5 WAYS TO EVALUATE MOOCS ON A RESUME

Guillaume Dumas, a 28-year-old Canadian, made headlines recently when he announced that he had obtained an Ivy League education for free by sneaking in to classes at prestigious universities. His story — coupled with the skyrocketing costs of a college education — raised serious doubts about the value of a diploma. With tuition costs rising and more than a trillion dollars of student debt in America, alternate routes to achieving a top-tier education are increasingly attractive. The big question for HR: Should we start worrying less about an applicant’s degree and more about the knowledge an applicant brings to the company?

While a Dumas-style education is still an anomaly, hiring managers are likely to encounter candidates who have taken Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). According to Class Central, more than 2400 of these online lectures currently exist from more than 400 universities—including 22 of U.S. News & World Report’s Top 25 Universities.

The topics and structures of these courses vary widely. Students can sign up online to learn about anything from Roman Architecture to Web Application Architecture. Some MOOCs are free, some come at a cost. And some simply involve listening to lectures—with no way to verify that the student learned anything—while others provide assignments, tests and a certification for passing the course.

Here, 5 things to consider when a MOOC shows up on a resume:

1. MOOCs can be supplemental to traditional education.

Steve Petersen is a web developer in his early 30s, and most of his resume looks just like you’d expect. He has a Bachelor’s degree from Brigham Young University, a Master’s degree from the University of Maryland and great experience in web development, marketing and strategy. But his education also includes 4 MOOC certifications from prestigious institutions—for instance, a Gamification class from the University of Pennsylvania.

“MOOCs allow me to explore something interesting with a bona fide expert as a guide,” shared Peterson. As a hiring manager, it’s easy to evaluate his supplemental courses as having value. He’s achieved a traditional four-year degree and sought out supplementary knowledge—in this case, you should count MOOCs as a bonus.

2. MOOCs can be a stand-alone education.

Some candidates may not have a college degree at all, instead racking up a range of MOOCs since graduating from high school. How do you evaluate a MOOC in that situation?

First, ask about the qualifications behind a certification. Is it simply a certificate of completion, meaning your candidate listened to all the lectures? Or does the certification indicate some evaluation by the professor? Coursera, for instance, has special features ensuring that people who take their courses get proper credit for their classes. Udacity offers a series of tests along the way that allow course participants to show they’ve gained knowledge.

3. Skills from a MOOC – just like a degree – need to be demonstrated.

Remember to ask hard questions and test candidates on their skills. We all know someone who skated through college, cramming before tests and immediately forgetting the information afterwards. Someone who said they learned how to program in Python via a course from Udemy shouldn’t just be handed the job. But someone who says they’ve learned Python from a top-tier university shouldn’t be given the benefit of the doubt either.

Either way, be wary of automatically giving preference to the candidate with the brick and mortar diploma. Programming is a skill, and it doesn’t really matter how you gained that skill.

4. MOOCs demonstrate a thirst for knowledge in established workers.

If the resume on your desk is from a mid-career professional with great experience, a MOOC shows that the person is constantly working, learning and growing—qualities you certainly want in a candidate. While we all learn and grow through work in general, someone who has taken the time to seek out additional knowledge on her own is a bonus to your organization.

5. MOOCs offer opportunities to expand your own horizons.

As you see more and more MOOCs showing up on resumes, stop and consider if you should take one yourself. Want to learn about microeconomics? Check out Khan Academy. Want to learn more about organizational management? Coursera offers such a course from the University of Geneva.

When you’ve experienced a MOOC course yourself, you’ll start to understand the value of different kinds of online courses in the candidates you evaluate.

ASSESSING CLOUD VENDOR SECURITY? HERE ARE THE ACRONYMS YOU NEED TO KNOW

Security is obviously a top-of-mind concern for any business that wants to migrate data and processes to the cloud—especially when it comes to talent management, which requires protecting employees’ sensitive personal data. But what’s less clear is what to actually look for when evaluating vendors and assessing their security practices. It’s even more complicated when you encounter the many acronyms associated with security standards and certifications.

Here’s a quick overview of certifications that talent management cloud services providers should already have or be working to earn, what they mean and why they matter.

ISO/IEC 27001:2013

Published by ISO, an independent, nongovernmental international organization, ISO/IEC 27001:2013 is a standard that “specifies the requirements for establishing, implementing, maintaining and continually improving an information security management system within the context of the organization.”

In short, it’s a set of rules and controls intended to guide the way a company manages information security. While ISO/IEC 27001:2013 began as a standard for companies in Europe, it is now embraced by businesses globally. Many companies now require cloud vendors to be ISO certified—and maintain that certification—throughout the life of a service contract.

Keep in mind that being “ISO certified” and “ISO compliant” are different things. ISO certification shows that a company either meets all the requirements of ISO/IEC 27001:2013, or a specific subset of controls, and the status of those controls has been reviewed by an independent auditor. Certification is an ongoing process; auditors check requirements annually and look for improvement. Be sure to ask cloud services providers for an SOA (Statement of Applicability), a document showing which controls were in scope when the vendor was audited.

