Career

Career Tools for DIYers

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There are lots of tools out there for people who want to take charge of their own careers. Here are some of my favorites:

Tools to Find Key Words

Wordle: www.wordle.net. Copy and paste job descriptions to create a word cloud

O*Net: www.onetonline.org. Search your occupation to find common keywords

Manage Your Job Search

Jibber Jobber: www.jibberjobber.com. A free online database to help manage your job search

Grammar & Spelling Tools

Grammarly: www.grammarly.com/ Create a free account; Grammarly was launched in 2009 and it instantly eliminates grammatical errors and enhances your writing.

Personal Branding Books

Ditch. Dare. Do!: 3D Personal Branding for Executives by William Arruda and Deb Dib

Career Distinction: Stand Out By Building Your Brand by William Arruda and Kirsten Dixson

Resume Writing Classic

Resume Magic: Trade Secrets of a Professional Resume Writer by Susan Britton Whitcomb. This book tells you the how’s and why’s of private sector resume writing.

Tools to Help You Answer the Question: What Do I Want to Do?

What Color is Your Parachute? By Richard Bolles

O*Net Interest Profiler: https://www.mynextmove.org/explore/ip. This free online assessment measures your interests and shows how they relate to different careers. At the end of the Interest Profiler, you are presented with a list of careers that match your interests and preparation level.

And of course, FEDweek’s handbooks:

The Complete Guide to Completing a Federal Resume, http://www.fedweek.com/store/the-complete-guide-to-writing-a-federal-resume-3rd-ed/

The Complete Guide to Interviewing for a Federal Job, http://www.fedweek.com/store/complete-guide-interviewing-federal-job/

The Complete Guide to Federal Career Transitions, http://www.fedweek.com/store/complete-guide-federal-career-transitions/

Take some time during the holiday season to review these resources and let us know what you think. If you have favorites, please share them. Best to you and your loved ones for the season!

– Nancy

Development is About More than Training

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Most agencies offer both formal and informal development opportunities. The formal type of development encompasses traditional training programs, while informal development occurs during every day work. Do not neglect the multiple informal opportunities most of us have to improve ourselves at work. And, in these times of increasing budget pressures, it may be easier to take advantage of informal, rather than formal opportunities.

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Four Steps to Plan Your Career

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No one cares more about your career than you do. As an employee, you need to be proactive in your career—this includes creating an Individual Development Plan (IDP) with your supervisor. And, if your supervisor does not offer this opportunity, seize the reins yourself! There are four steps to planning your career: Assess, Explore, Plan, and Take Action.

Planning your career can seem like a difficult task, but with the right approach, you can open up new doors without feeling overwhelmed. No matter where you are in your career – whether you are a long-time federal employee, a new employee, or a Veteran entering the civilian workforce – career planning with this four-phase career development model can help you break things down into manageable steps. Here’s how it works:

Assess
During the Assess phase, you get to ask yourself an important question: What do you really want to do with your career?

You can start this process on your own – it’s as simple as brainstorming about your interests, priorities, and goals. Or, you can get feedback from people who know you well.
As you assess yourself, be sure to focus on your strengths. While it’s important to understand and work on your shortcomings, the biggest career growth can actually come from further developing skills or behaviors in which you already excel. Finally, as part of the Assess phase, you should think about the tradeoffs you are willing to make in your career. For example, if your goal is getting a higher paying job, think about how long a commute you are willing to have in exchange. Considering tradeoffs like this can give you more insight into your actual priorities.

Explore
During the Explore phase, you are looking for opportunities that move you toward your overall career goals. This means researching various career paths on your own or through conversations with others.

A good first step in the Explore phase may be to find a mentor in the career field that interests you who can talk with you about next steps or good developmental opportunities for you to complete.

Another great activity is to shadow someone in the workplace. Job shadowing is when you observe someone for a day to learn more about whether that person’s career field or specific job could be a good fit for you. Express interest to the person you want to shadow and see if he or she has enough time available. Then, work with your supervisor or mentor to set it up.

In the Explore phase, keep in mind that any activity that helps you discover more about a career you may be interested in is worth considering. This includes the activities above but can also be as simple as having lunch with someone who is knowledgeable about another career to get his or her insider’s perspective.

Plan
Now that you understand yourself and the career possibilities in front of you, you are ready to create a plan. Coming up with a solid plan can be easy when you approach the process with an Individual Development Plan (IDP). IDPs provide the structure you need to stay on track.

You can set effective career goals in your plan using the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, Timebound) method, which will help you think about the concrete steps you will take to achieve your goals. Is there training you need to complete to be eligible for a new position? Or are there experiences you can get in your current position that will qualify you for your next? For instance, if one of your goals is to improve your communication skills, you might plan to gather feedback on your communication skills from your peers and supervisors and then spend time learning about different communication styles. Or, you could take a course to learn about communicating effectively during meetings.

Take Action
Now, you’re ready to put your plan in motion. Depending on the goals you have identified, you may be taking a few hours of training each week, shadowing another employee to see what it takes to succeed in his or her position, or applying for a new job. As you complete your planned steps, don’t forget to gather feedback on your activities from a supervisor or mentor. You should also review and adjust your IDP as you go based on your progress toward your career goals.

By using these four phases for your career planning, you will be well on your way to the career you want. But remember to be flexible – developing your career is a continuous process. As your priorities evolve, you should feel free to bounce back and forth between the four phases, getting what you need from each.

Identifying Your Career Strengths and Interests

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If you have decided to explore your career options, you may want to consider taking some sort of career self-assessment. Assessments can tell you more about yourself. They can help you better understand your strengths by identifying areas in which you already have skills, abilities and interests.

