An Honest Guide to Careers Planning

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An Honest Guide to Careers Planning

• November 2007
• David.j.mackay_at_strath.ac.uk
• Room 504.D
• 0141 548 2834

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Purpose and Objectives

• Purpose To inform about the process of careers
  planning and give some advice about how to go
  about it
• Objectives
• Take the pressure off the process
• Provide some information to help students
  understand their career aspirations
• Provide information to help students identify the
  right kind of opportunities to pursue
• Suggest some approaches by which to start career
  planning
• Standards
• Open, honest communication feel free to
  disagree
• Questions at any time

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Where do you start?
Career Planning
CV Cover Letter
Ideal Job or placement
Interview Preparation
Effectively Answer Three (and a half) Key
Questions

• What do you want to do?
• What kind of person are you?
• What have you done and why did you do it?

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Good Career Planning Should Allow You To-

• Use your time efficiently
• Identify the right opportunities
• Be able to articulate your plans to a potential
  employer (gives them confidence)
• Make the right choices to ensure that you start
  your career in the right way

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Career Planning Anxiety?

• How do you feel when people ask you what you want
  to do in your career?
• The majority of people do not know what they want
  from a career 5 years down the line never mind
  15/20 years
• We are asking the wrong questions.

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Lets answer some different questions

• What is a career?
• What is important in a career?
• How can you career plan?
• What are your role/career preferences and
  motivations?
• What kind of positions/companies fit with your
  ambitions?
• What can you do wrong at this stage?
• How Do You Choose A Placement or Graduate Job?

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Q1 - What is a career?
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A career is a series of steps.

• . and you will make mistakes!
• I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career.
  I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been
  trusted to take the game winning shot and missed.
  I've failed over and over and over again in my
  life. And that is why I succeed.
• Michael Jordan
• One of the most successful (and sponsored!)
  basketball players of all time.
• Retired from basketball in 93 to play little
  league baseball
• Returned to basketball a couple of years later to
  record some of his greatest successes

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Does career life?

• Don't confuse having a career with having a
  life Hilary Clinton
• Hilary Clinton considered the most influential
  woman in America
• First female senator and democractic party
  election candidate hopeful
• What does she mean by this statement?

Having a career means different things to us all
dont worry if it really is of secondary
importance to you (and equally if it means
everything to you!)!
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What is the difference between a job and a career?

• The difference between a job and a career is the
  difference between forty and sixty hours a week
  Robert Frost
• Perception is that for a career, you have to put
  in so much more work
• When you have found a career that you love or can
  see good progression, it is likely that you will
  want to give a lot to it
• Karoshi - which can be translated quite literally
  from Japanese as "death from overwork", is
  occupational sudden death. The major medical
  causes of karoshi deaths are heart attack and
  stroke due to stress.

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So what is a career?

• The general course or progression of one's
  working life or one's professional achievements
• Your career will effectively be a series of
  steps some very logical and progressive, some
  unexpected and sideways
• It means different things to different people
  your ambitions and preferences will hugely
  influence your view of what a career means
• BUT THEN
• If careers are not always straightforward and
  mean different things to different people, how
  can we plan them?

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What is important in a career?
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Take the Pressure Off Yourself

• The next few months will yield many opportunities
  for placement and job applications you are going
  to have to choose what to apply to and what not
  to
• You may have got sucked into the following
  negative cycle of thought-
• It is really important to keep it all in
  perspective the choice you make now is HIGHLY
  UNLIKELY to ruin your career before you start!
• In fact, for the first five years, it is very,
  very difficult to make a bad career choice

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A Technical Career Pyramid
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Which Salary Would You Want?
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Which Salary Would You Want?
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Question Time.

• Graduate, 3 years project engineer for oil valve
  company
• Non-graduate, 5 years bank clerk
• Graduate, Product Design Engineering, nae
  experience

• Could they-
• Become a project manager for the oil valve
  company?
• Go on the Royal Bank of Scotland graduate scheme?
• Become a research assistant?
• Join the red cross as a project manager in Africa
  digging wells?
• Apply for a graduate job with Procter and Gamble
  for a manufacturing engineering role?
• Become a legal assistant?

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If Your Career Was A Game.

• At the bottom of the board , there is not far to
  fall nearly all steps will move you further
  forward.
• The further up the board you move, the more
  potential to make bigger gains and mistakes
• In life though, the further into your career you
  go, the fewer the options, the greater your
  experience and the higher the likelihood that you
  will have clarity as to your next steps

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So what matters then?

• What kind of placement or graduate role is of
  value?
• Where you are doing technical/operational work
  which allows you to-
• Develop every day work skills and make small
  improvements to a function, position or product
• To be involved in project based changes of scale
  to products or processes
• Have the opportunity to work with people and
  develop influencing skills
• Have a chance to observe and assess the operation
  of the business and its marketplace

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How can you career plan?
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Career planning defined

• Career planning is a lifelong process, which
  includes choosing an occupation, getting a job,
  growing in our job, possibly changing careers,
  and eventually retiring. This may happen once in
  our lifetimes, but it is more likely to happen
  several times as we first define and then
  redefine ourselves and our goals.
• http//careerplanning.about.com/cs/choosingacareer
  /a/cp_process.htm
• Three ways suggested
• Planned / Structured
• Emergent / Opportunistic
• Processual / Systematic

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Planned Approach to Careers Planning

• About trying to predict the future exactly
• About trying to feel in control
• Argument For-
• Too many opportunities and options need a way
  to narrow down the field
• Need to take control of situations to create
  opportunities
• Argument Against-
• Any long term planning is an exercise in futility
  given the influence and unpredictability of
  external factors
• Very difficult to get specific when there are so
  many options

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Emergent Approach

• About trying to be realistic about how far ahead
  we can plan
• About trying to be opportunistic
• Argument For
• "We are poor at predicting what will make us
  happy in the future."The idea of making mistakes
  about what we might want in the future has been
  termed 'miswanting' by Gilbert and Wilson (2000).
  