“ISO compliant” means a company claims to follow the requirements of the ISO standard, but they have never been officially certified. This is acceptable practice. However, businesses should take time to review the provider’s security measures, especially if the provider will be handling sensitive data.

ISO/IEC 27018:2014

Many cloud vendors are in the process of adding the ISO/IEC 27018:2014 code of practice to their ISO/IEC 27001 certification. A newer standard, ISO/IEC 27018:2014 “establishes commonly accepted control objectives, controls and guidelines for implementing measures to protect Personally Identifiable Information (PII) in accordance with the privacy principles in ISO/IEC 29100 for the public cloud computing environment.”

Like ISO/IEC 27001:2013, ISO/IEC 27018:2014 will probably become a specific requirement outlined in many cloud service provider contracts in the future.

SSAE 16 SOC 1 and SOC 2

The Statement on Standards for Attestation Engagements No. 16 (SSAE 16), also known as SOC 1, (SOC is “Service Organization Control”) was finalized by the Auditing Standards Board of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) in 2010. SSAE 16 describes service provider defined controls and is intended to help companies better understand the processes and procedures in place which helps build trust and confidence in the cloud providers service delivery process.

SOC 2, based on AICPA Trust Services Principles and Criteria, outlines very specific controls for security and privacy amongst others, and is another compliance standard more companies are adding to service contracts for cloud providers.

To demonstrate they are compliant with SSAE 16 and AICPA Trust Services Principles and Criteria, companies must present SOC 1 and/or SOC 2 reports. Request a cloud vendor to specifically present a “SOC 1, Type II” and/or “SOC 2, Type II” report, which confirms that controls have been tested. (Type I is simply a description of how a company runs controls.) Pay special attention to who audited the report; larger firms are generally more thorough with these types of audits. It’s important to read the report carefully to evaluate any control failures or exceptions the auditors may have noted.

ISAE 3402 Type II

This is the European version of SSAE 16 SOC 1, Type II. Cloud vendors don’t typically need to have both attestations, but if they do it’s a positive.

FedRAMP

The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, or FedRAMP, “is a U.S. government-wide program based on the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST ) Special Publication 800-53 Revision 4 that provides a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring for cloud products and services.”

The FedRAMP certification process is arduous, and it can take years for a vendor to achieve the “Authority to Operate” (ATO). So, if a cloud services provider is FedRAMP certified, it means their security practices and controls met a very high bar.

To see which cloud providers are FedRAMP certified, see this list on the program’s website.

CSA CCM

An emerging standard, the Cloud Security Alliance Cloud Controls Matrix (CSA CCM) is “specifically designed to provide fundamental security principles to guide cloud vendors and to assist prospective cloud customers in assessing the overall security risk of a cloud provider.” The matrix (available for download here) is a control framework designed by the CSA; controls are mapped to other leading security standards, such as those described above.

Cloud services providers are not required to use this framework. But if they do, or are working to adopt it, it suggests they have a very strong commitment to security. Ask cloud services providers if they have completed the CSA Consensus Assessments Initiative Questionnaire (CAIQ) or check the CSA STAR Registry to see if they have submitted.

PCI

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a set of requirements designed to ensure that companies who process, store or transmit credit card information maintain a secure environment. In order to become certified, cloud providers who fall into this category must implement and maintain the standard. More on PCI can be found at https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org.

The security requirements a cloud vendor should meet to protect a customer’s data depends largely on the type of information they will be asked to handle. The more sensitive the data, the more important adherence to industry standards becomes. Regardless, all cloud services providers should be able to demonstrate to their customers exactly what they are doing to ensure security.

JASON CORSELLO: HOW TECHNOLOGY UPGRADES THE EMPLOYEE ‘USER EXPERIENCE’

Companies are fanatical about the customer experience (see Apple). Why aren’t companies equally committed to the employee experience?, asks Jason Corsello, vice president of corporate strategy and marketing for Cornerstone OnDemand. Corsello, in his article The Employee ‘User Experience’ Needs an Upgrade. Corsello isn’t talking about office space or company culture here; he’s talking about employees’ experience with portals, collaborative tools and platforms.

“For many successful companies, creating that great bricks-and-mortar ‘UX’ is a core competency of HR,” writes Corsello. “Creating an equally optimal digital user experience for valued employees is a critically important challenge that relatively few businesses have mastered, let alone understood.”

Let HR Design the Employee UX

“[A]s HR tech moves higher and higher into the cloud — and as employees become socialized and accustomed to having Apple-like elegance and simplicity with anything they interact with digitally, at home or at the office — HR departments need to be designing user experience, not the IT managers who ruled the roost for so many years before them.”

Borrow the Look & Feel of Social Media

“Sounds like a no-brainer. But ease of use gets lost quickly in the excitement to offer new features and functions in HR software. Success — and mass adoption — tends to happen when you mirror something cool that people already know. Steal a page from Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn when developing user experience that will click with your employees.”

Prioritize Engagement — not Record-Keeping

“[C}reating or investing in a system of engagement over a system of record is important for the future of HR tech….There’s a reason the annual performance review is dying.”

Make Mobile Useful & Fun

“Employees will use HR technology on their phones if they can use it as a helpful tool. Whether that means syncing calendar updates with teammates to submitting peer reviews while waiting to take off for a business trip.”

