Career Planning: Where am I, and how do I move forward?

Many people think they have to know what questions to ask in order to seek career coaching. Au contraire. The career coaching process itself not only uncovers the “answers” but also the questions you may be seeking. Through my experience, I have found that people generally identify with one or more phase of “The Career Planning Process”:

1. Self-Assessment
2. Career Exploration
3. Decision-Making
4. Self-Marketing/Action

Read below to gain a glimpse of each phase and steps we might take to help us move forward.

Phase One: Self-Assessment

You may be in Self-Assessment if you are asking the questions:

• Who am I?
• What are my interests, skills, and work values?

How do we move forward?

• Career Intake: I developed a Career Intake to use during the initial career coaching session. For me, it’s the most instrumental part of the coaching process because it allows me to gain a clearer sense of who you are (i.e., educational background, experiences, etc.). Clients really enjoy going through the intake for two reasons: 1) It allows them to reflect on and articulate their experiences. 2) It provides a very personalized approach to career coaching.

In addition, I use a number of self-assessment tools, including the following:

• Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator®: Identifies your personality preferences. Helps you learn how to maximize your strengths in the workplace and during your job search.
  

• Strong Interest Inventory®: Identifies your career interests and compatible occupations.
  

• There are also a number of free online assessments—Check out the University of Waterloo’s Career Development eManuel.

Phase Two: Career Exploration

You may be in Career Exploration if you are asking the questions:

• What are my career options?
• What do these options entail?

How do we move forward?

As mentioned above, self-assessment instruments like the Strong Interest Inventory® can help identify compatible occupations. There are also exercises to help you clarify the type of work you want to do and the work setting in which you want to do it.

Once you have identified the options you want to explore, there are many approaches to researching them. You can use online informational resources like the Occupational Outlook Handbook and O*NET, and you can conduct Informational Interviews with people who are in the job or industry you are exploring.

Phase Three: Decision-Making

You may be in Decision-Making if you are asking the questions:

• How do I prioritize my career options?
• How do I decide which career option is the best one for me?

How do we move forward?

There are many reasons people become stuck in Decision-Making. In fact, I recently wrote a blog entry called “Decisions, Decisions” that addresses this very topic. As a Career Coach, I first work with clients to identify the source of the issue: i.e., a conflict in values, a lack of information, fear of making the wrong decision, pressure from others, etc. Depending on what the issue is, we would talk discuss what it is you need to move forward, whether it’s filling in missing information gaps or clarifying your decision-making criteria. The Florida State University Career Center also has a great guide to assist you with decision-making.

Phase Four: Self-Marketing

You may be in Self-Marketing/Action if you are asking the questions:

• How do I write a Resume/CV and cover letter?
• What are effective interviewing techniques?
• How do I adopt a networking approach that fits me?
• What are successful job/internship search strategies?
• How do I select and apply to graduate school?

How do we move forward?

The UC Irvine Career Center has great Quick Tips to assist you with all of the above. For those who would like more personal assistance, you can also gain coaching on customizing your Resume/CV and cover letter to each job and practicing sample interview questions.

Keep in mind: You may be in more than one phase of “The Career Planning Process” at a time. That’s not a cause for panic. It just means you are working on multiple areas simultaneously. And if you know what those areas are, you will know what you need to move forward. Also note that “The Career Planning Process” itself is cyclical, and we go through it several times throughout our lives. Why? Our career, just as our life, is ever-evolving. Our interests and skills evolve, our values become re-prioritized, and our life circumstances change, which ultimately cause us to re-evaluate and re-direct. Thus, the cycle continues!