Why Is It Important to Have a Career Development Plan?

There are few things as important as having a career development plan when it comes to excelling in life and accelerating in your chosen field.  It is vital that you have a clear sense of the direction you would like to head with your career. Career planning is a critical step and is essential to your success not something you want to skip over.

The purpose of a career development plan is to help you reach your goals.  Everyone has aspirations in life and specific levels they would like to reach. Part of the planning process actually entails you developing specific career goals and mapping out a course on how to best reach them.

To do that, you must determine what is important to you. You may or may not have an idea of what you are looking for in terms of a career – a career coach will ask powerful questions that enable you to determine exactly what you are looking for in your career. Starting out with comprehensive career assessment tools will allow you to uncover your key strengths and determine how those best relate to building a successful career. Once you have your strengths mapped out, you can determine next steps. And, next steps begin with goals.

When setting goals, it is critical that you consider all aspects. Which do you have, a job or a career? What is it about your job that you absolutely cannot stand? If you have a career, what is it that you absolutely love about it? Knowing this is just part of the puzzle – there is much more to uncover and many decisions to make to ensure you find balance, passion, and purpose as well as continued growth. 

Part of identifying your career paths includes defining your purpose and passions. Why? Because everyone dreams of getting into a career field they enjoy and have fun with, but most people wander off course. They select a different career aspiration simply because they react rather than plan. They apply for an opening and take a job even though they know it is not the right fit. By having a plan and clear ideas about what it is you really want, you will avoid the pitfalls of career mismatch. You will identify find the right field to get into based on your interests, strengths, and personal passions.

So you see the importance of getting career guidance advice and creation of a career development plan. It is geared toward you and what you’re made of – you

deserve to find the proper balance between your personal life and career.  It can be easy to get caught up in work mode and constantly have the job on your mind. However, this can lead to a troubling lifestyle if you do not intertwine passion, purpose, and personal fulfillment into your career. 

By setting goals, understanding how you will reach them, finding something you love, and finding a balance between work and play will allow you to reach a level of happiness people only dream about. Manage your career – set your course for success with a career development plan. Dreams do come true.

Twenty-First Century Workplace TrendsJoseph H. BoyettBoyett and Associatesjboyett@mindspring.com

David Pearce SnyderPrincipalSnyder Family Enterprisessnyderfam1@aol.com

For some time now, the simple extrapolation of a number of underlying socioeconomic trends has portended an increasingly unattractive future for America. From 1973 to 1995, for example, average U.S. wages fell 15 percent and family income stagnated, even while the number of two-income households doubled. Crime and divorce rates soared, as did personal bankruptcies, and perhaps most ominously, as U.S. News & World Report (Boroughs, 1996) notes, the gap between the average incomes of the lowest-paid Americans and the best-paid widened sharply, with the ratio between the average CEO's salary and the average worker’s wages exploding in the 500 percent range!

        The future implicit in these trends—one in which U.S. society is dominated by a high-paid technocratic elite while the rest of us (75 percent to 85 percent) are employed in low-value-adding service work—has become a widely held expectation in American public opinion. By comparison, declining numbers of Americans indicate that they believe in the postindustrial future long promised by academics and corporate visionaries, in which high-tech tools, products, and services engender entirely new forms of enterprise, leading to ever-higher levels of general prosperity for all. For nearly a quarter-century, successive waves of computerization, downsizing, and deregulation

Executive Compensation

For the years 1973 through 1975, the ration between the average income of the CEOs of ten Fortune 30 companies and the income of the average U.S. worker was 41:1. For the years 1993 through 1994, the ratio for the same ten companies' average CEO salaries to the average U.S. workder had risen to 225:1 (a 450 percent increase).

Source: The Crystal Report, published by Graef Crystal, an executive compensation expert, in Boroughs (1996).

failed to improve either our productivity or our prosperity, while the numbers of high-value-adding jobs in the United States—including those requiring four-year baccalaureate degrees—declined as a share of all U.S. jobs. By the late 1980s, the annual output of new college graduates was clearly exceeding workplace demand, and the notion that the average person would be better off in a high-tech future simply became less and less believable in the face of most people's experience ... until now!

The Light at the End of the Twentieth CenturyOne by one, over the past three years, essentially all the statistical indicators of our twenty-year socioeconomic degradation have begun to reverse themselves. Average wages and benefits—as well as average household income—are now rising for all income groups and ethnicities. What's more, rising productivity improvement rates mean that—so far—the increased labor costs have not proven inflationary. Simultaneously, welfare rolls have shrunk by about one-third, crime rates have dropped by one-fourth, and divorce rates, teen pregnancy, and most recently, juvenile drug use are all declining! For the nation's colleges and universities, the bounty of the new prosperity is reflected by the fact that recruiters are back on campus.        All this good news has not been lost on public opinion, which began to reflect a rising optimism in 1996. Indeed, at this moment, it would be comfortable and convenient to assume that,