Common Workplace Mistakes Made by Newbies

If you are stepping into your first “real” job after college you probably have a mixed bag of feelings about it. It’s exciting to meet new people, have new responsibilities and contribute to your new company’s goals. And it’s also little scary. That’s just how it goes when you’re a newbie, but that’s a bad thing. Some mistakes are expected and they are easy to avoid or correct as long as you are aware of them. Here are a few:

Flying Solo

“Although you’re new to the company, you’ll need the support of others to succeed in your career,” said Ericka Spradley, career coach and author. “Oftentimes, new employees fail because they don’t have a success team. As you partner with your leader, discuss mentoring options; as you progress in your role, identify those who have succeeded where you see yourself,” she added. And remember, employers hire a diverse workforce on purpose. Interact with people who have diverse thoughts, ideas and perspectives, not only with other recent grads.

Staying in the dark

New employees often have to do a lot of reading and that can get quite boring and confusing. Mix things up a little to show interest in learning all you can. Jot down questions that come up while reading and use them as conversation starters that help enlighten you about things that are unwritten or not so obvious. “The beginning of your job is the time to ask questions. Your new co-workers expect you to be curious and are willing to help if you ask them. Plus, this will help you build professional relationships,” said Deborah Brown-Volkman, career coach and president of Surpass Your Dreams (www.surpassyourdreams.com).

Not understanding your value

You don’t have to be a know-it-all or expert when you walk in the door, but know that you were hired for a reason: your employer is making an investment to fill a need. That investment in you is evidence that you bring something of value to the table. It may be hard skills, like computer programming or dental hygiene techniques, or equally valuable soft skills that newbies often bring: energy, enthusiasm, passion and new ideas.

Mismanaging time

“Because you’re new and may not be able to function independently for the first 90 days or so, you may have “breaks” in your day. These breaks occur because tasks are completed sooner than anticipated but employers still expect productivity,” said Spradley. “New grads may use these breaks to surf the internet or share social media updates, but a better use of this time may be: navigating the company’s intranet to understand policy, relevant news, employer updates; asking for more tasks or staying abreast of training,” she added. Brown-Volkman believes being a newbie is a state of mind. “If you feel bad about it, then it will be harder for you to adjust. Hold you head up high, put your shoulders back and watch how you carry yourself,” she said.

LEARNING CORNER WITH JEFFREY PFEFFER: WHAT IF YOU COULDN’T EASILY FIRE PEOPLE?

The recent publication of Buckingham and Goodall’s Nine Lies About Work brought home some painful facts about people management for me. First, the state of people management remains poor. Gallup recently reported, for instance, that the U.S. quit rate is at an all-time high; 67% of employees are disengaged at work; and more than half say they are actively looking for a new job. Second, HR lacks a commitment to evidence-based people management (evaluating a decision or policy with evidence such as data and peer-reviewed scientific research to ensure the desired result is achieved).

As I thought about the HR practices that remain in use, notwithstanding the evidence against them—things like forced curve performance evaluations—it occurred to me that many of these practices stem from one root cause: the ability to fire employees at will. Because organizations can easily terminate people (and are very willing to do so), workplaces often use counterproductive management approaches that evaluate, rather than invest in and develop, employees.

Adopting a Growth Mindset

The U.S. is the only country in the industrialized world that has at-will employment, where people can be fired for any (or no) reason at all. In the rest of the world, you can only be fired for cause. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 1.5% of the workforce is fired or laid off each month, which means that almost 20% of the workforce will involuntarily lose their jobs each year.

And there is evidence that being fired is not a signal of incompetence, but possibly an organizational mistake. One 10-year study of some 2,600 executives found that of those who were fired, 91% found a job as good or better than the one they lost, and 78% eventually rose to become CEO. The idea that the solution to poor performance is termination produces numerous unproductive approaches to managing people.

Research by psychology professor Carol Dweck and her colleagues has consistently shown the benefits of adopting a growth mindset over an evaluating one. An evaluating mindset implies that, for instance, if a salesperson is not making their quota, that person can’t sell—is not a natural—and should be either fired or moved into a different job. A growth mindset, on the other hand, implies that if a salesperson is currently ineffective, that individual might benefit from training in sales techniques and coaching from sales leadership on what they are doing that could be improved.

As Dweck argues, implementing a growth mindset is easier said than done. There’s a great deal of effort required to develop talent through hard work, coaching and learning. If people are readily replaced, the temptation to fire them and find someone else can be overwhelming. In an ideal world, public policy would make it more difficult and costlier to remove people from their workplaces. But until that happens, if employers at least think of firing as a last resort, they’ll be more likely to work more diligently to develop everyone to their full potential.

Performance Reviews Perpetuate the Evaluation Mindset

Performance reviews (which managers don’t like giving and few employees want to receive) may be, in my opinion, the most detrimental HR practice when it comes to developing a growth mindset.

Evaluations presumably identify who needs to go on “performance improvement plans” and are used to rank people against each other. If firing people weren’t at the forefront of these reviews, HR managers might still want to provide developmental information, but it almost certainly would take a very different form. The conversation would focus on how the employee could improve and what the employer and employee could jointly do to develop that individual’s competencies, not the person’s “grade.” And instead of being performed annually or every six months, developmental conversations would occur all the time.

