Step 1: Explore Career Options

Use career assessment tools to explore fields further so that you can better utilize guidance from our career staff. This stage helps make you aware of the many possibilities that exist. In addition to learning position titles, you will also discover the skills, educational requirements, and personal attributes needed to be successful in various fields. Gathering this information helps career counselors make suggestions for majors, jobs, and careers that would fit in with your interests and skills. The goal here is to come up with a few options to share with a career counselor.

Step 2: Conduct Field Research

This stage is useful in deciding between different fields to pursue. What better way to explore career options than to meet with someone working in the field? It entails meeting with people in different positions or industries that you are interested in and asking them questions about their job. This is also the first step in starting to build a professional network. To help you with this stage, pick up a packet in the Career Center on Field Research and Informational Interviews.

Step 3: Determine Your Job Target

After you have looked at your options by doing career exploration and field research, it is time to make a decision and set some goals. The components of this decision are called your Job Target. Your Job Target is the specific industry and position you choose to pursue. It may also include geographic location. Your Job Target can change as you gain more experience and knowledge about yourself.

Step 4: Build Your Credentials and Resume

This stage is ongoing and the more you build your credentials, the better your resume becomes. A great resume leads to interviews and offers. The best ways to build your credentials and knowledge are by:

• Doing internships related to your Job Target
• Taking classes and attending seminars related to your Job
• Target Reading books, journals, and magazines related to your Job
• Target Joining professional associations or clubs on campus related to your Job
• Target Upload your resume at CLUpostings.com so employers can view it.

Step 5: Prepare for Your Job Search

This stage requires researching companies and organizations you want to work for and establishing if your friends, family, or the Career Center have any leads there. Learn to write calling scripts and develop tactics for approaching employers other than looking at advertisements (which seldom bring quick results). You will also need to get organized by starting a job search binder where all your activities are logged and new information is kept. In addition, it is crucial to educate yourself regarding interviewing and salary negotiations before you meet employers. (Our workshops are a great way to do this.) You have to stand out! It will take most new graduates 310 months to find a job, so start early. For a graduate-level student, it may take longer.

Step 6: Launch Your Job Search

Ready? There are many activities involved in launching your job search. Writing a targeted resume is important to show employers how your skills relate to their specific needs. Set aside the time to make calls, write cover letters, and thank you letters, conduct interviews, and do research. Be creative with the approaches you use and remember to ask yourself, \"Will this help me to stand out from my competition?\" Lastly, consistently update your resume with any new skills, knowledge, and experience.

Career Counseling

Preparing for your career begins the moment you are admitted to Cal Lutheran. We\'re here to help you from your first day through graduation and beyond. Whether you\'re a current student or part of our alumni family, we can help you: Decide a career direction find a job or internship Prepare for job interviews Apply to graduate school. No matter where you are in your career path, there\'s work to be done before the job search even begins. If you\'re a traditional undergraduate student, take a look at our recommended timeline for making the most of your four years.

What is planning and organizing? Action planning is a process that helps you to focus your ideas and decide on the steps you need to take in order to achieve a particular goal. Planning is vital at all levels in the workplace. You need to plan your own tasks and time.

Everyone has dreams and goals, but without planning and organizing what you need to do, you\'ll get nowhere. It\'s exactly the same in the workplace, where planning and organizational skills regularly rank in the top ten most desirable employability skills.

Action planning is a process that helps you to focus your ideas and decide on the steps you need to take in order to achieve a particular goal. Planning is vital at all levels in the workplace. You need to plan your own tasks and time. Your manager will need to plan the tasks, resources, and time required of your department. Senior management will need to plan the goals and aims of the company as a whole.

As the saying goes - \"failing to plan is planning to fail\".

Employers need you to have planning skills because they need to be able to let you break down the tasks they give you into manageable chunks. A task that is supposed to take five years to complete becomes much more doable if you have a target to achieve every three months.

Planning is used at all levels in the workplace, from how you break up your day-to-day tasks to the aims of the company on a yearly basis.

The organization is also used to ensure that the right people with the right skills end up working on the projects that best suit them and the needs of the company.

Planning and organizing skills have grown in importance for tech employers as more and more businesses move to adopt agile working practices that rely heavily on task management and empowerment.

The better your ability to plan and organize, the more likely you are to be hired.

You can show your planning abilities on your CV or at an interview in many ways, including:

Planning an essay or piece of writing Explaining how you organized a meeting or event If you\'ve been on a gap year, detailing the planning that went into organizing your trip

How you achieved a goal in a part-time job? If you are aplying for a job that has specifically asked for strong planning and organizing skills, there are numerous skills you can drop into your CV to show you match their requirements. Some of these include:

Goal setting Setting deadlines

• Delegating to others Establish priorities Identify critical tasks
• Strong communication skills Team leadership
• Showing the ability to use planning / organization tools Project/Programme management
• Decision making
• Estimate time and effort required to complete a task Teamwork
• Ability to adapt Multitasking

For some, planning and organizing comes naturally, but if you need to improve there are a number of tips and tricks you can follow:

Plan early and be proactive -

Dont leave it until the last minute! Write it down - make a list of notes on your phone, or use task management software like Asana or Trellis to manage your lists. Use your downtime to research more information on your project - the more information you have, the more prepared you can be. Discuss it with others - chatting through ideas with others can often improve the outcome.

Delegate - if you are working in a team, the best results will be achieved through delegating and trusting others to implement your plan.
Communicate, communicate, communicate! - one of the least appreciated skills of a good planner is being able to communicate your plan so that you and your team are clear on how you will achieve it. Top of the list of most employers\' desired skills, but good communication skills are about more than just shouting the loudest and getting your own way