New Year Resolutions

New Year...New Year Resolutions

I don’t know about you, but the beginning of the new year always gives me hope. The opportunity to leave the old behind. To change direction. To move on to new beginnings.

Work, career, education are central to who we are and what we do with our lives. Perhaps one of your new beginnings involves your career.  A few guidelines to help you focus on career follow.

Discover who you are.  What are your top interests? Skills? Values?

• Research what jobs would be a match for you and who you are.
• Establish a plan of action to put yourself in a job suited to you. What can you put in place to help you get the job you want now and in the future? What organizations can you join? Where might you volunteer your time and talents? Who can you get to know? Who can you learn from?

Sound like big undertakings? They are! But, you’re not alone – call our office at 978-3435 and schedule an appointment with one of our Career Counselors today. We’re here to help.

Who are you?

I worked with a student last week, who at the end of a career exploration exercise said “Finding yourself is important business. If you don’t know yourself, you have nothing.” Such a simple statement, but isn’t it the absolute truth?!?

It may take some work to discover who we really are. Maybe “who” we are is not “who” we think we should be. Sometimes “who” we are gets lost in the middle of “who” someone else says we should be.

We owe it to ourselves to do the discovery. We need to know who we are so we can decide who we want to be and what career path we want to start on.

Career Services has exercises and assessments and time to talk. Schedule an appointment. It’s discovery time!   

Happy New Year

New year. New opportunities.

Maybe this is the year to get to know yourself better. We can help with that.  Our card sort might be just the place to start. These brightly colored cards are in the categories of:

Interests – what do you think about, talk with your friends about, read about?

Skills—what do you do well. . .and also enjoy?

Values—what motivates you to crawl out of bed in the morning to go to work? And, what makes you happy when you are at your job?

Traits—how do you describe yourself?

After spending an hour with one of our counselors – and the card sort—you will know your Holland Code which is a great resource in identifying majors and careers that are a match for your personality. You also walk away with a BIG (but, not too big) color coded chart to serve as a reminder of your Holland Code and themes to use in your career exploration.

Other students have said: “This was fun. It was kind of an eye opener.”  “I liked it.  It helped me figure out who I am. I think you get stuck in what you do—this helped me remember “oh, I do like that”.  “This was good. It gave me some self confidence.”

So. . .what are you waiting for? Call today and schedule an appointment with Career Services.

Hope to see you soon!

Career Exploration

Want to know yourself better in relationship to what career(s) might be best matched to your personality?

Come to Career Services! We offer assessments to help you. One of these is the Strong Interest Inventory. In 30 minutes you can complete this paper and pencil assessment and have it on its way to be scored. When your results come back you will sit down with a Career Counselor and learn your Holland Code, which is an excellent resource to research careers that would be matched to your personality. You also receive a list of the top 10 occupations you are most likely to find rewarding based on comparing your results with those of people with interests similar to yours who are satisfied in their careers.

Pretty good information for only $18 and half an hour. . .

Change

A great poem just came my way. It's too good not to share. Here it is --


An Autobiography in Five Chapters

1) I walk down the street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I fall in.

I am lost — I am hopeless.

It isn’t my fault.

It takes forever to find a way out.

2) I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I pretend I don’t see it.

I fall in again.

I can’t believe I’m in the same place.

But it isn’t my fault.

It still takes a long time to get out.

3) I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk

I see it is there.

I still fall in — it’s a habit.

My eyes are open.

I know where I am.

It is MY fault.

I get out immediately.

4) I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I walk around it.

5) I walk down a DIFFERENT street.


~Written By Portia Nelson

Who am I and what do I want to do with my life?

Trying to decide on a major and not making much progress? Really don’t know where to start? Well, do we have a deal for you?!?

Spend an hour with a counselor in Career Services and walk away with some great information to help you explore potential majors, careers, and jobs.

One of the resources we offer is a card sort. Color coded in bright colors, the Vista card sort helps you clarify your interests, skills, values, and traits. The result is helpful information in itself, but you also end up with your Holland Code –a great tool to help you identify majors and occupations matched to your personality.

Your fellow students tell us they find the card sort valuable. Comments include:

“I liked it. It helped me figure out who I am.”

“This was fun. It was kind of an eye opener. I have to interview next month for a promotion—I always struggle with ‘here are my skills’. Here is my answer right here.”

What are you waiting for? Call 978-3435 to schedule an appointment. Come play cards. . .

~jan

Happy New Year!

Does the New Year have you looking at your life and contemplating changes? Job changes? Or, even bigger, career changes? Although, with the present economy, now may not be the best time to be looking for a new job, it is a great time to be putting some things in place to help you get started in a new direction when the economy improves—or, if you’re lucky, even sooner.

Start now to explore jobs or careers of interest to you. Refer online to the federal government resources, Occupational Outlook Handbook and O*Net, to get a great overview of any job you could probably ever think of. Conduct informational interviews with people actually doing the kind of work you are interested in.

Look at the many skills you have – what ones would be transferrable to the job you are considering. If you need to bump up your skills, is there experience you could get that would be helpful? Start making connections with people working in your desired field. Make connections and get experience by doing volunteer work in the field you are contemplating. Is there training you could/should be taking that would help you break into the line of work? Lucky for you if you can take classes/get training, or reimbursement for training, through your current employer.

This exploration and research will take some time. I encourage you to do it anyway. You and your happiness are worth it!

Happy New Year! Have fun exploring --

~jan

For more information on topics mentioned in above paragraph, read previous blogs.
Informational interviews April, 2010
LinkedIn, April 2010
Volunteering, January, 2010

Informational Interviews

Getting ready to graduate and not quite sure what kind of job you are most interested in? Or,are you at that point in your college career that you can't put off declaring a major any longer? Or, do you really really love a particular subject area but aren't sure what kind of jobs you could get with a major in that field?

If any of these (or similar) situations apply to you, you may want to come in and talk to one of our counselors regarding informational interviews. An informational interview is a brief 15 to 20 minute meeting with someone working in a job you would like to know more about.

We can give you an overview of informational interviewing, plus sample questions. . .plus contact information for people who make themselves available for these informational meetings with WSU students. It's a great way to learn about potential career fields, meet interesting people, and make a contact.

Call, email or come by today to schedule a meeting to learn more.
203 Grace Wilkie, career.services@wichita.edu, or 978-3435

~jan