity.<\/p>\n

Education and learning new or perfecting skill sets are fundamental to advancing in most career fields.\u00a0 Although we reach a level of competency we must continue to learn and advance our knowledge in underlying skills. \u00a0This is a relatively new to most professions.\u00a0 For centuries most professions only required being able to read and write in addition to the art of the craft.\u00a0 For example, an account was required to lean the advances in accounting procedures, but continued to use pencil and paper to implement the new procedures.\u00a0 Now accounts must have a working knowledge of various computer programs, which keep changing, in order to stay current in their field.\u00a0 The more versatile and current you are in underlying skills the easier it is to find or change jobs and careers.<\/p>\n

So as we celebrate this Fourth of July, lets us look forward with optimism knowing as is always the case \u201cIt is the best of times, it is the worst of times\u201d and it is up to each of us to decide the best way forward.<\/p>\n

The PraticaL Mentor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the Fourth of July weekend, and the day the United States celebrates its birth as an independent nation.\u00a0 This may be a good time to reflect on the state of the national and global economy, and its impact on your career.\u00a0 One of my favorite lines is from the beginning of the Tale […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,49,1,6,58,22,18,7,65,63,19,64],"tags":[209,214,51,5,9,33,68,52,37,39,213,50,54,38,15,66,67,218,208,27,35],"class_list":["post-534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abundance","category-aptitude","category-advice","category-career-challenges","category-career-choices","category-challenges","category-mentor-advice","category-personality","category-retraining","category-skills","category-success","category-training","tag-abundance","tag-aptitude","tag-career","tag-career-advice","tag-career-strategies","tag-college","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-employment","tag-experience","tag-goals","tag-graduation","tag-guidance-counseling","tag-job-experience","tag-mentor","tag-opportunities","tag-optimism","tag-skills","tag-success","tag-tactics","tag-working"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=534"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":538,"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534\/revisions\/538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}