Maximizing Your Career Development

In order to maximize your career development as you engage in study and practical experiences at F&ES, CDO recommends a commitment to the activities listed here.

Sample Career Development Curriculum

A sample two-year career “curriculum,” beginning the first term of the first year.

Thinking Generally About Careers

The Brazen Careerist, a career-related site and collection of bloggists geared towards Gen Yers. Includes such gems as 5 Reasons Why Being a Control Freak Is a Good Thing for You and Your Career, Crystal Ball: 10 Ways Generation Y Will Change the Workplace and An Introvert’s Guide to Networking.

Kevin Doyle, President of Green Economy, regularly contributes to Grist.org in his Remaking a Living green careers advice column.
Check out Kevin's recent article on careers in environmental management, featuring interviews with CDO Director Peter Otis and career services directors from Duke, Bren and Michigan, and register with Grist for RSS feeds on topics of interest: Environmental Management Careers: College Grads Hit the Green Job Market -- here's what they'll find.

New York Times Career Columnist Marci Alboher
Marci Alboher is a former corporate lawyer who has written about workplace issues and careers for The New York Times since 2001. Her topics include entrepreneurship for women, sharpening 'soft' skills, selling yourself, bringing life values to corporate ethics and blogging your way into business. Also check out Alboher's blog.

Bestselling Author on The Changing World of Work, Daniel Pink
Bestselling author of A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers Will Rule The Future and Yale Law School graduate Daniel Pink argues that right brain skills are garnering the best rewards in the 21st century economy and changing world of work. His series of YouTube segments offer interesting career advice for individuals striving for both a high level of personal job satisfaction and successfully making a difference.

Visit Pink's website and check out A Whole New Mind and his manga career guide, The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need, in the CDO library.

A sampling of Pink's YouTube clips: Exercise Creativity At Your Job; Abundance, Asia and Automation; and Help! My Resume Has Too Many Jobs!

The Wall Street Journal's Career Journal
Weekly advice about job hunting, the latest news and advice about career decisions, and financial information on twentysomethings. Includes a section on the job search, interview savvy, networking, and resumes called How Can We Help You? On the lighter side, here's a recent article on panty hose and the generational divide: Bare Legged Ladies: Hosiery Reveals Office Divide by columnist Christina Binkley.

SELF AWARENESS TOOLS

Skills and Career Assessment

What are your innate skills? Your transferable skills? What is your ideal workplace culture? What kind of leader are you?

These questions are important for writing your resume, developing your personal promotion plan and interviewing, but are also essential pieces of personal information to research and explore as you begin making choices about a professional environmental career.

* Career-Intelligence.Com: The Smart Woman's Online Career Resource Free registration required (you don't have to be a woman to register). Excellent resource for exploration and identification of innate, transferable and job-specific skills; personality; values; and interests.
* MindTools: Essential Skills for an Excellent Career offers lots of free information and ideas on leadership, project management, communication, problem-solving, practical creativity, information skills and time management to help you think about skills you have and skills you might want to develop.
* Checkster.com Do you have a hard time assessing your personal strengths and gauging how other people view them? Rated among author of What Color is Your Parachute? Richard Bolles' top 25 internet sites, checkster.com allows you to conduct your own 360 self-evaluation. You select friends, employers, faculty and family to send this brief survey to, fill out your own self-assessment, and checkster does the rest! (although you'll likely have to contact everyone to tell them this is legit and encourage them to respond) Checkster prepares your average ratings and gives you the write-in comments anonymously. Useful feature is an analysis of how your self ratings diverge from how others rate you.
* My Career Plan, by Jim Hogan. Online career planning manual includes exercises on self assessment, skills assessment and career planning.

What Are Employers Looking For?

An equally important question is "What are employers looking for?" No matter what field or sector you are focusing on, it is to your advantage to develop and hone the basic skills needed in most occupations in addition to the special professional skills needed for your particular work. Here are some basics:

* Our Googley advice to students: Major in learning, Jonathan Rosenberg, Senior VP, Product Management, Google
* 21 Business Skills Needed To Succeed, businessschooledge.com. Detailed descriptions of top business skills, broken down by Communication, Planning, Productivity and Creativity skills.

Top Skills For Environmental Professionals From the USEPA Workforce Assessment Project
* Communication skills (oral and written)
* Collaboration abilities and team orientation
* Customer orientation, focus on your audience’s needs
* Creativity, innovative thinking
* Broad environmental sciences understanding
* Analytical ability, critical thinking, problem-solving
* Work orientation, professionalism, positive attitude
* Occupation-specific skills and knowledge
* Mastery of information technology, including GIS
* Leadership ability

On-line Resources: Career and Personality Tests

Are you an introvert who prefers working independently, or an extrovert who thrives on lots of interaction? Do you prefer a highly structured work environment, or one with a lot of room for change? Try some of these resources to get you started on answering some of these career research questions.
*Princeton Review Career Quiz - Free, quick, general career quiz that reveals your style and interests. With free registration you can also get a list of careers suitable for your type. Some services on site have a fee.
*Keirsey Temperament and Character Sorter
*Enneagram Personality Dynamics Test - Which "type" are you?

Occupational Information for Environmental Careers

Know what environmental issues and subjects you are interested in but not sure how that will translate into a career? Start your career research by investigating environmental careers in general, see what types of jobs are held by people with your interests and skills, look at salary information and investigate general employment trends.
CDO has several good basic environmental careers handbooks in our library including The Environmental Careers Organization's The Complete Guide to Environmental Careers in the 21st Century and The ECO Guide to Careers that Make a Difference: Environmental Work For A Sustainable World and Wetfeet's new Green Careers Guide. You may also explore these sites that give general information on environmental careers and statistics on opportunities in various employment sectors and geographically:

*Occupational Outlook Handbook - US Dept. of Labor Statistics
*Nature and the Environment Career Guide
*Statistical Resources on the Web - Offered by University of Michigan Documents Center