INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CAREER PROJECT Spring 2015
This project is designed to:
1. Have you develop primary and secondary research skills.
2. Learn about government, library, and other sources of career information about jobs and people.
3. Understand the importance of career planning from the individual and organizational perspective.
4. Have you learn more about yourself and your intended career.
5. Develop your own protean career plan based on increased self-knowledge, research of labor markets and career information, goal setting, and action steps to implement your goals.
Part I
Have your present resume prepared and ready for review (this will help with the LinkedIn assignment as well). Perform a self-assessment in terms of a personal SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) from our goal-setting exercise keeping notes for your write-up. Opportunities and threats can be your perceptions but must also include a minimum of five valid and reliable sources. Two can be web-based, government or professional sources (such as from the SHRM website); the other three must be from our library and documented at the end of the paper in APA style format.
Take the ONET career occupations and assessment system and briefly write up your results. Consider whether the outcomes reaffirm, challenge, or raise ideas about your career choices and options (www.onetcenter.org/mynextmove.html).
Consult with your research sources, self-assessment, and the results of the ONET system to write 3-5 pages of analysis. This should include the following:
o Your personal evaluation of your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
o The results of your research in confirming or questioning your personal evaluation.
o Your readiness to take on career-related tasks.
o Current five-year goals (confirmed, expanded, dismissed), goals which should be formed if necessary, goal changes in terms of content and/or detail from previous goals.
A useful way to handle the goal component is to identify your short-term and long-term goals by subtracting what’s on your current resume from what you plan to have on your five-year resume. The difference is what you plan to achieve in order to reach your five-year goals. These goals then serve as a basis for developing a series of more short-term, specific goals that would need to be accomplished in order to achieve your long-term goals. Research on goal setting has found that to be most effective, goals should be specific and measurable. It is extremely beneficial that you create some way of measuring your progress in accomplishing these goals.
An assessment of what you learned as a result of your research. If you have a career path, you may be confirming what you already know. If you weren’t sure, you may now have more questions than when you started this activity.
Part II Peer consultation feedback
Utilize the career theories presented in class to explore your intelligent career (knowing why, knowing how, knowing whom) and where you are on the ABC model. Type up a rough draft of notes in this areas. During class, you will develop these ideas through peer group discussions.
Peer coaches follow up with further questions, and peer “clients” respond to those questions. The observer then creates an “executive summary” of the interview in each of the three aspects of the intelligent career. If you have only an interviewer, they may type in the notes or make handwritten notes which regardless of the method used, are given to the interviewee to be incorporated into the written portion of this project.
Develop career themes and action steps in consultation with your peer coach. These can be outlined at this point. The last part of this assignment asks for more specific goals and details as you move forward in your career and academic life.
Part III Goals and plan implementation
Now that you have had an opportunity to reevaluate your initial career ideas and plan and have received feedback from your own peer consultants and others, you are ready to set career goals. Briefly state the at least three career goals which you plan to attain within five years.
Make an action plan to either continue implementing reaffirmed goals or set new goals to start to implement the career themes (from Part II) which are satisfying to you. For example, if you like excitement in your work but do not have it in your present work environment, set a plan with that goal within a reasonable time frame. If you do not believe you think strategically, identify what you can change to become more focused in your work.
Set up goals and a timeline within which to reach the goals. This requires analyzing how a goal is composed of different parts and how each part may be realistically accomplished in a particular time frame.
A final section one page requires you to briefly reflect upon your experience as we went through this process and you learned course material. Consider the influence of the peer-coaching process (both as a client and as a coach), course readings and related discussions, and any other reflections you may wish to include now that you have completed this course and the career plan.
The final version must be error-free in terms of spelling, typographical, and grammatical errors and should include any previous comments that the professor has returned to you.
Please use Times New Roman 12 point font with Word default documents. Move your references from part 1 to the end of the paper. You must document your sources and your must use O*NET (other than the mynextmove), government sources of information, and the university library ONLY for the five required sources. Other internet courses are permitted once you have the required five sources. Be sure they are listed APA style.
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