During a recent survey employers were asked, "What advice would you give to students as they begin to select a career?" The most frequent reply was "Know yourself."
The very first step in career (and life!) planning is learning yourself. Self-awareness comes from identifying and analyzing the personal factors involved in choosing a career path. A job search is simply a marketing campaign with YOU as the product. In order to sell yourself to an employer or graduate school admissions counselor, you must know yourself. Carefully consider the following factors:
The most heavily weighted factor in career satisfaction is whether or not you like the work you are doing. Work environments and people can be described according to their interest patterns, and many career assessment inventories are based on interest factors. Do you like working with people? If so, how specifically would you like to work with them? Are you happy dealing with lots of facts and information? Do you want to see tangible results for your efforts?
A work value is a principle related to worth, excellence, importance; a quality held in high regard. Your value system is expressed daily through your living and working. Is it important for you to work where cooperation is important or do you like competition? Do you need creativity and self-expression in your work? Is financial gain important? Are you willing to take risks? The most important factor in your career decisions will be the values by which you choose to live — examine them carefully!
A skilled person is able to do some things well because of talent, training, and practice. Some skills are very job specific while others may be transferred from one job to another. Self-management skills are personal in nature and help you relate to others and perform a job successfully. Identify your skills by examining your past accomplishments. Which skills do you use now, which do you want to continue to use, and which would you like to develop more?
You assume various positions in social groups and each carries a pattern of expected behaviors. You may be a child, a manager, a teacher, a club president… at the same time! Which roles do you occupy now and which do you enjoy the most? What are the characteristics of the role that provides you the greatest satisfaction?
The work world will require you to apply a system of moral principles with respect to how you conduct your business, relate to other people, and decide what is right and wrong. All organizations operate from an ethical framework and it is wise to find an organization compatible with your framework. When your work behavior is consistent with your ethics, you have achieved integrity.
It is important to consider how you want to spend your off-the-job time. Non-work activities have their own rewards and you may want to consider how much time these will require when exploring career options. Other living environment factors will be your preference for geographical surroundings, climate, community size, proximity to friends and family, income needs, physical limitations, and educational opportunities.
The Career Center fosters self-understanding in several ways:
The following questions will help you develop a clearer picture of who you are. Take your time and be honest with your answers. This self-discovery process will leave you feeling more confident about presenting yourself to others.
Source: John Shingleton, Career Planning: A Guide for Today's Graduates.
We cannot choose what we do not know. There are over 20,000 occupational titles, and the Department of Labor predicts there will be 23.9 million job openings between 2004-14! That adds up to a lot of choices for the job seeker.
Why is it important to explore the world of work before making a career decision? It has been said that where we live and the kind of work we do are the two most important factors in achieving a satisfied life. Consider the following reasons for investing time and energy into career exploration activities:
Many resources are available for researching specific occupations and industries. The CC library is an excellent place to start, and the Wyndham Robertson Library also offers many valuable resources that offer pertinent facts about work requirements and conditions, employment figures, training, advancement, earnings, and job outlook. Other sources include:
The Career Center on my.hollins.edu offers excellent career information site sources such as Virginia View, Occupational Outlook Handbook, and What Can I do with this Major? Company profile sites include Fortune 500 Companies, Fortune Global 500 companies, and Hoover's On-Line.
By interviewing individuals who have jobs in which you are interested, you can get a personal feel for what the job really entails. This experience can serve two invaluable purposes. First, knowing more about what a career is like is an important step in clarifying your career goals. Secondly, gaining this special insight into a field that you are considering will allow you to tailor your job search according to what you have learned about current trends on both a national and local level.
Before the interview, keep in mind that you will make the best use of your time and the professional's time if you do some advance preparation. Use available resources to find out basic information about the nature of the work, education and training required, employment outlook, and salary ranges. This homework is very important! Set the stage for your meeting: decide what you want to wear, how you want to begin your interview, what to say about the person who referred you, and exactly how to state your mission.
During the interview, remember that you are in charge of this meeting and are responsible for conducting it. This is not a job interview so you can take advantage of the ease you feel with your questions. You will get good information through an open-ended question followed by a more specific one.
The following questions are appropriate for an informational interview:
As you are leaving, summarize exactly what has been helpful. This provides positive reinforcement for the employer and makes a good impression of you as an interviewer. While this is not a job interview per se, you might feel comfortable to ask the employer if you can contact him or her should your future job search focus on this field.
After the interview, take good notes! Include not only objective data gained but also your subjective evaluation about the person you interviewed, the job, and the future possibilities you envision for yourself. Send a thank-you note immediately and emphasize what you learned from the interview. This individual may become a significant player in your career network.
An internship is a supervised work or volunteer experience with specific learning objectives. Short Term is the perfect opportunity to participate in an internship that will allow you to develop job skills, become familiar with a career field and its work environment, and to evaluate your abilities and interest in a given occupation. Hollins students may receive academic credit for a maximum of 16 credit hours of internship work. These credits may also be taken during the academic semester and/or the summer.
The CC holds orientations each fall to help students better understand how to research and set up internships. Students who have previously completed Short Term internships are available to share their experiences and to offer advice.
Students can research nationwide databases on my.hollins.edu which includes opportunities listed by the four Virginia women's colleges and universities. The CC library houses print resources on most Short Term internship information as well as materials on internships for summer, semester, and overseas. Many students have successfully developed their own internships by directly contacting businesses and alumnae/i working in career fields which interest them.
If you want to develop your own internship, call or write the human resources office of the company or agency which interests you and ask for the name of the person who coordinates internship activities. Write this person to introduce yourself and explain your interest in doing an internship; always include a resume. The Career Center will provide a sample letter for you to use for this purpose. Follow up with a phone call and request an interview to discuss the possibility of an internship. If the business is new at offering internships, be patient and helpful in explaining how you and the company can mutually benefit from the experience. See your academic advisor if you want to receive academic credit for an internship outside the Short Term time period.
Paid work experience while attending college, during summers, and over holidays gives you valuable insight and enables you to interact with other workers. Hiring managers are placing more importance on work experience and internships as valuable indicators of how a college student is managing the career development process. The Career Center encourages campus offices to schedule training each year for first year student assistants to emphasize the value of on-campus employment experiences.
Hollins career events and CHALLENGE Job Fair are excellent ways to network with company representatives. The Center also advertises regional and national career fairs, seminars, and workshops that provide opportunities for career exploration. These events include Minority Career Day, U.S. MBA Forum, National Teacher Job Fair, Theological Career Day at Harvard, Rutgers Career Day, Graduate and Professional School Forum at RMWC, Graduate/Professional School Festival at JMU, UVA Law School and Graduate School Forums (separate events), Education Job Fair, Career Fair and Graduate & Professional School Day at W & M (separate events).
The third and ongoing step in career planning is making a decision/action plan. What is a career decision? It is any major decision you feel is of utmost importance in your life; it may or may not be directly related to work. It is true that some people seem to be better than others when it comes to making a decision. Remember that decision-making is a skill and you can improve a skill through practice. A "good" decision exhibits the following process:
If you want to become a better decision-maker, put this process into action immediately — and on paper! Seeing your decisions unfold in writing can be very helpful and will focus your attention on those areas of your life that are most critical in your career planning process.
Finally, when you know WHO you are, WHAT you can and want to do, and WHERE you want to do it, you being to implement your ACTION PLAN!