after a decade or two of getting "lean and mean," American enterprise is finally back on track to a high-tech future in which essentially all high-value jobs will require some form of postsecondary education.        But U.S. enterprise has not merely been getting leaner and meaner during the past twenty years, it's also been getting keener. Specifically, it's been adopting new structures and practices to

take advantage of the unique value-adding capabilities of our rapidly maturing info-com technologies. And as our private and public sector employers have increasingly undertaken productive new organizational arrangements, several workplace trends have emerged in the United States that are already having a profound impact on American workers and on educational institutions seeking to prepare workers for the new workplace. These trends have, in fact, long been forecast by the major futurists, notably Daniel Bell in The Coming of Post-Industrial Society (1973), Alvin Toffler in The Third Wave (1980), and John Naisbitt in MegaTrends (1982). The fact that these long-range forecasts are rapidly becoming universal realities is a measure of how far into the future we have come in the past twenty-five years.

American enterprise is finally back on track to a high-tech future in which essentially all high-value jobs will require some form of postsecondary education.

Trend #1: The Growing Contingent WorkforceThe social contract that promised job security in exchange for employee loyalty has been broken. American companies continue to downsize, restructure, and lay off thousands of workers. Work that is not considered to be part of the "core competency" of the corporation is being outsourced or performed by temporary, part-time, or contract workers. Today, there are twenty-eight million temporary workers in the United States, representing over 20 percent of the workforce—up more than 400 percent since 1980, when temps represented only 4.5 percent of all workers (five million people). The upside to this initially dismal trend is that, as the marketplace regularizes the use of contingent workers throughout all levels of employment from the rank and file through professional and managerial jobs to the executive suite, the pay and benefits of temporary workers have rapidly begun to catch up to those of full-time wage earners over the past thirty-six months.        If this trend continues, many Americans—by some estimates as much as half of the workforce—will be contingent workers who will be employed in part-time, temporary, contract, or other nontraditional employment within ten years. Many of these highly skilled workers will be self-employed solo professionals. Meanwhile, the other half of the workforce will be employed in full-time permanent jobs where they will be expected to behave as continuously adaptive, self-developing team players in exchange for the benefits of career employment.

Trend #2: Flexplace WorkThe number of employees who are telecommuting or working at nontraditional work sites such as satellite offices has been growing at the rate of 20 percent or more per year throughout most of this decade. Thanks to new technology and the changing nature of work itself, fully 60 percent of the workforce today perform jobs for which physical location is no longer critical. Already, one-third of American households have at least one person performing compensated work at home for at least one day per week. The geographic same-time-same-place workplace is being replaced by dispersed, anytime-anywhere workspace networks. Within a few years, the phrase "going to work" will become meaningless for most Americans. Work, for them, will be what they do, not the place they go to.

Trend #3: Upskilling of Jobs and WorkersPractically all jobs are being "upskilled." The technical workforce is growing in size and importance. Today, there are some 20 million technical workers in the United States and

Info-com

Info-com is derived from a simple contraction of the words INFOrmation and COMmunication, and is used here as many people use "information," as in information revolution or information technology. The productive power of electronic information systems does not rest solely on the computer's capacity to assimilate large amounts of data in a moment; it also rests on our newly gained ability to gather data and information from anywhere and distribute it to anywhere instantaneously.

one in four newly created jobs is technical. Workers with strong technical skills—lab technicians, computer professionals, drafters, paralegals, medical technicians, designers, engineers, and so on—are becoming the front-line workers of most organizations. Even jobs that have not traditionally been considered technical positions, such as the job of a courier, now have a strong technical component and require the use of computers and other sophisticated electronic devices. At the same time, the semiskilled and unskilled jobs that employed masses of illiterate or semiliterate workers in the past are disappearing at a rapid pace.

Trend #4: Self-Managed TeamsFinally, we are seeing rapid growth in the use of cross-functional, multidisciplinary teams with globally and ethnically diverse memberships. Already, one-third of American companies with fifty or more employees have half or more of their employees working in self-managed or problem-solving teams. Many of these teams have no traditional boss or supervisor. Instead, team members take on responsibility for planning, organizing, staffing, scheduling, directing, monitoring, and controlling their own work.

Perhaps more important, these teams are increasingly linked via the Internet or other global networks, with instantaneous and unrestricted flows of information within and between teams and team members and among outside suppliers and customers. Charles Manz and Henry Sims (1993), authors of Business Without Bosses, have estimated that 40 percent to 50 percent of the entire U.S. workforce will work in some type of empowered, self-managed team by the year 2000 (p. 12).

ImplicationsTaken together, these four trends represent forces of truly transformational change in the workplace, destined to dramatically alter the day-to-day content of most jobs, as well as the traditional patterns of lifetime employment. These imminent changes, in turn, pose powerful implications for every individual who enters the workplace, and for the institutional processes—from kindergarten to the college campus—by which our society prepares people for that workplace.

