4 Steps to Successful Career-Mapping

4 Steps to Successful Career-Mapping 4 Steps to Successful Career-Mapping Article by Elise MitchellIf theres one truth in life, its that you cant map out everything. No matter how carefully you plan, youll find yourself on some detours. This is especially true when it comes to your professional journey. With so much unexpected - and, many times, unwanted - change, it can be tempting to toss out the road map and simply go wherever the wind blows you.Id like to encourage you to fight that urge. Theres still something to be said for strategic career-mapping. As an entrepreneur with mora than 20 years under my belt, I believe thoughtful planning is fundamental to creating a fulfilling and successful career. Im not the only one who feels this way The 2017 MRINetwork Millennial Hiring Trends Studyfound that 53 percent of millennials want to map out their careers, too.Theres no denying that traditional employment has largely been supplanted by short-term, part-time, and gig-specific wor k. In other words, our careers have grown more dynamic. However, this economic evolution has not made old-school career-planning obsolete. It simply means we need to adopt new, more adaptable mindsets when considering our career paths.21st-Century Career-MappingCreating a career map originally meant determining how to artfully navigate the corporate ladder. Inthose days, your career path welches astraight shot with very few deviations work in X department long enough, become X departments supervisor, advance to Y department, and so itwent until you retired.Todays mapsare less linear.They are full of twists and turns as people navigate opportunities and develop capabilities that lead to new roles, often outside their current companies. About 35 percent of workers freelance, according to a report from Freelancers Union and Upwork, and even more dabble in gig work as needed. These workers bear the responsibility for ensuring they have the necessary skills to advance in their careers. N o employer will set that path out for them.Weve become a nation (and perhaps a world) of individualists. Were dreamers, with the understanding those dreams will never come to fruition if we arent flexible and journey-minded.Nevertheless, unpredictability can be a hard pill to swallow. At least, it was for me.Avoiding Career-Mapping RoadblocksFocus on what only you can do. Give the rest of it away.I made this my mantra during a crucial time of growth at my company, when I needed to give more authority to our senior leaders. I had no idea how difficult delegating that authority would be.Accepting and acknowledging that you hold tightly to responsibilities you enjoy is one thing doing something about it is quite another. For me, giving away the final say for clients, programs, and initiatives Id built and loved was alfruchtwein gut-wrenching. But I knew growth would be stymied if I didnt share all the best stuff with my most trusted leaders.Once I did this, I saw how these leaders were able to improve upon what Id started through their fresh perspectives. Plus, there were other things I needed to focus on in order to move us forward. Not surprisingly, I saw my own professional growth take off when I took on new challenges. Had I not released myself from those ties, I would have been stuck.Not all career-mapping is this challenging, but it can be difficult if you dont know what youre doing. If youre interested in setting out a career map of your own, try a few of these strategies to get yourself moving along your preferred route.Career-Mapping Strategies1. Focus on Making Your Good into GreatEach of us has areasin which we excel without trying too hard. Maybe youre a pro networker or a ninja closer. Identify your good skills and turn them into great ones by working your tail off. Dont waste time trying to become awesome at what you dont do well - or worse, at what you hate to do. Instead, passionately and enthusiastically become the best you can bewhen it comes t o your natural gifts.2. Take One Step Forward Every DayA half hour per day is all it takes to keep moving ahead on your professional journey. Spend your 30 minutes brainstorming things you can do to develop your abilities and recharge your optimism. Could you read a specific book? Have coffee with a mentor or industry influencer? Rather than thinking too much about the big picture, focus on taking yourself down the road one step at a time.3. Figure Out What Success Looks LikeEvery rolle has a different measure of success. What is yours? Do you want to start a business? Have an impact on people in need? Write a book and go on the public speaking circuit? Spend a few moments reflecting on what success means to you, then determine how you might reach that destination from where you are today.While the distance could be