This is going to be the final blog entry before the assignment is to be passed in.  I want to take this time to reiterate how far my job search and readiness for the “real world” has improved because of BN 301 and writing this blog.  The blog allowed for me to put my thoughts into words and sincerely take an action and think about my future.  I looked at jobs in the insurance field and through this I realized that there are many more jobs in this industry than just sales.  I also took a tax class at Jackson Hewitt.  It may have been the worst 4 weeks of my life and I nearly died of boredom, I learned a lot about a subject I will need to learn about later in life when I start to pay taxes, and I realized that I life in as an accountant will never be for me.  The most important thing that I got out of the blog was that I realized that I really do like the insurance and finance fields.  Crunching numbers is not the thing for me, but looking at them and analyzing is what I enjoy doing.   The blog also gave me a reason to look at businesses and take into consideration what is happening with them and how it may affect my job search in the future. I looked at General Motors and how their pension problems might affect how my retirement and pension plans will go and it is something that I must consider when I apply for the job and am discussing salary.  I have even been able to use what I have gained with BN 301 to help a family member who has not had college training and résumé experience to take the time to prepare a resume and quintcareers as a guide to taking the steps needed to get a better job.

The November statitstics are in and the growth in the service sector of the economy slowed for the month of November.  This can have a big impact on my future job search because I will most likely be looking for a job in the service industry.  The industry is still growing, but at slower rates than it has in the previous months.  The economy created about 215000 new jobs during the last month but many of these are jobs created from the rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina and  the steep decline in the price of oil.  The oil prices are on the rise again with the colder temperatures in the northeast and the lower than expected amount of surplus for the month.  If the economy can keep creating jobs, the market for jobs when I graduate next year may be better than it is now. But I must watch to see how the service sector of the economy is going.  Right now it is still growing because many companies are looking with optimism towards the future.  If for some reason the economy slumps, the increase in jobs may still be there, but not in the sector of the economy I will be looking at.  Also many companies that I may be interested in working for are in bankruptcy or on verge.  GM is having financial problems which can shake up the entire economy.  Delta and many of the other airlines are in bankruptcy and there future is yet to scene.  One industry I can look it is the insurance industry.  They have an abundance of claims from the hurricanes and they are looking for new employees to help handle these claims.  The corporate structure within the United States is changing and many companies cannot keep up with the times, but the insurance companies will continue to flourish and offer jobs even though the service sector of the economy may have reached their peak.

Over the past couple of weeks I have been attending tax school with Jackson Hewitt.  This course has been really beneficial for me in a couple of different ways.  I have learned more about the tax systems of the United States and will understand better when I need to pay taxes why and how much I am actually paying.  I realized that though that I will probably never work for Jackson Hewitt and prepare taxes for clients.  I don’t see myself sitting behind a desk all day and punching numbers into the computer.  I find the tax system tedious and boring and would not be happy doing it for any longer that the class takes. 

     In the business world General Motors has run into some financial difficulties.  This can be attributed to a couple things, but mostly because of the high costs of covering the pensions of former employees.  This is an important thing to watch and consider when I go and find a job.  The company can promise all of these benefits after I retire, but whether or not they come through and pay them can be a totally different thing.  It would be best for the company to simply match a percentage of my pay and put it into a 401(k) account rather than promise me money later for a company that may not be there.  The collapse of Enron also gives insight into things to look into when given benefits after finding a job.  The company may offer retirement and bonuses in the form of company stock.  If I do not diversify and add other aspects to my portfolio, I could lose everything like many did when Enron collapsed.  All of these things are important to consider and things to remember during the interview process so that when salary discussion comes up I will be ready.

All of my previous blog entries have been on outside about obtaining a job and becoming informed about business.  Today I want to discuss some advice that I read in an article on CNN-Money.  Management Consultant Jim Collins writes:

“If you want to have an interesting dinner conversation, be interested. If you want to have interesting things to write, be interested. If you want to meet interesting people, be interested in the people you meet -- their lives, their history, their story. Where are they from? How did they get here? What have they learned? By practicing the art of being interested, the majority of people can become fascinating teachers; nearly everyone has an interesting story to tell.”

I feel this advice is a great way to open up during networking opportunities.  To tell interesting stories and to get employers interested in you, you must show sincere attention and become truly excited about what they have to say. When pitching a story, it becomes a much more interesting story when you truly know about who you telling the story to.  Being interested spawns conversation and before you know it a dialogue has started and a relationship is formed.  By asking questions and showing that you are paying attention, you get information that the person may not have told without being asked and you may be taught something that no book could ever teach you.

