kidsdefib.org

A. Public service work for organizations like AmeriCorps, Teach for America or the Peace Corps can be a gateway to a variety of careers, including those outside public service.

Some organizations provide a stipend or salary, although the benefit of public service is not money — it is the time it allows new graduates to consider their options and learn about themselves, says Roberta Cross, director of career services at Washington and Jefferson College in Washington, Pa. The work can also build self-confidence, she says, and it can show graduates career paths they may not have known of or considered.

John Coleman, a management consultant in Atlanta and co-author of “Passion and Purpose: Stories From the Best and Brightest Young Business Leaders,” says public service work also provides an opportunity for mentorship and coaching from senior-level professionals, which you aren’t likely to receive in an entry-level corporate job.

Q. How do you decide what kind of work to pursue?

A. Take an inventory of your strengths, weaknesses, skills, interests and values, says Susan Jewkes Allen, a career counselor and co-founder of LifePlusWork, a career counseling and coaching business in San Francisco. “Take stock of yourself, writing down things like what you’re good at, not good at, your natural communication style, level of adaptability and aversion to risk,” she says. This will give you a heightened awareness of the kinds of jobs and tasks that could be a good fit in your public service work. Q. While volunteering, how do you keep in mind what you are learning about yourself?

A. Keep a journal of what you do each day, including the skills you learn and your reactions to what’s happening, says Donna Goldfeder, director of career services at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa. “At the end of the year you can look at the journal, and if you see that you wrote down 20 times you got a lot of satisfaction from helping people, maybe you should consider a helping profession,” she says.

Q. Are there things you can do to develop yourself professionally while volunteering, even if you’re not sure what profession you will ultimately pursue?

A. Young people working for a public service or nongovernmental organization usually have the chance to take part in activities that would not be open to them in the corporate world. “You may be teaching, managing finances, marketing to the local community, recruiting or managing people. You can explore all of these,” Mr. Coleman says.

Look for opportunities to interact with senior-level people at your organization and other nonprofits, or in the community. “One of the toughest things for a 22-year-old coming out of college is to understand how to relate to senior-level people,” he says. The only way to learn to do that and build up confidence is to immerse yourself in it. “Watch them and learn from them,” he says.

Ask senior colleagues if they would serve as references for you after your volunteer service, Ms. Cross says. They can also be resources, giving feedback on your résumé or connecting you with others who can help you professionally.

Q. When you have completed your public service, how do you connect what you’ve learned and enjoyed to a specific career and begin that professional transition?

A. Much of the information you need is already in your journal, Ms. Jewkes Allen says, and those bits and pieces are part of a puzzle about yourself that you are assembling. Research shows that for college graduates, “a fit between their interests, talents and market opportunity is one of the best determinants of career happiness,” she says.

You will very likely need help in putting that puzzle together. Ms. Goldfeder suggests consulting a career coach or a counselor at your alma mater for help in connecting your findings to a possible career path or job. “They have databases and tools that can be used to evaluate your new skills, interests and experiences and see where they match up with a professional career,” she says. Once you have identified possibilities, seek alumni from your college in fields you are considering and ask what they like or dislike about what they do.

It’s O.K. to change your mind, she says. “We often start our professional lives with a dream of where we will end up, yet very few of us end up there. That’s not failure; it’s that we continually adapt and adjust to the information we learn about ourselves.”

A. The most pressing need of angry customers is to be heard, says Jonathan Rick, a director at Levick Strategic Communications in Washington. Listen to them without interrupting, he says, and then “show you understand their situation by finding common points of frustration.”

If, for example, they say they waited in line for three hours to return something, “you might say you have been in a situation like that, too, and can understand how frustrating it is,” Mr. Rick says. Acknowledging that customers have been inconvenienced usually reduces their anger, he observes.

Say, “I want to help you with this problem, so let me understand everything that has gone wrong,” and then repeat back what the customer told you, suggests Jennifer Thomas, a psychologist and customer service consultant in Winston-Salem, N.C.

View this as a learning opportunity and not a shouting match, says Christine Porath, an assistant professor of management at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University. “If you can come at this with a positive attitude,” she says, “research shows that attitude will spread to others.”

Q. The customer wants justice of some kind. How can you satisfy that need?

A. Start by apologizing, says Ms. Thomas, who wrote “The Five Languages of Apology” with Gary Chapman. After that, ask what you can do to correct the situation. Let the customer know the steps you’ll take to ensure that the situation isn’t repeated, Ms. Thomas says, and ask for forgiveness for any mistakes.

Research shows that disgruntled customers want accountability. “They want someone reprimanded,” Ms. Porath says. That could mean a promise to speak to relevant employees, like customer service or sales representatives, and to take corrective action.

Customers will feel a bond with you if they believe you are making a sincere attempt to solve the problem, Ms. Porath says. “You are building a relationship with them,” she notes, “and that means there is a much better chance you will retain that person as a customer.”

Make sure to follow up personally with the customer and confirm that coupons, discounts or other remedies have been received, Mr. Rick says.

Q. What if the error was actually the customer’s fault? And what if you can’t provide the remedy requested because the problem was caused by the customer or your company’s policies don’t allow it?

A. If a customer’s mistake caused the problem, you should neither blame the customer nor apologize specifically for the mistake; instead, say you’re sorry for the person’s trouble or source of annoyance, Ms. Thomas says.

