Blog Posts

How to Pursue a Career in Finance

If you are eager to pursue a finance career, there are steps you can take to improve your chances of landing a great first job in the field and going on to achieve your ambitions. Keep reading for tips on how to get started.

Your Education

First, you need to go to college and get a bachelor's degree. If you already have a degree and are changing careers, you may want to take some finance classes. Depending on exactly what type of specialty you choose, you might eventually want to pursue more education or certifications, such as becoming a certified public accountant. However, to begin with, you should get your undergraduate degree in finance or a related field.

You can get your degree and pay for it with loans from a private lender along with other sources of money for college, such as scholarships. Look for a lender who offers you a favorable interest rate and a repayment plan that you are comfortable with. Eventually, you might want to get an MBA, but most programs look for students who already have some work experience, and you will benefit most if you spend a few years working between your undergraduate and graduate degree.

Interning and Other Work

College is a great time to pursue internships and other opportunities to get real-world experience. Unfortunately, not every internship is paid, and you may feel that you are at a disadvantage if you cannot afford this opportunity. However, there are plenty of other ways that you can network and get experience. Look for a regular part-time job where you get to work with finance. Join any related organizations you are eligible for, whether they are student or professional groups. See if your school can connect you with a mentor.

Choose a Specialty

Finance is a large field. Can you narrow down what type of job you'd like to do and what industry you'd like to work in? You might work in banking or government, entertainment or sports. You could become a financial advisor, a financial analyst or a securities sales agent. You might want to work in New York City on Wall Street or in your hometown on Main Street. Thinking about what you will specialize in while you're still in college can help you direct your studies and the experience that you get so that you are better prepared.

Your First Job and Beyond

At your first job, it will be important to accept that you're the junior member of the team. That will often mean doing unglamorous work, but your willingness to do it with a good attitude will get you far. Look for training opportunities and other chances to show your supervisor that you are eager to learn more and move up. When you leave your first and subsequent jobs to move on to something better, try not to burn bridges. Work on your relationships as well. Some people say networking as though it is an undesirable word, but there is great value in getting to know people, building relationships and maintaining those relationships across years and even decades.

Post-Pandemic Employee Productivity: How to Motivate People Returning to the Office

If you’ve been living under a rock, it’s no surprise that the pandemic has shaken up the workforce like never before. Employees, as well as their employer companies, have seen tremendous shifts in their workflow.

Depending on the situation of lockdown in your country or region, your company might still be embracing work from home — or could be starting in-office work very soon. In both cases, motivating your employees to be more productive is crucial.

In order to make your workforce get the most out of their time and get things done faster, you can take certain steps. To help you out with that, I’ve compiled some tips which you can use to motivate your employees.

Showcase genuine gestures of appreciation

Any employee would love the idea of a kind gesture during these hard times. If you decide to start appreciating your workers for their efforts, every once in a while, they’d stay motivated to perform at their best.

Start by verbal appreciation. If you want to take it to the next level, you can offer a drink or dinner after work. Just remember, be nice and appreciate what they do for your company — and they’ll eventually want to do even more.

Communicate, communicate, and communicate

Communication is the key to a healthy and thriving employee-employer relationship. Be clear and concise with your communication. Provide accurate requirements for the tasks they have to do. Be sure to listen to what they have to say about an assignment.

Moreover, you don’t have to make important decisions entirely on your own. Yes, I understand you’re the brains of your company, but even you can, sometimes, use some bright ideas coming from your employees. Give them the freedom to speak up and showcase their ideas and views. Listen to them carefully and provide feedback accordingly.

Be available and accessible

Employees hate bosses which are hard to reach. Don’t cover yourself under several layers of security and diminished reachability. Don’t ignore their phone calls and emails every time.

I’m not saying you have to attend every employee’s phone call all the time — because you don’t. If you’re busy with something, decline their call and send them a message stating you’ll call them back. When you’re free and ready to talk, call them back and listen to their queries.

Don’t make them wait for long periods outside your office. Call them in as soon as you’re available and ready to talk.

