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Ask the Employment Specialist: Careers options for Introverts

Cheerful young asian business woman using laptop

Dear Joanna,

I am always working on contracts as an IT consultant for different companies. The nature of the job is working with employees who have all types of personalities. The problem is that I am an introvert who likes to work alone. If I may be so bold as to say that I really don’t like people.

I’d like a career change. Any suggestions of careers where I can work alone most of the time, preferably in a remote office?

Signed: Alone Again Naturally

Dear Alone,

I’m impressed how self-aware you are of the type of workplace culture and environment you prefer. Finding a job today that does not require people skills is challenging.

Rachel Gillett, in her blog on The 13 Best Jobs for People who Hate People. Gillett also recommends another site, which offers you the option to research jobs based on how much the jobs require to be in contact with others.

However, if you are looking for a long term, meaningful and sustainable career that has minimal contact with people, look for career decision making supports. At JVS Toronto, we offer a range of Career Exploration programs, which include individualized career counselling provided by a professional Career Counsellor, assessment of individual strengths, skills, interests, values, personality factors and areas for development, development of immediate and long-term career action plans and completion of Career Assessment Profiles to examine career options. JVS also offers, as part of Employment Ontario services, a one one week, career exploration program, free to unemployed or underemployed residents of Ontario (unemployed or working under 21 hours).

In the meantime, here are Gillett’s “13 best jobs for people who hate people”:

  1. Economists
  2. Potters
  3. Transportation-equipment painters
  4. Forging machine setters, operators, and tenders
  5. Fallers
  6. Hand-grinding and polishing workers
  7. Geological sample-test technicians
  8. Moulding, core making, and casting machine setters, operators and tenders
  9. Garment or textile pressers
  10. Craft artists
  11. Poets, lyricists and creative writers
  12. Farm workers and crop labourers
  13. Hunters

On a side note, it may be worthwhile to try and challenge yourself to work better with people — learning to get along with a diverse group of people would expand your career options and may be rewarding for many aspects of your life.

Consider joining groups through sites such as MeetUp.com where you can meet people near you, with whom you share interests. You might find that volunteer in a meaningful setting would be an enjoyable way to meet people. Also, there are some excellent opportunities to gain certification diplomas or bachelors degrees in adult education, toastmasters, intercultural communication, Personality Dimensions Facilitation, Life Skills Coaching, to name a few.

Best of luck,

Joanna

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Ask the Employment Specialist: The challenges of remote work

Drawing of a typewriter with the words "Dear Employment Specialist"Dear Joanna,

I’ve been working remotely over the past five years with a large financial company. I show up at the office one day a week as well as for mandatory meetings. I love the freedom and being to have a work-life balance. I’m always available for my boss with whom I am in constant contact. I get my work done.

However, I’m concerned about being so removed from the other team members and that I’m missing something. What is your opinion of working remotely?

Signed: Missing Something

Dear Missing Something

Alex Turnball, CEO/Founder of the blog GrooveHQ presents the bad and the good about working remotely in start-up companies. I would argue that the same negatives apply to working outside the office.

Let’s examine the challenges of working outside of the office:

It’s a skill.

Not all employees make a great remote employee. Most people don’t have the organization, focus and motivation to be productive working remotely. Being a successful employee working from home is a skill. It takes time and a commitment to develop that skill, and the traditional office culture doesn’t give us any reason to do that.

Integrating into the Company culture.

There’s a lot more to the workplace culture than having an office. At the end of the day, culture is about shared values and goals. But having everyone in one place makes it a lot easier to build that culture. Research shows that most learning is informal – through conversations at the water cooler, in the lunchroom, or in the hallways. Same applies to building relationships. It happens organically through networking, gathering information, and keeping up to date on the latest in the company. The more exposure team members have to each other, the more developed and defined that culture becomes.

Communication gets harder.

With team members in different time zones and on different schedules, and you are working from home, there are very few times when everyoneis available. When you work alone from home, it gets harder to access the information you need to get the job done. When you are at the office, it’s much easier to walk over to someone’s desk to obtain the information you need, or find out who the right person is to ask, especially when there is urgent fixes. In an office, if someone isn’t responding to an email, it’s easy enough to stop by their desk and get what you need.