If the customer demands something you can’t provide, explain why, Ms. Porath says. “Given the situation, this is the best we can do because this is our policy,” she suggests saying. Even if you can’t give customers exactly what they want, you can tell them that you will look into the issue further with your manager and find ways to avoid the problem in the future, she says.

Q. An angry customer is using social media like Yelp and Facebook to vent his or her frustrations. What should you do?

A. The Internet, of course, extends the reach of complaints. And social media sites open the door to those too shy to complain face to face or on the phone, says Dillon White, communications director for 5Stone Marketing, which focuses on Internet marketing.

Contain the damage by publicly commenting back to the customer, if you can, on the same Web site. Thank the person for taking the time to comment, then write that you are sorry and that the complaint is not representative of your brand, Mr. White says. Offer a discount or coupon if possible, he suggests.

If you do not receive a response, make another public comment, stating that you haven’t heard from the customer and are concerned. “You want to make sure it’s publicly visible you are trying as hard as possible to change the situation,” Mr. White says.

Assuming that you can fix the problem, encourage the customer to give your service or store another try and to reconsider the negative post. In general, Mr. White says, you improve your brand by fixing a mistake and turning a bad situation into good. “You’ve increased the stature of your brand far more than you would have just from a positive experience,” he says.

Q.Over the last couple of years your company has eliminated jobs, and you now have more work than you can handle. How do you ask for help in a way that doesn’t make you look inadequate or incompetent?

A. First, realize that you are far from alone. Many people working today feel overloaded, says Susan Zeidman a portfolio manager at the American Management Association who specializes in interpersonal communication skills and management. ”People feel as if they have two or three jobs, not just one. It’s the No. 1 complaint from the recession among people we survey,” she says.

One way to approach the topic is to acknowledge that you have acquired more responsibility in the last year and want to rise to the challenge, but could use some help in judging what tasks need to be done first and which ones can wait, says Ann Latham, president of the management consulting firm Uncommon Clarity in Easthampton, Mass.

”Your attitude should be that you want to prevent yourself from having to cut corners or having the wrong things fall through the cracks,” she says, ”because that’s in the best interests of the company.”

Before talking to your boss, carefully analyze the components of your workload to gain an objective picture of the situation, says Allan R. Cohen, a professor of global leadership at Babson College in Babson Park, Mass., and co-author of ”Managing for Excellence.” Find out who receives the reports, memos and other work projects you do — and whether they actually use them.

”That’s how you determine what activities are critical, what can be dropped and whether some pieces can be delegated,” he says. ”It will also help you decide if there are any activities you are doing more for your own satisfaction than for meeting organizational needs. People often produce reports no one looks at.”

When you meet with your manager, have some options ready for dealing with your workload and frame the discussion in terms of how you can do a better job, Mr. Cohen says.

Q.Is it possible you could damage your career by asking for help?

A. You risk negative fallout only if you complain to your boss that you can’t handle your job. ”Don’t go in there saying, ‘I have too much work’ because your boss has too much work, too,” says Joanna Broussard, president of the BizMark Group, a business development consulting firm in Chicago. ”It’s much more politically astute to offer some solutions and ask for support.”

And, as Ms. Zeidman says, ”If you cannot complete your work and meet deadlines, you’re much more likely to suffer consequences.”

Q. Is there anything you can do to lighten the load on your own, like delegating some work to colleagues?

A. If you have a collaborative relationship with co-workers who do similar work, you can ask if they can help you with certain tasks, but generally it’s better to go through the chain of command, Ms. Latham says.

Let your supervisor decide whether work should be delegated and to whom, because it’s possible co-workers may be busier than they seem. ”You can always suggest someone else on your team that might be able to handle some of the work, but I wouldn’t directly delegate to others unless you’re specifically given that authority,” Ms. Broussard says.

Q.Could it be that the way you work, rather than your workload, is to blame?

A. It is possible that your problem isn’t too much work, but a lack of efficiency. Ms. Zeidman suggests keeping an interruption log to see if constant distractions — whether from people, e-mail or Facebook updates — might be why you aren’t meeting your obligations.

”Let’s say you’ve planned your day but people come into your office and sit down and talk about their vacation while you need to do your budget report, or there are always crises calling you away,” she says. ”It might be that it takes you an hour to settle into work in the morning.” Once you identify the things that are eating away at your time, you can tackle them by trying to stop the interruptions or getting down to work faster.

It may seem paradoxical, but you can raise your efficiency by taking breaks during the day — a quick walk, a few stretches, a visit to a colleague down the hall. Just don’t use the breaks to procrastinate, Ms. Broussard says.

You may also need more training or better tools to improve your efficiency, Mr. Cohen says. ”Look at colleagues that do the same sorts of things you do,” he says. ”Are they faster? And, if so, what tools are they using?”

Q.Is there a way to prioritize tasks so the workload feels more manageable?

A. Yes, by prioritizing work so you perform the toughest tasks first, Ms. Broussard says. ”We tend to do the easiest and simplest things first, because we don’t want to deal with the hard stuff,” she says, ”but the harder stuff is what we need to do.”

To make the big projects less daunting, break them down into smaller pieces. ”Sometimes,” she says, ”we feel overwhelmed simply because we don’t know where to start.”

DRAWING (DRAWING BY CHRIS REED)