DREAM JOB PREPARATION – PART 7 JOB SKILL SUMMARY

• IF OPPORTUNITY KNOCKs–I AM NOT READY
• WHERE HAVE I BEEN? WHERE AM I GOING?
• FINDING YOUR DREAM JOB – WHAT IS THE FIRST STEP?
• FINDING A DREAM JOB–CAREER INTEREST SURVEYS
• MY DREAM JOB – PART 4
• DREAM JOB PREPARATION – PART 5
• DREAM JOB PREPARATION – PART 6
• DREAM JOB PREPARATION – PART 7 JOB SKILL SUMMARY

There I have completed the background work to see what my qualifications/skills are and where I have been professionally.  It was an interesting exercise that brought back a lot of memories good and bad.  This exercise really clarified in my mind what I am good at and enjoy doing when I am working.

I am going to put them into broad categories:

Writing:  I have been a technical writer for several years.  During my Coast Guard career I updated unit/local, district-wide and headquarters level instructions, policy and manuals that provided guidance on human resources, training or administrative procedures.  I have continued technical writing in most of the positions I have had since then and most recently have been updating/writing the State’s AmeriCorps Program Director and Program Officer Handbooks, in addition to assisting in the writing of the Volunteer and donations Annex to the State’s Emergency Operations Plan.  I taught English and writing while teaching and I have maintained several blogs for the past two years and have really enjoyed writing for them.  I don’t know if I am ready to try freelancing and around here a technical writing position is difficult to find.

Emergency Management/Crisis Management:  Ever since I was a teenager in Newport, ME  as a member of the Fire Dept and Sheriff’s Dept Explorer scouts, my career in the Coast Guard, working at Good Will-Hinckley where I had to use and hone my abilities in crisis situations to remain calm and being able to think fast to de-escalate situations, to my present position where I am the MCCS Emergency Response Coordinator.  It seems as though I have been involved in some facet of Emergency Management.  This is one of those areas where you are making a difference in people’s lives when they need it most.  I have no illusions regarding the “political” issues and agendas (who is responsible for what) that can be involved in this kind of position, but I have successfully navigated similar waters before.

  Training/Education:  During my Coast Guard career I have always been part of the training administration staff at my unit or job and provided training at the local level.  I was designated as a District Training & Education Officer with a $500K budget and provided training to district level units.  Then I was a Special Education Teacher providing differentiated instruction to students who hadn’t been successful in mainstream education classes.  So I have been involved with training/education on both the administrative and classroom ends.  I had the opportunity to get in front of the classroom last week, it was totally unexpected, but my subordinate was struggling and I stepped into help him out.  I enjoyed the give and take, and remembered how much fun teaching others can be.  I also have been told I am pretty darn good at teaching others, when I did it for a living.

Case Management:  I was a Case Manager for Catholic Charities and as a Special Education Teacher that is one of the most important parts of the position.  I have a lot of experience at completing support plans, creating reasonable goals and objectives, working, coordinating, collaborating and providing services to clients from a variety of sources.  One part of being a successfulcase manager is sitting down and reading the laws/regulation and policies so that you know the limitations or what the client is actually eligible for versus what people “think” they are entitled to.

Technology:  This has always been a “love” of mine.  I started out on the Vic20 and used M/S Windows 1.0, so I have been “playing” with personal computers since the early 80’s.  I have always been one of the “go to” people where ever I have worked, when it comes to technology related information or how those things work.  More recently I have been heavily involved with Web2.0 & Social Media applications.  I have tried many of the cloud computing applications to see which ones work for me and have used the major social media applications like Twitter, Facebook, Blogging (WordPress & Blogger) and many other less well known.  Surprisingly, I have never been much of a one to actually program, use HTML/CSS (very basic skills), I am more of an end user and finding a position that is technology related with those skills are few and far between.  I guess people would call me a bit of a geek.

Finance/Contract Management/Grants Management:  I can do this type of work very well, as I have shown by successfully working primarily in this type of job for the past year.  I have been part of large contracting offices and contracts while in the Coast Guard and have managed budgets successfully.    During this past year, I have found that my priorities and interests have changed with my experiences over the past 13 years.  My experiences in teaching and being in social services for the most part put a lot of distance in both work related and personal priorities for this type of work.  I no longer really enjoy the challenges that financial and contract management requires.

I understand that most positions have financial or contract management (I include Grants Management into this arena due to the amount of financial and contracting that are required) functions and have prepared myself to be able to do this if it turns out to be a part of my “dream job”.  However, my dream job will not be built around these functions and would in my view be 25% or less of the position.

Summary
I could have included Office Manager or Human Resources/Personnel Officer, but my experience in those fields are outdated and not really what I am looking for in a “dream job”.

This is a great review of my current skills and knowledge and has given me a great idea of what my dream job is starting to look like.  Actually, my dream job is probably several opportunities and a combination of several of these skills.

In my next post I will talk about what my dream job will look like.

This work by Harold L. Shaw, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.