Implications for Individuals. To succeed in the new workplace, workers will have to have the skills and abilities to add value quickly. The new workplace will reward those "specialized generalists" who have a solid basic education plus deep professional or technical skills in demand across a range of companies and even industries. A solid basic education, as in the SCANS competencies (The Secretary’s Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills, 1993), will no longer be enough. Everyone will have to be able to do something that adds value now—or be able to learn such value-adding skills quickly—to be considered for employment in all but the most marginal twenty-first-century jobs. (An HR executive with a Fortune 30 firm recently described liberal arts graduates as "literate, unskilled recruits.")

Fully 60 percent of the workforce today perform jobs for which physical location is no longer critical.

        While large employers (such as GM, Lockheed Martin, or the armed services) will continue to provide their employees with career counseling and retirement planning, most Americans will be responsible for managing their own careers from now on. As Charles Handy has written, we will all need an agent—much as writers, actors, and sports figures have agents today. Temporary staffing services, career counselors, and employment agencies in particular will rapidly redefine their missions and marketing strategies to stress their role as agents in an emerging human resources industry.        Since most Americans will not have full-time permanent jobs—and even those who do will have no real job security—most workers will be financially insecure. Americans will be forced to build and maintain liquid savings equivalent to a year or more of income as a shield against periods of unemployment or underemployment. Today's concept of retirement will all but disappear, since most Americans will have to work through their sixties, just as we did fifty years ago.        Meanwhile, the barrier that since the rise of industrialization has separated work and the rest of life will be shattered. Work will intrude into every aspect of life, and life will intrude on work. As a result, housing will change dramatically. Homes will be wired for commerce as well as for recreation. Houses and apartments will become both homes and work sites.        Essentially all employees will be expected to demonstrate strong team skills and to have the ability to function effectively in a new team from the start. Employers will no longer accept or tolerate six to twelve months of "team building." Like a second- or third-string tail back, everyone from the rank and file to the senior staff will be expected to come off the bench on short notice and help the team gain yardage right away.        As we move increasingly to self-managed teams, everyone will be expected to contribute to the team by performing one or more of the following leadership roles:

Envisioning: facilitating idea generation and innovation in the team and helping the team members think conceptually and creatively Organizing: helping the team focus on details,

Re: "Sociolyzing"

While facilitating conveys much of what is intended here, the word suffers from the same shortcoming that socializing does; the colloquial understanding of both terms crucially misapprehends what is involved--that is, purposeful but transparent intervention in a small group's dynamics by one or more members of that group in such a way as to both facilitate and shape consensus.        The retention of the "y" to indicate a conjunction between social and analyze describes a process developed over years of practice and field application and reported in the literature on "competent organizations." Elements of sociolyzing are crucial to the success of all types of un-led small groups, including teams, civic and community organizations, and neighborhood projects, that must function in an open, unstructured, egalitarian setting. The practice is also reflected in successful online forums and symposia that involve subtly interventionist "moderators," editors," or "fair witnesses" who help naturally diverse participants discover consensus.        In the delayered, authoritative, collegial, and collaborative social technologies that are now supplanting our old hierarchical, compartmentalized, authoritarian, industrial bureaucracies, the principles and practices of sociolyzation will replace the coerced social engineering of Taylorism.

deadlines, efficiency, and structure so the team gets its work doneSpanning: maintaining relationships with outside groups and people, networking, presentation management, intelligence gathering, developing and maintaining a strong team image, and locating and securing critical team resources "Sociolyzing": uncovering the needs and concerns of individuals in the group, ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to present his or her views, injecting humor when it is needed to relieve tensions, taking care of the social and psychological needs of group members

Since most teams will be cross-functional and many will be international, everyone will require strong language skills (fluency in at least one language other than English) and the ability to appreciate individual differences and to work effectively with people from diverse cultures.

Implications for Organizations. Every business—indeed every organization, whether public or private, profit or nonprofit—will be forced to clarify its core competencies and reason for existence. Those organizations, including educational institutions from K–12 to grad schools, that fail to identify and nurture what are truly their value-adding core activities risk keeping the wrong things inside the organization while outsourcing those things that make them unique and vital. By doing so, they will condemn themselves to becoming hollow, unnecessary, untenable shells.

        Traditional methods of management and motivation, such as employee-of-the-month awards and the promise of a future promotion, will be much less effective than they were just a few years ago. Highly skilled contingent workers, in particular, will be more loyal to their disciplines than to their employer of the moment. Threats of job loss will have little meaning to these workers, since they expect no job security. Instead, these new workers will demand respect, interesting and challenging work, the chance to develop their skills further, freedom and resources to use their talents and knowledge to do the work they were hired to do and enjoy

doing, and an equitable share in the financial rewards that flow from their contribution.        As work is increasingly performed away from the traditional work site, managers and supervisors will have to learn to manage without depending so much on "face time" as a criterion of contribution. Performance goals will become more explicit, and measurement will become more sophisticated and objective. Results will count more than activities.        A key role of leaders of the new organization will be to create a shared vision that both permanent and contingent employees can grasp and commit to. We are building organizations that are, in reality, enterprise constellations.

