Career Planning Tips

Career planning and research includes the process of assessing yourself and exploring your options. It requires self-reflection as you review past choices and look toward future goals. It encompasses learning about yourself, and also learning about career possibilities. Internships, Co-ops, interviewing skills and extracurricular activities, are alternative paths that are all part of career planning. Remember that career planning is a lifelong process and you will build on plans and research over time as your interests further develop and grow. There are five steps to career planning and research that you can explore below.

• Career Development
• Assess Yourself
• Explore Options
• Researching Career Possibilities
• Develop a Plan

Career Development: Step-by-Step

Step 1: Assess
The first step in the career education process begins with the individual. At this point, career seekers must ask themselves who they are. Self-assessment is the key to understanding one's interests, skills and values, and can be done informally or formally. The clearer the picture one develops about oneself, the smoother this process will go. Career development calls for the identification of things one has enjoyed, disliked, or demonstrated proficiency at in the past, as well as identification of one's values and significant life considerations. The success of the Assess step depends on the ability to be completely honest with ones' self. Career seekers should begin to look at what they have done, what they have enjoyed, and what is important to them. The answers to these questions form the basis of the career process. Here are some steps to take in starting the process:

• Get connected - During the fall of first semester, register early with Career Services.
  
• With the assistance of Career Education staff, assess values, interests, skills, aptitudes and competencies as they have evolved so far, and consider them in the light of what is required to be competent and competitive in the working world. Career Education staff also provides students with the ability to develop new interests and skills, and refine their values.
  
• Begin to draft a personal career development plan, starting with broad interests and initial reflections.
  
• Begin to do the things now that will facilitate the development of the competencies needed to become personally fulfilled and intellectually competitive, as well as to enjoy the range of career opportunities one finds interesting. Start with broad considerations and narrow down to more detailed study.

Step 2: Explore
Once Assess is complete and career seekers have an understanding of their identities, it is time for them to start looking at the outside world. As part of Step 2: Explore, one will begin to research various available options. Career fields should be researched through book and Internet resources. Explore is also the ideal time to start the process of informational interviewing and networking. Talking to people working in a field or fields of interest provides an insight beyond that found in printed materials. In this step, it is helpful to examine a variety of careers that are of interest. During Explore, the goal is to gather as much information as possible about fields of interest. This process should be continued through activities such as:

• Exploring the curriculum and social life at Southern, and beginning to acquire or enhance urban expertise in one of the greatest cities in the world.
• Making the most of the University and the city environment: participate, join, explore, discover; look beyond the obvious and most popular to find what's right for the individual, intellectually, socially, and in terms of career opportunities.
• Participate actively in career education, get to know the global working world, Network and conduct informational interviews with faculty, alumni, employers, friends, etc. Take advantage of mentoring and internship opportunities.
• Begin to refine a personal career development plan with exploratory initiatives and pilot projects.
• Begin to collect a portfolio of examples of competency development , and, with the guidance of Career Education staff, measure oneself against personal benchmarks, as well as the benchmarks of those who provide inspiration, such as mentors and role models.

Step 3: Clarify
IClarify, the steps of career development should begin to come together. Now, it is necessary to evaluate and assess one's career research, past work experience, and lifestyle considerations. Ideally, one should begin to look at how all of these elements interact with each other and use the results to begin making career decisions. Where does the research about oneself and one's prospective careers overlap and where does it conflict? This is the ideal time to pursue opportunities for experiential learning, such as internships and employer presentations. It is also a good time to begin preparing for a job search by learning about industry hiring cycles. Clarify is a crucial step in the career process because it is the first time one combines careers and elements of one's experience. These activities help draw connections and make decisions:

• Take charge, and seek assistance from CCE in obtaining the experience necessary to evaluate the kinds of careers that of personal interest. Participate in mentoring, career fairs and internships.
• Continue learning, both in broadly-based fields, as well as in more specialized fields develop competencies beyond discipline-based knowledge.
• Ask for feedback from peers, parents, faculty, professional staff and others, (this is typically called 360-degree feedback) to help clarify and assess career development plans. Practice receiving and giving feedback; the ability to give and receive feedback is a very useful skill.
• Update the personal career development plan.

Step 4: Achieve
Assess, Explore and Clarify lead to this final step, Achieve. In this step, it is necessary to conduct a career search. Develop a plan based on an individualized timeframe and the appropriate hiring cycles and then put this plan into action. Evaluating options is an important step in Achieve. Continue to gather all the specific information needed to make decisions about various options. With the completion of Achieve, it is possible to secure a new position. As a career develops over time, it is possible to change careers or change jobs within the same industry. Each time a new search begins, it will be helpful to review Assess, Explore, Clarify, and Achieve. Actions at this point may include:

• Participating in career fairs and Employment Recruiting interviews. On-campus interviews begin in early October and continue through March.
• Following through on the personal career development plan.
• Seeking a capstone learning experience during final year which will help to integrate the various kinds of knowledge acquired and the various modes of expertise mastered over the course of an education; this capstone experience should focus on potential employment or graduate study, and on opportunities to contribute to others.
• Using the Internet and informational interviews with alumni/ae to target a list of potential employers, and find the desired job.

Assess Yourself/
Learning More about Yourself

Regardless of whether you are an undergraduate student, a graduate student, an experienced student, or an alumnus/a, the career process can appear to be a daunting task. Breaking it down into a series of steps will enable you to manage the entire process. Depending on your current goals (finding an internship, career exploration, searching for a full-time position, or changing careers), you will create and collect a number of different puzzle pieces that will give you a better understanding of where you want to be, what you need to do, and how best to present yourself for potential opportunities and employers. These pieces may include networking contacts, job listings from a particular industry, samples of your work, or a list of experiences, projects, and goals. All of these pieces will be included in your career plan.

