Chapter 14: Career Exploration & Development

If you clearly define your career goals and your strategy for reaching them, you can plan your education effectively and create a seamless transition from school to the workplace. 

When people learn study skills and life skills, they usually start with finding out things they don’t know. That means discovering new strategies for taking notes, reading, writing, managing time, and the other subjects covered in the textbook. 

Career planning is different. You can begin your career planning education by realizing how much you know right now. You’ve already made many decisions about your career. This is true for young people who say, “I don’t have any idea what I want to be when I grow up.” It’s also true for midlife career changers. 

Consider the student who can’t decide whether she wants to be a cost accountant or a tax accountant and then jumps to the conclusion that she is totally lost when it comes to career planning. It’s the same with the student who doesn’t know whether he wants to be a veterinary assistant or a nurse. 

These people forget that they already know a lot about their career choices. The person who couldn’t decide between veterinary assistance and nursing had already ruled out becoming a lawyer, computer programmer, or teacher. He just didn’t know yet whether he had the right bedside manner for horses or for people. The person who was debating tax accounting versus cost accounting already knew she didn’t want to be a doctor, playwright, or taxicab driver. She did know she liked working with numbers and balancing books. 

In each case, these people have already narrowed their list of career choices to a number of jobs in the same field—jobs that draw on the same core skills. In general, they already know what they want to be when they grow up. 

Many people approach career planning as if they were panning for gold. They keep sifting through the dirt, clearing the dust, and throwing out the rocks. They are hoping to strike it rich and discover the perfect career. Other people believe that one day they’ll have a sudden, dramatic realization about what they’re supposed to do. Many of these people will have to wait a long time.

You can approach career planning in a different way. Instead of seeing a career as something you discover, you can see it as something you choose. You don’t find the right career. You create it. 

There’s a big difference between these two approaches. Thinking that there’s only one “correct” choice for your career can lead to a lot of anxiety: “Did I choose the right one?” “What if I made a mistake?” 

Viewing your career as your creation helps you relax. Instead of anguishing over finding the right career, you can stay open to possibilities. You can choose one career today, knowing that you can choose again later.

What is the difference between a job and a career? Do you plan to use college to help you seekone or the other?

There is no right or wrong answer because motivations for being in college are so varied and different for each student. But you can take maximum advantage of your time in college if you develop a clear plan for what you want to accomplish. The table below shows some differences between a job and a career.

In summary, a job lets you enjoy at least a minimal level of financial security, and it requires you to show up and do what is required of you. In exchange, you get paid. A career, on the other hand, is more of a means of achieving personal fulfillment through the jobs you hold. In a career, your jobs tend to follow a sequence that leads to increasing mastery, professional development, and personal and financial satisfaction. A career requires planning, knowledge, and skills, too. If it is to be a fulfilling career, it requires that you bring into play your full set of analytical, critical, and creative thinking skills. You will be called upon in a career to make informed decisions that will affect your life in both the short term and the long term.

As your thoughts about career expand, keep in mind that over the course of your life, you will probably spend a lot of time at work—thousands of hours, in fact. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average workday is about 8.7 hours long, and this means that if you work 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year, for 35 years, you will spend a total of 76,125 hours of your life at work. These numbers should convince you that it’s pretty important to enjoy your career!

If you do pursue a career, you’ll find yourself making many decisions about it: Is this the right job for me? Am I feeling fulfilled and challenged? Does this job enable me to have the lifestyle I desire? It’s important to consider these questions now, whether you’re just graduating from high school or college, or you’re returning to school after working for a while.

Choosing a career—any career—is a unique process for everyone, and for many people the task is daunting. There are so many different occupations to choose from. How do you navigate this complex world of work?

The California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office has identified a five-step decision process that will make your career path a little easier to find. Below are the steps:

• Get to know yourself
• Get to know your field
• Prioritize your “deal makers” and rule out your “deal breakers”
• Make a preliminary career decision and create a plan of action
• Go out and achieve your career goal

Step 1: Get to Know Yourself

Get to know yourself and the things you’re truly passionate about.

