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The Future of School and Careers With Dr. Antonio Boyd

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Some schools take the traditional education model and introduce a vision never seen before. Dr. Antonio Boyd’s teaching and writing are reshaping an antiquated narrative. He is sharing with me what it looks like in the years to come. He believes the future infuses education and careers.

Before the featured interview, I included a segment from #JobSeekerNation, with my co-host Jack Kelly and our guest, Erica Reckamp.

On my other live stream show, The Modern Job Search Checklist, with co-host Damian Birkel, Paula Christensen joins our panel.

You are more than welcome to join the discussion. Here are three ways you can:

– Call and leave a voicemail at 708-365-9822, or text your comments to the same number

– Go to TheVoiceofJobSeekers.com, press the “Send Voicemail” button on the right side of your screen and leave a message

– Send email feedback to [email protected]

More about Antonio Boyd

Antonio Boyd, Ed.D. has his doctorate from Northeastern and is currently an adjunct professor at Northeastern University and a columnist with Getting Smart. When we recorded the episode, he was Executive Vice President at the Future of School. Antonio is no longer with the school but offers a futuristic view of how education and careers will mesh, and he shares it with us in this episode.

Highlights from our conversation:

Antonio describes the Future of School as a nonprofit that’s an education intermediary organization. Intermediaries work between an issue and the system to solve problems.
The board of directors at the FOS decided to change the organization from a foundation to a nonprofit.
College and career pathways are what everyone in education is talking about.
Companies are just going around the system—from their high school right to the company.
Companies are becoming like basketball coaches who go to the schools to recruit.
One of the other goals is to see the value of career pathways before they graduate from high school, predominantly black and brown students. They are creating a path from becoming a phlebotomist at $25 an hour and preparing his pathway to graduate from nursing school.

Today’s episode is the last one of the year. New episodes will be published on January 11, 2022. Have a great holiday.

About Mark Anthony Dyson

I am the "The Voice of Job Seekers!" I offer compassionate career and job search advice as I hack and re-imagine the job search process. You need to be "the prescription to an employer's job description." You must be solution-oriented and work in positions in companies where you are the remedy. Your job search must be a lifestyle, and your career must be in front of you constantly. You can no longer shed your aspirations at the change seasons. There are strengths you have that need constant use and development. Be sure you sign up to download my E-Book, "421 Modern Job Search Tips 2021!" You can find my career advice and work in media outlets such as Forbes, Inc., Fast Company, Harvard Business Review, Glassdoor, and many other outlets.

by Mark Anthony Dyson

Know What Employers Are Expecting From You

To succeed in today’s job search, you will need to be informed of the hiring trends. This informs your networking strategy and understanding of how your skills are relevant. Your LinkedIn news feed is a start. But you’ll need to talk to others in your industry and get insider information. Get ready to maintain a dynamic career outlook. Take control of your career today because you have a “say” in your work life.

I, among others, have commented on the tone-deafness of corporations justifying how they are making money while people are at home than having people in the office. I’ve read countless articles that adhere to the corporate gospel and see how money is more seamlessly made by what the company saves.

I’m sure they vastly differ depending on the type of business. I have some random and partially impaired thoughts I’ll share for the record. I’m someone who talks about this constantly on my live stream shows from one angle or another.

Here are constant talking points you may agree or disagree with how companies are saving money, or maybe they aren’t:

👉🏾 Is PTO (Personal Time Off) less requested now but will it be resumed?

👉🏾Utility costs were significantly lower for those in the office but are rising for homeowners. Does that mean employers should reimburse remote working employees?

👉🏾 Will harassment suits of sorts (race, gender, and equity) occur less frequently because of remote work? Nope. Not according to this report stating that it has increased.

👉🏾 Did companies save money through fewer worker’s compensation claims? There’s not a straight answer. But some states are trying to include first responders and health care workers.

👉🏾 Reduced use of amenities and condiments (sounds like a musical) and snacks. Food for thought, eh?

👉🏾 Reduction in space and maintenance costs is still arguable, and time will tell.

👉🏾Office supplies have several layers to peel back. There’s a shortage of everything office-related, including office furniture.

👉🏾Construction is also a continuing saga with more to come, tied to other industries.

Yet:

👎🏾Google says they consider paying a higher salary for in-office work days and less for a remote.

👎🏾Facebook says they will pay less for locations outside the office.

👎🏾LinkedIn says workers can stay remote.

Dig in and start envisioning what your future workplace and ideal circumstances will look like for you. If you give it enough thought and planning, you can make it work for you.

About Mark Anthony Dyson

by Mark Anthony Dyson

Treat Your Career Like Appreciating Property

My wife and I own a building we’ve been redecorating quite a bit in the last two years. There are challenges, and there were updates done that were seamless. There are useful analogies similar to building a future-proof career and the modern job search. Buildings and your career are similar because they require improvements to appreciate and add value. We can argue later how location has to do with its worth, but it does.

We can’t assume there is a solid foundation in both instances, so it’s important to have them tested. The house or building has to be inspected carefully and never overlooked because if it lacks a strong foundation, its worth is diminished greatly. We can assume the training and experience you’ve obtained will continue to add to your foundation for job seekers. Remember, employers, circumstances, and people who want to refer you will test your foundation.

I was recently on the “Who Ya Know” web show where one of the co-hosts, Trevor Houston, used a building analogy I thought would be interesting to explore. All of us, including Trevor’s co-hosts, Foster Williams and Mark Elder, rallied around this analogy. It was my favorite part of the show.

We are currently renovating a kitchen upstairs-intending to replace the Lazy Susan with a new one. Everything went as planned for all other work in the building except for the kitchen. We didn’t make any considerations in measuring the Lazy Susan, and as a result, we failed to finish the kitchen in the timeline we had established.

Your career and job search are similar to renovation.

Let’s keep in mind your career depreciates if you’re not renovating, just as a building loses its worth if you don’t. Renovation is related to buildings, as reinvention or innovation is more relevant to your job search and career. I advocate to constantly and consistently increase your value, so you’ll continually add worth.

The recreation shouldn’t stop overall progress.

When we decided to wait for the right size Lazy Susan for the kitchen, a lot of work still needed to be done in the rest of the building. Similarly, this shouldn’t happen to your job search, but the propensity of most job seekers is to stop adding value to other areas important to impress employers. You can’t allow training or the discovery of new learning to stop your overall growth and career advancement.

You can’t expect growth by doing just enough.

If you’re learning something new, change must follow. Learning itself doesn’t create growth unless applied to test whether it’s true or false. A slight change may be a need for the training to work. Although I don’t do personal training anymore, there is a practice that applies here. Growth is necessary, and it takes time.

Before training anyone, an assessment is needed to prescribe the correct exercise program for each individual. For most people, squats are the most challenging yet rewarding weight exercises to perform and add muscle. I couldn’t prescribe weighted squats to someone who cannot hold their balance when squatting without weights. It’s as important- someone trains safely or consequently injures themselves. The goal is for them to perform squats, but it will take a series of small and progressive training to get someone to weighted squats safely and effectively.

Similarly, career growth occurs after assessing whether you need to do more. Then you determine if smaller steps are best to grow. Discomfort is certain at some point, but the process shouldn’t hurt you more than the change itself.

It costs to renovate and to redecorate a building or a house. It also costs to assess, and if smaller steps are needed, time and cost are a factor. All of these could discourage you from finishing a building, house, or career. You don’t want any of them to be an excuse not to finish. Remember, your job search and career are much like property. Continual changes and upgrades will bring value and appreciation. No changes or upgrades bring down the value and depreciation.