An Argument Against Firing

Does firing even work? Consider this logic. Unless the company is downsizing, every person that’s fired needs to be replaced. Unless the company has somehow improved its selection process, or done something to become a more attractive place to work, the organization will just return to the same labor pool from which it drew the now-fired individual, with the same “deal,” and draw again. What are the odds it will do better? That is why companies that fire people—and those that downsize—tend to do it again and again, because these actions do not solve anything.

Here\’s a useful analogy. Almost no parent has ever “fired” their child. When the child misbehaves or does not live up to their potential, great parents provide love, attention, guidance and high expectations, and work hard to ensure the best possible outcome for the kid. Wouldn’t it be nice if companies did the same? Instead of disposing of people, give them second, third, maybe even fourth chances. Invest in them. Provide them the social support necessary for physical and mental health, and the opportunity to do better.

We live in a world of untapped human potential. Fulfilling people’s promise requires a commitment to their development that the opportunity to simply get rid of them renders unlikely.

SUCCESSION PLANNING IS A CHALLENGE, BUT WELL WITHIN REACH

When it comes to talent, it’s all about the pipeline. That is, keeping it pulsing along with the best possible employee bench strength to fill critical positions as business conditions change, new products are launched, etc. To get there takes a proactive and intelligence-driven internal succession planning strategy, though for many employers this is easier said than done.

In fact, the challenge of selecting and developing future managers is keeping many HR leaders and business line executives up at night. A study by the Corporate Leadership Council found that 72 percent of companies surveyed predict they\’ll have an increasing number of leadership vacancies over the next three to five years. At the same time, 76 percent are \”less than confident\” in their abilities to adequately fill these positions.

That is the harsh reality. High unemployment rates notwithstanding, top talent can still be very scarce, so looking inward and developing a smart succession management process is table stakes in today’s talent challenge. It all comes down to identifying top performers and closing existing knowledge gaps to create a high-performance culture.

One step in the right direction that I recently blogged about is utilizing today’s talent management software solutions and creating processes to expand your succession planning model throughout organizational ranks, one that both sides of the equation can embrace. Employers who can proactively engage the workforce in career management and development create a clear win-win. For employees, added career development opportunities ensure that people are moving up, not out.

For example, when workforce management services firm Kelly Services launched self-service career management tools to its global employee base, the company’s HR executives were pleasantly surprised by the level of participation. Creation of career profiles was voluntary, but the tools had a 72 percent participation rate in its initial launch. Kelly’s management saw this as a clear indicator of the interest their people have in not only managing their careers, but also in other opportunities within the company.

Why critical roles and competencies matter

It is clear that a workforce needs to be aligned with the overall business strategy and business objective achievement. Yet, you would be amazed at how many organizations lack awareness of the critical roles and key competencies that drive business success.

Simply defined, critical roles are the positions that an organization relies on most to meet its key business objectives. Competencies are the knowledge, behavior and skills that correlate with organizational success and performance. For example, customer satisfaction may be a leading business driver in a retail organization, and as a result, key competencies may include customer responsiveness, relationship building, account management experience and other areas.

Naturally, critical roles and competencies are tightly interrelated. A business can define its critical roles with job profiles, then use competencies to measure success and replicate the qualities of a successful employee in others throughout the workforce.

External factors

Organizations certainly face a number of external factors that make it difficult to acquire and retain top talent. For example, as Baby Boomers retire, Generations X and Y don’t have the sheer numbers or job experience to fill the gaps. Also, the ongoing “doing more with less” business mantra has left companies with the burden of developing key talent now to prevent a mass exodus of top performing employees in the next 12 to 24 months.

Not to pile on, but there also is a global shortage of technical and leadership skills in such areas as engineering, accounting, skilled trades and sales and executive/management functions, which has the potential to slow the economic engine.

With these hurdles, organizations need to get the succession planning ball rolling. Helping talent flourish within the organization takes time; it also requires a razor-sharp focus. Having a solid system in place to identify and develop top talent and critical roles allows an organization to reap the rewards of a healthy, flowing talent-laden pipeline.

To read more about my thoughts on using career management technology solutions to expand succession planning throughout organizational ranks and foster career mobility, check out my blog post, “A New Poseidon Adventure: Flipping Succession Planning Upside Down.”

To read more about succession management and career management best practices, download the white paper, “Two Sides of the Same Coin: Using Succession Management and Career Development to Improve Talent Mobility.”

Is Criminal Justice Studies Right For You?

The field of criminal justice can be attractive to anyone interested in how justice is dispensed in the US and around the world. Earning a degree in Criminal Justice Studies from Bryant & Stratton College is the perfect way to pursue a career in the field of criminal justice.

The right program is a mix of finding the right fit for your personality, academic habits and needs, qualified instructors, and the flexibility and structure needed for your unique situation. To help you think through some important characteristics for a degree program, we’ve identified four questions for you to answer.

