Get the Career Advantage

Career Center Home

Career Services is offering a series of video workshops to help you plan your future and enjoy career success. Take advantage of this expert advice on career and life planning!!!

When: 
When It's Most Convenient for You!  Just schedule an appointment.

Why: 
Why are you in school?
To increase your life and career options?
To become qualified for a more fulfilling career?
If so, this video series will help you make sure that happens!

Where: 
Career Center, Upper Level, Edminster Student Union

How Do I Sign Up:
You can sign up for one session or for all of them. Choose those that interest you most, or take advantage of the entire series.  Just call 769-3297 or stop by the Career Center to schedule an appointment.

Topics: 

Introduction

This workshop introduces you to the three main components of the career development process:  1. Self-knowledge and Exploration, 2.Career and Educational Exploration, and 3. Career Planning and Implementation.  You will meet the "real people" who will describe their career decision-making experiences throughout the coming workshops, as well as some of the experts including RIchard Bolles, Jeremy RIfkin, Barbara Sher and Howard  Figler.

Where are You Now?

You will be introduced to Donald Super's concept of life roles, and the importance of having support systems.  Evaluate your satisfaction with your current life roles - work, home and family, leisure, self-improvement and community, and begin to identify key people in your  personal support system.

Self-Knowledge and Beliefs

This workshop presents simple methods for expanding self-awareness, and introduces you to the connections between your beliefs, your attitudes and your subsequent behaviors.  You practice techniques for identifying personal beliefs about your ability to be successful by listening to your self-talk, and begin to develop your Personal Career Profile.

Values

You are introduced to the relationship between your values and the kinds of  choices you make each day, and how values relate to career decisions.  You begin to identify some of your key values and consider how your family background may have shaped your values.

Personality & Interests

Learn the connections between personality, interests and work preferences such as working with information, ideas people and things.  You begin to identify your primary interest patterns and aspects of your personality through various exercises.

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities

Explore the differences between knowledge, skills and abilities.  You are also presented with the basic skills required by today's employers identified by the US Department of Labor SCANS Report.  Learn to identify their skills through examining past accomplishments and consider how skill development may be influenced by societal or cultural pressures.

Keeping Track of Self-Knowledge and Exploration

Expand your Personal Career Profile by identifying preferred values, and interests, and by identifying current skills as well as skills you want to develop in the future.

Introduction to Career and Educational Exploration

You are introduced to the self-exploration phase of this course, and this is the first of two workshops which explore contemporary changes in the economy and the world of work.  The workshop introduces three principal changes - technology, globalization, and changing workforce demographics.  Students review a variety of strategies for coping with these changes including considering new work options such as self-employment and contract work, and the need for lifelong learning.

The Changing Workplace:  Technology & Globalization

Focus on how technology has changed the kink of work we do, how work is done, and where work can be done.  You are introduced to the concept of global business and the skills essential to stay employable in a global economy.

What Employers Want:  Skills and Attitudes

Explore the skills and attitudes essential for success in today's workplace - competence, communication, adaptability, group effectiveness, and influence.  Learn to identify your transferable skills, and evaluate your degree of work readiness.

What's Out There:  How the World of Work is Organized

Learn the distinctions and similarities between industries and functions.  Several primary industries and job functions are described and gain insight into how your interests can offer  clues to industries or types of work you might enjoy.

Generating Career Options

Find a variety of strategies for generating a list of career possibilities.  You are encouraged to brainstorm ideas and emphasize quantity over quality of ideas at this stage of the process.

Researching Career Options:  New Technologies and Current Techniques

This is the first of two workshops about exploring career options.  The workshop introduces you to both print and electronic sources of occupational information.  Students learn the components of a research strategy and are presented with the categories of key information to help them focus their research efforts.

Informational Interviewing And Networking
Explore the benefits of using networking and informational interviewing to learn more about careers which interest you. Identify networking opportunities and potential networking contacts, as well as a strategy for conducting informational interviews.

Evaluating Career Option
Learn a framework for evaluating career options using content, conditions and compensation. Identify your own preferred content, conditions and compensation and begin to compare your preferences to information gathered from your occupational research.

Overcoming Barriers to Employment
Explore some of the legal issues related to discrimination in hiring and in the workplace, as well as some techniques for confronting, challenging and coping with discrimination. Learn how to gauge a company's corporate culture and commitment to diversity.

Lifelong Learning
Look at the range of educational options you may consider in order to obtain your occupational goals including vocational training, community college, undergraduate and graduate degrees. Explore the benefits of experiential education such as coops and internships, and the need for lifelong learning to keep skills current.

Overview of the Job Search Process
Learn the next steps including making a career decision, deciding on an action plan and launching the search for work opportunities. Common myths or misperceptions about the job search process are also presented and debunked.

Decision Making Strategies
Explore decision making strategies and assess your personal decision making style. Gain insight into how your values, willingness to take risks, and ability to be objective may influence your decision making process. Use your personal priorities to guide your decision making.

Goal Setting & Action Planning
Learn the criteria for attainable goals and objectives - specific, measurable, realistic, and meaningful - and practice evaluating goals on the basis of these criteria. Begin to draft your own goals and action plan for implementing your search.

Finding Work Opportunities: New Technologies and Current Techniques
Find work opportunities by accessing the hidden job market through networking. Learn the advantages of several methods of finding work including cold calling, employment agencies, temporary assignments, internships and volunteering.

Staying on Track In Your Work Search
At this point in your job search you may be experiencing stress and having difficulty staying motivated. This workshop covers a variety of stress management and time management techniques that can help you stay focused and on track.

Resume Preparation
This workshop covers the development and use of both chronological and functional resumes. Draft accomplishment statements using action verbs and emphasizing the results they produced.

Interviewing Strategies
Learn the three essential steps to interview preparation - know yourself, know the position, and know the company. Consider your responses to some typical interview questions and learn the STAR (Situation-Task-Action-Result) framework for describing your accomplishments to employers.

Interview Follow-up
Specific steps you should follow immediately after an interview, such as writing a thank you letter, and later, such as maintaining your networking and momentum. Strategies for turning a rejection into a positive and useful experience are also described.

Building and Managing a Successful Career
This concluding workshop reviews several methods for getting unstuck and staying on track while looking for work opportunities, and presents strategies, such as ongoing self-assessment, for building and managing a successful career. Draft one-year, ten-year and lifetime goals to help you build a vision for the future.