Since most teams will be cross-functional and many will be international, everyone will require strong language skills (fluency in at least one language other than English) and the ability to appreciate individual differences and to work effectively with people from diverse cultures.

The gravity that holds the constellation of teams together and keeps them from spinning out of control or colliding with each other will be the shared and unifying vision of who we are. Without such a unifying vision and specific team goals and mission statements that link teams to the overriding vision, there is perpetual conflict, competition for resources, and misdirected energy.        Organizations will succeed or fail based on the ability of their leadership to assemble teams with the right mix of talent quickly. Just one missing technical or leadership skill can doom a team and the organization that depends on its success to failure.

Implications for Educational Organizations. As continuous lifelong learning becomes the norm, educational institutions will be swamped with demand. The new students—especially adults in midcareer transition—will expect value, quality, speed of delivery, and effectiveness in addition to availability and convenience. Education will be a critical personal investment for which the consumer will demand an exceptionally high return. The sheer scale, intensity, and diversity of demand for adult and continuing education, plus the schooling of the Baby Boom Echo, will simply overwhelm our traditional instructional systems and methods, requiring technology to play an increasingly important role in the delivery of education. As schools assimilate new technology, the delivery of education at all levels will become less labor intensive and more capital intensive. The majority of education resources will no longer be devoted to salaries, but instead to software, computers, multimedia equipment, and so on.        Info-com technology will, among other things, free educational institutions from their current geographical boundaries. Fifty percent or more of students at most postsecondary educational institutions (particularly colleges and universities) will never set foot on the campus. Students will participate in seminars with instructors and fellow students who are scattered across the continent, and take tutorials from scholars on the far side of the planet. Already some six hundred college-level courses are being offered via the Internet and new courses are being added every day. Within a few years, tens of thousands of such courses will be available to anyone with access to the Internet.        The trend toward hiring part-time and temporary faculty will continue and accelerate, mirroring developments in government and industry. Fully 38 percent of faculty members work part time today; half will be part-timers within five years or less.        And not only will info-com free educational institutions from their geographical boundaries, it will also free educators from educational institutions. The most highly skilled teachers will sell their courses to national and international education packagers and virtual universities. Rather than seeking the security of tenure, these skilled instructors will become "knowledge entrepreneurs," selling their knowledge to a global mass market.

A few will gain international recognition—and, in a world thirsty for knowledge, will command

A key role of leaders of the new organization will be to create a shared vision that both permanent and contingent employees can grasp and commit to.

The most highly skilled teachers will sell their courses to national and international education packagers and virtual universities.

fees rivaling those of highly paid athletes and entertainers.        As a consequence of the explosion in pedagogical info-preneurship, students will have access to a limitless variety of courses. Eventually, almost every course taught anywhere in the world will be available to anyone who has access to inexpensive hardware and software. Students will be able to construct their own unique curriculum with courses taught by internationally recognized experts in each field.        Micro-niche knowledge markets will develop. Any course, any subject matter—no matter how nontraditional or narrowly focused—will find an audience in what will become a vast global educational marketplace. Educational consumer rating services will review and rate educational offerings much the way they now review and rate movies, books, and music.        As technology shatters geographic educational boundaries, it will shift the locus of power over education content. Local and regional educators and public policymakers will lose out to national and international educational impresarios, who will produce and distribute their courses directly to students on an international basis. Students will gain power through choice, their course selections no longer mediated by local or regional policymakers.        Meanwhile, teachers of some subjects will become endangered species. Today tens of thousands of teachers are employed to provide basic instruction in core subjects such as

introductory language, history, biology, math, and so on. New multimedia educational technology will make it possible for a few hundred of the most skilled teachers to provide the instruction of several thousand.        Finally, within the next five years, three-quarters of new Ph.D.'s—up from one-half today—especially in such fields as engineering and chemistry, will forgo an academic career for employment in the private sector. This migration of Ph.D.’s to business is being driven by a combination of forces including government cutbacks in funds for basic research, tighter restrictions on granting of tenure (or the elimination of tenure entirely), and an increased demand for employees with graduate training to conduct applied research in the private sector.        As the demand for employees with graduate-level expertise increases in the private sector, universities and colleges will be under significant pressure to drastically reduce the time to degree for graduate students, particularly Ph.D. candidates, and to supply graduates who can effectively communicate complex technical knowledge to nonspecialists and can work well in teams.

The Greatest Implication of All. With every passing month, the accumulating economic indicators make it clear that the United States has just passed through a historic inflection point in the information revolution. The primary focus of corporate America is no longer the dismantling of our old industrial institutions,

Students will be able to construct their own unique curriculum with courses taught by internationally recognized experts in each field.

but rather the creation and staffing of high-value-adding info-mated operations. Major U.S. employers are currently creating almost twice as many new jobs each year as they are eliminating, and 60 percent of all new jobs are offering above-average wages. Taken together, the ongoing changes in both the nature of work and the structure of employment foreshadow not just

change but a seismic quake; a quantum shift in our very understanding of what it means to work, learn, and live.        The American economy—and society—are about to experience a wave of change that will crash upon us with a force we have never known before. For higher education, this will mean dramatic changes in the requirements that graduates will be expected to meet, and in the makeup and needs of the postsecondary student population. It will also mean revolutionary innovations in the ways that colleges and universities deliver their services and how they organize themselves to develop products to meet new marketplace demands. Many who read this article will see this wave of change as frightening. But it does not have to be viewed that way.