great, you shouldnt quit your current job immediately - or even at all. You might be able to reach your destination through other avenues - such as volunteering or a s ide hustle - that allow you tomaintain a dependable income at the same time. If you do eventually have to say goodbye to your workplace, youll feel better about doing so, thanks tothe purpose youve set for yourself.4. Build a Robust, Genuine Support SystemFocus on your relationships in both your work and personal lives. Humans rely on connections the more trustworthy, honest cheerleaders you have, the richer your career journey will be. Plus, when you hit a rough spot in the road or have to backtrack, theyll be there beside you. Who knows? They might even willingly take the wheel for a few miles until you get your second wind.If theres one thing you shouldnt be, its a passive participant in your career journey. You have a destination in mind, and even if it seems very far away, its reachable as long as you chart a course and stubbornly - and gleefully - forge ahead.A version of this article originally appeared on SUCCESS.com.Elise Mitchell is the CEO of Mitchell, an award-winning strategic communications firm. She helped build Mitchell into one of the top 10 fastest-growing firms globally and a two-time Agency of the Year winner, honored by PRWeek and The Holmes Report.Elise has received numerous awards, including being named PRWeek Agency Public Relations Professional of the Year and a Top 50 Power Player in PR. Elises book, Leading Through the Turn, is now available for purchase. Find out more about the book here.

Glassdoor Announces Awards Criteria for the Best Places to Work in 2018

Glassdoor Announces Awards Criteria for the Best Places to Work in 2018Glassdoor Announces Awards Criteria for the Best Places to Work in 2018 Is your company a Best Place to Work? If so, you can help your company win a 2018 Glassdoor Employees Choice Award for the Best Places to Work .Today, Glassdoor is excited to share 2018 awards criteria to help employees and employers better understand what it takes to be considered.Unlike other workplace awards, there is no self-nomination process and no costs involved. To win a Glassdoor Employees Choice Award, winners are determined based on feedback provided by those who really know a company best - the employees. If employees dont share reviews on Glassdoor during the year-long eligibility timeframe, an employer cannot be considered. Thats why we encourage all employees to share a review today.For the 2018 Employees Choice Awards recognizing the Best Places to Work, Glassdoor will feature six distinct categories in mu ltiple countries. For each category, company reviews and ratings from current and former employees will be considered between November 1, 2016 and October 22, 2017. Reviews submitted after October 22, 2017 will not be considered for the 2018 awards.While Glassdoor accepts reviews from former employees within five years of leaving a company, for the Employees Choice Awards, only reviews from former employees who have left the company in 2017 or 2016 will be considered.In addition, each list of winners is based on local-employee feedback shared on Glassdoor. For example, reviews from U.S.-based employees will be used to determine if an employer is eligible for a U.S. list , while reviews from UK-based employees will be used to determine if an employer is eligible for the UK list . An employer can win a Best Place to Work award in multiple countries.To determine the 2018 winners, quantity, quality and consistency of reviews will be taken into account during the eligibility timefr ame. The following information sheds mora light on these three areas 1. For quantity of reviews , a minimum number of ratings are required across eight workplace attributes that employees can rate when submitting a company review . They include overall company rating, career opportunities, compensation & benefits, culture & values, senior management, work/life balance, recommend to a friend and six month business outlook. If there are not enough ratings across any of these eight workplace attributes, a company will not be considered. These eight workplace attributes will all be taken into account as part of Glassdoors proprietary algorithm to determine winners, led by Glassdoors data science team.To be considered for a specific category, an employer must meet the following requirements during the eligibility timeframeFor all categories, an employer must also have at least a 3.5 overall company rating, and workplace factor ratings (career opportunities, compensation & benefits, cult ure & values, senior management, work/life balance) of at least 2.5 during the eligibility period. Plus, employee count must be current on Glassdoor as of October 22, 2017. The Glassdoor review panel will