Most people immediately think of resumes, cover letters, or CV's when you mention applying for a job. Your plan encompasses much more than just these concrete items you use during a job search. It includes your assessment of your skills, interests, and values, and it gives you a chance to completely explore your current options and clarify a plan for how to best present yourself to the outside world in order to achieve your career goals. This guide should be used in combination with individual counseling sessions to create resumes, cover letters, and other job search materials that will represent you.

From this point on, it's important that you think in terms of how to most effectively market yourself, whether you are considering working for an organization, going to graduate school, or starting your own business.

Self-assessment is the process of gathering information about yourself to assist you in making decisions about a career. This includes learning about preferences, interests, aptitudes, abilities, and personal traits. It involves identifying your strengths and weaknesses. It is figuring out who you are, deciding what you want, and analyzing what you have done.

Assessing yourself is a crucial step in the career education process because it determines the direction in which you will focus your efforts. For some, this will be an easy step. These are the people who have known their career path since childhood. For most of you, however, this will be a difficult process. It can be challenging because it depends on your ability to be completely honest with yourself. Self- assessment should be a continual process. Your vision of what you want should be constantly adapting to your changing interests and skills as well as the world's changing opportunities.

Assessing yourself can involve looking at all aspects of who you are. This may include reflecting on your interests as a child, the activities you do in your free time, and the type of people with whom you like to spend time. Such broad exploration can make it difficult to know what you need to do in order to be thorough.

What is critical is that you consider what is most important to you. You may find that you want to examine an area of yourself more closely. Such considerations as your values may include competing choices, which can be a challenge to reconcile. Career counseling, groups, and self-assessment workshops can offer assistance as you answer difficult questions about what will ultimately contribute to make your life fulfilling.

Explore Options
Learning about Your Career Options

After you've assessed your interests, you're ready to begin the exploration process. This is the step where you investigate what career opportunities appeal to you and will best suit your skills. This is a crucial aspect of job searching. Time and again, evidence has shown that people do well at that which they like. Also, employers will assume that you have taken the time to think about what the best fit for you is in their organization. It will be easier to convince a prospective employer of your suitability for a position if you've done your homework about what's out there. There are many ways to explore careers, including research, experiential learning , and informational interviewing/mentoring.

Research Career Possibilities

As you gather information about yourself and gain exposure and experience, you will also use research to explore your options. Which career fields seem to fit your current education, experience, skills, and interests? At this point, you may have identified some possible industries to explore further. Research will be helping you to narrow down and refine your choices. As you begin your research, first explore the general career fields that appeal to you and then hone in on the specific areas within these fields that you like best.

The Career Resource Center

The Career Resource Center (CRC) contains a variety of materials on specific career areas. Companies provide CCE with organizational literature, including annual reports, product divisions, subsidiaries, future plans, newsletters, and relevant articles. The CRC also has a variety of periodicals and newspapers. Our subscriptions include: The Chronicle of Higher Education, Poets and Writers, The Wall Street Journal, Lingua Franca, The Nonprofit Times, Crain's New York, Business Week, Hispanic Business, Transitions Abroad, Equal Employment Opportunities, and the Job Choices series with individual publications for engineers and scientists, minorities, business, and graduating students.

The Internet

The Internet is an outstanding way to learn more about different industries. Employers have web sites that provide invaluable information, including company mission statement, history and philosophy, client rosters, organizational charts, recruiting cycles, and tips on how to apply for available positions. Use the web to your advantage. Search for names of people to contact, look for possible career paths in your field, go to web sites of organizations and professional associations, and read the bios posted with people's names in staff directories.

Develop a Plan
Strategy/Hiring Cycles

Once career-seekers determine what they're looking for in a prospective job, they need to develop a strategy for finding and being hired for that particular position. Job-seekers have different timetables and must develop their own personal strategies. Certain industries have specific recruiting cycles and others hire year-round. Also, some employers hire months in advance, while others hire only weeks in advance. Applicants should take these consider these concerns when developing a job-search timetable. Once they have completed the necessary research, it should be possible for applicants to know their prospective industries fairly well. This should provide an idea about the best way to find a job in the industry. Through on-campus recruiting, internship experiences, and networking, it is possible to develop a personalized career plan.

The Plan

Decide when to start looking based upon the hiring cycles of a given industry. Before looking, it is necessary for job-seekers to:

• Assemble a resume (view tipsheet)
• Write cover letters (view tipsheet)
• Practice interviewing skills (view tipsheet)
• Conclude career research by compiling a list of organizations to which they plan on applying
• Start networking

Looking for a job is very time-consuming and it is necessary to organize time wisely. When putting together a timetable, it is necessary to decide on an exact plan, considering the following questions:

• How many resumes should be sent out daily?
• How many phone calls should be made daily?
• Have following-up and networking been taken into account?
• How much daily research should be conducted?

Reminder

Throughout this process, it is important to remember that a job search is a very individualized endeavor. Timetables will vary from person to person, especially for those who are searching for career opportunities in different industries.

Keep in mind that there are many productive steps that one can take throughout the job search, regardless of hiring cycles. Those who are searching for jobs in industries which typically hire close to the job's start date should not put off everything until the start date approaches. It is necessary to use time wisely: conduct informational interviews, research, and develop contacts. It will make the job search much easier.