By Jeremy Derksen

The radio crackles through a swirling white deluge: “Thirty seconds.” Those are two words warning avalanche techs that a charge is about to be detonated. It’s routine procedure for ski resort avalanche control, but the risks would make most of us nervous.

“We’ve got unstable weather, remote locations…the destructive forces of nature. And on top of that, we’re handling explosives,” says Troy Leahey, an avalanche forecaster at Revelstoke Mountain Resort in British Columbia. “Risk is a combination of probability, consequence and timing. We mitigate that as much as we can, but working in the industry for a while we become comfortable with the risks.” An element of personal, along with professional, risk not only comes with Leahey’s job – recognizing how to work with it makes him good at what he does.

Most of us won’t face the physical challenges or life-threatening conditions Leahey faces, but taking professional risks can be a good thing. Our instinct is to avoid risk. After all, too much risk could jeopardize your job, pension and house. Widespread corporate risk has undone financial institutions and rocked the global economy

But avoiding risk is impossible and, it turns out, unwise. Without it, business stagnates, careers stall. “Risk aversion can prevent us from looking at opportunities as they arise,” says Michael Ungar, a sociology professor at Dalhousie University, in Halifax. “As a result, we may jump too late rather than anticipate change.”

This is the age of endless internships, job offers that evaporate just as you get ready to sign the contract, and constantly shifting networks. Finding a new opportunity is no longer about simply applying to a posting or only about meeting one key person (though it doesn’t hurt). Which means that job seekers need to bone up on their math skills and combine two or more strategies to make a move.

Black Bird Tees resume T-shirts, via Cool Blog

Twitter + LinkedIn

HOW IT ADDS UP Establish your personal brand on Twitter, tweeting about the industry you want to enter, then drive people to LinkedIn for the hard facts about your education and work experience. Also seek out the Twitter-based search engines like Twitter Job Search, a beta site that lets you refine your search by such parameters as location, salary, job description and tweet frequency. From our browse it looks good for people working in advertising, sales and management. Sample positions: Sales rep at Molson Canada in Toronto and finance clerk at Vancouver Coastal Health Authority. Bonus: Looking international? Check out the nifty Google-powered Job Map widget.

+ How to Find a Job on Twitter, Mashable

+ LinkedIn: The secret to the online business network’s success, the Telegraph

Mentorship + Internships

HOW IT ADDS UP Finding a position is about who you know. But it’s also about what who you know knows. Follow? A mentor has made mistakes so you don’t have to. Pair that with an internship (or two) and you can bank work experience and a reference.

+ Deloitte Women’s Initiative for Leadership Learning, Alberta Venture

+ What to Look for in an Internship, Santa Clara University

Education + Volunteering

HOW IT ADDS UP School isn’t just for credit; it’s an opportunity to discover areas you’re interested in (and will likely succeed at) and make connections that take you beyond graduation. Volunteering in your area of education opens up your network, shows commitment to your field and might lead to your next job. One person from Ontario that we spoke with volunteered in a national organization with members across Canada, which put her in touch with her future boss, an entrepreneur in Western Canada looking for a second-in-command. U

+ LifeHappens: School, Unlimited

+ Online Education, Unlimited

It seems like in every sitcom, at least everyone in the ’80s and ’90s (think of Who’s the Boss, Family Matters and yes, Friends) there is an episode in which the main character goes to night school and hilarity typically ensues. But in real life, deciding whether or not to sign up for evening classes usually comes from a very serious place. Maybe you want to update your skills to become more valuable at work, find fulfillment in a hobby, or maybe you want to switch career paths altogether. Either way, night school has its benefits.

Evening classes don’t force you to choose between income-earning and unpaid training. You can have it both ways, even if it might be exhausting. It’s important to remember, however, that specialized training won’t immediately make you an expert in your field. But it can increase your credibility and your chances of getting a raise or a promotion in your job, or make you more marketable in a new field. Plus, attending school at nights offers some of the same soft benefits you got the first time you went through school: socializing, networking, personal refinement.

That said, there are some tips to remember when following Tony Danza’s character into night school.

Think Long Term

Ask yourself how you want to progress in your career. Don’t focus on your present position when selecting your classes. Start by taking introductory courses that don’t require prerequisites, so you can get a taste for new industries or fields. But remember, we live in a credentialed society so consider the courses will help you in the long term. Will they lead to a degree or certificate? Will your night studies give you the credentials that will help your career development? If your goal is personal development, you might have different parameters for success.