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I was able to put my knowledge gained from BN301 to good use to help a member of my family. My cousin Andrew has not been as privileged as I have been.  He did not have the possibility to go to college and learn all the necessary skills needed to obtain a high paying job.  He currently works as a truck driver for a commercial laundry business.  He was complaining about how he has to find a better job and needs to find somewhere where he has more potential for advancement.  I brought up the topic of résumés and asked if he had a résumé he uses when he goes for job interviews.  He said no and said he never had a job that didn’t involve a preformed job application and required no real educational skills.  Andrew is not an unintelligent person and with the right tools he would be able to get a better job even though he does not have a college education.  To get him off on the right track I brought him to the quintessential careers website and showed him the résumé tutorial.  I discussed with him about how the resume is important to demonstrate transferable skills that can compensate for his lack of higher education.  Andrew seemed excited about the new little bit of knowledge about résumés and looked forward to learning about the new ways he can learn to help him get a better job and leave his dead-end job as a truck driver.  It made the materials I learned in BN301 feel most important when I was able to use them and help someone who has not had the same opportunities that I have had and hopefully allow them to improve the situation that they are in.

Today I went to the career services exposition on risk management and insurance.  This was in conjunction with my principles of insurance class.  There were five speakers who spoke of their roles in the insurance and risk management industry.  All of the speakers provided a lot of good information on exactly what a person in the insurance industry would do, but one of the speakers in particular got my attention.  His name was Michael Scholl.  His description of his common day as an actuary most interested me.  Mr. Scholl works for Public Risk Underwriters out of Lake Mary.  His job is to assess the premium that need to be charged by insurance companies so that they can still turn a profit.  His told of the skills necessary to become an actuary and it was really interesting on how much schooling they really need.  To become an actuary a master’s degree in statistics is needed and to become certified as an actuary a set of 9 tests need to be passed before any actual work in the field can be completed.  The most interesting part about these tests are that they are weighted so that only the top 40% pass to keep the number of certified actuaries low.  Mr. School stressed that even with the long hours of training needed; the results of passing and becoming an actuary are worth it.  There are less than 3000 actuaries in total in the United States, but the United States has well over 3000 different insurance companies.  This means that actuaries are high in demand and low in supply and companies are willing to pay top dollar for the best actuaries.  I will not be pursuing a career as an actuary because I am not too interested in statistics but it was a good opportunity to learn about the career and appreciate more what is done when we are given insurance rate quotes.

Today I started my tax class at Jackson Hewitt.  It was really boring, but it was pretty much what I expected.  Though I will probably never work for Jackson Hewitt, I feel this is a good experience to learn about the tax system of the United States and have a better understanding on why exactly I will need to pay taxes in the future.  Furthermore, I will be able to establish a relationship with my instructor and will have a good networking opportunity.

    On a business note, oil prices have been falling steadily over the past few months.  Favorable whether in the northeast has kept the demand for heating oil relatively low and has allowed for the oil supplies that dwindled after the hurricanes to replenish themselves. If trends keep up how they are, oil prices will continue to dip and soon the price will be about the same as last year.

    On financial note, Fidelity Investments out of Boston has decided to try to revamp its investing styles because they have been experiencing less than desirable returns on some of their staple investments over the past three years.  Stephen Jonas the head of core money management unit at Fidelity wishes to take the company in a new direction.  Fidelity relies on what it refers to as hot stocks to attract investors, and the stocks that were considered hot stocks have not been performing well over the past year.  Jonas is also making changes to the hiring practices of Fidelity.   Today’s CNN article titled “Fund giant Fidelity shakes things up” claims that Fidelity will no longer hire all of its analysts straight out of business school to groom to be managers.  Instead they will look more towards experienced managers to lead the company to higher performance.

     Today I went for my mock interview.  It was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be.  The questions were not hard to answer, but having 6 people staring at you while you were trying to make a coherent statement made me really nervous.  I was able to get through it and it was a good learning experiencing for job interviews in the future.  The only part that I really disliked about the interview was that the interviewers on the panel who sat right next me seemed too close and invaded my comfort space.  I felt as though they were “breathing down my neck” and it was hard to respond because of this.

