|
Career/Life
Planning
Series Entitled: "Career Advantage"
This career and life-planning telecourse helps students
gain the self knowledge they need to enter the job force
and maintain successful and rewarding careers. The course
is broken into three major parts, consistent with National
Occupational Information Coordination Committee (NOICC)
guidelines for adult competencies and indicators: self-knowledge,
educational and occupational exploration and career
planning.
Throughout the course five "real" people are
followed as they go through the process of discovering
and realizing their career goals. From a young mother
struggling through college to a re-entry students creating
a new life, their stories are poignant and energizing.
Each episode also includes a "Hot Tip" - a
short, simple motivation suggestion of action students
can take to help students overcome the inertia that
often accompanies the new territory of career and life-planning.
The course includes interviews with authors Barbara
Sher and Richard Bolles, author of the best-selling
book "What Color Is Your Parachute?: A Practical
Manual for Job Hunters and Career Changers" as
well as career specialists, industry professionals and
scholars, including Jeremy Rifkin, Doug Henwood, William
Bridges, Gene Amdahl and top executives from Sun Microsystems,
Citibank and others.
On camera host and instructor Rebecca Haddock, M.Ed.,
NCC is a licensed career counselor at the University
of San Diego and provides employment and educational
advising to the military, high schools, community colleges
and social service agencies.
PROGRAM
DESCRIPTIONS
SECTION
I: SELF-KNOWLEDGE AND EXPLORATION: WHAT DO I REALLY
WANT?
1) Introduction
Introduces students to the three main components of
the career development process: 1) Self Knowledge and
Exploration; 2) Career Educational Exploration; and
3) Career Planning and Implementation. Students will
meet the "real people" who will describe their
career decision-making experiences throughout the coming
episodes. They will also meet some of the experts including
Richard Bolles, Jeremy Rifkin, Barbara Sher and Howard
Figler.
2) Where Are You Now?
Introduces students to the Donald Super's concept of
life roles and the importance of having support systems.
Students evaluate their satisfaction with their current
life roles-work, home and family, leisure, self-improvement
and community, and begin to identify key people in their
personal support system.
3) Self-Knowledge and Beliefs
Presents simple methods for expanding self-awareness,
and introduced to the connections between their beliefs,
their attitudes and their subsequent behaviors. Students
practice techniques for identifying personal beliefs
about their ability to be successful by listening to
their self-talk, and begin to develop their Personal
Career Profile.
4) Values
Discusses the relationship between students' values
and the choices they make each day and the way the values
relate to career decisions. Students begin to identify
some of their key values and consider how their family
background may have shaped their values.
5)
Personality & Interests
Demonstrates the connections between personality, interests
and work preferences such as working with information,
ideas, people and things. Students begin to identify
their primary interest patterns and aspects of their
personality through various exercises.
6) Knowledge, Skills & Abilities
Explores the differences between knowledge, skills and
abilities and presents the basic skills required by
today's employers identified by the U.S. Department
of Labor SCANS Report. Students learn to identify their
skills through examining past accomplishments and to
consider how skill development may be influenced by
societal or cultural pressures.
7) Keeping Track of Self-Knowledge and Exploration
Expands students' Personal Career Profiles by identifying
preferred values and interests, and by identifying current
skills as well as skills they want to develop in the
future.
SECTION II - CAREER AND EDUCATIONAL EXPLORATION:
WHAT'S OUT THERE FOR ME?
8) Introduction to Career and Educational Exploration
Explores contemporary changes in the economy and the
world of work. The lesson introduces three principal
changes-technology, globalization, and changing workforce
demographics. Students review a variety of strategies
for coping with these changes including considering
new work options such as self-employment and contract
work, and the need for lifelong learning.
9) The Changing Workplace: Technology & Globalization
Focuses on how technology has changed the kind of work
we do, how work is done, and where work can be done.
Students are introduced to the concept of global business
and the skills essential to stay employable in a global
economy.
10) What Employers Want: Skills and Attitudes
Introduces students to the skills an attitudes essential
for success in today's workplace-competence, communication,
adaptability, group effectiveness, and influence. Students
learn to identify their transferable skills, and evaluate
their degree of work readiness.
