Are you Happy at Work? Let’s Find out

Love your job? Hate your job? If you really aren’t sure, take the survey at Delivering Happiness at Work (app.happinessatworksurvey.com).

This online survey will rate your degree of satisfaction with everything from job stress, co-workers and pay, to the social impact of your work. When you’re done, you’ll receive an overall Happiness Score and point-by-point analysis of your Happiness Landscape, describing the areas in which you’re most and least content with your work life.

More Internships, More Job Offers

More students than ever are participating in internships and cooperative education (also known as co-op) before they graduate from college, according to a report from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). Unlike internships, co-ops combine classroom-based education with practical work experience. Co-ops and internships are taking on new importance in helping people to make the school-to-work transition seamless. In 2013, over 63 percent of graduating college seniors had worked as either a paid or unpaid intern. That’s well above the previous high of 57 percent in 2008.

A second report from NACE indicates that internships also result in more job offers and higher salaries after graduation. Slightly more than 63 percent of students who completed internships received job offers after graduation.

Source: “Class of 2013: Majority of Seniors Participated in Internships or Co-ops”
Class of 2013: Paid Interns Outpace Unpaid Peers in Job Offers, Salaries www.naceweb.org

Long Live Manufacturing

“Insourcing” is the new word in manufacturing, and for the first time in over a decade the number of manufacturing jobs in the U.S. is actually increasing. No one is predicting a return to the heyday of assembly line jobs but some manufacturers, especially those of expensive-to-ship heavy equipment and furniture, are building facilities and adding jobs in the U.S.

Most of the new manufacturing jobs are for skilled workers with two-year and four-year degrees who work in high-tech facilities.

James Manyika, director for McKinsey Global Institute, told Time magazine,“Manufacturing is coming back, but it’s evolving into a very different type of animal than the one most people recognize today.”

Source:“Made in the U.S.A” April 22,
2013 time.com 

Two-Year Technical Grads Out-Earning Many Four-Year Counterparts

“Right choices can lead to good careers and high earnings, but wrong ones can leave graduates with mountains of debt and poor prospects of ever paying off their student loans,” the policy think-tank College Measures cautions.

The safest education choice is one that builds solid skills in growing economic sectors. And the returns can be swift and substantial. Technical-oriented associate’s degree-holders have first-year median earnings higher than their four-year peers, according to new wage data from five states.

In Texas, home to nearly 2 million young students, new technical degree-holders earn over $50,000 within a year of graduation, $11,000 more than grads with bachelor’s degrees. Healthcare, construction engineering, and industrial technology top the list of high-paying careers.

College Measures found that among those who go on to pursue bachelor’s degrees, the premium is on mathematics. Math grads out-earn their four-year cohorts by $9,000.

Source: collegemeasures.org

Choose Your Career Adventure

Chances are your future career is something you’ve never even heard of before. In fact 65 percent of school-aged children today will work in jobs in the future that currently don’t exist. So how do you prepare for that? One answer is to choose an education that provides you with flexible, adaptable skills. Another answer is to learn about new jobs trends and ask questions of the people currently working in them.

How do you connect with those people you ask? One way is to find them on social networking sites such as LinkedIn and try to connect with them. Another way is check out Click Your Fortune an interactive video series that literally feeds questions from students to knowledgeable experts around the world. The short videos allow viewers to “meet” people in unusual careers, such as a sustainability expert, a documentary filmmaker, or an executive coach. In a sort of “choose your own adventure” format each person will answer a handful of questions about themselves and their jobs.

Find Click Your Fortune at ed.ted.com/series/click-your-fortune