Provide productivity and quality-of-life tools

Believe it or not, the latest tools and pieces of software can boost the performance of your employees by a good bit. Moreover, as upgraded pieces of software come with quality-of-life improvements, it’ll make different tasks easier for your workers.

When they find a task easy and streamlined to perform, they’ll be more interested to finish it off quickly. For example, to help them easily save the format of their documents in PDF, get them a Word to PDF tool that can perform this task seamlessly. It sounds like a simple tool, but it counts and makes things streamlined for your employees.

Take care of their physical and mental health

People are now very aware of their health conditions and want to work in a safe environment to keep their health in shape. To showcase a gesture of care and trust, promote employee programs that revolve around their health. You could even encourage them to visit nurses and do check ups on their health. Certified nurses have completed the NCLEX RN exams and they are qualified to take care of patients, communicate with doctors and check vital signs.

These programs could either grant financial support or could provide physical or mental health awareness. Remember, mental health is as important as physical health. Alongside providing physical health support, never neglect the importance of mental health counseling.

They say “keep your friends close and your enemies closer” — but I say, “keep your employees the closest”. Keeping them happy is the key to making them perform at their best and produce the best possible results.

Final word

Your employees now need your support more than ever. Using the tips mentioned above, you can make sure you’re building a close, meaningful relationship with them. It will keep them motivated and eager to work for you at their best.

Written by Tom Rich 

Most Common Challenges Faced by Teams Nowadays

Teamwork reportedly gets more tasks done than individual work. It lets you combine the skillsets of multiple individuals and produce the desired results. But getting teamwork right isn’t a walk in the park. Teamwork isn’t actually teamwork until every member learns to work in collaboration with each other — and that’s a challenge.

Teams face many internal and external challenges during their workflow. In order to deal with them effectively, you must learn what they are, first. Here are 5 of the challenges teams have to face nowadays. Plus, I’ve provided solid solutions to each of those challenges, so you don’t have to go looking for them.

Lack of communication due to physical absence

Although the recent lockdowns have taught us to communicate and work remotely, many still haven’t fully embraced remote work environments. This leads to a lack of clear communication between team members, leading to unwanted issues and undesired results.

To make sure your team doesn’t suffer from this pitfall, you must provide them with the necessary education and training needed for remote work. Teach your teammates how to communicate effectively online and get things done remotely. To do that, you can provide reference material or arrange your own, private training sessions.

Inability to trust

When a person is working alone, they can make all the decisions on their own as no one’s concerned. However, that’s not the case in teamwork. Every individual has to participate in the decision-making. And the person whose decision ends up getting approved must be trusted by the other team members. When teammates don’t trust each other and question others’ decisions at every turn, things could turn out to be problematic. Remember, trust is one of the crucial key elements of a perfect team.

Promote a healthy and trustful environment in your workplace. Enforce your team members to trust and support each other in every task. But unlike other skills, trust is an emotional factor that can’t be formulated into your teammates’ minds with training. Instead, it’s built with mutual understanding and connections. Make sure to arrange group activities that could bring your teammates together, emotionally.

Ambiguous goals

If you’re working alone, setting goals for yourself is easy. But when you’re setting goals for a team, it’s a tough feat and requires close attention. Unclear and ambiguous goals can lead to diminished productivity and team conflicts. Before assigning tasks and setting deadlines, make sure you have clearly described the goal for every individual. Ensure that all of you are on the same page — only then you’d be able to perform as a confined unit.

Differences in talent and capabilities

Every individual is talented in their own way, but some team members are naturally more efficient and productive than others. If you assign similar tasks to everyone on your team, they may face conflicts when some of them finish faster while someone else is left behind. To avoid this problem, make sure to assess every individual’s capabilities and assign tasks accordingly. This doesn’t mean you mustn’t provide anything special for great teammates — you surely must. Reward them for being productive and finishing their tasks effectively.

Insufficient technical background

If you work in a field that requires substantial technical background, mediocre teammates may not be a suitable fit and could end you up in challenging situations. For example, if you’re in the healthcare industry, you must make sure your teammates have taken the necessary tests and examinations to do their job effectively. An example of such an examination is the USMLE Step 2 CK. Nurses and doctors in your professional team must have taken this examination to ensure they’re proficient enough to apply their medical knowledge to patients.