rely on employee size on an employers Overview page to help assess eligibility. Employers have until October 22, 2017 to update employee size on their Glassdoor profile with a Free Employer Account . The awards also take into account various types of employment position including full-time, part-time, contract and freelance, however, intern company reviews are not considered.2. For quality of reviews , Glassdoors proprietary awards algorithm also takes into account what employees have to say that shows winners truly outshine the rest in the eyes of their employees. Quality reviews are those that help job seekers by offering insights and feedback into what its really like to work at a company, including whats working well, what needs improvement, and advice to senior management, wh ich employees are asked to share when completing a company review. 3. For consistency of reviews, Glassdoors proprietary awards algorithm also looks at trends over time as it relates to both the quantitative and qualitative insights shared by employees. In some cases, if an employer lacks quality and/or consistency of reviews, it can impact results and/or eligibility. Tip We encourage employers to check out free resources into best practices of Best Places to Work winners to learn more.As part of determining award winners, Glassdoor is committed to the highest level of data integrity and reviews quality, including treating all employers equal regardless of whether they are a customer of Glassdoor. If the Glassdoor eligibility panel suspects and/or determines official company representatives have attempted to influence employee reviews or have tampered with the process of collecting authentic, unbiased reviews, including intentional or unintentional acts that violate the Glassdo or Community Guidelines and/or Terms of Use , an employer may be excluded from awards consideration. Exclusion from eligibility can be triggered by such acts as, but not limited to, management attempting to leave false reviews, management coercion of employees to submit positive reviews, or other activities and/or events which could ultimately damage employees faith in the employer, its senior leadership, and/or adversely affect its overall rating on Glassdoor. A best practice is to ask employees to leave an unbiased review every 12 months. 2018 winners will be announced in early December 2017. Want more information? Check out last years winners , free employer resources and award FAQs .

Engineering Entrepreneurs Working at Positive Change in the World

Engineering Entrepreneurs Working at Positive Change in the World Engineering Entrepreneurs Working at Positive Change in the World Engineering Entrepreneurs Working at Positive Change in the WorldBy Joshua Olesker, ASME Public InformationIn a conversation with President Obama at the 2016 Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Silicon Valley, Facebook Founder/CEO Mark Zuckerberg expressed his view of entrepreneurship.To me, it is about creating change, not just creating companies, Zuckerberg said. The most effective entrepreneurs who Ive met care deeply about some mission, some change that theyre trying to create. Often they dont even start because theyre trying to create a company. The entrepreneurs who build things that belastung for a long time keep going because they care fundamentally about the change that they are trying to create in the world.Innovation for social impact was on broad display at ASMEs 2016 ISHOW programs. In Bangalore, Nairobi, and most recently in Washington D.C., some of the worlds brightest young engineer-entrepreneurs gathered to share their work and compete for funding, prizes and expert guidance. Each one is working to create real change in the world even as they also build successful businesses. In 2016, ASMEs ISHOW competitions in India, Kenya and the U.S. attracted visionary engineer-entrepreneurs who work to solve the developing worlds most pressing health and environmental challenges. In June, ISHOW came to Washington, D.C., and three winners were crowned. (The ISHOW finalists in India and Kenya were no less driven in their endeavors however editorial constraints confine this discussion to one venue.)Putting People at the Center of TechnologyAmparo (which means support in Portuguese) was one of the three D.C. winners. Their kollektiv developed a revolutionary approach to prosthetic care, reducing the time and training needed to fit a top-quality prosthetic socket. Amparo is now deploying this proprietary technology to underserved p opulations in Brazil to allow an amputee to be fit with a modern, durable, and reliable prosthetic not in months but hours. Amparos Jessica Menhold, a doctoral student in mechanical engineering at Penn State, made the teams presentation.Whats key to our motivation is that we want to help