In fact, for all the loss and risk our collective future portends, it also offers unparalleled opportunity. In a very real sense, for higher education, for America, and for humankind, the light at the end of the twentieth century is the limitless promise of the twenty-first century.

 

ReferencesBell, D. The Coming of Post-Industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting New York: Basic Books, 1973.

Boroughs, D. L. "Winter of Discontent." U.S. News & World Report, 1996, pp. 47–54.

Manz, C. C., and Sims, H. P., Jr. Business Without Bosses: How Self-Managing Teams Are Building High-Performing Companies. New York: Wiley, 1993.

Naisbitt, J. MegaTrends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives. New York: Warner Books, 1982.

The Secretary’s Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills. What Work Requires of Schools: A SCANS Report for America 2000. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Labor, 1993.

Toffler, A. The Third Wave. New York: Morrow, 1980.

Three-quarters of new Ph.D.'s will forgo an academic career for employment in the private sector.

Major U.S. employers are currently creating almost twice as many new jobs each year as they are eliminating.

JobStart Part 1: Getting to Know Yourself1

Elizabeth B. Bolton, Jeannette K. Remington, and George O. Hack2

JobStart is a series of publications that contain information about the skills and attitudes needed to find and

maintain employment.

This is the second publication in the eight-part series outlining the steps required to achieve these goals.

The series includes the following:

JobStart Part 1: Getting to Know Yourself (FY345) JobStart Part 2: The Right Job Just for You (FY346)

JobStart Part 3: Marketing Yourself (FY347) JobStart Part 4: Preparing Your Resume (FY348)

JobStart Part 5: Writing the Cover Letter (FY349) JobStart Part 6: Planning the Interview (FY350)

JobStart Part 7: Job-Seeking Strategies (FY351) JobStart Part 8: Staying on the Job Once You Are Hired (FY352)

What Is a Personal Inventory and Why Is It Necessary?

Every person that is seeking a job is a salesperson. The product they are trying to sell is themselves, and

their customer is the potential employer. A good salesperson will always know their product. For instance, a

successful car salesperson will know all the details about the cars for sale on his lot. He will know the engine

size, the length of the warranty, if it comes with air-conditioning and a stereo, and many other features that

may be standard or optional; and he will definitely know the price. If you went to a car salesperson and

asked questions about a certain car and you did not get any solid answers, you would probably think that

salesperson was hiding something and you wouldn't buy the car. The same is true of potential employers.

They have many specific questions and they want to know all the information before hiring a new employee.

Employers want to know about:

your job skills.

the successes you have had in previous jobs.

every type of job experience you have ever had.

your education or training experiences.

if you respond well to supervision.

why you left your last job.

why they should hire you.

There are many other questions that a potential employer might ask you. A personal inventory will help you

prepare for these questions. It is essential that you are prepared with answers. In order to prepare for getting

the job that is just right for you, a personal inventory is required. Many people do not take the time to sit

down and think about all of their experiences and education. Further, they need to consider the skills,

talents, and accomplishments that are important to an employer. A complete and thorough listing of your

background and skills is the first step in finding the right job. A personal inventory is just what the name

implies, an inventory or listing that describes you in great detail. Your personal inventory will be like none

other since you are a unique and special person. The time you spend on taking a close look at yourself will

pay off in every aspect of job hunting and resume preparation.

How Will a Personal Inventory Help Me?

The preparation you make in developing your personal inventory will pay off many times during the job

search. Your personal inventory will help you answer questions in the interview as well as putting the right

information on your resume. For example, in the interview you might be asked:

1. What is your one characteristic that would help you succeed on the job?

2. What is your most successful accomplishment on a job?

3. What is your main motivation for going to work each day? Is it money or some other satisfaction you get

from work?

4. Do you think you would make a good supervisor of other employees and, if so, why?

5. What extracurricular activities did you participate in when you were in school?

These are questions that take time and thought in order to give the best response. Remember, the important

thing is not that you are able to answer these questions in an interview, but how you would answer these

questions if they are asked. There is no one correct answer to these questions. Each person is unique and

responses will vary. The thing to keep in mind is that a well prepared response to a specific question in an

interview may be the deciding factor of whether a person is hired for a job.

A personal inventory will help you answer these questions because you will have identified your

characteristics, accomplishments, motivation for working, skills and interests. The time you spend in

preparing a thorough personal inventory will be useful in many ways during the job search and afterward.

Use the individual skills checklist and the transferrable skills checklist to help you prepare the personal

inventory.

Table 1. 

Individual Skills Checklist

Individual Skills Checklist

When it comes to skills that employers look for it is best to divide them into different

categories. They are individual skills and transferable skills. The following is a list of

individual skills that are important to employers. Read the list carefully, and decide

which of these skills apply to you.