Get Advice

Before you invest the time and money for night school, not to mention the added stress of homework, map out your career with some expert advice. A career planner can help you decide which credentials will serve you best. Also, talk to people in the industry, either the one you want to enter, or the one you want to grow into. Find out what they respect and look for in applicants. Free province-sponsored career advisory programs offer one-on-one counselling, workshops, and job search and training courses for industry or trades. For instance, in Alberta there is the Alberta Learning Information Service, while Employment Ontario has extensive training services.

Get Ready to Work

Often when you think of preparedness, you think of mental or emotional preparation, research or getting psyched up for the long haul ahead of you. Night school students also have to prepare in more tangible ways. For example, if you don’t have a home office, create a dedicated workspace. Plus, many night classes take place not in darkened lecture rooms but online.

Starting school (again) is always stressful, but the payoff can be enormous. And who knows? Like those sitcom characters who went back to the books, there might even be some hijinks, too.

More Reading
For more on the benefits of night school, read “That’ll Learn Ya,”  Jeremy Derksen’s first-person account of after-hours academia.

On my last stop of the trip, autumn arrives in the form of a cold wind ripping through Saskatoon’s streets. I head to the Mendel Art Gallery, not for the art per se, but for the coffee (I’m told its cafe, Museo, serves the best espresso in town). While the rest of the city is quiet this Sunday afternoon, visitors jam into the gallery to see three new exhibitions. I flag down a curatorial assistant, who introduces me to Troy Gronsdahl, alone in the basement, away from the crowds, where he plans the popular programming of the Saskatoon’s best arts institution.

VITALS: Troy Gronsdahl, public programs assistant, Saskatoon

For those unfamiliar with how museum programming works, could you explain your job?
I handle a range of programs, write interpretative texts, help with the website and develop new media. I manage our drop-in DIY art space called StudioXPRESS. People can work with professional art materials and the activities are designed to dig deeper into the themes of the exhibitions. I also spearheaded and launched a podcast that’s sort of like Mendel Radio. I interview artists or curators and play music by Saskatchewan artists. Museums are constantly going through self-critical analysis: What are we doing? How can we do it better? Are we reaching our audience? Are we responsible to our community?

How did you become a jack-of-all-trades Saskatoon’s art scene?
One of the great, but also most challenging, parts of working in the arts is that is is chronically understaffed. You learn a lot of different jobs and take on many roles.

As an artist and musician, I’ve always worked on DIY projects. I run an indie hip-hop label, Clothes Horse Records and an online record shop which used to have a bricks-and-mortar shop. It was a vanity venture that ended in… [laughs] personal failure. I’ve also had about five years of gallery experience before the Mendel, doing arts communication and a website, installing shows, running an arts placement program, working with artists, organizing talks. I’ve picked up a lot of skills along the way.

You’re definitely immersed.
My pet peeve is when art organizations hire from outside the community. Art jobs are rare and competitive, so it creates a fracture. They’ll parachute someone in from Toronto with a more illustrious professional background and that person doesn’t know anybody here or the needs of the community. They don’t have the sensitivity that comes from being a part of a place. So, yeah, I’m glad they picked me. U

Laura Trethewey is riding the train from Toronto to Vancouver and meeting regular Canadians along the way for our Job Training series. Every city she stops in she’ll ask one regular person about what they do for a living. Unlimited is posting the conversations on our interactive map.

It might seem as if distance learning was invented for the internet. Not so. Correspondence education dates back to the mid-19th century. Upgrading your education is one of the most effective ways to get ahead in your career. Online courses are often more affordable than traditional post-secondary courses and you can access them anywhere there is an internet connection. Who wouldn’t like taking a sociology course while nursing a latte at Starbucks? Plus, distance course let you keep your job, and stay close to family – challenges that might deter you from seeking more education. Before you sign up, study up with these pointers on how to make online learning work for you.

BE CHOOSY
Pick a program of study that’s conducive to online learning. Maybe a research intensive PhD program isn’t your best bet. On the other hand, graduate programs might be ideal, especially if you’re holding down a job while you study. Also choose a style of study that’s matches how you learn. If you crave in-person interaction and like working in teams, it doesn’t mean that online learning is out, but look for programs that foster community. Students can also meet with classmates over Skype, IM, email or this fancy thing called a telephone.

BE STRATEGIC
Find an online course or program that will most benefit both your personal and working selves. Will a non-accredited program get you ahead in your career? Maybe not (and it might not matter if you have a personal goal. If you want to get a promotion, however, find out what people in your field think. Get recommendations. And look for programs that use a third-party quality assurance group – often a government organization – to evaluate their accreditations.

