Career Center

It has become the practice for high schools in United States to observe Career Days for senior students for many decades now. On this day high school students are introduced to various careers open to them by local business professionals in the school. However, these days are proving insufficient to enable the students of high school to plan their future. That is why most middle-aged adults and youngsters seek the personal guidance of coaches in career development.

Personal coaches in the field of career development offer a very essential service to people who are late planners of their careers. A lot remains to be done to help the youngsters in career development. When the best career options are enumerated for students of high schools, it helps them develop a better understanding of the careers they would prefer, resulting in more efficient planning and more enrollments in colleges leading to a more productive future society.

For many high schools, the practice of a Career Day has taken the form of a whole Career Week to tackle these issues. A couple of days in this week are utilized to introduce the seniors to various career pathways by seasoned community professionals. The assessments resembling those by personal coaches in career development are taken up during the remaining week.

These assessments help the students of high school to become aware of their strengths and weaknesses and also to explore where their values and interests lie. These assessments are then fed to a computer system. The system generates a report outlining the best career options for that particular student. The students then go through further training via Handbook of the Occupational Outlook.

The Handbook of Occupational Outlook is a top rated career development tool for personal career development in the arsenal of high school. The Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics of the United States has put this publication in electronic form as well as in the book form. This enables the students to access valuable information about details of career, industry outlooks and job prospects for the future, the education required and average salaries.

When these assessments of career development of high school students are over, they undergo interviews with either the counselor of the high school or the coach of career development. These students are led through the interviews to explore fully the career options, have discussions with the coaches and reach decisions about the field in which they want to make their careers. Then several resources are provided to the student of the high school to give him a start on his career development path.

Another aspect of activities of career development is that the counselors or the coaches of personal career development visit the senior classrooms and take important sessions on goal setting and its importance in career development. These students get resources to set their goals practically and begin to pen down their plan for personal career development.

Although personal career development concept and its importance is not new for students of high schools, plans for personal career development education are being put into place by schools only now. These initiatives will prepare more and more students of high schools to begin careers or education as soon as they finish high school, thereby leading to a more productive future society.

Filed under: Self Improvement | No Comments »

Most companies send representatives to attend college recruiting fairs in order to offer talented students college jobs. These companies are working on the assumption that students who take up internships in their companies are much more likely to take up the offer of a job from them should the company decide that a particular student would make a valuable employee once they graduate.

Companies understand that, in the highly competitive markets of today, the most important asset that a company can have is its employees. Machinery and equipment can be replaced, but it is the ideas and creativity of employees that determine whether a company sinks or swims when times take a turn for the worse.

For students, college jobs in the form of internships are excellent opportunities for them to learn exactly what it takes to succeed in the working world and to have something impressive to add to their resumes. Students who have gone through internships are more in demand by companies because they have proven that they have the initiative and willpower to work while other students are having fun on their holidays. Also, companies only give the brightest and most talented students the opportunity to work as interns, so this is another point in the students’ favor.

Employers also appreciate the fact that students who take on college jobs are able to juggle their schoolwork, leisure time, and proper work simultaneously. Of course, you will also have to do well at your schoolwork in order to impress a potential employer, but you should have solid grades before you even consider taking up an internship anyway.

Companies that attend college recruiting fairs to offer students college jobs are also offering students an excellent form of leverage which they can use to obtain jobs in the future or even to apply for admission to other colleges for post-graduate studies. Many post-graduate programs require that applicants have work experience, and the experience gained from working college jobs certainly counts as such.

You should therefore not waste the opportunity that college recruiting fairs provides you with, and you should do your best to attract the attention of the company representatives at these college recruiting drives. There are also certain things that you can do in order to maximize your chances of being hired for college jobs.

The first is to present yourself well. You should dress appropriately and smartly, because as they say, people judge you based on their first impressions of you. You also need to be as knowledgeable as possible about the companies that are attending your college recruiting fair. This entails finding out which companies are going to be represented at the fair and doing research about their activities and their industries.

By arming yourself with such knowledge, you greatly increase the chances that you will be able to have a meaningful conversation with a recruiter, who will probably be impressed that you know as much as you do about their company and what it does. Companies appreciate such demonstrations of interest in what they are doing, and you will stand a better chance of securing college jobs than if you were to traipse into the college recruiting fair without having done any preparations at all.

Filed under: Business | Comments Off

Nearly everyone wants to do their own thing their own way and this includes having a career. If you’ve never thought about what your needs are in relation to your career, then perhaps it’s time to start. Just having a career is enough for some people, but if you are feeling dissatisfied with your career, maybe its because your career has you! To successfully own your career and make it go in the way you want it to, you must develop a plan that’s right for you and then put it into practice. By thinking of yourself as a product that must be competitively marketed, you can get your career on the path you want it to take. They may not always be amenable to advice on the best way to do things. Perhaps they stick to the principle that there are two right ways to do a thing, someone else’s and their own.

To have a good career your own way may mean that you must initiate your own principles. Identifying your strengths and weaknesses could be the first step on a fulfilling and interesting career journey. With a little more thought and introspection you will be able to set your own goals and realize what you need in the way of training and skills to achieve the kind of career you’ve always wanted.

This career may not be different to the one you have already, but it may be stuck in a rut with no clear way out. But once you identify your goals, you’ll be able to develop the strategic plans you need to attain them. Your career is really all about you. It’s not about the training you did to get there or even about the company who employed you. It’s not about your boss or your friends or your family. You are the one doing this job and you must own it. If your career is not the way you want it to be, then you are the one who must do something about it.

Your whole life is about who you are and what your needs are. Your career should be an outcome of your own needs. For instance if you are the kind of person who to feel good needs to help other people, then your career should be in doing just that. You could be a nurse, doctor, teacher or advisor of some kind. All these careers are based in helping people.

If you’ve never thought about what your needs are in relation to your career, then perhaps it’s time to start. Just having a career is enough for some people, but if you are feeling dissatisfied with your career, maybe its because your career has you! To successfully own your career and make it go in the way you want it to, you must develop a plan that’s right for you and then put it into practice. By thinking of yourself as a product that must be competitively marketed, you can get your career on the path you want it to take.

Filed under: Entrepreneurship | No Comments »