• Gather information about your career-related interests and values
• Think about what skills and abilities come naturally to you and which ones you want to develop
• Consider your personality type and how you want it to play out in your role at work

While you are encouraged to explore your personality, interests, and passions, you may still feel overwhelmed by the possibilities.

Before moving on to step 2, you may wish to review the assessments and inventories you completed in previous weeks: the MBTI, VARK, and Wheel of Life. These can help you align career interests with personal qualities, traits, life values, skills, activities, and ambitions. Ultimately, your knowledge of yourself is the root of all good decision-making and will guide you in productive directions.

Step 2: Get to Know Your Field

You’ll want to investigate the career paths available to you. One of the handiest starting points and “filters” is to decide the level of education you want to attain before starting your first or your next job. Do you want to earn an associate’s degree, a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree, or a doctorate or professional degree? This is a key factor in narrowing down your search to career paths that will be a good fit for your goals and expectations. Research professionals who currently have the type of career you would like to have. Consider what degrees and training they received, how they got to their current positions, what their timeline was like, and what their career paths have been like.

Step 3: Prioritize Your Deal Makers

Prioritize your deal makers and rule out your deal breakers. Educational requirements aren’t the only criteria that you will want to consider. Do you want to work outside or in an office? In the country or a city? In a big or small organization? For a public organization or a private company? What type of industry is interesting to you? What role do you see yourself playing in the organization? Are you willing to relocate to faraway places or move often? Which of your considerations are absolutely necessary for you to enjoy your life and which are you willing to compromise on?

Step 4: Make a Preliminary Career Decision

Make a preliminary career decision and create a plan of action. Now that you have an idea of who you are and where you might find a satisfying career, how do you start taking action to get there? Some people talk to family, friends, or instructors in their chosen disciplines. Others have mentors in their lives with whom to discuss this decision. Your college has career counselors and academic advisors who can help you with both career decision-making and the educational planning process. But be advised: you’ll get the most from sessions with your counselor if you have done some work on your own. 

Step 5: Go out and Achieve Your Career Goal

Now it’s time to take concrete steps toward achieving your educational and career goals. This may be as simple as creating a preliminary educational plan for next semester or a comprehensive educational plan that maps out the degree you are currently working toward. You may also want to look for internships, part-time work, or volunteer opportunities that help you test and confirm your preliminary career choice. Your college counselor can help you with this step, as well.

Your work experiences and life circumstances will undoubtedly change throughout the course of your professional life, so you may need to go back and reassess where you are on this path in the future. The Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that the average worker currently holds ten different jobs before age forty. This number is projected to grow. A prediction from Forrester Research is that today’s youngest workers will hold twelve to fifteen jobs in their lifetime. But no matter if you feel like you were born knowing what you want to do professionally, or you feel totally unsure about what the future holds for you, remember that with careful consideration, resolve, and strategic thought, you can find a career that feels rewarding.

WHAT EMPLOYERS WANT IN AN EMPLOYEE

Employers want individuals who have the necessary hard and soft skills to do the job well and adapt to changes in the workplace. Soft skills may be especially in demand today because employers are generally equipped to train new employees in a hard skill—by training them to use new computer software, for instance—but it’s much more difficult to teach an employee a soft skill such as developing rapport with coworkers or knowing how to manage conflict. An employer might rather hire an inexperienced worker who can pay close attention to details than an experienced worker who might cause problems on a work team. In this section, we look at ways of identifying and building particular hard and soft skills that will be necessary for your career path. We also explain how to use your time and resources wisely to acquire critical skills for your career goals.

Specific Skills Necessary for Your Career Path

A skill is something you can do, say, or think right now. It’s what an employer expects you to bring to the workplace to improve the overall operations of the organization. The table below lists some resources to help you determine which concrete skills are needed for all kinds of professions. You can even discover where you might gain some of the skills and which courses you might take.

