Here’s a round up of the responses from a quick activity in a career/life planning class earlier today. The goal was to come up with the top career planning tips for figuring out a college major and/or career path. Pursue something you’re passionate about. Know yourself, your interests, and passions, and pursue them. Find out…
Writing a career action plan is an excellent strategy in career planning and development. There are many ways to put together a career action plan. The following guidelines provide what I think are the elements of a comprehensive career action plan. Objective A career action plan provides the opportunity to synthesize and document all the…
I was a “yes” person for too many years of my life, be it in school or at work. When something needed to get done I was usually the one who got asked to do it. People knew that I would get it done, and they knew that I always said “yes.” Did I always…
A career action plan is a listing of steps to be taken both in the short-term and long-term in the context of achieving career goals. This type of planning is a great activity to synthesize and document all the relevant information stemming from the career planning strategies of self assessment and exploration and research. Identifying…
If you’re exploring careers and interested in learning more about a particular job or career field, then the following list of questions I believe are the best questions to ask during an informational interview. In fact, this is the list of possible informational interviewing questions that I recommend to my students. Nineteen questions will likely…
I previously gave my take on purposeful career planning, providing a simple outline of five basic career planning steps. In this post, I’ll list some tips to be especially aware of throughout each of these 5 steps for active career planning: Self Assessment Exploration and Research Decision Making Taking Action Evaluation Keys to Success for…
The following is a simple and brief overview of purposeful career planning. The steps mainly come from what I learned in graduate school and from practicing what I learned while working as a university career counselor. I’ve been able to continue to hone these steps in my current job where I teach career self assessment…
I love it when students recommend career books to me that I haven’t yet discovered. This book, What’s That Job and How the Hell Do I Get It?: The Inside Scoop on More Than 50 Cool Jobs from People Who Actually Have Them by David J. Rosen, was originally recommended to me by a former student…
I’ve found that most students who actually conduct informational interviews receive the following benefits: They learn about particular industries, companies, and possible job opportunities and leads They learn about career paths with particular college majors They get to meet new people or get to know acquaintances better They get to improve their networking and communication…