What degree level is best?
There are a lot of career paths that start with earning a criminal justice studies degree. But, there are differences depending on what degree-level you choose. An associate degree in criminal justice studies will give you a broad understanding of the U.S. criminal justice system by studying its aspects including law enforcement, courts, corrections and private security. A diploma in Criminal Justice and Security Services provides the key foundation for students to pursue jobs in security while also having the opportunity to continue their education with an associate degree if they so choose.

What is your best learning environment?
Some people like to learn on their own and to set their own schedule to work around an existing job, raising a family or other responsibilities. Others like to very structured environments and sitting in a classroom with a teacher and other students. If the first scenario appeals to you then earning a criminal justice studies degree online might make sense. Online degrees offer flexibility to choose set your own schedule, as there is not set class to attend each week. To figure out whether an online classroom or a traditional environment is best for you, spend some time thinking about your life, your weekly schedule and your learning habits.

Is there balance in what skills are being taught?
A good criminal justice studies degree will offer a balance between theoretical training, practical knowledge and soft skills development. The first two types of knowledge in that list may be assumed but don’t underestimate the value of the last category. Employers across all field are increasingly looking for new hires with strong soft skills. In field related to criminal justice the ability to work with people of diverse backgrounds, curiosity, analytical skills and good problem solving are all important. Be sure to think about what kind of soft skills are being cultivated in the programs you are considering.

How much field experience do the instructors have?
There are a lot of changes taking place in the domestic justice, legal and security systems. Instructors who have spent time teaching as well as working in the field can offer unique insights the most current information and best practices in criminal justice. Seasoned professionals can also be helpful in building a job search network when you get closer to graduation.

If you’d like to learn more about earning a degree in Criminal Justice Studies at Bryant & Stratton College, call 866-948-0571 today!

HUMAN CAPITALIST: WHEN PERFORMANCE IS THE PROBLEM, TRAINING ISN\’T THE ANSWER

Just about any time an issue arises in the workplace, the first thing managers ask HR for is more training. Sales teams not reaching their goals? Let\’s add some training modules. Call center employees not efficiently embracing the new software platform? Perhaps they need some extra training. But as learning and development author and consultant Bill Cushard explains this week on Cornerstone OnDemand\’s Human Capitalist blog, job performance is often at the root of the problem. Says Cushard: \”Training is often — and mistakenly — assumed to be the silver bullet that can solve performance issues, and training managers are usually the ones charged with delivering the solution.\”

But, Cushard points out, training sometimes isn\’t the answer, and training managers can do their employers a valuable service by taking a step back and assessing whether it\’s training, or some other approach, that will solve the problem at hand.

What Factors Most Into Job Performance?

According to Thomas Gilbert\’s Behavioral Engineer Model, Cushard adds, five key factors in addition to training (or knowledge) weigh into overall job performance:

Data
Instruments
Incentives
Capacity
Motives

So it\’s not always necessarily the case that employees don\’t know how to do the task at hand, sometimes they just don\’t know what\’s expected of them, or they\’re not motivated to do it, or they aren\’t given the tools to properly execute the job.

Rather than training, sometimes it\’s a matter of providing resources more readily or adjusting IT to meet the practical needs of employees that will do the trick. By assessing the true nature of the problem, and the elements that will fix it, training managers can provide their companies with a whole new level of service.

HUMAN CAPITALIST: WHEN PERFORMANCE IS THE PROBLEM, TRAINING ISN\’T THE ANSWER

What Factors Most Into Job Performance?

According to Thomas Gilbert\’s Behavioral Engineer Model, Cushard adds, five key factors in addition to training (or knowledge) weigh into overall job performance:

Data
Instruments
Incentives
Capacity
Motives

HUMAN CAPITALIST: WHEN PERFORMANCE IS THE PROBLEM, TRAINING ISN\’T THE ANSWER

What Factors Most Into Job Performance?

According to Thomas Gilbert\’s Behavioral Engineer Model, Cushard adds, five key factors in addition to training (or knowledge) weigh into overall job performance:

Data
Instruments
Incentives
Capacity
Motives

What Your Career Path Says About Your Ambitions

By Rachel DiGiammarino

You love your job and enjoy a fulfilling career. But what if you’re not interested in becoming a manager? Does that mean you lack motivation or a desire to truly succeed?

There are important milestones in your professional development that will arise as you strive to accelerate and accentuate your leadership competencies (see my recent post on self leadership). I am using the term leadership in a very generic sense, not implying any formal role, title or authority, but rather an elevated presence highlighted by intelligence, actions and behavior that inspires others to seek you out.

Essentially, at various times in your career you will come to a crossroads, and whether by intention, guidance, or luck, you might choose to go in one direction over another.

To me this feels a lot like the popular board game Life by Milton Bradley – with all the different paths to follow:

You might go to college to get a degree or choose a more experiential form of education.
You might work for an established company in a stable industry versus a start-up in an emerging market.
You may or may not get promoted to management.
Or, you might retire early if you develop an idea that gets sold to Google for $1 billion.

Let’s focus on what’s behind door number 3. Imagine if instead of viewing the choice between management and non-management as the difference between the yellow brick road versus a dead end, we shifted our mindset to view both options as being on parallel tracks with similar opportunity, interest, and value (to self and to employer)? And what if there was no wrong choice, so long as you picked the path that best suited your skills and motivators?