Final word

Teams produce better results than individual workers, but that comes after the necessary education and training of teammates. It’s harder to work in a team than it is to work independently. But when your teammates do learn to collaborate, results would be amazing. Keeping the above-mentioned challenges in mind, you can make sure you’re well-informed of the mistakes you could do during your workflow. Taking on these challenges effectively will let you reach your goals, and ultimately get to the desired levels of success.

Best Tech Resources for Career Success When You Have a Disability

Best Tech Resources for Career Success When You Have a Disability 

Although society would like to think it’s reached a point where everyone has the same opportunities, people with disabilities know that’s simply not the case. At the end of the day, the world at large simply wasn’t made with disabilities in mind, and accommodations, when they exist, often don’t go far enough to truly level the playing field.

That’s why it’s so important for people with disabilities to find the tools they need to thrive. With the right resources, you can more easily navigate your industry, even the parts that weren’t designed for you. disABLEDperson, Inc. presents this guide to help you find the tools to success:

A Reliable Smartphone

At this point, most people already have a smartphone, but able-bodied and neurotypical people often underestimate how vital a tool this is for people with disabilities. There are countless accessibility apps out there, all designed explicitly to help people have the tools they need, no matter where they are. There are color-checking apps for people with impaired vision, captioning apps for people with auditory processing issues, even bathroom finding apps for people who can’t afford to hunt for the nearest facilities.

All of that said, these apps can fall flat if you don’t have a phone that can support the latest updates. It’s easy to get left behind if you’re on a model that operating systems no longer support. If you’re in this boat, search for affordable ways to get a newer model. For example, many carriers offer upgrade programs that allow you to trade your phone in for a discount. When you rely on tools to make your way in the world, it’s important to know they’ll work properly when the time comes.

Online Schools

As more and more people learn the myriad benefits of working and studying remotely, online studying opportunities are becoming more ubiquitous. Although universities make their best effort to ensure that they have accessible learning opportunities for everyone, many people would be best suited by the opportunity to learn at their own pace, on their own schedule, in the environment that works best for them. Online universities provide that chance.

That makes now a great time to look into earning a degree, especially if there’s a field you’ve always considered but avoided due to accessibility concerns. For example, IT and computer science are lucrative fields that are likely to become even more in-demand over time. Finance, business, teaching - there’s a whole world of careers out there waiting for you to make your mark.

Home-Based Business Opportunities

In much the same way that being able to connect virtually has created opportunities to study, it’s also made it more feasible to run your own business when you have a disability. Home-based, fully remote companies are becoming more and more common. This method of business ownership puts you in complete control of your workload, schedule, and process, meaning you can build your business on a foundation of accessibility.

One of the best ways to get your footing as a home-based company is to try your hand at freelance work. This allows you to practice the skills you’ll need to thrive and refine your work process in order to discover what works best for you. Moreover, it’s possible to make a freelance career fit on the side of a full-time job, so you don’t have to sacrifice your current work in order to feel out the idea of running a business for yourself. There are a lot of freelance resources you can find online that make it easier to get started.

Many fields and opportunities that might have been completely out of reach for many are more accessible than ever thanks to technology. By learning which tools can help you thrive, you can create the barriers-free career you’ve always dreamed of.

disABLEDperson, Inc. aims to reduce the unemployment rate of individuals and veterans with disabilities by helping them connect with employers. Visit our website today.

Written by Ed Carter

 Photo Credit: Pexels

9 Things that will Help You to Succeed as a Transitioning Military Service Member to Civilian Life

The above picture is of a transitioning military service member shaking hands with a civilian.

9 Things that will Help You to Succeed as a Transitioning Military Service Member to Civilian Life

1. Maximize Transition Assistance. The Transition Assistance Program (TAP) provides information, tools, and training to ensure service members, and their spouses, are prepared for the next step in civilian life. The DOL VETS Apprenticeship Pilot – launched in April 2020 – will provide counseling and apprenticeship placement services to transitioning service members (TSMs) and their spouses who are interested in exploring apprenticeship as a post-separation career pathway.

