Well, it’s the new year. Do you have any resolutions? If your resolution is to determine your future career, here are a few places to start.
5 New Years’ Resolutions for Finding your New Career
Author :
Jennifer Reineke Pohlhaus
Well, it’s the new year. Do you have any resolutions? If your resolution is to determine your future career, here are a few places to start.
1. Read What Color is Your Parachute? by Richard Bolles or Put Your Science to Work by Peter Fiske. Either of these books would be a great place to start your career odyssey.
2. Commit to networking at least once per month. This can be as easy as happy hour. Most people forget that future jobs are usually found by personal contacts. People who have more personal contacts are more likely to get job offers.
3. Make a list of organizations for which you might like to volunteer. Then rank them and contact the first one. Volunteering is a great place to make connections – plus, at the same time, you can build some skills for your resume.
4. Turn your academic CV into a 2-page professional resume. In the professional world, your resume is your currency. Dust off your 10-page long academic CV and shorten it to a 2-page resume version. Try preparing a “summary” section that provides an overview of your accomplishments in succinct bullets. You might have to ditch the publications and presentations section.
5. Contact one person you admire and ask them for an informational interview. Informational interviews help prepare you for real interviews – heck, sometimes they can directly lead to a new job. At the very least, you can get some questions answered in a low-risk way about jobs you think you are interested in.
Whether you decide to adopt one of these five as 2012 resolution, or whether you go with your own, make sure that your resolution is specific and achievable. That’s why resolution #2 says to go to one networking event per month and not just “network more.” And why resolution #5 says to contact one person for an informational interview and not “meet more people.” Resolutions that are specific, achievable, and actionable are the ones that are most likely to be followed through.
Please submit a comment and let me know your career resolutions for 2012.
Share :
