As the class comes to a close, I've begun looking back on the year and thinking about what I will take away. I have learned a lot about management techniques, specifically those dealing with conflict, stress, change, and leadership. But, towards the end of the class, we began talking about career management. Career management seems to be one of the more pertinent topics we have discussed in the class. Moving forward from my junior year, I am getting increasingly nervous about my future after college. How am I going to find a job after school? When I do, how am I going to move up to the position I want? There are so many questions and not many answers. After our career management notes, however, I have decided that while there are not going to be very many answers about my future now, there are things that I can do in the present to affect my future and ultimately help me shape the career I want.
The first aspect of career management we discussed in lecture was preparation. This refers to the here and now. Preparation entails parts of early career management such as making an occupational choice, an organizational choice, a realistic job preview, and strategic planning. Applying these to my life, I can make these decisions now, while I am in college. Right now, I am a junior at Marquette University, majoring in political science and minoring in business administration. Around this time last year, I made a tentative occupational choice, deciding that someday, I am going to become a lawyer. The details have still not become any more clear as I don’t know what kind of law I’d like to practice, but I have time to make this choice.
After my occupational choice was established, I had to begin my strategic planning. This began with a list of what is necessary to be a lawyer. I have to continue keeping my grades up, take the LSAT, do well on the LSAT, apply to law school, get into law school, graduate law school, and then find a job. This list seemed daunting at first but as I am now moving through it, it doesn’t seem so bad. This is about as far as I can be in the process right now.
Recently, I was looking for an internship in my chosen field of law. I found many resources that have helped me do just this, including a new business/ social networking site called LinkedIn. Try it out for yourself!
But that is not where the career management tips end. The next section of the lecture discussed advancement within a career choice. While I cannot affect these now, it is important to keep them in mind. This section involved aspects of career advancement like mastering competency, establishing mentors and networks, career paths and ladders, dual career partnerships, and work-life balance. These will all be things that I will need to think about once I have reached my goal of becoming a lawyer in order to move into the position that I most want to occupy. This is an important section of these notes coming away for me because this is one of the aspects of my future that I worry about most.
The next section discusses maintenance. Maintenance, in a career management sense entails mentoring others, sustaining performance, relevancy, and legacy. These are parts of a career that are recurring and must be continually addressed in order to reach your goals in these sections. In particular, I worry about sustaining performance. This is not because I do not think I can do the work adequately, but more, because I worry that I will one day get sick of my career choice.
Luckily, there is a section for this worry as well. This portion is titled “When Disaster Strikes.” During lecture, Dr. Menck addressed this, saying that at some point in our careers, something will happen to cause us to lose our job. This could include being fired, laid off, getting burnt out (as was my concern above), or failing in a startup business. The important thing to remember here is to have a contingency plan, on top of a regular plan. Until now, I had never really thought of a contingency plan. Even today, I am still not sure what else I could do if I don’t become a lawyer, but another thing my professor mentioned is that this is usually the case. Things will work out and we will end up with a career. What is important is that we enjoy what we do and do it well, remembering what we learned in Management 3001 at Marquette University.
However, it does not hurt to have a resume handy, as well as a 5 and 10 year plan for career goals.I found this website that uses a nice template for constructing these plans. After this lesson, I set up my five-year plan. Within the next five years I plan on starting and graduating law school. I want to go to school in a city, probably Chicago, where I can find an internship during school that will eventually lead to a full time employment post graduation. In the next few years, once I become more sure of what I am doing, I will develop a ten-year plan so that I can be ready for my future career.
Ultimately, I have learned many useful things in this class, but one of the best bits of advice I've received was on this topic of career management. I will take this knowledge and apply what I can now so that I can be prepared in the future.
The first aspect of career management we discussed in lecture was preparation. This refers to the here and now. Preparation entails parts of early career management such as making an occupational choice, an organizational choice, a realistic job preview, and strategic planning. Applying these to my life, I can make these decisions now, while I am in college. Right now, I am a junior at Marquette University, majoring in political science and minoring in business administration. Around this time last year, I made a tentative occupational choice, deciding that someday, I am going to become a lawyer. The details have still not become any more clear as I don’t know what kind of law I’d like to practice, but I have time to make this choice.
After my occupational choice was established, I had to begin my strategic planning. This began with a list of what is necessary to be a lawyer. I have to continue keeping my grades up, take the LSAT, do well on the LSAT, apply to law school, get into law school, graduate law school, and then find a job. This list seemed daunting at first but as I am now moving through it, it doesn’t seem so bad. This is about as far as I can be in the process right now.
Recently, I was looking for an internship in my chosen field of law. I found many resources that have helped me do just this, including a new business/ social networking site called LinkedIn. Try it out for yourself!
But that is not where the career management tips end. The next section of the lecture discussed advancement within a career choice. While I cannot affect these now, it is important to keep them in mind. This section involved aspects of career advancement like mastering competency, establishing mentors and networks, career paths and ladders, dual career partnerships, and work-life balance. These will all be things that I will need to think about once I have reached my goal of becoming a lawyer in order to move into the position that I most want to occupy. This is an important section of these notes coming away for me because this is one of the aspects of my future that I worry about most.
The next section discusses maintenance. Maintenance, in a career management sense entails mentoring others, sustaining performance, relevancy, and legacy. These are parts of a career that are recurring and must be continually addressed in order to reach your goals in these sections. In particular, I worry about sustaining performance. This is not because I do not think I can do the work adequately, but more, because I worry that I will one day get sick of my career choice.
Luckily, there is a section for this worry as well. This portion is titled “When Disaster Strikes.” During lecture, Dr. Menck addressed this, saying that at some point in our careers, something will happen to cause us to lose our job. This could include being fired, laid off, getting burnt out (as was my concern above), or failing in a startup business. The important thing to remember here is to have a contingency plan, on top of a regular plan. Until now, I had never really thought of a contingency plan. Even today, I am still not sure what else I could do if I don’t become a lawyer, but another thing my professor mentioned is that this is usually the case. Things will work out and we will end up with a career. What is important is that we enjoy what we do and do it well, remembering what we learned in Management 3001 at Marquette University.
However, it does not hurt to have a resume handy, as well as a 5 and 10 year plan for career goals.I found this website that uses a nice template for constructing these plans. After this lesson, I set up my five-year plan. Within the next five years I plan on starting and graduating law school. I want to go to school in a city, probably Chicago, where I can find an internship during school that will eventually lead to a full time employment post graduation. In the next few years, once I become more sure of what I am doing, I will develop a ten-year plan so that I can be ready for my future career.
Ultimately, I have learned many useful things in this class, but one of the best bits of advice I've received was on this topic of career management. I will take this knowledge and apply what I can now so that I can be prepared in the future.
Lecture Notes: Week 16. Spring Semester. 2012.