Second, The Gold Card is a treatment card that provides you with clinically required treatment for all medical conditions.

You can also access a range of services and support.

The Gold Card has been redesigned and is also known as a Veteran Gold Card or a Repatriation Health Card for all conditions.

2. What are Your Strengths?  Use the Veterans Job Matcher to find civilian careers that might be a good match for your military skills. You’ll get information on matching occupations including wages, education, outlook, and a link to current local job postings. https://www.careeronestop.org/Toolkit/Jobs/match-veteran-jobs.aspx

The National Veterans’ Training Institute (NVTI) provides specialized training and professional skills enhancement for veterans’ service providers staff. Focusing primarily on training individuals who help veterans secure long-term employment, NVTI is committed to ensuring that those who are tasked with this critical responsibility have the knowledge and tools necessary to perform their jobs effectively. 21 Strengths Arising from Military Experience.

3.What Interests You?  Whatever you do, you want to make sure that you do what you enjoy doing. What interests you. Make a list of activities that you enjoy and that motivate you. Look for work that incorporates at least some of these activities. Transitioning service members should not rush into just anything. At least not right off the bat. Entering the civilian workforce is entering new territory for you. so look at your options.

4. Military Veterans, Research Civilian Jobs. The first thing to do is to identify your interests and skill strengths. Once you have done that, research how your military skills will translate into a civilian job. You don't want to fall into an unfulfilling and unsatisfactory job so make sure you conduct thorough civilian workforce research.

The more you research for the appropriate job for you, the happier you'll be, and the more successful.

5. As a Military Veteran you have Access to Additional Training/Education. Your research may tell you that you are in need of additional training to pursue the career that most interests you. You may need to go back to school to attain a degree or a certification. Can you delay entering the workforce so that you can get the education you need? Only you can answer that. It is a personal decision.

The good news for all military veterans is that there is a GI Bill that provides educational benefits. GI Bill benefits help you pay for college, graduate school, and training programs. Since 1944, the GI Bill has helped qualifying Veterans and their family members get money to cover all or some of the costs for school or training. Learn more about GI Bill benefits below—and how to apply for them.

If you applied for and were awarded Post-9/11 GI Bill education benefits, your GI Bill Statement of Benefits will show you how much of your benefits you’ve used and how much you have left to use. View your GI Bill Statement of Benefits.

6. Drop the Military Slang when searching for a civilian job.  This must be done both on your resume and in your interview.

O*NET OnLine has detailed descriptions of the world of work for use by job seekers, workforce development and HR professionals, students, researchers, and more! Keyword or O*NET-SOC Code: Browse groups of similar occupations to explore careers. Check out Military to Civilian Crosswalk, it shows military occupational classification codes to similar civilian positions.

7.Write a Professional Resume. Now that you've gone through the previous steps, it's time to tackle writing your job-search resume.

Your resume is essential, and I even would say critical in your job search. This is it. Studies have shown that hiring managers know if they want to move to the next step with a person after the first 18 seconds of reading their resume. You must be Clear, Concise, and Stand Out to garner the hiring manager's attention. Our organization has a free resume builder that you can access at https://www.disabledperson.com/build_resumes/new

8. Conduct research for employers who have initiatives to hire a military veteran. There are plenty out there. Federal contractors who are companies who are contracted with the federal government are required by the U.S. Department of Labor to hire former military members. With this kind of approach, you will have a greater chance of landing that civilian job.

9. How Do You Conduct Your Job-Search?  First of all, you cannot simply use one source. The first place for former military members to go is to friends and family. Networking works well. Your former armed forces buddies may be able to help. Put yourself out there on social media. Proudly display your military service and lets those who follow you and more know that you are a military veteran entering the civilian workforce. By all means, please don't forget transition assistance programs.

Finally, there are job boards. Our Job Board, Job Opportunities for Disabled Veterans, or www.JOFDAV.com boasts thousands of new jobs daily from employers who have initiatives to hire military veterans. So what are you waiting for? Register, conduct your job search, and find yourself that civilian job.