• Reacting to circumstances means that you dont
  artificially rule out potential options in
  advance
• Argument Against
• Future opportunities may well depend on what we
  have done in the past
• Can be very unsettling as it offers no feeling of
  control

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Process Approach

• About making the right decisions
• About focussing on the outcomes
• Combined approach-
• It is planned in that long term objectives are
  thought through and understood
• It is emergent in that you are constantly
  revising and reviewing your current ideas and
  activities (i.e. making decisions) against how
  well they are delivering your long term
  objectives
• We are going to discuss a process approach

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What are your career preferences and motivations?
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Know yourself

• Analyzing what you haven't got as well as what
  you have is a necessary ingredient of a career.
  Orison Marden (founder of Success Magazine)
• To progress through a career that suits you
  requires a balanced view and understanding of who
  you are.
• Your view and opinion will change with time (and
  experience) and so long as it remains balanced
  you will continue to make the right choices.

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Preferences

• Understanding what your preferences are can give
  you clues as to what kind of career will suit you
• Career preferences are related more to the
  context of the job than the occupation itself.
• For some people the actual tasks performed at
  work are not as important as these contextual
  preferences.
• The career you choose will have implications for
  your lifestyle.
• It is worth considering carefully the kind of
  lifestyle choices that would suit you both now
  and in the future

On the Preferences Sheet, work through the
categories and score them on a scale of 1 to 7
where 7 represents a strong preference and 1
indicates no preference.
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Motivations. Part one!
At the present time, where do you fit in?
Box 1
Box 2

• Success
• Want to be recognised as expert in your field.
  Want to see your work (projects etc.) succeed.
  Live to work.

Status Want to be recognised as the leader
(BMOC). Want status through possessions. Probably
want a Porsche.
Recognition
Box 3
Box 4
Social Want position convenient to lifestyle.
Work to live provided thresholds met, work
content not important
Security Want position which offers long term
prospects, stability and ability to provide.
0
Reward
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What kind of positions/companies fit with your
ambitions?
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Graduate Jobs/Placements on offer

• Hands up for preference for each of these
  positions-
• Manufacturing engineer with Procter and Gamble or
  Unilever
• Trainee design consultant with 4C design
• Fund manager with Goldmann Sachs
• Research assistant with Glasgow University
• On the back of the preference sheet is a grid
  with more information about each of the roles.
  Fill in your top three preferences down the left
  hand side and then, under each of the roles, give
  a brief description as to how well that position
  meets your preferences. Complete the ranking
  questions at the bottom.

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Motivations. Part two!
In general, what kind of position will satisfy
your motivations?
Box 1
Box 2
Status Multi-national Commercial / management
position
Success Multi-national or specialised org. RD or
project position
Recognition
Box 3
Box 4
Security Stable industry Specialist position
Social Any organisation Volunteer, vocational or
non-grad position
0
Reward
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Turn it on its head map it out!
Glasgow
Caledonian
Strathclyde
Multinational (3)
SME (1)
Public Sector (3)
Charity (1)
Further Education (5)
Progression Opportunities
Glasgow Location (family)
Intellectual Challenge
Variety in Role
Job Security
Me
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Things you can do badly at this stage
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Pitfalls to avoid

• Doing nothing your competition for positions
  will be acting
• Negative thinking and panic if you get your
  degree, it will be possible to get a position
  which meets your ambitions it will just be a
  function of time and effort invested by you
• Failing to recognise the importance of your own
  preferences in selecting a position
• Selecting a job based on other peoples
  expectations of you if they do not align with
  your own ambitions

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So What Next - How Do You Choose A Placement or
Graduate Job?
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From now until you get the position

• Spend time developing an understanding of your
  preferences and figure out how to express them
  (e.g. to an employer)
• Use mapping tool to identify the right kind of
  opportunities
• Plot preferences against job criteria to help you
  decide
• Use any on-line facility which makes sense to you
  and helps you develop your ideas
• Use the careers service if you can better
  describe the kind of thing you are looking for,
  they will be able to suggest options to you
• If you want my advice, I am happy to give it to
  either further develop your career ideas or to
  identify and assess opportunities available to
  you

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Summary Thoughts

• A career is a progression of steps and has
  different importance to each of us
• It is only a few lucky individuals who can see a
  clear vision of their career in the future
• At the early stages of your career, it is hard to
  make really bad choices in terms of the role
  content generally you can always learn
  something from a job which will advance your
  position
• Your preferences and values are critical in
  choosing a position in which you will be happy
• It is possible to make a really bad choice early
  on relative to how suitable a job is to your
  preferences
• Use advisors and career planning tools
  facilities to develop your thoughts to find a
  placement or graduate job which suits you