Collaboration can be a challenge.

Typically, employees work best together with people they know, like and trust. When you work remotely, you miss out on building deeper professional networks with your colleagues, and perhaps even the boss. Unless the company offers different programs that encourage collaboration such as retreats, or community events, you run the risk of not getting the information that you want and need or knowing the key players in your team or company.

So, when deciding whether to work remotely, it is important to consider all the advantages and disadvantages. Don’t underestimate the challenges posed by working remotely. If the company will allow you the choice, make sure to spend some meaningful time at the office so that you are able to gain from the opportunities that come from team work and collaboration.

Joanna

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Reflections on the Montreal Massacre — thoughts about women and careers in science

Steps in MontrealCommemorations of the Montreal Massacre which happened 26 years ago yesterday, got me thinking about women in science careers.

While we stop every year to reflect on the tragic murders of the 14 female students, we often forget to mention that they were targeted deliberately for being engineering students:

One of the students, Nathalie Provost, said, “Look, we are just women studying engineering, not necessarily feminists ready to march on the streets to shout we are against men, just students intent on leading a normal life.” Lépine responded that “You’re women, you’re going to be engineers. You’re all a bunch of feminists. I hate feminists.”

26 years later, while there has been progress, women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) careers still face threats and discrimination. Many don’t stay in the field. And, while pay has improved (and is still better than in most fields) there are still unexplained penalties faced by women in these fields.

In addition, not all STEM careers are equal. In December 2014, Statistics Canada published a report that noted that within STEM careers, women tend to choose the fields which are less lucrative, noting that,

…among women who choose to pursue a degree in STEM, most do so in biology or science programs, resulting in even fewer women in engineering, computer science and mathematics programs. These choices have consequences, as fields of study such as engineering and computer science lead, on average, to better outcomes in the labour market in terms of employment, job match and earnings.”

STEM career futures

Careers in STEM fields are in high demand, as the world faces the challenges of climate change and a burgeoning world population. Biotalent Canada, which describes itself as “the HR partner of Canada’s bio-economy” indicates that a third of companies report skill shortages among staff.

Critical skills: 93.1% of companies expect interpersonal skills to be very important in the near future, closely followed by 91.7% business development skills and 89.1% management/leadership skills.”

Vacant positions: The highest percentage of unfilled positions at the supervisory/professional and non-professional levels are in manufacturing, quality control/assurance, distribution, and research and development.”

In an informative post on the topic of growth in STEM careers, Eco Canada recommends that, to get into the field, students should:

  1. Prepare: research where the skills shortages are happening — which industries and in which occupations.
  2. Look for hands-on experience: consider which schools offer access to the best employers via internships and apprenticeships. Eco Canada offer an International Environmental Youth Corps (IEYC) program, which claims to help most students full-time jobs in their field.after completing their internship.
  3. Develop transferable workforce skills: “business savvy” with “good communication skills, critical thinking abilities and customer service skills—in other words, well-rounded candidates with lots to offer besides hard technical skills”.

What can be done for women in STEM?

Seems to me that best tribute to those who were murdered at École Polytechnique on December 6th, 1989 — whose only crime was being female STEM students — is to encourage more women to enter these fields and to help set up the conditions necessary for their success.

One such worthy effort is SCWIST, the Society for Canadian Women in Science and Technology, which describes itself as a “non-profit association that promotes, encourages and empowers women and girls in science, engineering and technology.” The organization offers mentorship, volunteering opportunities and supports to newcomer scientists and youth, as well as a job board.

STEM Education Awareness is a Canadian website that aims to educate the public about STEM education, with a particular interest in under-represented groups such as girls and women.

The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada has declared the priority of promoting careers for women in the natural sciences and engineering. It has funded Chairs for women in science and engineering, and offers scholarships and fellowships.