INDIVIDUAL SKILLS CHECKLIST

Good attendance

Get along with supervisor

Hardworking, productive

Able to coordinate

Assertive

Follow instructions

Ambitious

Helpful

Cheerful

Independent

Sense of humor

Arrive on time

Meet deadlines

Friendly

Good natured

Humble

Competent

Complete assignments

Creative

Intuitive

Conscientious

Intelligent

Discreet

Loyal

Energetic

Capable

Imaginative

Industrious

Informal

Dependable

Eager

Mature

Enthusiastic

Motivated

Formal

Modest

Flexible

Open-minded

Original

Spontaneous

Learn quickly

Efficient

Methodical

Expressive

Natural

Sincere

Patient

Physically strong

Take pride in work

Optimistic

Solve problems

Steady

Practice new skills

Tenacious

Resourceful

Trustworthy

Sense of humor

Persistent

Tactful

Reliable

Responsible

Honest

Get along with co-workers

Arrive on time

Meet deadlines

Thrifty

Self-confident

Well organized

Adapted by: Elizabeth Bolton, Department of Family, Youth and Community

Sciences; Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences; University of Florida;

Gainesville Florida. Adapted from: Shaw, C. & Wolford N. (1992). The Fact

Workbook. Columbus, OH: The Ohio State University.

Table 2. 

Transferable Skills

Transferable Skills Checklist

The following is a list of transferable skills that are important to employers. A

transferable skill is one that can be used in a variety of jobs, like good

communication skills or organizational skills. Read the list carefully, and decide

which of these skills apply to you.

TRANSFERABLE SKILLS

Meet deadlines

Plan

Accept responsibility

Manage money

Organize projects

Synthesize

Administer to people

Persuade

Control budgets

Increase sales or efficiency

Motivate people

Delegate

Self motivated

Music appreciation

Counsel people

Assemble things Solve problems Sociable

Repair things

Investigate

Calculate or compute

Detail oriented

Negotiate

Use my hands

Operate tools or machinery

Analyze data

Listen

Inventive

Competitive

Direct others

Take inventory

Care for people

Speak in public

Supervise others

Instruct others

Keep financial records

Research

Evaluate

Patient

Confront others

Take risks

Expressive

Sensitive

Diplomatic

Tolerant

Meet the public

Written communications

Build things

Use complex equipment

Audit records

Classify data

Pleasant

Demonstrate

Insightful

Tough

Articulate

Outgoing

Logical

Decisive

Self controlled

Artistic

Perform or act

Adapted by: Elizabeth Bolton, Department of Family, Youth and Community

Sciences; Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences; University of Florida;

Gainesville Florida. Adapted from: Shaw, C. & Wolford N. (1992). The Fact

Workbook. Columbus, OH: The Ohio State University.

How to Turn a Weakness into a Strength

Everyone has what might be called weaknesses and strengths in terms of capabilities for a certain job. For

example, you might not know how to operate a word processor, or know the latest software programs, or

have the required number of years of experience the job notice calls for. These are weaknesses. On the

other hand, you might have just the right kind of experience called for in the job notice, the appropriate

experience and all the required capabilities for the job. These are strengths. The task is to take a weakness

and turn it into a strength for the purpose of presenting yourself in the most favorable way for a job

application or interview.

Often employers will ask a job candidate to identify a weakness they have and how it might affect their

performance on the job. It is best to be equipped for this type of question with a well prepared response. No

one is perfect, and if you tell the potential employer that you are perfect, you might come across as either

hiding something or being arrogant.

One way to handle this type of question is to turn that weakness into a strength. For example, let's say that

your weakness is that you get irritated with other co-workers easily when they make mistakes on the job.

This could be bad for the morale of workers around you, especially if you are verbal with your dissatisfaction

of their performance. Most employers would rather the supervisor handle poor performance among workers

instead of a fellow worker criticizing them.

One thing you could say about this weakness is that you get irritated easily because you hold yourself to

such a high standard that you expect others around you to do the same; when they do not it irritates you.

You should also say that you have realized this weakness in the past and have made conscious efforts to

improve yourself by helping other co-workers with their mistakes instead of criticizing them. This way you

come across to the potential employer as someone with high standards who is willing to work as a team

member to help other workers who might have problems.

Another example of a weakness might be consistent lateness to work, appointments, or inability to stay on a

schedule. In the workplace this translates to not being able to get to work on time. In fact, you got fired from

your last job because of consistent lateness. Turn this negative experience into a positive by listing the steps

you have taken (or are willing to take) to break this bad habit. You might want to read about time

management, take a course at the local community college on time management, or set personal goals for

yourself and say how you met (or plan to meet) them. The important thing is to know which of your work

habits need correcting and how you plan to do so. Better still, how you have eliminated the weaknesses.