11) What's Out There: How the World of Work is Organized?
Probes the distinctions and similarities between industries
and functions. Several primary industries and job functions
are described giving students insight into how their
interests can offer clues to industries or types of
work that they might enjoy.
12) Generating Career Options
Presents a variety of strategies for generating a list
of career possibilities. Students are encouraged to
brainstorm ideas and emphasize quantity over quality
of ideas at this stage of the process.
13) Researching Career Options: New Technologies
and Current Techniques
Explores career options using both print and electronic
sources of occupational information. Students learn
the components of a research strategy and are presented
with the categories of key information to help them
focus their research efforts.
14) Informational Interviewing and Networking
Demonstrates how using networking and informational
interviewing can help them to learn more about careers
which interest them. Students learn how to identify
networking opportunities and potential networking contacts,
and develop a strategy for conducting informational
interviews.
15)
Evaluating Career Options
Presents to students the "Three C's", a framework
for evaluating career options using content, conditions
and compensation. Students use information from their
Personal Career Profiles to identify their own preferred
content, conditions and compensation and begin to compare
their preferences to information gathered from their
occupational research.
16) Overcoming Barriers to Employment
Introduces students to some of the legal issues related
to discrimination in hiring and in the workplace, as
well as some techniques for confronting, challenging
and coping with discrimination. In addition, students
are presented with questions they can ask to gauge a
company's corporate culture and commitment to diversity.
17) Lifelong Learning
Looks at the range of educational options students may
consider using to reach their occupational goals, including
vocational training, community college, undergraduate
and graduate degrees. In addition, students are presented
with the benefits of experiential education such as
coops and internships, and the need for lifelong learning
to keep skills current.
SECTION III: CAREER PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTATION:
HOW DO I GET WHAT I WANT?
18) Introduction to Career Planning and Implementation
Introduces the implementation phase of the course and
provides an overview of the next steps, including making
a career decision, deciding on an action plan and launching
the search for work opportunities. It also presents
and debunks common myths or misperceptions about the
job search process.
19) Decision Making Strategies
Examines both rational-linear and intuitive decision-making
strategies. Students begin to asses their personal decision
making style and gain insight into how their values,
willingness to take risks, and ability to be objective
may influence their decision making process. Finally,
it introduces students to a strategy for using their
personal priorities to guide their decision making.
20) Goal Setting & Action Planning
Gives students criteria for attainable goals and objectives-specific,
measurable, realistic, and meaningful-and practice evaluating
goals on the basis of these criteria. Students begin
to draft their own goals and action plans for implementing
their search.
21) Finding Work Opportunities: New Technologies
and Current Techniques
Focuses on finding work opportunities by accessing the
hidden job market through networking. It guides students
in the developing a networking statement and presents
the advantages of several methods of finding work, including
cold calls, employment agencies, temporary assignments,
internships and volunteer positions.
22) Staying on Track In Your Work Search
Covers a variety of stress management and time management
techniques that can help students who may be experiencing
stress and having difficulty staying motivated . The
program offers suggestions on how to stay focused and
on track.
23) Resume Preparation
Covers the development and use of both chronological
and functional resumes. Students draft accomplishment
statements using action verbs and emphasizing the result
they produced.
24)
Interviewing Strategies
Introduces the three essential steps to interview preparation-know
yourself, know the position, and know the company. Students
consider their responses to some typical interview questions
and learn the STAR (Situation-Task-Action-Result) framework
for describing their accomplishments to employers.
25) Interview Follow-up
Outlines the specific steps students should follow immediately
after an interview, such as writing a thank you letter,
and later, such as maintaining their network and keeping
momentum in their work search. The program also suggests
strategies for turning a rejection into a positive and
useful experience.
26) Series Conclusion
Reviews several methods for getting unstuck and staying
on track while looking for work opportunities, and presents
strategies such as ongoing self-assessments, for building
and managing a successful career. Students draft one-year,
ten-year and lifetime goals to help them build a vision
for the future.
|
