Skip to main content

2015: The Year of Questions

Each year end, I always look back at my blog posts and do a recap. Some years, I have commented on the most popular. Other years, I have commented on the ones you may have missed.  This year, I was looking back at the year in workforce development and I noticed a theme.  The year 2015 was a year of questions.
 
Of all the topics that I have covered in my time as a workforce development blogger, nothing has sparked more conversation, comments, and emails than when I just questioned the day to day business of life in workforce development land.  It seems that I am not the only one that asks questions in this industry. This year, I was just the reporter.
 
The best example of my questions, was a post from September 2015 called “Workforce Development 101: What to Call the People.” The conversation that this post sparked continued on for months past the post.  It seems that in each corner of workforce development land, in each program, there are so many different terms for the people. Interestingly enough, I still do not have resolution on the most popular term. I still agree with my post that “job seeker” seems to be the most universal and best term.
 
Next I tackled the question on trying to figure out the industry of workforce development in an October 2015 post called “Workforce Development 101: What Kind of Industry is it.”  This post commented on trying to explain the industry to people not in the industry. Again, looking at different sources, I found different ways to describe the industry, but decided on my own definition of “Workforce Development is a public-private hybrid industry that seeks to connect job seekers and hiring employers in order to grow the economy and its workforce.”

Finally, I questioned the way job seeking was completed. In my post, “Job or Company: Which Comes First” I proposed that for some job seekers it was better to find the company and then figure out the best position.  For job seekers that do not fit inside the traditional job seeker box, this was a way to flip things over and get another much needed view. Sometimes questioning the status quo opens up a whole new set of answers.

What I learned in 2015, was that the more that I questioned, the more I realized that I had the answers that I needed. Sometimes, it is not about right or wrong, but rather making sense of it all. If 2016 is anything like 2015, I expect there to be new adventures in workforce development land. With anything new, I would imagine there will be new questions, answers, and perspectives. For my readers, I wish for you the same. I wish for you new adventures, questions, answers, and perspectives. .

I can be reached by email at kcirincione@gmail.com, on Linked In at www.linkedin.com/in/karenjcirincione, or on Twitter @kcirincione. Have a happy and safe New Year! ~ Karen Cirincione   

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mastering the Grilled Cheese Sandwich Project

An engaging book club discussion about email, how we work, and also just how we as people manage our lives. The more we talked the more I started to realize that essentially project management is essentially a life skill everyone needs to master to be successful. If we simplify Project Management down to the easiest way of explain it and applying, we can define it as taking a big end goal and break it down to smaller goals, figuring out the tasks with each smaller goal, and then allocating lots of resources along the way. Ultimately at the core of project management is planning and organizing, but communication is really at the heart of it all. A project may be big, like building a bridge, creating and implementing software, or it can be as small as figuring out what to make for dinner. Along the way to said goal, every step needs to be clear and everyone needs to communicate about all the said steps along the way. Sounds easy, but apparently it is not so simple. One would think ev...
Post a Comment
Read more

A WIOA Fairy Tale

I thought it was time to have a little fun with WIOA and write a fairy tale. My last fairy tale was published in June of 2014 and was before WIOA legislation. To read the first workforce development fairy tale, check out the archives. Once upon a time in a far off land called Weeoha, lived a community of residents. Many of these residents had jobs and careers, but some found themselves in need of services and assistance to get jobs. Some were reliant on the government for assistance with basic needs because they could not find jobs. Three of these residents, Jack Butcher, John Baker, and Josie Candlemaker, found themselves not satisfied with their lack of opportunity and decided to go on a pilgrimage to find the legendary Cup of Career Success.   According to urban legend, whomever drank from this cup was promised eternal employment and self-sufficient wages as long as they desired. Jack, John, and Josie set out on foot to find the legendary cup. Their first stop was to ...
Post a Comment
Read more

How do you Birthday?

Another year in my life has passed. It’s time for another birthday. Each year as the day approaches, I take the time to reflect on my past year, my accomplishments, and my goals for the year. My birthday is like my personal New Years’ celebration with another opportunity to have the best year ever.   I am not afraid of a birthday. Age is just a number, but each year is what you make of it. Each year I have seen the sun rise, the rain fall, and the snow melt, I have been given a gift from the universe. Many people do not get to see another birthday. I owe myself the opportunity to set goals and feel proud as I work towards achieving them. Sometimes these goals have been born from unhappy feelings and bad situations, but growth brings wisdom.   In my working life, and especially as a workforce professional, I know some of my growth must be professionally. Having experience working with job seekers looking for jobs, I understand how crucial professional growth is...
Post a Comment
Read more