Category

Business

Category

By Dr. Suzanne Minarcine
Faculty Director, School of Business at American Public University

My older son is in graduate school and has always thought he wanted a career in academia. His Ph.D. will be in history, and he called to express his concerns about job opportunities. We ended up having a great discussion on hiring, both inside and outside of the academic setting, but he made me think about a few things. For any job there are far more applicants than jobs, there are certain things he can do to increase his chances of an interview.

I am a huge fan of Herb Kelleher’s philosophy of hire for personality and train to fit. There are minimum requirements for any job, but the personal qualities the individual brings is what will make them a good fit for the organization. Whether I am hiring wait staff, pilots, or professors, it is their character and personality that will guide them in their interactions with the internal and external customers.

By Susan Hoffman and Pat Higgins
Online Career Tips Contributors

Whether you publish or comment in social media, the reactions you receive from other users range from appreciative to antagonistic to suggestive. Social media comments are comparable to the quote from the Tom Hanks movie Forrest Gump: “You never know what you’re gonna get.”

Positive comments in social media benefit you by providing unique insights into your customers. You create online dialogues with your customers, reassure them that you’re listening to their concerns, and build relationships. Understanding your customers and responding to their needs helps to convert your customers into active advocates for you and your business.

By Dr. Randall Cuthbert
Associate Professor, Emergency & Disaster Management at American Public University

Our options for lifelong learning have changed tremendously and, I believe, for the better.

Consider, for example, the accommodations I had to make to achieve my bachelor’s degree back in the 70s and 80s. In order to achieve that degree, I had to:

  • Give up my (admittedly not very exciting) laborer job to move away to another city where there was a university.
  • Give up my (don’t laugh) $9,000/yr job to live in poverty in a trailer court for five years, earning spending money by driving a school bus.
  • Take five years off from wealth building, saving, asset acquisition, and the other things one does to build a financial foundation for one’s life.

After graduation, I attained a career as an Air Force officer—living wage, supported housing, available career track, etc.—that made the investment worthwhile. But the point here is that I had to sacrifice five years of productivity to do that—and in this day and age, there’s a better way.

By Chanda Chann
Alumna at American Military University

I have evolved as a real estate professional through the years. I once struggled as an administrator. Now I am challenged with the nuances of management. As a manager, I am only as good as my team and the service partners who make my job possible.

The size or the type of property you manage does not matter. To have a career in commercial property management means you have to be adaptable to change and be able to employ multiple disciplines.

Dr. Brenda Geer-Frazier
Faculty member, Entrepreneurship at American Public University

The food and beverage industry is about so much more than preparing food and customer service. It’s a huge field! Just to name a few, there are also manufacturers, growers, retail outlets, distributors, and restaurants. I personally have owned many different restaurants and currently own a successful food manufacturing company. Many students and acquaintances tell me they want to open their own restaurant. However, as you can imagine, they are only honed in on one or two aspects of it, not the whole picture. The advice I give every single one is to take classes to help you become successful.

By Robert Gordon
Program Director, Reverse Logistics Management at American Public University

Reclaimed goods can lead to many creative ideas can transform old products into substantially different new ones. Recently Southwest airlines upcycled 80,000 leather seats into bags, seats and balls.

There is a common misconception that recycling and reclaiming goods are the same. Recycling is limited to reusing the raw material of a product. Reclaimed goods are materials that are re-used in a manner to gain back some value.

By Dr. Rebekah Anderson and Dr. Charles Johnson
Adjunct Professors, School of Business at American Public University

As technology has changed the landscape of business processes, it has also created a necessity for decision-makers to have the ability to use various tools to create, manipulate, and report data. In business and management, analytics has arisen as a method for less experienced managers to make decisions similar to an experience-based approach.