Spend some time reviewing each resource. You will find many interesting and exciting options. When you’re finished, you may decide that there are so many interesting professions in the world that it’s difficult to choose just one. This is a good problem to have!

Transferable Skills for Any Career Path

Transferable (soft) skills may be used in multiple professions. They include, but are by no means limited to, skills listed below:

These skills are transferable because they are positive attributes that are invaluable in practically any kind of work. They also do not require much training from an employer—you have them already and take them with you wherever you go. Soft skills are a big part of your “total me” package. Take the time to identify the soft skills that show you off the best and identify the ones that prospective employers are looking for. By comparing both sets, you can more directly gear your job search to your strongest professional qualities

Acquiring Necessary Skills (Both in and out of Class) for Your Career Goals

“Lifelong learning” is a buzz phrase in the twentieth-first century because we are awash in new technology and information all the time, and those who know how to learn continuously are in the best position to keep up and take advantage of these changes. Think of all the information resources around you: colleges and universities, libraries, the Internet, videos, games, books, films—the list goes on.

With these resources at your disposal, how can you best position yourself for lifelong learning and a strong, viable career? Which hard and soft skills are most important? What are employers really looking for? The following list was inspired by the remarks of Mark Atwood, director of open-source engagement at Hewlett-Packard Enterprise. It contains excellent practical advice.

• Learn how to write clearly. After you’ve written something, have people edit it. Then rewrite it, taking into account the feedback you received. Write all the time.
• Learn how to speak. Speak clearly on the phone and at a table. For public speaking, try Toastmasters. “Meet and speak. Speak and write.”
• Be reachable. Publish your email so that people can contact you. Don’t worry about spam.
• Learn about computers and computing, even if you aren’t gearing for a career in information technology.
• Learn something entirely new every six to twelve months.
• Build relationships within your community. Use tools like Meetup.com and search for clubs at local schools, libraries, and centers. Then, seek out remote people around the country and world. Learn about them and their projects first by searching the Internet.
• Attend conferences and events. This is a great way to network with people and meet them face-to-face.
• Find a project and get involved. Start reading questions and answers, then start answering questions.
• Collaborate with people all over the world.
• Keep your LinkedIn profile and social media profiles up-to-date. Be findable.
• Keep learning. Skills will often beat smarts. Be sure to schedule time for learning and having fun!

In the context of career development, networking is the process by which people build relationships with one another for the purpose of helping one another achieve professional goals. When you “network,” you exchange information. You may share:

• business cards, résumés, cover letters, job-seeking strategies, leads about open jobs, information about companies and organizations, and information about a specific field.
• information about meet-up groups, conferences, special events, technology tools, and social media.
• information on job “headhunters,” career counselors, career centers, career coaches, an alumni association, family members, friends, acquaintances, and vendors.

Networking can occur anywhere and at any time. In fact, your network expands with each new relationship you establish. And the networking strategies you can employ are nearly limitless. With imagination and ingenuity, your networking can be highly successful.

STRATEGIES FOR NETWORKING

We live in a social world, so it stands to reason that finding a new job and advancing your career entails building relationships with people in your field. Truly, the most effective way to find a new job is to network, network, and network some more. Once you acknowledge the value of networking, the challenge is figuring out how to do it. What is your first step? Whom do you contact? What do you say? How long will it take? Where do you concentrate efforts? How do you know if your investments will pay off?

Strategies at College

• Get to know your professors: Communicating with instructors is a valuable way to learn about a career and also get letters of reference if and when needed for a job. Professors can also give you leads on job openings, internships, and research possibilities. Most instructors will readily share information and insights with you.
• Check with your college’s alumni office: You may find that some alumni are affiliated with your field of interest and can give you the “inside scoop.”
• Check with classmates: Classmates may or may not share your major, but any of them may have leads that could help you. You could be just one conversation away from a good lead.

