How to Plan a Career 11: Within Your Current Company

This continues our series about how to plan a career that will bring happiness & satisfaction

Understanding your favorite skills, your occupational values, your interests, and job titles can help plan a new career, change careers, or plan a career within your current company. You may need additional education or training to improve your status within the company. If so, get it.

To enhance your satisfaction, you still want to compare internal opportunities to your employer description. If not, you may end up somewhere in the company that will leave you unhappy or unsatisfied..

Keep Control of Your Career

Most people dislike their job and would like to make a change. Frequently, they relinquished control of their career to the company. They accept promotions without thought. Sometimes, they stay in the same position waiting for something to happen, rather than making it happen.

So keep control of your career even within the same company. Follow the steps outlined below:

1. Ensure you know what you want as you outlined in your employer description
2. Identify the options within the company for your next change and the one after
3. Build relationships and connections within the company

Identify the Options Within the Company

Consider the following options as you plan a career within your company:

• Upward promotion if such possibilities exist in the organization
• Additional responsibilities within your current position tend to impress management
• Project teams offer opportunities for growth, challenge, and fulfillment
• Lateral transfers provide change and new adventures within the company
• Special assignments present possibilities to build your reputation and visibility
• Skunk works give research oriented or creative people abilities to grow
• Mentoring new employees or new team members adds stature and competence
• Support functions such as sales, marketing, IT, or human resources may suit you

Build Relationships and Connections Within the Company

Identify the project managers, team leaders, and operations managers over the opportunities that interest you. Find ways to show them your ability and impress them you can do the job they want done.

Join me on Friday when we explore building corporate relationships within the company

How to Plan a Career 10: Write Employer Descriptions

This continues our series on how to plan a career that will bring you happiness & satisfaction

That is to write an employer description. An employer description, in reverse of a job description, explains what you want from an employer. Stephen Covey describes this as “begin with the end in mind”. It becomes the template that you compare to all offers. I alluded to it in step 7 when I recommended you prepare a one page description of what you want. I will expand on the idea today.

List the duties you love to perform

• Allocate what percentage of your time you want to spend on each duty you listed.
• That will enhance the chance that you will spend time doing what you love
• It also decreases the possibility that you spend a lot of time doing duties you detest.

Describe the environment you desire in terms of

• Values: that your Occupational Values Test indicated you always value
• Skills: that you will use most frequently to skills you will use least frequently
• Facility: office building, production plant, storefront, outdoors
• Workstation: an office, cubicle, counter, work bay, machine space, assembly space
• Work team: aloof, collaborative, individual oriented, team oriented, no team
• After hour norms: drink, play sports, travel, or do nothing together
• Pressure: high pressure to succeed, calm—no pressure, cooperative success attitude
• Company size: big company environment; big company but small environment, small-business, owner operated, manager operated, government, or self-employed

Define what your want for compensation:

• List a salary range from the minimum salary you will accept to the salary you want
• performance or annual bonuses and frequency of raises
• health benefits, life insurance, 401K or retirement package,
• professional membership dues, subscriptions, and expectation to attend meetings
• training conferences, seminars, materials and other
• car or expense reimbursements
• memberships to country club, health spa, or other
• Work schedule: 8-5 M-F no exceptions, evenings, weekends, flexible, rotating, etc.

Prioritize which of those things are

• Required: You must have these things in your career. If not you will be unhappy
• Highly desirable: You really want this, but will consider dropping it for the right tradeoff
• Preferred: You would like most of these in your career, but will settle for less than all
• Include no designation: You want, but would not regret it if you did not get them

Review what you wrote with family, friends, former colleagues or others working in your field to compare your expectations with their reality. Compare your current and future jobs to your employer description.

Join me on Wednesday to learn more about how to plan a career with your current employer

How to Plan a Career 9: More Training or Education

This continues our series on how to plan a career that enhance satisfaction & earnings

My last post encouraged you to recognize and use the skills, training, and experience you already possess to start your career. You do not have to postpose entering your chosen occupation while getting more training. You can begin in a lower position in the industry using your current skills. Many times the company will add on-the-job training to enhance your ability to perform.