CONSIDER THE TIMING
Is this the right time to go back to school? Evaluate your goals and your other commitments. Distance learning takes discipline, and if you know you’re the kind of student who needs someone checking up on you to finish assignments, all the alone time might be a roadblock to your success.

Gaping Void blogger Hugh MacLeod doodles wisdom about work-life on the back of business cards. He’s turned those visual brainwaves into a new book that is part manifesto, part guidebook to unlocking your Creativity. Some are prosaic, some are things we all know but could use a refresher on, but all are choice bits of insight to something deeper and more meaningful than a corner office – the keys for opening the door to career sovereignty. Here are few I found. Read the book to find yours.

Gaping Void author Hugh MacLeod's corporate pyramid scheme

1. The secret to success = me putting the hours in. Quote/Unquote: Stamina is utterly important. And stamina is only possible if it’s managed well. People think all they need to do is endure one crazy, instance, job-free creative burst and their dreams will come true. They are wrong, they are stupidly wrong.
2. Doing what I love will be an emotional and financial roller coaster. Quote/Unquote: Good ideas have lonely childhoods… They alter the power balance in relationships. That is why good ideas are always initially resisted.
3. Someone took my crayons away and I’d like them back. Quote/Unquote: Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.
4. Always keep sex and cash under your pillow. Supporting thesis: The Sex & Cash Theory (page 32).
5. Human tapeworms have been feasting on my creativity. Evidence: The modern, scientifically conceived corporation (pages 35 through 37), that is churning out what MacLeod describes as non-autonomous thinkers. The “I don’t know, what do you think” people.
6. It looks like I’m going to have to climb the mountain. Quote/Unquote: Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb. Let’s say you never climb it. Do you have a problem with that?
7. I need a red marker to draw my red line. Quote/Unquote: The most important thing a creative person can learn professionally is where to draw the red line that separates what you are willing to do from what you are not.
8. Work for a boss who lets you hunt the woolly mammoth. Quote/Unquote: Wanting to change the world is not a noble calling, it’s a primal calling.
9. Mess around with insanely high ambitions. Quote/Unquote: One part of me thinks it’s good for kids to mess around with insanely high ambitions, maybe one or two of them will make it.
10. Careful when you’re messing around with insanely high ambitions. Quote/Unquote: Looking back I see a lot of screwy kids who married themselves to their “Art!” for the wrong reasons.
11. DIY.

Hugh Macleod’s book is published by Penguin Canada. His next book is tentatively called Evil Plans and will have insights gleaned from a “Seth Godin-meets-Jack Kerouac” road trip.

Every issue, we feed your questions into the Job Machine for expert responses. This month’s question:

How do I deliver bad news?

01.
Elevator music is bad. Elevator speeches are good. Make it memorable and sincere.

02.
What you need is a big, strong hand; To lift you to your higher ground. In other words, express yourself. Have confidence. There is nothing worse than bad news that is badly delivered.

03.
Because feeling in control is so crucial to resilience, and unasked-for-change can leave us feeling very out of control, try asking yourself this question during the day: What am I free to choose right now? Choose to be in control.

04.
No one has to be coached to think more negative thoughts. But positive thoughts require focus, effort and discipline. Be disciplined and focused.

05.
You will not know what to do in every situation. Turns out that “fake it till you make it” has validity in brain science – the thoughts you hold and actions you take really do create new pathways in your brain. Accept this and move on.

06.
Circle the wagons when you must, and be prudent, diligent and, most of all, circumspect. You are the face of your company.

07.
Take the time to notice the moments in the day when you feel like your best self. Act during these moments and you’ll make the best decisions even during the worst situations.

Fed into the Job Machine
Dr. Judith Sills, pep talker, psychologist and author of The Comfort Trap (or, What If You’re Riding a Dead Horse?)
M.J. Ryan, author of AdaptAbility: How to Survive Change You Didn’t Ask For
Harry S. Truman, 33rd president of the United States, one-time haberdasher, friend of Winston Churchill
Madonna, singer, dancer, businesswoman extraordinaire
Katharine Hansen, Ph.D., creative director and associate publisher of Quintessential Careers

Who:

It’s 1 p.m. on a weekday and Paris Jongkind is still sleeping. She has just got off one of her 12-hour shifts in an intensive care unit. The last few months, let alone the last few days, have been busy. Her calendar looked something like this: April: Finish Bachelor of Science in the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Alberta. May: Start work in the ICU. June: Take the Canadian Registered Nurse Exam. This last one was important, because right now she’s working as a grad student, not an RN. The exam results won’t come until August. Laughing when asked if she has any anxiety about the test, she says, “It was a very long exam.” July: Thailand.