Women who are in the midst of making a career decision — whether they are in high school, university, looking for their first job, or even reconsidering career decisions in mid-life — would do well to consider jobs and careers in STEM fields. There are supports out there to help them find and keep such jobs, and an imperative to defiantly prove those who dare challenge women’s right and ability to excel in STEM careers that they are wrong.

 

 

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Ask the Employment Specialist: Handling a bad reference

Dear employment specialist2Dear Joanna,

I’m very worried about the last five job interviews after which the recruiters have asked for my three work-related references. In each case, I have been rejected and have not received the job offer. These opportunities are exactly in my field and I meet all the qualifications required.

I think that I might have bad references! How do I check this out and overcome these possible negative references in my job search?

Signed: Reference Blockage (RB)

Dear RB

When you’re looking for jobs, a bad employment reference can make or break the final job offer, even if it’s inaccurate or biased. I found the best advice on this issue from speaking to my colleagues at JVS, as well as this blog post.

Based on that, and my experience with job seekers and employers, here is what I recommend doing:

Verify your references.

Find out what kind of references you can expect from your previous employers, especially if you left on bad or uncertain terms. Have a script ready and ask a friend to pose as a prospective employer. Your friend can call the human resources department or your old boss to get a sense of what kind of employee you were, and although the tactic has a sneaky element to it, your former employer has nothing to lose, while you, on the other hand, could lose a job offer

Be proactive with recent negative references.

If you use your current boss as a reference, you could be in trouble. Did you ask permission to use them as a reference? What was the response? What was your relationship like? Prospective employers almost always want to know about your most recent job experience, and usually you can’t hide it, so be proactive.

Either way the facts will come out, so know how to tell your side of the story to a prospective employer. Be polite and congenial, and focus on conveying yourself as someone who has learned from past mistakes. Think twice before challenging the validity of the bad reference directly – even if you’re in the right, you would hate for your prospective employer to interpret your challenge as egotism or stubbornness.

Consider whether you want to use older references, if they are negative.

If you have a bad reference further back in your employment history, it’s easier to gloss over it. Don’t volunteer the information, though. If a prospective employer asks you directly whether they should expect a bad reference, you can say you had a job sometime in the past that didn’t end well. In a sentence or two, succinctly lay out the crux of the bad reference, explain what you learned from it, and finish up by noting that your overall record speaks for itself. Additionally, be creative with your resume. If subsequent employers or the passage of time gives you an opportunity to cut off your resume at the point of the bad reference, do it.

Reach out to bad reference sources

If you’re dealing with a particularly negative reference that has cost you multiple job offers, consider reaching out to your former employer’s human resources department. Let them know that their reference is costing you the opportunity to get work – after all, human resource workers tend to have a greater appreciation of the legal risks of defamation and slander.

Be level-headed and polite, and ask if you can work out an agreement on a less-negative reference. Any time you learn that a former employer has issued a factually inaccurate reference, it’s important to call the human resources department immediately to correct the record. If the company has no human resources department, then call your old boss or his replacement — or, if the two of you have too much bad blood, call their boss. Try to proactively approach bad references before they get the best of you – and your future career.

Bring in new fresh references.

Find opportunities (volunteering or consulting) that can help you meet and use new and positive references. Never stop networking, even with current and former co-workers. Consider with their permission using them as references. Hopefully you have built some solid connections with your co-workers or even a manager from another department. See if you can use them as references.

Best of luck with your job search,

Joanna

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Ask the Employment Specialist: How to respond effectively to the weakness question at a job interview

Drawing of a typewriter with the words "Dear Employment Specialist"Dear Joanna,

How do I respond to the question at the interview that requests that I explain my weaknesses or what I would like to change about myself at work? This is by far the hardest question that I have been asked at the job interview.

Signed: The Weakness Question (WQ)

Dear WQ

I love the piece written by blogger Aja Frost from an excellent career blog called The Muse (although I beg to disagree with her about the intent behind the question — I do think it’s often meant as a trick question). Regardless, you need to be prepared to respond in job interview in a way that presents what we might call “your best self” yet demonstrates that you are open to learn and improve, as well as able to accept feedback and criticism with self-awareness.

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