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College Student's Guide to Career Goals
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College is about many things, from learning about specific subjects and the
world in general, to increasing your breadth through a broad range of new
and different experiences. But for almost everybody, including those who
plan to get more education, college is, at its core, primarily concerned
with one thing: preparing you for a career.
"Prepare" is a qualifed term. College in no way makes you an expert in any
field. Only experience will do that. But what college can do is make
you qualified to embark on a path to gain that experience. It gives you the
necessary skills to start on a journey that probably would not have been an
option had you not taken time to get your degree.
But the degree alone is not enough to ensure that such a journey will begin
anytime soon. What you need, in addition to a diploma (along with the
knowledge and skills it embodies), is a plan. Without a plan, you're
leaving your fate up to chance, which means you could end up anywhere. It's
grim but true—there are over-qualified, under-employed college grads
waiting tables in every city in the country. Especially during tough
economic times such as these. But even during tough times, there are also
grads from every college and university who end up on stellar career paths,
immediately upon leaving school.
What is the difference between the two? Raw talent? Connections? Luck? Yes,
sometimes. But there is one thing that consistently differentiates between
those who let life happen to them and those who take active control over
their own careers, lives, and destinies. To get where you want to go, you
must make some decisions, and then make a plan.
The Importance of Having a Plan
A student without a post-college plan is much less likely to get off to an
early start than a student with a plan. The importance of formulating a
plan, as early as possible, cannot be overstressed. Indeed, freshman year
is not too early to be thinking about your first job out of school. This is
because college affords many opportunities, aside from your chosen major,
to increase your chances of getting a great job. Opportunities include
summer jobs, internships, extracurricular activities, and even the specific
courses you take (both electives and those related to your major). Imagine
yourself as the employer who's interviewing two potential job candidates.
Would you rather hire somebody who's only evidence of commitment to your
field is that she says she's interested, or the candidate who has been
interning and otherwise increasing his exposure to your field for years?
All other things being equal, the job will go to the candidate who can
demonstrate the commitment. Not only will his interest level be higher (a
good predictor of job success), but so will his actual relevant experience
(an even better predictor).
The importance of having a plan now (or as soon as possible) becomes even
more important further down the road. The distant future can be tough to
plan for, and may even seem totally irrelevant to most college students,
but the simple (and sometimes sad) truth is that many people's first "real"
job out of school, for better or worse, sets them on a track that can be
difficult to switch later. This is because skills and experience come
mostly from where you have worked and what you did while you were there.
The next job offer or promotion is likely to pay more because of what you
have learned at the last job. But if you didn't like the job function or
industry where you worked, then you might need to start over from square
one in a new company or industry. It can be difficult to say no to enticing
offers that come along, even when the jobs don't sound too exciting, if the
pay is good. This upward spiral of pay increases often draws people
increasingly deeper into a career track that is increasingly less
fulfilling. The later one waits to make a later move, the more difficult it
can be (which explains why so many people list "to change careers" as the
reason for returning to school years later). True, experience from one
industry is sometimes transportable into firms in a different industry. But
the options can be limiting, and the biases of potential new employers can
be difficult to overcome, as they will be inclined to choose people with
experience in their own industry.
The easiest solution to this troublesome scenario is to follow your
passions early, securing a job in the industry that interests you most,
even if the job does not pay as well as some others. The rewards will come
later, whereas switching later might be prohibitively expensive--it's much
easier to take a low-paying job out of school than it is to take a
low-paying job after working at a high-paying job and establishing a
lifestyle at that pay level.
Thus, planning is not only important for increasing your odds of getting
any job, but it's also important for getting the right job.
So okay, planning is important. But where does the plan come from? Where
should you start?
The Secret: Set Goals
Do you currently have goals? Sure, everybody has some things they know
they'd like to do at some point. But do you have REAL goals? A list of 5 or
10 things that you have committed yourself to doing? Things that you
will do, in specific terms, by a specific date? Can you list them off the
top of your head right now, as you read this?