Strategies at Work

• Join professional organizations: You can meet many influential people at local and national meetings and events of professional and volunteer organizations. Learn about these organizations. See if they have membership discounts for students or student chapters. Once you are a member, you may have access to membership lists, which can give you prospective access to many new people to network with.
• Volunteer: Volunteering is an excellent way to meet new people who can help you develop your career, even if the organization you are volunteering with is not in your field. Just by working alongside others and working toward common goals, you build relationships that may later serve you in unforeseen and helpful ways.
• Get an internship: Many organizations offer internship positions to college students. Some of these positions are paid, but often they are not. Paid or not, you gain experience relevant to your career, and you potentially make many new contacts. Check CollegeRecruiter.com for key resources.
• Get a part-time job: Working full-time may be your ultimate goal, but you may want to fill in some cracks by working part-time. Invariably you will meet people who can feasibly help with your networking goals. And you can gain good experience, which can be noted on your résumé.
• Join a job club: Your career interests may be shared by many others who have organized a club, which can be online or in person. If you don’t find an existing club, consider starting one.
• Attend networking events: There are innumerable professional networking events taking place around the world and also online. Find them listed in magazines, community calendars, newspapers, journals, and at the Web sites of companies, organizations, and associations.
• Conduct informational interviews: You may initiate contact with people in your chosen field who can tell you about their experiences of entering the field and thriving in it. Many Web sites have guidance on how to plan and conduct these interviews.

Strategies at Home and Beyond

• Participate in online social media: An explosion of career opportunity awaits you with social media, including LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and many more. You will find an extensive list of suggested sites at CareerOneStop. Keep your communication ultra-professional at these sites. Peruse magazine articles, and if you find one that’s relevant to your field and it contains names of professionals, you can reach out to them to learn more and get job leads.
• Ask family members and friends, coworkers, and acquaintances for referrals: Do they know others who might help you? You can start with the question “Who else should I be talking to?”

A résumé is a short profile of you as a professional. It is a written picture of who you are—it’s a marketing tool, a selling tool, and a promotion of you as an ideal candidate for any job you may be interested in. The word résumé comes from the French word résumé, which means “a summary.” 

Résumés and cover letters work together to represent you in the brightest light to prospective employers. With a well-composed résumé and cover letter, you stand out—which may get you an interview and then a good shot at landing a job. In this section, we discuss résumés and cover letters as key components of your career development toolkit. We explore some of the many ways you can design and develop them for the greatest impact in your job search.

Your résumé is an inventory of your education, work experience, job-related skills, accomplishments, volunteer history, internships, residencies, and more. It’s a professional autobiography in outline form to give the person who reads it a quick, general idea of who you are and how well you might contribute to their workplace. As a college student or recent graduate, though, you may be unsure about what to put in your résumé, especially if you don’t have much employment history. Still, employers don’t expect recent grads to have significant work experience. It’s all in how you present yourself.

ELEMENTS OF YOUR SUCCESSFUL RÉSUMÉ

Perhaps the hardest part of writing a résumé is figuring out what format to use to organize and present your information in the most effective way. There is no one correct format, but most follow one of the four formats below. Which format appeals to you the most?

Reverse chronological: A reverse chronological résumé (sometimes also simply called a chronological résumé) lists your job experiences in reverse chronological order, starting with the most recent job and working backward toward your first job. It includes start/end dates and a brief description of the duties you performed for each job, as well as details of your formal education. This may be the most common and perhaps the most conservative format. It is most suitable for demonstrating a solid work history and growth and development in your skills. It may not suit you if you are light on skills in the area you are applying to, if you’ve changed employers frequently, or if you are looking for your first job.

Functional: A functional résumé is organized around your talents, skills, and abilities (more so than work duties and job titles, as with the reverse chronological résumé). It emphasizes specific professional capabilities, like what you have done or what you can do. Specific dates may be included but are not as important. So if you are a new graduate entering your field with little or no actual work experience, the functional résumé may be a good format for you. It can also be useful when you are seeking work in a field that differs from what you have done in the past, or if you have had an unconventional career path. 