They can also alert you to areas for which you need to develop your strengths. You can make decisions about your career with more confidence if you understand what you like and don’t like, as well as what you do well (and not so well). It may also help you identify occupations that you are like to find satisfying based on the similarity between your work values and the characteristics of certain jobs.

There are a few things to keep in mind when taking assessments.

• There are many career assessments; you should look at several and see which one(s) feel right to you. Your friend may really like one assessment, while you have a totally different reaction. Don’t be afraid to try several. And taking more than one assessment may give you a more well-rounded opinion.

• There is no “perfect” assessment that is “right” all of the time. You know yourself better than anyone else does—and better than any assessment. If the results don’t feel like you, that’s OK. The purpose of assessments is to help you think about things that you might not have in the past.

• Regardless of what an assessment says or doesn’t say, you are still unique. Assessments categorize—they cannot tell you what is unique or special about YOU.

• Taking the assessment is just the first step. Reviewing the results is not enough. Its also important to think about the results in context. Talk to other people—do they have the same views of you and your strengths as the assessment? Or are the results very different from your and those who know you best? You need to think about what the assessment(s) revealed, and whether you agree.

Using the results of a career assessment can help direct your next steps and move your career transition forward.

O*Net Resource Center has a suite of free self assessment tools here:
https://www.onetcenter.org/IP.html

I know I could do the job…if only they’d give me a chance!

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I wish I had a dollar for every time a client made the above comment. While I have no doubt that the comment is true, we are currently in a buyer’s market—where hiring managers have lots of choices to make among candidates. While it is certainly possible for a hiring manager to pick someone based on their potential (especially for jobs above the entry level), in my view, it is unrealistic to expect hiring managers to do this. Let’s think about this for a moment…

Most job postings specify the criteria the hiring organization is looking for—whether through specialized experience and the occupational questionnaires in the federal government, or in a section in a private section posting that says something along the lines of, “The ideal candidate will have…” All applicants should carefully review the qualifications required. If the posting asks for 10 years of experience and you have 6, you are not likely well qualified. Or, if your experience is in a different area all together, while again, you may the basic qualifications (like a degree), you are not likely to have the specialized experience required.

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Develop a Social Media Plan for your Career, Part 2

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LinkedIn is the most important part of a social media strategy in terms of your career, but let’s look at the last part of a strong social media plan.

STEP FOUR: Update Your Other Social Media Profiles 
Take some time to make sure that your other non-LinkedIn social media platforms are up-to-date. Review your profile photos and background images. For consistency, consider changing your profile photos on all of your social media accounts to the same (professional) photo. This can help the person looking for you to identify that they have the right person — especially for social media accounts that you want them to be looking at.

Also review any photo galleries associated with your account (for example, on Twitter and Facebook). Delete any controversial or offensive photos. (Remember, they won’t be gone entirely from the Internet, but at least they won’t be as easy to find.) Do the same for any potentially offensive content you have posted.

STEP FIVE: Deliberately Cultivate Your Online Presence 
One of the best ways to boost your online profile is to curate your profiles. For the platforms you have decided to concentrate on, develop a schedule for adding new content that will enhance your social media presence.

For example, if you can commit to it, a personal blog is an excellent way to establish thought leadership and enhance your career prospects. However, you must be willing to post regularly — for example, once a week, or twice a month.

The first thing to do is to pick one platform to be your “home base.” This is where you will spend the majority of your time and effort. For many jobseekers, that’s LinkedIn, because it offers the best opportunity to connect with potential hiring managers and recruiters. Others may be more comfortable with Twitter, Facebook, or a blog. It doesn’t matter so much which platform you choose as that you choose a platform.

Set goals for yourself — what do you want to show up when you Google yourself? If you want your blog to rank higher in Google’s search results, you’ll need to spend some time developing and curating content, populating the profile, and engaging in activities that will increase the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) of the blog.

If you’re not engaging in a confidential job search, use your social media profiles to let people know you’re looking — and to ask for specific help in identifying your next opportunity or employer.

If you identified any “gaps” in your online presence as part of your social media audit, join those social media networks and set up your profile and begin adding content to your account.

Finally, make engaging on social media a daily habit. You don’t have to spend hours each day building your online presence. You can spend as little as 15 minutes a day — or an hour a week — on your social media.

Here are some daily activities to consider:

  • On LinkedIn: post a status update, check out the activities in your relevant Groups, make 1-2 new connections, “follow” a company you’d like to work for, and reach out to 1 existing connection (either by commenting on their status update, sending a message, or using LinkedIn’s “keep in touch” reminders to “like” or “comment” on your connections’ activities.
  • On Facebook: post a status update, “like” the page of a company that you’d like to work for, and friend someone you used to work with (or send a message to someone you’re already friends with who might be able to help you with your job search).
  • On Twitter: follow a company you’re interested in working for, tweet something job-related (make sure it’s positive in tone, not negative!), and retweet something interesting.
  • On Pinterest: see if there are any boards related to your industry and follow one or more of them; research to see if a company you’d like to work for has a board, pin something career-related to one of your own boards, and connect with two new people.
  • On your blog: Write a blog post, respond to comments, add a resource, or find a previous blog post that you can share to one of your other social media platforms. Research relevant blogs in your industry and sign up for email or RSS notifications for new posts. Comment on a blog post.

These are just a few of the possible activities you can consider each day. Another thing to consider is pre-scheduling content. You might write your blog post for the week on a Saturday, but schedule the post to publish on the following Tuesday morning at 10 a.m.

Remember this advice: “It doesn’t matter so much what you do, as that you do.” Don’t substitute social media activity for other actions related to your job search, but recognize that social media can help you build your network and keep yourself “top of mind” with people who are in a position to hire you, or help you identify possible job opportunities.