If you said "no" to any part of the above questions, then your "goals" are
probably more like "notions" than actual goals. Everyone has notions, and
some people might even have some basic ideas about what they'd like to do
after school. But how many college students actually set specific
career-related goals and make a detailed plan about how they will
accomplish their aims? How many students do you know who possess a written
to-do list of steps that they will take between now and graduation that are
designed to secure a great job?
If you don't have written goals that you can list off the top of your head,
then you need to set some goals immediately.
Why set goals? Life is tremendously varied. At any given moment, there are
thousands of things you could do. When you're driving, you could turn left,
turn right, speed up, slam on the brakes, stop for lunch, stop for gas,
decide to drive to Alaska to see what Kodiak bears look like, and on and
on. But what is it that keeps you from ending up in Alaska every time you
get into your car? Why don't you end up at random locations all the time?
The answer is that you got into your car with a clear idea of where you
wanted to go. You knew at the beginning.
Life is the same way. If you know at the beginning where you want to go,
you'll probably get there. Even if detours and delays arise, eventually
you'll get there. But if you don't know where you're going, you probably
won't get there.
Consider, for instance, all the things you could do with your free time:
you could read, eat, sleep, go for a run, go shopping, call someone, watch
television, and so on, for an infinite number of options. How to choose?
Even if you decide to spend an hour watching television, there are hundreds
of channels you could surf through, not to mention your DVD collection. Or
what about surfing the Web? Literally millions options are just a couple
mouse-clicks away. It would be easy to fetter away a lifetime if we woke up
each morning without any idea of what we where we wanted to go, what we
wanted to do, or how we were going to get there.
The human brain is very good at sifting through large amounts of
information, searching for that which is most important in a given
situation. It's also very good at answering questions that are posed to it.
However, the brain does require that someone tell it what it's looking for
or what question it's supposed to answer. In that way, it's like a powerful
computer sitting on the desk—it's a powerful tool, but somebody needs
to tell it what to do.
That's exactly what goals do. By setting goals, you're giving your brain
instructions for what it is supposed to be doing. Any time you have a
decision to make, whether big or small, it's going to take your goal into
account if you have bothered to tell it what your goal is. Sometimes your
goal will not make any difference. For instance, if you're about to get hit
by a car, your brain really doesn't care whether you'd like to get a job at
a bank or in the entertainment industry; it's going to try to get you out
of the way of the car. This is because your brain is, first and foremost,
designed to keep you alive. In general, this means preventing you from
experiencing pain. It's also design to help you experience pleasure, which
is what makes us eat when we're hungry, sleep when we're tired, and even
create kids, who hopefully get good jobs of their own after school so that
they don't have to live with you until their 30s.
Brains are clever in that they avoid pain and seek pleasure, whether we
tell them to or not. (They even get better at both of these as time goes
by— it's called it "learning.") The problem is that, if we don't tell
our brain exactly which pain to avoid (and pleasure to seek),
they'll go with whatever's most convenient, obvious, and quick.
Unfortunately, this leads to short-sited thinking. What would feel good
right now? Pizza? Sleep? Even if you're trying to lose weight, the pizza
might sound good to your brain, because you haven't told it specifically
enough that it needs to go against its instincts and do what you tell it to
do: forego short-term rewards in favor of a greater future
reward—maintaining a proper weight. Likewise, you may be desperately
craving sleep. In the absense of overriding instructions, the brain thinks
sleep is more important. Whereas, in truth, getting sleep right now
is sometimes more important than what you're doing, and sometimes it's not.
When in doubt, about any decision, goals are what keep us on track with
what's ultimately important—our long-term vision.
When you set a goal, and keep yourself reminded of it, the brain tends to
ask the thousands of daily little unconscious questions in their proper
context. Instead of processing the question, "Do I want this pizza?",
the brain asks, "Is this pizza more important than my goal to lose weight?"
If your body truly requires fuel (and nothing healthier is available), then
the answer is yes. If not, then no. Or instead of asking "Do I want to
sleep?" (which is almost a trick question... who doesn't like to
sleep?), it asks the more appropriate question, "Is sleeping right now more
important than studying for tomorrow's mid-term?" Sometimes the sleep will
be more important, sometimes it can wait another hour or two. The
goal that you have set is what makes your brain ask the right
questions, and come up with the best answers, all throughout the day.
