General Career Information

General Career Podcasts

Technical or career specific podcasts can be downloaded from the home page for your career field by following the appropriate link in the left menu.

Note: The files are mp3s and mpgs which can be played and viewed in ITunes, Window Media Player, QuickTime, and other media players.

Career Portfolios: What are they and why would I need one? This podcast discusses what a career portfolio is, what kinds of information is included and what tools are available to NPS employees to create a portfolio. You may also download the text of this podcast.

Making the Most of Training. Get ready for training with this podcast which offers suggestions to help you prepare for and get the most from a training session. You may also download the text of this podcast.

10 Tips to Help You Develop Strategic Thinking. Information excerpted from an article by Ray W. Frohnhoefer for http://blog.theprojectnotebook.com and it was also re-published by permission at http://www.pmhut.com. The article offers ways to improve strategic thinking skill. You may download the text of this podcast or the 8 x 11 job aid. Mr Frohnhoefer's contact information is RayF123@aol.com.

General Career Downloads

Being able to communicate with our co-workers, our supervisor and our visitors is a vital tool in today's Parks. The Effective Communication brochure offers reminders to help you prepare for you next important communication.

Productivity. It's what our supervisors and we expect of ourselves. Read this article by Alexandra Gekas for a list of 8 Habits of Highly Productive People. From to-do lists to technology use, the list is sure to have a tip for you.

E-mail is a communication staple these days. Avoid these Email Mistakes and use this tool more effectively.

Muti-tasking....a necessary evil in today's world of work. Yet, some research has shown that being able to multi-task has created a lack of focus on what's important. Tony Schwartz, author of Be Excellent at Anything offers these Three Tips to Help You Focus.

We make decisions every day. Sometimes, those decisions can be made quickly because we know the priorities, or the situation is similar to another situation; but sometimes, we need a more methodical way to think through the options or the complexities of the problem. Here are some links to tools available to help you with those decisions:

Paired Comparison Anaysis is generally used to compare and contrast different options.
Grid Analysis is generally used to compare options based on factors important to you.
Decision Tree is generally used to compare courses of action following through to projected outcomes for each.

Professional employees manage themselves. Here are Ten Ways Leaders Need to Manage Themselves from the Dale Carnegie Coach.

Critical thinking is the foundation for sound decision making and problem solving and is part of any job. Critical Thinking identifies 5 steps to improve your critical thinking.