Before we cross that bridge, let’s answer this question candidly: “Do you consider yourself to be ambitious – having or showing a strong desire and determination to succeed?” Let’s take that a step further: “Do you believe being ambitious also implies, in the professional arena, that the best way to demonstrate your ambition is to propel yourself ahead of others and become part of a managerial hierarchy that requires you to oversee the work of others?” Conversely, “do you believe that those who don’t go into management might be any less ambitious?”

To me, this way of thinking distorts the virtuous side of ambition. Let’s dispel the notion that ambition is merely an outward form of expression that proves to others that you have arrived. Instead, let’s focus on the idea that when ambition is tied to one’s personal drive, and not merely external motivators, then the correlation between the career path you choose and the degree of ambition that signifies is up to you.

Author Daniel Pink, in his highly acclaimed book, “Drive,” speaks about these intrinsic motivating factors as autonomy, mastery, and purpose. In a nutshell, if you have the opportunity to explore, develop, and hone your skills and feel valued for your contributions, then external motivators like money and title alone mean less. It boils down to what you do.

I believe that many of us have opportunities to work in a field that truly interests us. It then becomes a matter of what your specific role is that allows you to align what truly motivates you with your professional goals. As an ambitious professional, once you have developed a respectable level of competence in your work, you are likely ready for a new challenge.

However, in many companies, going into management is promoted as the only viable option as there are no formal alternatives to management. Assuming you meet the criteria, your coronation to management reduces or eliminates the responsibility of doing the work and replaces it with the requirement for overseeing others who do the work. This path makes a big assumption: those who oversee, won’t miss doing.

What if your career ambitions don’t include management?

A promotion to management isn’t necessarily viewed by everyone as the golden parachute to getting out of doing the work. Many enjoy building, coding, testing, writing, selling, operating, and so on. (By the same token, there are people who enjoy the administrative, operational, and personnel aspects of management.)

Going the management route should be your individual decision (assuming you meet the criteria) and not a foregone conclusion that it’s the only way to progress your career and validate your ambitions. HR, in conjunction with executive leadership and senior management, should be developing and promoting the management and the non-management tracks with clearly-defined competencies and responsibilities at various levels, as well as providing coaching and reinforcement. Both paths are essential for the success of the company. Quite frankly, there isn’t a need for everyone to be a manager from a strictly numbers standpoint, and companies need to think strategically about how to retain their top talent.

I remember when I first got married. Everyone assumed our obvious (and immediate) next step would be to start a family. I believe that attitude is analogous to how people view management as the logical next phase after serving as an individual contributor. To overcome this attitude, which is pervasive in our corporate culture, that links ambition with management, we need you – individual contributors, peers, and management – to transform your mindset and endorse the path that is right for you.

For some, management will be a valid option and you will succeed and be satisfied. Others may not succeed and, hopefully, a growing number of others may opt for a different path that affirms your interests, drive, and purpose. It takes a self-assured individual to not succumb to the pressures and judgments of others who might say you lack ambition if you don’t go for management. It takes an emotionally intelligent person to discern what drives them. You need to know yourself, your options, and alternatives.

Rachel DiGiammarino is a learning and development professional and serves on the UVM Continuing and Distance Education Advisory Board. She is director of business development at Accordence, Inc., a global training company helping employees enhance their professional skills.

WHY DON’T WE “JUST DO IT”?

In a 2012 report, the weight loss industry clocked in at $20 billion dollars a year. This includes books, drugs and weight loss surgeries. At any given time, there are about 108 million dieters in the US, a third of the country. Yet, the US Department of Health and Human services reports that more than 2 out of 3 adults are at some level of obesity.

In the manufacturing world, since the 1980s, the garment industry agreed that the modular way (team approach) of producing clothing is preferred, yet in 1992, 80% of all garments produced were still using a bundling method (individually done).

In a recent study conducted in September of this year, 188 learning and development professionals were asked if they thought collaborative learning would help job performance in their respective organization. Ninety-six percent responded either “Strongly Agree” or “Agree.” When asked whether they have implemented collaborative learning in their organization, 85% responded “No.”

What’s the Deal?

Okay, so what’s the deal with everybody knowing what to do and doing nothing about it? This is exactly the central question that Pfeffer and Sutton (2000) challenge. They call it the knowing-doing gap, the space between organizations understanding what is required to happen and the lack of action to make it happen. This is an important topic for us in the talent management space since there is a lot of money spent training with arguably little impact shown. To understand the magnitude of what is spent, ASTD reported that in 2011, $156.2 billion was spent on learning and development in the US. It is imperative that we understand the causes and solutions to solve the knowing-doing gap.

Pfeffer and Sutton give us several reasons why these gaps exists, and I am hopeful to share those with you in a later blog post; however, there is one that is germane to this discussion, lack of learning. The reason that the knowing-doing gap continues to exist is that active learning requires making mistakes, and organizations are usually not accepting of mistakes. Thus, for an organization to close the knowing-doing gap, it must establish itself as a forgiving organization.