people, said Menhold. People are at the center of our product. Were designing a device that connects the human to the artificial.Menhold showed a photograph of a Brazilian amputee, Lucas, and translated his words I cant work with my hands when Im wearing crutches, Lucas said. If I cant work with my hands, I cant hold a job. My leg is my whole life.Menhold turned off her projector. That is Amparos whole reason for existing, she said. We believe that no amputee deserves to live and walk around on crutches. And thats why were designing simple prosthetic devices that empower amputees to walk. herbei passion was obvious and her team was victorious. The second of the D.C. winners for 2016 was Calliope Wa terworks, maker of a water management tool called the Buoy. Calliopes founder and CEO Keri Waters, a serial entrepreneur with a BS in mechanical engineering from MIT and an MBA from UC Berkeley, came up to describe it.The Buoy installs in-line with a homes water main and provides real-time information about water flow, allowing owners to remotely shut off water via an app when leaks are detected, she grinned. Waters eyes shone as she spoke. This ability allows owners to reduce their overall water use by 10% even without making any behavioral changesBut the Buoy does more than that, she told the audience. It ships info to our computers, which can disaggregate information about water use and thus tell you for what different purposes youre using different amounts of water, when youre using it, and so on.The Buoy gives homeowners, for the very first time, the fine-grained information needed to plan water-budgeting decisions. It may well be the leading edge of a revolution in how we man age water.By potentially reducing water consumption everywhere its used, The Buoy would also have a direct benefit on water quality in all those places. Waters eyes had been shining for good reason her team is working to save the worlds water by building a strong business to do it.Cleaning the AirThe third champion of this years D.C. ISHOW was PayGo Energy, maker of the PayGo Smart Meter. The device couples to any LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) cylinder to enable micro-asset financing and pay-as-you-go functionality for families in Kenya (and eventually around the world) who have never before been equipped to cook with gas.CEO Nick Quintong described how his team was inspired to create the PayGo It came from watching people use dirty, polluting fuels in Nairobi, he said. If you live on less than $2 a day and have a limited energy spend, you can purchase 50 cents worth of charcoal or 30 cents worth of kerosene. But you cant purchase 30 cents worth of gas.But his team saw a solution A t PayGo, we developed a smart meter technology that couples to any gas cylinder, and it turns that cylinder into a pay-as-you-go device. For the first time, you can purchase just the fuel you need for that day, to cook. You can purchase 20 cents of fuel just to cook a single meal, or you can purchase more, depending on what your needs are.Quintong explained both the potential market for a clean-cooking-fuel solution and why the team was so excited about their project The potential impact is huge, said Quintong. Some 2.8 tausend milliarden people are cooking with dirty fuels every day. And about 4.3 million people are dying every year from household air pollution more than tuberculosis, HIV and malaria combined. All these people are exposed to these hazardous fumes purely because gas is priced and packaged for wealthy populations, not for low income households.If Quintong and his team succeed, they will save untold numbers of lives around the world and they just may strike business gold doing so. Mark Zuckerberg explained this approach at GES 2016. Said Zuckerberg Its my deep belief that youre trying to make a changeand I really do believe that if you do something good, and if you help people out, that eventually some portion of that good will come back to you.If the 2016 D.C. ISHOW winners are any measure, the commitment to making a positive change for the world seems like a pretty good way to get started on your business plan.Entrepreneurs and social innovators Jessica Menhold of Amparo (back row, far left), Keri Waters of Calliope Water Works Inc. (back row, second from left), Michael Hahn of Paygo Energy (back row, fourth from left), Fausto Marcigot of Paygo (front row, second from left), and Nick Quintong of Paygo (front row, far right), at ASME ISHOW held June 16, 2016, in Washington, D.C. Also pictured are Kenneth W. Turner, The Lemelson Foundation (back row, third from left) Paige Rodgers, Autodesk (back row, far right) Paul Scott, director, Engineeri ng for Global Development, ASME (front row, far left), and Madiha El Mehelmy Kotb, former president of ASME (front row, third from left).