Hybrid: The hybrid, or combination, résumé is a format reflecting both the functional and chronological approaches. It highlights relevant skills, but it still provides information about your work experience. You may list your job skills as most prominent and then follow with a chronological (or reverse chronological) list of employers. This format is most effective when your specific skills and job experience need to be emphasized. 

Video, infographic, or website: These formats may be most suitable for people in multimedia and creative careers. Certainly, with the expansive use of technology today, a job seeker might at least try to create a media-enhanced résumé. But the paper-based, traditional résumé is by far the most commonly used—in fact, some human resource departments may not permit submission of any format other than paper-based.

CONTENTS & STRUCTURE

For many people, the process of writing a résumé is daunting. After all, you are taking a lot of information and condensing it into a very concise form that needs to be both eye-catching and easy to read. Don’t be scared off, though! Developing a good résumé can be fun, rewarding, and easier than you think if you follow a few basic guidelines.

Contents and components to include:

• Your contact information: name, address, phone number, professional email address
• A summary of your skills: 5–10 skills you have gained in your field; you can list hard skills as well as soft skills
• Work experience: include the title of the position, employer’s name, location, employment dates (beginning, ending)
• Volunteer experience
• Education and training: formal and informal experiences matter; include academic degrees, professional development, certificates, internships, etc.
• References statement (optional): “References available upon request” is a standard phrase used on résumés, although it is often implied
• Other sections: may include a job objective, a brief profile, a branding statement, a summary statement, additional accomplishments, and any other related experiences

Although you can benefit from giving your résumé a stamp of individuality, you will do well to steer clear of personal details that might elicit a negative response. It is advisable to omit any confidential information or details that could make you vulnerable to discrimination. Here are some tips on what not to include:

• Do not mention your age, gender, height, or weight.
• Do not include your social security number.
• Do not mention religious beliefs or political affiliations, unless they are relevant to the position.
• Do not include a photograph of yourself or a physical description.
• Do not mention health issues.
• Do not use first-person references. (I, me).
• Do not include wage/salary expectations.
• Do not use abbreviations.

Tips for a successful résumé:

• Limit it to 1–2 pages long on letter-size paper.
• Make it visually appealing.
• Use action verbs and phrases.
• Proofread carefully to eliminate any spelling, grammar, punctuation, and typographical errors.
• Be positive and reflect only the truth.
• Keep refining and reworking your résumé; it’s an ongoing project.

Remember that your résumé is your professional profile. It will hold you in the most professional and positive light, and it’s designed to be a quick and easy way for a prospective employer to evaluate what you might bring to a job. When written and formatted attractively, creatively, and legibly, your résumé is what will get your foot in the door. You can be proud of your accomplishments, even if they don’t seem numerous.

RÉSUMÉ RESOURCES

A cover letter is a letter of introduction, usually 3–4 paragraphs in length, that you attach to your résumé. It’s a way of introducing yourself to a potential employer and explaining why you are interested in and suited for a position. Employers may look for individualized and thoughtfully written cover letters as an initial method of screening out applicants who may who lack necessary basic skills, or who may not be sufficiently interested in the position. With each résumé you send out, always include a cover letter specifically addressing your purposes.

Cover letters should accomplish the following:

• Get the attention of the prospective employer
• Set you apart from any possible competition
• Identify the position you are interested in
• Specify how you learned about the position or company
• Present highlights of your skills and accomplishments
• Reflect your genuine interest
• Please the eye and ear

COVER LETTER RESOURCES

SOURCES

• “Planning for Your Career” from Effective Learning Strategies at Austin Community College. Authored by Laura Lucas & Heather Syrett. Provided by: Austin Community College. Available at: https://www.oercommons.org/courseware/8434. License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
• OpenNow College Success. Authored by Cengage Learning. Provided by: CEngage. Available at: https://oercommons.s3.amazonaws.com/media/editor/179572/CengageOpenNow_CollegeSuccessNarrative.pdf License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.