Forgive me please, but…

The connection from learning to forgiveness is that forgiveness gives us the opportunity to make mistakes, have flaws and breakdowns to spark wisdom and new capabilities. Webster’s New World College Dictionary states that forgiveness is to give up resentment and the desire to punish – it is a choice. Therefore, to achieve a forgiving organization there must be the ability to support employees, restore relationship and ongoing training that reinforces these principles. What can you do to be more forgiving?

There are two objections you need to get past to be able to forgive someone, the feeling of accepting what they did as being ‘fine’ and the personal protection that comes from being angry towards someone’s actions.

Put yourself in their shoes, how would you want to be treated? This eliminates any tendency to want to see the sinister side of their actions.
When you did forgive someone in the past, how did you do it? Put those behaviors to work for you every time to feel angry towards another’s actions
Understand that we all are trying to do the best we can with the resources we have, just like you.

Tom Watson, IBM founder, was faced with a situation in which an employee had made a mistake that cost the company $600,000. When asked if he was going to fire the employee, Watson replied, “Why should I do that, I just spent $600,000 training him.”

Are you ready to close the knowing-doing gap?

The Benefits of Studying Abroad

We asked Amanda Chin, an Environmental Studies major at UVM, about what she learned from her study abroad experience in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Exploring the Benefits of Studying Abroad:

Why were you drawn to study abroad?

The opportunity to travel and learn about a new culture sounded pretty appealing. A semester isn’t a terribly long time but it is enough to get a good sense of a place.

What made you decide to study abroad in Oaxaca, Mexico?

Primarily, I wanted to be in a Spanish-speaking country. Oaxaca is one of the most biodiverse and ethnically diverse states in Mexico, which was a draw for me given my interests in environment and culture. Since the United States shares a border with Mexico, it made sense to start there as I try to increase my global awareness.

How did you prepare for your cultural experience?

The main thing I did to prepare was take Spanish classes. It was hard, of course, to get a sense of what my experience would be like from research. What made the trip finally feel real was finding my host families’ house on Google Maps shortly before my trip. Additionally, talking to my friend who went on the program the previous year helped to get me excited. She knew my host family and told me that they owned a little shop, made their own chocolate, and had a dog named Toby.

Did you experience culture shock? Also, please describe your return to home culture.

There were things I missed about home while in Oaxaca, like hot showers, but nothing was completely jarring. Returning back was pretty strange and I felt afraid in my house. It’s not on a major road and has fewer people under the same roof, so it seemed really quiet. For some reason, the cleanliness of the streets in the United States still shocks me. And despite the fact that I missed food from home while in Oaxaca, I had a difficult time adjusting back.

What have you learned? How has travel abroad changed your perspective?

I learned some of the impacts of the United States on Mexico, especially relating to agriculture. For example, I learned that even though maize is native to Mexico from its ancestor teosinte, Mexico imports 90 percent of the corn they eat because small Mexican farmers can’t compete with the prices of subsidized transgenic corn in the United States. This is one of the many contributors of essentially forced migration because of the economic dependence the United States puts on Mexico.

What would you tell someone who is considering taking a UVM travel study course?

Definitely go abroad if you have the chance. It’s a huge privilege to be able to travel and you will learn so much. I would also say to integrate yourself as much as you can.

Amanda Chin is majoring in Environmental Studies with a concentration in nature, culture, Justice and a minor in food systems

Guide to Becoming a Successful Administrative Assistant

Did you know that successful Executive Administrative Assistants work in nearly every industry, from agriculture and manufacturing, to education and Fortune 500 companies. Administrative assistants often make the first impression on prospective clients, and they provide critical administrative support so fellow employees and upper-level management can do their jobs effectively.

The administrative assistant goals you have set now can help you enjoy a successful lifetime career. Here are some administrative assistant goals you can work toward to land a job at your dream company.

Goals and Objectives for Administrative Assistants

Get an education. There was a time where a high school diploma or GED was enough to get a job as a secretary and work your way up to an administrative assistant position. This is no longer the case in a competitive job market and a society in which going to college is becoming the norm, rather than the exception. According to O*Net Online, more than 50% of administrative assistants employed in the U.S. have some type of college education, and that figure is as high as 67% for executive-level secretaries and administrative assistants.

Bryant & Stratton College offers an AAS in Office Management that will show employers you have what it takes to set goals and accomplish them. Your diploma will also demonstrate your proficiency with modern office technology. After taking our administrative assistant classes, you will be eligible to take the Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) Certification exams for Word®, PowerPoint®, Excel®, Outlook®, and Access®.

Look for an entry-level position. If you are currently in high school, or have the flexibility to get a new job, try to obtain an entry-level receptionist or secretary position at a local company. In addition to determining whether or not an administrative assistant position is right for you, you will also be gaining valuable work experience that will prepare you for your future career. In addition, the positive impression you make in an entry-level position will gain favorable referrals and recommendations that will help you get that next great job.

Some employers will help to finance your education if they are happy with your work and want to support your professional development. If you aren’t able to make a job change right now, that’s fine too. Our online degree program is flexible and fits around your current work schedule.