You May Need Additional Training or Education
Nevertheless, your research may surface additional training, education, degrees, licenses, or certifications required to fully enter the career. You can:

• Earn a certificate in just a few months for many occupations.
• You can earn it from a trade school, community college, or from the company that makes the product (Microsoft, PeopleSoft, etc.)
  
• A certificate may allow you to begin working in the field of choice while you get additional education: dental assisting for dentists, drafting for engineers or architects, paralegal for lawyers, medical assistant for doctors, etc.
• Earn an undergraduate or graduate degree if your occupation requires it.
• Bachelor’s degrees now carry the weight that high school diplomas carried in the 1960s & 70s.
• Graduate degrees equal a bachelor’s from the same time.
• Many doctoral programs admit students without requiring a masters
• Many people with undergraduate and graduate degrees work in jobs requiring a high school diploma
• Apprenticeship programs provide great training—with pay—for more than 860 occupations.
• Apprenticeships combine on-the-job with classroom training.
• Ensure that Office of Apprenticeship certifies your apprenticeship
• If you do, your certificate and credential will transfer nationwide.
• Research potential schools or training programs to ensure that
• Employers accept the education or  training provided by that school
  
• Tuition is not exorbitant ($48,000 for a program you can get for $1,200)
  
• Credits and degrees from that school will transfer to other schools

LDS Employment Resource Services offers a good article on Finding the Best School. I suggest you study it.
Read the post on Monday to learn more about planning your career within the same company

How to Plan a Career 8: Use Skills & Training You Possess

This continues my series on how to plan a career that will bring you satisfaction & earnings

Once you decide what occupation you will pursue, you begin preparing to move into the occupation. Hopefully, you reviewed both the Occupational Outlook Handbook and O*NET as part of your decision making process. In addition, I hope you talked to several people working in the occupation that interests you. Then, you studied what you learned and selected a career that will bring the most satisfaction while providing adequately for you and your family.

You Already Bring Some Expertise

You already bring the passion, skills, and expertise to the career if you followed our model.

• You began your research by analyzing what you love to do
• The Motivated Skills Test gave you a list of skill you delight and enjoy using
• You identified skills in which you are highly proficient and competent
• You probably found a way to do the skills that you enjoy doing
• Therefore, you already received both training and experience in some skills

.Getting a 2nd Bachelor’s Degree

You may already posses a college degree. You may have chosen an occupation that typically specifies a different degree than you received. You may think you need to go back to college and get a second bachelor’s degree.

Getting a second bachelor’s degree generally wastes your time and money. There are only four occupations that require a specific Bachelor’s degree to work in that occupation: accounting, engineering, nursing, and information technology. Most companies will accept a specific degree or one “in a related field”.

Instead, invest in a master’s degree or certificate. Graduate degrees carry more legitimacy than two undergraduate degrees. Frequently, a master’s degree will take less time than a second bachelor’s. You can also complete a certificate program in a few weeks or months. They can enhance your degree at a fraction of the cost.

Recognizing the skills, experience, and training you already possess can get you started in your chose occupation. They can get you started.

Join me Friday when we discuss getting more education or training for your future career

How to Plan a Career 7: Putting it All Together

This continues our series on planning a career that bring satisfaction & happiness

Planning a career requires work. The longer you will work, the more time you should invest in planning a career that will provide adequate income, satisfactory responsibilities, and enjoyable experiences. First, you began the process by identifying the values, skills, and interests that are most important to you. Second, you researched occupations through the Occupational Outlook Handbook and O*NET. Now, we’ll put it all together to help you choose what you want to do.

Prepare a Description of What You Want from Your Career

Compile onto one page the information you gathered from the inventories and exercises you completed. List the following:

1. Values that appeared in the Always Valued column on the Occupational Values Test
2. Skills found in the Thoroughly Delight Using and Like Using rows of the Motivated Skills Test
3. The top three of Holland’s personality traits that apply to you
4. The nature of the work, environment, and location that you want in your career
5. The salary you want to make now and in five years
6. The values and skills listed in the Never Value and Strongly Dislike Using rows of the Occupational Values and Motivated Skills tests

Compare Occupations to Your Description

You may research potential occupations using the tools we described in previous posts. Compare your description to the information you find from the following sources:

1. Occupational Outlook Handbook especially the additional information section
2. O*NET Online especially the graphs showing the importance of each element
3. Interviews with people working in the occupations you found most interesting
4. Gaining work experience in the occupation that interest you most

Your research will help you better understand if certain occupations will satisfy your vocational passion. Thorough study will minimize dissatisfaction and potential earnings. Your research just begins your planning. You will need to prepare with training and education once you understand and select the career that is right for you.

