DeeAwn Roundtree Dazzles in Job Seminar - Top Ten Jobs

DeeAwn Roundtree has held a multitude of jobs, all of which helped her get to the place she is now. Self-employed.

Click photos to enlarge.

She finished her PhD  in Biz Administration this January at Wilmington University in DE. Her son Matthew was 4 when she entered the program. Now he's 7. He was at a baseball game during her presentation.

Her dissertation was on Use of Social Media for African-American Businesses.

DeeAwn teaches biz at Lincoln University in Philadelphia. She tells her students things like you've got work really hard to get ahead, and how to dress when they go for a job interview. She won't let them in class if their attire is inappropriate. It acts as a DISTRACTION to the rest of the students and would certainly be so at work.

We discussed attire during the seminar. DeeAwn wore what's called a "business suit," matching jacket and pants.

I really apologize for taking this blurry picture of fashion-plate Janis with DeeAwn. Since Jan was wearing jeans, albeit nice ones, she is dressed 'weekend casual.' Her scarf is an accessory. Ties for men are accessories. They are top-drawer dressed for business when they wear a matching jacket and pants, tie optional.

DeeAwn agreed with me that getting dressed for success takes a lot of time: you must choose clothes, she said, that make you look competent, respectful and powerful.

DeeAwn is definitely a powerful woman. So is Helen below with her influence on the daytime groups she runs at the Giant.

Helen bought DeeAwn's slim volume Beyond the Boardroom, signed by DeeAwn. A Type-A personality, said D, she wrote it while on maternity leave. When Helen finishes the book, I'll read it and we'll donate it to the ND Library.

Helen Kirschner wore a "business suit casual" b/c her jacket did not match her pants. H bot her lovely jacket at a consignment shop. She attended a memorial service this morning for a young man who died tragically of a heroin overdose.

We all make choices, said DeeAwn. We can opt to drop out of life by using drugs, alcohol or  nonstop sexual encounters, all of which damage us and get us off FOCUS.

A focused person is like the horse Secretariat - it's one of her fave movies - who wore blinders when he ran to remain in focus. And not be DISTRACTED.

She went over the TOP TEN JOBS in the US today. Here's a few:

1 - Information Technology - IT, like my son Dan.

Having fun is built-in at Google in Mountain View, CA.

This is also true at the company Dan works for called AWeber.com, a made-up name. When I send out my group emails I sent them from AWeber.com.

She advised us to use social media like Facebook, LinkedIn, Monster.com.

A woman in the back row said she was using a headhunter to find a job. She found several on the Internet. The woman wanted to change careers - as do several people I know - and who find it scary - but this woman had a great background as director of a childcare agency.

2 - Healthcare Profession. Nurses, she said, average 65K a year. Another good job is a physical therapist for our aging population. C'est moi and mama too!

3 - Healthcare Mgmt and Support Staff. Biz people to run the company.

4 - Engineers. Toot! Toot! Oh, I guess she means civil engineers and electrical engineers. But SEPTA is always hiring, esp. since 43 people won the lottery and will most likely quit their jobs. After taxes, they'll each get $1 million. Scott works with one of the guys whose dad won the lottery. His dad will quit, he said.

What would YOU do if you won that amount of money? Is it possible to remain anonymous so people won't come begging to you? Doubtful. 

5 - Industrial skills - manufacturing. Altho the US was guilty of sending work overseas, we're trying to bring manufacturing back to the US. Let me check around me. The blue shirt I'm wearing was made in China, my blue bowls were made in Germany, and the nest on my windowsill was made by a robin here in the good ole USA.

The factory behind my house - Keystone Screw -  makes nuts and bolts.

Alan Hill, above, lives in an abandoned Packard factory in Detroit.

Packard? What's that? Luxury car built from 1899 to 1958.

6 - Life scientists and biotechs, including people to work in Big Pharma. Average salary $77K.

7 - Sales people. A great job, said DeeAwn. It teaches you to be an entrepreneur and have great presentation skills. DeeAwn once worked as a real estate agent but in a down economy you can't make much money.

77 percent of employers said they can't get enough good sales people.

When my family lived in Englewood Cliffs NJ, I used to travel to Manhattan to work for my dad. Before I came home, tho, I had a night-time job at Gimbels and was a sales girl. I wasn't on commission but I made lotsa sales just by being nice to people and telling them the truth about the way things fit them.

8 - Accounting and finance mavens.

 Hello Warren. Thanks for joining me on my blog.

9 - Discount retailers. Working in and rising to the top of places like Target, Walmart, or my new favorite store, K-Mart. I'm wearing their comfy sweatpants right now. And, believe me, they are not overwhelmed with staff, for some reason.

Someone in the group said they wanted to work at Giant. I piped up that it's a great place to work, a place of real diversity. They have whites, blacks, Asians, Muslims, and the mentally challenged. That's their corporate culture.

Giant is owned by the Ahold conglomerate, based in the Netherlands. CEO Dick Boers visited our Giant a couple of weeks ago. He only stayed about 45 minutes. B/c the Netherlands are full of flowers they made sure they had plenty of fresh flowers for him to kvell over.

 And of course when you're applying for a job you never tell anyone you have a mental health diagnosis.

10 - Private equity firms. I was watching Suze Ormand this morning when I was on my exercise bike. She emphasized how times have changed and there's no job security anymore.

So people who wanted to retire at 60 are still working....up into their 70s and even 80s.

"Bad company corrupts," said DeeAwn, quoting the Bible, 1 Corinthians. 

Stay away from negative people, she said. Get your positive vibes from your positive friends.

Pizza time for me at 8 pm. Bought crimini mushrooms today at Giant as a pizza topping.

After our meeting, six of us met downstairs in the coffeeshop. I told the gang Scott buys the whole-wheat pizza crust, I saute mushrooms, peppers, and onions. Scott builds the pizza on his pizza stone with spaghetti sauce and slices of cheese.

Only 56 more minutes!