     On another note, Monday I start Tax Class at Jackson Hewitt.  This is a step so I can learn how to do tax returns and possibly do some kind of internship there during the spring.  The class meets three times a week for 3 hours each day for the next four weeks.  The class is computer based and shows the students on how to best prepare tax returns via a computer.  It excites me that I have taken this opportunity to outside of school broaden my horizon on a subject everyone could benefit from learning about.  When I spoke to my parents about the course my father commented, “There are only two sure things in life, taxes and death.”  This will give me a chance to learn some more about number crunching and be a good benefit when I enter the field of finance.  I will be knowledgeable about the tax system of our country and hopefully better able to advice people on not only how to invest their money, but how to save money on their taxes at the same time.

    With this blog entry I would like to describe a time when I put what I learned in BN 301 into practice.  It was the Friday after we did our elevator speeches in class.  I was on my way home to Boston for a family wedding and the gentleman sitting next to in the airplane was inquiring about the school books I had sitting on my lap.  I decided it would be a perfect time to put my elevator speech into practice.  I started by telling that I attended Stetson University and will be graduating from with a degree in general business administration.  I then went on to tell of what I wish to do after graduating.  I spoke of how am I am deciding between working in the world of finance and going on to law school. The gentleman had a big smile on his face after I was done my little speech and went on to tell me that he worked at MassPort working as a cost analyst for the Big Dig.  He then spent the next twenty minutes in describing his job and pointing out that he had only been there for a year and was not involved when the large project went over budget by over 10 billion dollars.  We then went on to discuss and compare our college party stories and chatted about how bad the Patriots were doing this year. As a look back on those 3 hours of conversation I realize that they probably would have been a lot different if I had not tried to use my elevator speech.  The conversation would probably never turned towards the gentleman’s career, but would have centered around a more common male topic of conversation, or simply started with a few words and ended with both of us falling asleep.

     My management class has a final project to do which BN 301 has prepared me well to complete with ease.  Our task is to interview different levels of management in an organization and to compare management theory with actual managerial practices.  The informational interview in BN 301 has made this an easy task for me.  I am now comfortable with interviewing an employer to find out more about their job.  I will conduct this interview in the same style as I conducted the informational interview.

     The more blogs entries that I post, the more comfortable I become in expressing my feelings.  Before this semester, I was set on going to law school and becoming a lawyer.  As I become more familiar with other jobs, through my BN 301 research, I am coming closer to the realization that a career in a different field may be more ideal for me.  I have become exposed to many different types of jobs and different career paths from reading people’s blogs and looking at their comments on their careers.  As mentioned in my earlier post, I would like to possibly work as a financial analyst.   I have been following the blog of J. Kahn for about a week now and his job as a financial analyst seems like what I want to do (http://www.mymoneylife.blogspot.com/).  Kahn gives financial advice to those who follow his blog and gives his insight into what the market will do in the future.  He also gives an analysis of significant news of the day and how it will affect certain markets.  At the bottom of each post, the market comment gives investors a piece of advice they can use in their investment decisions each day.  The more I read this blog the more I want to become a financial analyst.  I will keep everyone updated on where I chose to go from here.

     Today I went to the career services office and did the perfect interview simulation.  It was a really beneficial tool to me.  It gave the feeling of a real interview and showed me that I am not ready for a job interview in the real world. I stumbled through about half the answers and was able to give only two or three responses really well.  The best part of the simulation was the coaching provided for all of the answers.  This allowed me to go back and see my poor response and tailor it to exactly what the coach said would be a better answer.  I now feel that I am a little bit more ready for the mock interview next week.

    On another note, with the high gas prices, I have become very interested in what causes the gas prices to rise and fall.  I have been tracking the price of oil and gas over the past couple months and been trying to predict what the markets would do each day.  I am beginning to see this as an option for a future job.  I am doing really well in my finance class this semester and working as a financial analyst might be the career path most suited for me.    I would hope to be able to work for a large corporation in the northeast such as TD Waterhouse or Fidelity Investments.

     I know it may seem that I have a very scattered career path, since I wrote about another possible career in my past post, but I really do not have my mind set on one career yet.  I feel that it may take a few tries in jobs before I really find what I really want to do for a career for the majority of my career.  Furthermore, I am a general business major and all of my classes in the different fields present things I like about certain careers and things I do not like about certain careers.  I feel all these thoughts about different jobs will really help me to find something I will enjoy.