In short, goals are what keep your brain making decisions with an emphasis
on where you want to go, not this minute, but in the long run.
Are Goals Enough?
Goals, by themselves, are not enough. In fact, a goal, without a
plan for how you intend to reach the goal, is little more
than wishful thinking. As said above, the goal will help your brain decide
between choices A and B. But a plan creates entirely new options—C,
D, and E—for your brain to choose between, and then makes your path
so clear that, half the time, your brain doesn't even need to make a
choice, just as you don't need to make many conscious choices about which
route to take when you are driving a familiar route, such as between home
and work.
The goal is the "what." The plan is the "how."
The absolute best way to make any goal work is to sit down and make a plan.
(For tips, click here.)
Goals and Plans Are Nice, But What If I Don't Know What I Want?
Many students don't know exactly what they want to do when they leave
school. Most people do, however, have a few general notions. If you're
unsure of what your career goals are, the first thing to do is to simply
spend some time thinking about it. First write down everything that
you think you might be interested in doing. Go ahead and write down
everything that comes to mind.
There are many different possible reasons, all valid, and ultimately your
decision. Even if you don't know exactly what you want from college (or
after college), you probably have some idea of what things are important to
you, or that you might hope to get from the time spent at school.
If you're unsure of what your goals are, the first thing to do is to simply
spend some time thinking about it. First write down everything that
you think you might be interested in doing. Go ahead and write down
everything that comes to mind.
Even if you don't yet know what you want,
you still need goals.
If you're not sure what all of your options are, then set a goal right now
entitled "To find out more about my career options." Give yourself a
timeframe of 3-6 months, perhaps longer if you're a freshman, shorter if
you're senior.
Once you've compiled a list of all the things you think you might like to
explore while at college, the next step is to sort them by importance. You
could rank them in decending order of importance, or put some number of
stars from 1-5 next to each, depending on how important it is, etc.
Whatever works best for you.
If you're like most people, you'll have a couple of things that you know
you for sure want to do. Immediately set goals related to these!
Once you've compiled a list of all the things you think you might like to
do upon graduating, the next step is to sort them by preference. If you're
not dead set on a particular type of job or career, then this list might be
long. That's okay; include anything that comes to mind. If you don't know
enough about a job to sort it by preference, then sort them by interest level.
After the no-brainers (the ones that you know are interesting to you),
you'll probably have a few items on the list that you think might be
interesting, but you don't know enough about them to be certain. No
problem. When you create a plan for your new, "To Find out More About My
Career Options" your plan will end up comprising mostly a lot of fun tasks
to gather information, such as talking to people, searching online, reading
books, attending introductory meetings, and so on, until you know enough
about the job to know whether you want to pursue it or take a pass. If
you're pondering something big like choosing between two entire industries,
then consider doing an internship in that industry to see if you like it.
Paid internships are great (in essence, being paid to learn), but don't be
too afraid of unpaid internships if that's what's required to get your foot
in the door. Whether it leads to a paying job later, or steers you away
altogether because you discover you don't like the field, it will be well
worth your time.
Is That All?
The people who rise to the heights of whatever career they choose will all
tell you that college was just the beginning of their education.
Landing your first post-college job is where the rubber hits the road and
is, itself a huge accomplishment. But remember that it's really just the
first step on a long and rewarding career path. In fact, the moment you get
your first job, the next most important objective (goal) will probably be
to do well at the job. And it never ends. There will be an on-going
string of goals to accomplish on the job, new skills to acquire, and
eventually new and better jobs as you advance in your career. It's not only
important that you continue setting goals throughout this process; it's
actually the goals that make the process happen in the first place.
Never stop setting goals, revisiting them periodically, updating your plan,
and keeping yourself reminded of the plan. If you do these
four simple things, you're virtually guaranteed to make continuous progress
into any direction you choose.
More Goal-Setting Tips
Be sure to write your goals down or use myGoals.com's goal-setting site to write and manage them.
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