The thing to remember is that any weakness you tell the potential employer is one that you have been aware

of for a while and that you have made efforts to improve yourself in this area. The first step is to identify

those areas you think a potential employer would see as a weakness. What is the one weakness that gives

you the most trouble? What weakness do you have that would keep you from being successful at work?

Think carefully about your weaknesses and how you would turn them into strengths. List your strengths and

weaknesses and then write out a plan on how you propose to turn a weakness into a strength.

What Are Your Strengths and Weaknesses?

Corwen (1995) identified attributes that contribute to success on the job. These are listed and defined below.

Assess the strength of these attributes for yourself. If you feel that you have a weakness in some of these

attributes, plan a strategy for strengthening them.

Do you feel that you are:

1. Ambitious? Are you career oriented with a strong desire to attain personal and financial success?

2. Articulate? Are you able to communicate ideas and opinions clearly and forcefully?

3. Cheerful? Are you pleasant? Able to smile easily?

4. Confident? Do you have a high level of self-esteem? Are you self-assured?

5. Conscientious? Do you have good work habits? Are you able to take on unpleasant tasks? Are you

punctual?

6. Cooperative? Are you helpful? A good team worker?

7. Dependable? Are you steady? Do you keep promises? Do you have good work habits?

8. Efficient? Do you make good use of time? Perform high quality work?

9. Energetic? Do you have a high level of mental and physical endurance? Work quickly?

10. Industrious? Are you hard-working; eager to take on difficult tasks?

11. Loyal? Are you supportive of the best interests of your employer and colleagues?

12. Organized? Are you orderly? An efficient planner?

13. Self-Controlled? Are you slow to anger? Do you keep your head in tense situations?

Adapted from Corwen, Howard. 1995. Your Resume: Key To A Better Job. McMillan Publishing: New York.

pp. 157-158.

Knowing about yourself will help you choose the right job. Attitudes, values, likes and dislikes are among the

personal inventory items that need close attention in preparing to look for a job.

How Do You Feel about Work?

The following statements will help you determine how you feel about work. You may have some additional

feelings that are not listed here. You may want to discuss these feelings with someone whose opinion you

value.

Going to work makes me nervous.

I like working more than playing.

Looking for a job scares me stiff.

I'm fired up to look for a job.

I'm only looking for work because I have to.

My job is the most important thing in my life.

I always wish it were Friday.

I don’t want to keep any one job more than a year or two.

Work really fulfills me.

I wish I had more education so I could get a better job.

I want to work more than I want to earn money.

I want to earn money more than I want to work.

I will take any job I can get.

I can't wait to start work.

Why Do You Want to Work?

There are many personal needs for people who want to work. These needs vary from person to person

dependent upon personalities, desires, and lifestyles. Some of these needs are listed here, but there may be

others that fit your situation. Which of these needs are really important to you?

Economic Needs

I want to save for long-term goals (home, car, trips, and education).

I want to keep my family together during a crisis (illness, divorce, unemployment).

I want to save money.

I want fringe benefits (medical and life insurance).

Social Needs

I want to meet people and make friends.

I want to be with people who share my interests.

I want to raise my social status.

I want to help others.

Personal Needs

I want to feel a sense of achievement.

I want to increase my self-confidence and self-esteem.

I want to feel secure.

I want to be a part of a purpose or a group of people.

I want to use my skills, knowledge, and education.

I want to be recognized and valued by others.

What Are Your Job Needs?

Just as personal needs vary for individuals who want to work, there are also job needs. It is important for

you to know how to place priorities on these job needs because they have a direct bearing on the type of job

you will want to focus on. Which needs from the list below are the most important to you?

Length of vacation.

Amount of sick leave.

Number of hours worked per day.

Amount of money earned.

Amount of status in the job.

Advancement.

How you feel doing the job.

Location.

People you work with.

Working indoors or outdoors.

Amount of medical insurance.

When you work: days, nights, swing shift.

Amount of responsibility.

Retirement age.

Long term security of job.

Amount of travel.

Adapted by: Elizabeth Bolton, Department of Family, Youth and Community Sciences; Institute of Food and

Agricultural Sciences; University of Florida; Gainesville Florida. Adapted from: Shaw, C. & Wolford N.

(1992). The Fact Workbook. Columbus, OH: The Ohio State University.

Why Are Values Important in the Workplace?

What is a value? How do values affect who we are and what we do?

All of us are influenced daily by our values. We are aware of some values, but others have been learned at

such an early age that we do not recognize we are behaving in accord with them. When working with others,

it is important to be aware of their values as well as our own. It is the first step toward making a decision that

will reflect well on oneself and also be right for the other person.

Generally speaking, values are something that is measured in importance, worth, or desirability. They are

abstract concepts of what we think is good. It is the primary influence on the many decisions we make

throughout the day. We are all influenced daily by our values. They guide the way we act and feel about

certain things, situations, and people. Tolerance for the value systems of others is an important attitude in

human relationships. It increases understanding and makes working relationships easier.

A value is not in itself either good or bad. Values can and do change. This is easy to see when we consider

how the standards for male and female behavior have changed over time. When we travel to other areas,

we can see that other people look at the world differently, interpret what they see in other ways, and have

feelings about situations that are different from ours.