Be flexible. Speaking of being flexible, flexibility is another administrative assistant goal that should not be taken lightly. Modern innovation is such that the technology you learn and use today might be considered outdated within just a few years. Your ability to adapt to new technology and work theories, and your willingness to continue your training and education will be invaluable to your employers.

Also, the demands placed on an administrative assistant can be overwhelming at times. More than almost any other position in the company, your day-to-day work responsibilities can be incredibly varied. From greeting new customers and top-level clientele, to making last minute coffee or lunch runs, there is almost no task too big or too small for an administrative assistant. Your flexibility will allow you to handle each task with grace.

Contact the Admissions Office at Bryant & Stratton College if you are interested in pursuing a career as an administrative assistant. Our friendly admissions counselors will work closely with you to help you attain your administrative assistant goals.

Promotions – Time to Start Asking For It

Wondering why you didn’t receive that promotion you’ve been working so hard for, or that raise you so richly deserve? The answer might be as simple as…you didn’t ask for it

That’s the assertion made by two must-read books by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever, Women Don’t Ask: The High Cost of Avoiding Negotiation – and Positive Strategies for Change (2007) and its follow-up, Ask for It: How Women Can Use the Power of Negotiation to Get What They Really Want (2009). (Despite their titles, both books can be equally useful to men who feel their negotiating skills could use some strengthening.)

According to the authors:

In surveys, 2.5 times more women than men said they feel “a great deal of apprehension” about negotiating.
Men initiate negotiations about four times as often as women.
When asked to pick metaphors for the process of negotiating, men picked “winning a ballgame” and a “wrestling match,” while women picked “going to the dentist.”
Women will pay as much as $1,353 to avoid negotiating the price of a car, which may help explain why 63 percent of Saturn car buyers are women.
Women are more pessimistic about the how much is available when they do negotiate and so they typically ask for and get less when they do negotiate—on average, 30 percent less than men.
20 percent of adult women (22 million people) say they never negotiate at all, even though they often recognize negotiation as appropriate and even necessary.
By not negotiating a first salary, an individual stands to lose more than $500,000 by age 60—and men are more than four times as likely as women to negotiate a first salary.
In one study, eight times as many men as women graduating with master’s degrees from Carnegie Mellon negotiated their salaries. The men who negotiated were able to increase their starting salaries by an average of 7.4 percent, or about $4,000. In the same study, men’s starting salaries were about $4,000 higher than the women’s on average, suggesting that the gender gap between men and women might have been closed if more of the women had negotiated their starting salaries.
Women who consistently negotiate their salary increases earn at least $1 million more during their careers than women who don’t.

In addition, the studies undertaken or reported by Babcock and Laschever indicate that age makes no difference when it comes to women’s avoidance of any and all negotiating situations – younger women struggle just as much as their older peers.

Whereas Women Don’t Ask lays out the reasons that women tend to avoid negotiating in their own best interests, Ask For It focus on how to improve your negotiating chops. Organized into four sections (Everything is Negotiable, Lay the Groundwork, Get Ready, and Put It All Together), this practical handbook lays out what you need to know, how to gather that information, and how to use it in a negotiation. (No surprise, one of their key admonitions is “Practice, Practice, Practice!”) Invaluable career advice for anyone who’s ever felt awkward, embarrassed, or incompetent in a job-negotiation situation.

Women Don’t Ask: The High Cost of Avoiding Negotiation – and Positive Strategies for Change. Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever, Bantam, 2007. 272p. ISBN 0553383876.

Ask for It: How Women Can Use the Power of Negotiation to Get What They Really Want. Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever, Bantam, 2009. 336p. ISBN 0553384554.

For more career resources, check out our Career Services section. Getting a promotion is easier if you have the right education. Bryant & Stratton College offers professional skill development courses that can help you snag that raise or promotion.

336p. ISBN 0553384554.

1. MOOCs can be supplemental to traditional education.

2. MOOCs can be a stand-alone education.

3. Skills from a MOOC – just like a degree – need to be demonstrated.

4. MOOCs demonstrate a thirst for knowledge in established workers.

5. MOOCs offer opportunities to expand your own horizons.

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ISO/IEC 27001:2013

ISO/IEC 27018:2014

SSAE 16 SOC 1 and SOC 2

ISAE 3402 Type II

FedRAMP

CSA CCM

PCI

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Let HR Design the Employee UX

Borrow the Look & Feel of Social Media

Prioritize Engagement — not Record-Keeping

Make Mobile Useful & Fun

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Adopting a Growth Mindset

Performance Reviews Perpetuate the Evaluation Mindset

An Argument Against Firing

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Why critical roles and competencies matter

External factors

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What Factors Most Into Job Performance?

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What Factors Most Into Job Performance?

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What Factors Most Into Job Performance?

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What if your career ambitions don’t include management?

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What’s the Deal?

Forgive me please, but…

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Exploring the Benefits of Studying Abroad:

Why were you drawn to study abroad?

What made you decide to study abroad in Oaxaca, Mexico?

How did you prepare for your cultural experience?

Did you experience culture shock? Also, please describe your return to home culture.

What have you learned? How has travel abroad changed your perspective?

What would you tell someone who is considering taking a UVM travel study course?

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