Managing a business, working at a bank, and teaching/ working in an office are all professions I would like to pursuer after graduation. Each of these occupations are interesting to me and by working in one of them would be of interest to me.
The first profession I started out with was managing a business, which was a Propane Gas Business.
The overall outlook for the propane gas business is good because of tow important factors. The US hopes to become less dependent on foreign oil. Seventy percent of the propane used in the US is produced in the US. The other factor is a move toward cleaner fuels. Propane is a “green fuel” and currently enjoys tax credits as a clean burning alternate fuel.
Managing a propane company is much like managing most retail businesses. The concerns include satisfying customers, generating new customers, and maintaining a qualified and motivated, honest workforce. One important issue with propane companies is the continuing concern for safety and training as propane is a volatile product if not handled properly. Complying with more and more health and safety regulations is often burdensome, as is the ever-changing tax rules and regulations. A lot of time is invested in compliance and filing forms.
As a small company, many employees have different rolls. That is not necessarily a bad thing, in that if provides for job diversification. Jobs can generally be divided into those dealing directly with propane such as delivery or service, and those jobs more clerical in nature. Unless trained and certified to work directly with gas, entry-level jobs in the propane business are usually clerical. A person with good people skills, a motivated team player, reliable, and egger to learn could have a good future as a customer service manager. Someone with the skills for detailed work and good follow through, again a motivated team player, could have a good career in the human resource part of the business. Key to company marketing and growth is sales. A person with good people skills, training in marketing and sales, and good product knowledge could be successful in the propane business. Again, the person would need to be a motivated team player. A successful sales person may desire to become manager of sales. This person would need to have managerial and leadership skills.
Qualifications for various positions:
Delivery & Service-Training in Hazardous Materials, Commercial Driver’s License, High School degree or GED. Promotions would be based on communication skills, managerial skills, reliability, customer relations skills, and over all people skills.
Customer Service-High School or GED, customer relations skills, some accounting knowledge, some computer knowledge, a genuine in helping customers with their problems, follow through, and over all people skills. Promotions would be based on leadership and managerial abilities.
Sales-HS or GED or higher, product knowledge and sales skills, forthright and self motivated, and again a team player. Many sales people enjoy selling and don’t necessarily seek managerial positions. But some want to lead and manage. Those people need leadership and people skills.
The second was the banking profession. Most of the banks, both large international banks, as well as local community banks, are having difficulties in today’s economic conditions. This will eventually change. The major concerns revolve around maintaining quality loans and working out loans that are more than the value of the collateral backing those loans. Most bankers are, and maybe have to be, over-concerned about making new loans because of the problems with some of the existing loans. Day- to- day activities for loan officers center around improving loan qualities on existing loans as well as new loans. Tellers and customer service representatives continue to serve customers in the normal ways of taking deposits, cashing checks, or opening accounts. There are other personnel who perform accounting, human recourses, and other types of necessary functions.
Most entry-level jobs would require some type of bank or finance training. Most banks offer a management-training program for qualified individuals who would eventually manage branches or departments. Bank training courses are available at private institutions and community colleges. Banks would be interested in hiring people with good people skills if they were going to be working with their clients or potential clients. This would include bank officers as well as tellers or customer service representatives
The third profession of interest to me was teaching as well as office management. Teaching requires a lot of communication skills as well as being able to interact with others. Preschools don’t require much knowledge but they do require that you are able to get along with others and have the ability to teach little kids. It requires patience as well as the ability to overcome obstacles little kids bring.
On a day-to-day basis the children have circle time, which is where they all sit in a circle in their assigned spot. The children sing during circle time, have show and tell, and do various activities. In preschool the children learn the basic numbers and letters. They are taught how to get along with others, how to be nice to others, as well as how to share.
Since little children have a lack of attention span this is an obstacle and being a teacher this is what you need to learn. You come up with various tasks to keep them focused. Each class of children is different so you learn as you go.
For the teaching job people have any where from an education degree to have taken child development courses. You need communication skills, be able to interact with kids as well as adults, and the biggest thing is you need patience. The main thing is you learn as you go.
Working in an office requires communication skills and having a friendly, positive attitude. Being friendly helps bring in the parents who want their children to attend school. Since you are basically doing a variety of jobs in the office, you need some skills such as knowing how to work a computer, but for the most part you learn once you are there. You do not need to know everything before you work in this profession, but knowing the basics is a good start.
For the office you need a minimum of a HS degree. Many people have Business degrees as well as Accounting degrees. On a day-to-day basis for the office you answer the phone, interact with parents, deal with sick children, enroll children in school and all around just managing the office.
Getting promoted in these two jobs would be; for example if the director of the school were to leave, someone who had been there awhile and had more credentials than others would most likely take the position. Some who work the morning program and do extended day get paid a little more, but as far as getting promoted the ones that had been there the longest with more qualifications would take the job.
What I learned through out this whole process in interviewing different professions is that having a Liberal Arts and Science degree, Sociology, really helps. In Sociology we learn about different types of people, communication skills, interacting with others, how to get along with others, and basically how to survive in the world. In a lot of professions after you land the job you learn as you go. The profession will teach you what you need to know to succeed in the job as well as you will pick up on what you need to do and learn to get promoted.
Being a manager, working at a bank, being a teacher or working in an office at a school, you need to learn how to deal with employees, how to get along with others, how to get things out of people, and all around just people and communication skills. In Sociology we learn all these roles, which to me is important in surviving in the work force. Having a Liberal Arts and Science degree isn’t like everyone’s degree, so having these skills will land us jobs in the future.