Values also affect job satisfaction. If the job you have does not meet your values, you may leave and seek

work elsewhere. What is it that you value most in a job? Pay, work hours, location, working with people,

prestige, solving problems?

Would the values of a nurse be different from a stock broker?

Would the values of a construction worker be different from a nursery school attendant?

Our values affect every decision that we make. That is why it is so important to understand our values when

choosing a job or career. It could have a great impact on how happy we are in that job.

Can I Use Values at Work?

What values do people want in co-workers or supervisors?

Seth Godin (1995) conducted a survey of business virtues dealing with habits, attitudes and skills that

employers look for in an employee. He asserts that, the top ten virtues turned out to be:

Ethics

Teamwork

Honesty

Curiosity

Hard work

Intelligence

Self-motivation

Sense of Humor

Initiative

Creativity

Godin notes that these virtues are not easy habits. Rather they are skills that have to be learned.

How do you feel about these business virtues? Do they reflect any of your values? How might these

virtues/values make you more successful in the workplace?

Work Values

Listed below are some work values that affect job satisfaction. Which of these are important to you?

Challenge: I want to solve problems on the job.

Competence: I want a job that I am able to do well.

Creativity: I want to use my own ideas.

Enjoyment: I want a job that is fun.

Environment: I want clean, healthy working conditions.

Fame: I want people to know about me and my work.

Independence: I want to work without close supervision.

Job Security: I want a steady job I can count on.

Knowledge: I want a job where I can learn new things.

Money: I want to earn more money.

People: I want to work with people.

Personal Satisfaction: I want to feel worthwhile.

Physical Mobility: I want to move around; not sit.

Power: I want to make decisions and be the boss.

Relationships: I want to know and like people at work.

Respect: I want people to look up to me.

Service to Others: I want to help others.

Social: I want to visit with people at work.

Solitude: I want to be by myself at work.

Time: I want a job with no overtime.

Understood Tasks: I want to be told what to do.

Variety: I want to do many different activities.

Preparing Your Personal Inventory

When you prepare your personal inventory, consider all your experiences relevant to work your skills, your

reason for working, how you feel about work, your job needs, and your values. The failure to prepare a

personal inventory will mean that you are not fully prepared for developing your resume or for a personal

interview. Getting to know yourself will help build your confidence for the interview. The hardest questions

you will have to answer are those about yourself. Your personal inventory should include all the information

that is listed here.

Education

School name, address, phone

Years Attended

Major Studies

GPA/Class Rank

Honors

In which school or college courses did you excel?

In which courses did you do poorly?

Which subjects did you enjoy most?

Are you willing to continue your studies in order to increase your knowledge of the field you have

chosen? Any schooling you have had aside from your formal education.

Any extracurricular activities you have participated in with a description of your accomplishments.

Employment

Employer name, address, phone

Dates of employment

Hours per week

Salary/pay

Supervisor's name and title

Duties

Skills utilized

Accomplishments/awards

Other important information: a) If you have you ever been fired from a job; if it was your fault (give

an explanation), b) Duties in which you excelled, c) Any part-time jobs you had while in school or after

graduation with a description of your duties

Volunteer Activities

Organization name, address, phone

Dates of employment

Hours per week

Supervisor's name and title

Duties

Skills utilized

Accomplishments/awards

Other important information

Activities, Aptitudes

Club/activity

Offices held

Description of participation

Duties/responsibilities

Job specific skills (typing, computer operation, painting, cooking, masonry, etc.)

Hobbies or personal interests

Organizations you have been or are now associated with

Achievements

Your main achievements (in school, job, personal)

Promotion and salary record for each job you have held

Community outreach activities, such as fund-raising, organizing, or social work

Military Service

Branch

Rank (at discharge)

Dates of service

Duties and responsibilities

Special training and/or school attended

Citations, awards

Specific accomplishments

Language

Language(s): read-write and/ or converse

Background (number of years studied, travel, etc.)

Miscellaneous

The kind of work would you prefer to do (all of your preferences, no matter how unrelated to your

education or experience) Whether or not salary is your primary consideration

Willingness to sacrifice income to do the kind of work you most enjoy (explanation)

References

Beatty, R. H. (1986). The Five Minute Interview. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.

Corwen, H. (1995). Your Resume: Key To a Better Job, pp. 157-158. New York: MacMillan Publishing.

Farr, J. (1994). The Quick Resume and Cover Letter Book. Indianapolis, IN: JIST Works Inc.

Fry, R. (1993). Your First Interview (Second Edition). Hawthorne, NJ: The Career Press.

Godin, S. (1995). Wisdom, Inc., pp. 4-7. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, Inc.

O’Brien, J. (1996). The Complete Job Search Organizer: How To Get a Great Job--Fast. Washington,DC:

The Kiplinger Washington Editors, Inc.

Shaw, C. & Wolford, N. (1992). The Fact Workbook. Columbus, OH: The Ohio State University.