Recent University of Alberta grad (and soon-to-be nurse) Paris Jongkind

In a few days, Jongkind, who is 22, will leave for that six-week trip overseas. Yet later in the afternoon when she finally wakes up, she sounds relaxed and cheerful. This equilibrium will serve her well on those 12-hour days.

Jongkind has chosen a career that is eminently employable — people are going to get sick, no matter what the economy is up to. That,and she started looking early. “A lot of my friends started applying in mid-March. All those people have new jobs. Some who waited until they were done have no jobs,” she says of a hiring freeze that was sweeping the Alberta Health Services, a provincial organization that employs 90,000 people.

As part of a program for new nursing grads, Jongkind buddies up with another nurse for six months, kind of like an internship. “I think it’s to ease you into the career, instead of being thrown on the floor with no help and five patients,” says Jongkind. When the six months are up she’ll apply for a “line,” or rotation, at a hospital. “It’s kind of scary, but at the same time I’m willing to try different areas of nursing, like maybe oncology or obstetrics.”

Mention graduation and she says, simply, “Oh, it feels good.” She leaves for Thailand soon, and comes back just as summer is drawing to a close and will then start to make the rounds.

“Hell, there are no rules here – we are trying to accomplish something.” _Thomas Edison

We look at people whose careers are going strong, from someone who’s landed her first job in Alberta to someone on the career track in Ontario to an entrepreneur with one of the fastest growing businesses in British Columbia. Plus, what recruiters want you to know, three ways to remix the job search, how the recession is good for your small business and more.

First Job | Career Track | Entrepreneur | This is a Good Thing

Who: Jessica Hutcheson
What: Works at the Rotman School of Management’s career centre; formerly at Accenture, a global management consulting and outsourcing company. Contributing writer at TalentEgg.ca
Where: Toronto

When Jessica Hutcheson graduated from Ryerson University’s Arts and Contemporary Studies program in 2007, she couldn’t have faced better prospects. The Canadian dollar was climbing as methodically as a mountaineer ascending the last stretch of Mt. Everest, the GDP had surpassed that of the U.S. (the “recession-plagued” U.S. as Statistics Canada put it) and employment across the country continued to grow. Grads might have had a few grand in debt, but there were good chances they’d find work in their fields.

Toronto-based human resources professional Jessica Hutcheson. Photo by Kate Dewasha

Hutcheson was exceptional among the graduating class of 2007: She was part of the first group of students to graduate from Ryerson’s new contemporary studies program. She’d studied highly unemployable things. “Everything from philosophy to early technology,” she recalls. Every semester her stream took a course called Ideas That Shape the Modern World. She studied history of the world, religion and culture. “The idea behind it was to expose students to as many ideas as they could possibly be exposed to. It was really about idea creation.” She focused on diversity and equity to marry her twin interests of business and feminism, and minored in human resources with the idea of following in family footsteps (she comes from a family of HR professionals). How was HR going to influence business? What would its presence be at the boardroom table?

Hutcheson’s prospects were good. This was 2007. “It was fairly prosperous, and that worked to my advantage because a company that historically only hired BComms and business grads was willing to hire a BA,” Hutcheson says. “I think they were willing to take a risk on me.” She started at Accenture, the international management consultant and outsourcing company, where she worked in human performance consulting, an area of management consulting that helps companies implementing new technologies and deal with the HR issues that arise, like structural changes.

Last year, one month before the economic downslide came across mainstream radar, Hutcheson used a networking connection to land a one-year maternity leave position at the Rotman School of Management’s career centre. She’d started at Accenture two weeks after graduating and it was time for a change. A mat leave position at a prominent institution – and in her field of interest, no less – was a way to try out another company and a different role. No pressure. “I felt like I needed to evaluate where I wanted to go,” she says.

The catch is that Hutcheson’s contract ends this October, after months of rising unemployment, after people in human resources have been at the frontlines of the crisis. “I started in August and the bottom fell out of the market in September, so I’ve only seen doom and gloom,” Hutcheson says. “I don’t know if I can say what’s unusual.” It’s not a great time to be looking for another job, she admits, which is perhaps why she started making connections in early spring. She was a little early, she admits, but she wanted the time to find a company that impresses her as much as she impresses them. “I feel good about it,” she says of her job search. “It will require a little more singing and dancing but I’m fired up to add value and make change.”