Join me Wednesday for my series on how to gain the skills and education for your career

How to Plan a Career 6: Interview People

This continues our series on how to plan a career you will enjoy and earn a satisfactory wage

Knowing your values, skills, interests, and what you want from a career guides your choice. The Holland Personality Codes, Occupational Outlook Handbook, and O*NET describe occupations in detail. They also refer you to professional and trade associations for additional information. While all these sources provide you with good information, people working in the occupation remain the best source of information.

What Information You Should Gather

Prepare questions that will gather useful information. You can adapt your questions from these:

• What do you enjoy the most about your job? What frustrates you the most?
• What tasks do you spend most of your day performing? Describe a typical day?
• How much do you get to do (one of your motivated skills) a day? Week? Month?
• How much does your job allow/prevent you to (one of your always valued)?
• What do you see the future holding for this occupation? Is it growing or shrinking?
• What advice would you give someone thinking of entering this work?

Who Should You Interview

People doing the work you want to explore are the best source of information. You can also gain valuable information talking to the others who work closely with your desired occupation.

You can find people in professional associations, company web sites, articles about the industry or companies. Your family, friends, associates may know someone working in the occupation or industry. They can refer you to people if you ask

• “Who do you know working as a (desired occupation)? or at (a company)?
• “Who do you know that could give me information about (desired occupation)?”
• “I want to learn more about (desired occupation) who do you suggest I talk to?”

Do not expect a lot of time with the people you interview. You make better progress making 3-4 3-minute phone calls coupled with 4-5 two question emails, than one 30 minute interview. People do not have 30 minutes to give you in one stop.

Come back on Monday when we put it all together on how to decide what you want to do

How to Plan a Career 5: O*NET Career Exploration Tools

This continues our series on how to plan a career that enhances your satisfaction & income
In previous posts we explored the benefits of identifying your interests, vocational passions, and occupational values. We discussed John Holland’s six personality traits: realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, and conventional. We shared what you could find in the Occupational Outlook Handbook.
Multiple Career Exploration Tools in the O*NET Group
The following comes from www.Onetcenter.org

“The O*NET^TM team has designed a set of self-directed career exploration/assessment tools to help workers consider and plan career options, preparation, and transitions more effectively. They also are designed for use by students who are exploring the school-to-work transition. The assessment instruments, which are based on a "whole-person" concept, include:

O*NET Ability Profiler

O*NET Interest Profiler

O*NET Computerized Interest Profiler

O*NET Interest Profiler Short Form

O*NET Work Importance Locator

O*NET Work Importance Profiler”

O*NET Occupation Search Tools

From the web site www.Onetonline.org you find “O*NET OnLine has detailed descriptions of the world of work for use by job seekers, workforce development and HR professionals, students, researchers, and more!” You may

• Find Occupations: Browse groups of similar occupations to explore careers. Choose from industry, field of work, science area, and more
• Advanced Search: Focus on occupations that use a specific tool or software. Explore occupations that need your skills
• Crosswalks: Connect to a wealth of O*NET data. Enter a code or title from another classification to find the related O*NET-SOC occupation

The summary provides a lot of information: tasks performed,  tools and technology used, knowledge required, skills, abilities, work activities and context, education level required, interests, work styles and values. It also describes related occupations, wages and employment trends, and  sources of information.

The details section shows graphs illustrating the relative importance of the tasks, knowledge, skills, abilities work activity, work context, interests, work styles, and work values.

You may use the graphs to compare the data about the occupation with the information you found in your Occupational Values Test and the Motivated Skills Test.

Join me Friday to learn more about comparing what you find about yourself with occupations