Pre-planning Your Career Is Essential to Maximize Your ROI
By Lynne Fuller, Founder of College Flight Path
Why a Career Plan Starts Early and Evolves Throughout One’s Professional Life:
After working with 8th grade students through career professionals, I have engaged with over 5,000 clients in 20+ years. The common denominator has been to define purpose and willingness to persist in a particular field aligned with a client’s abilities. This theory is rooted in the willingness to grow and develop in the roles one takes on to prepare for new experiences, plan for various unknowns to happen, and build skills to be prepared to market oneself for new opportunities.
According to Stanford University’s study on career progression, 70% of development occurs through on-the-job experiences, 20% via feedback or relationship exposure, and 10% is learned through courses and reading via additional education. Yet the foundation during high school and college is to build these relationships, be in a position to engage in experiences, and leverage what has been learned in the classroom to choose a career. This, of course, evolves throughout the lifespan, adjusts during one’s mid-career, especially in the case of any market shake-ups. Our job is to help all of our clients create and reimagine their professional lives across their lifespan.
Postsecondary Career Planning:
When considering course selection, activities, summer programming, career exploration, college majors, training programs, and first jobs, we all must consider their common denominator: the purpose these choices serve in our lives. It was once thought that by attending college, students would use that experience to determine their career path, and then graduate with expertise in an employable skill. However, chalking up an investment into one’s future can no longer be done without planning and forethought as the investment is too big and too risky.
In many past articles, talks, and podcast features, I have shared the importance of exploring all possible interests throughout high school. This purposeful examination leads students to invest in their talents, engage in enriching extracurricular activities, establish relationships with teachers, coaches, and mentors, and learn what makes them excited to contribute to our world. Ultimately, this knowledge of oneself translates to how well one will lead with increased motivation, and job satisfaction that improves overall well-being. This exercise also helps provide context when building a list of colleges, programs, majors, and potential career paths that align with our client’s skills, interests, strengths, and goals.
Educational and Career Roadmap:
To establish a roadmap for one’s profession, you must first reflect and make informed decisions about majors, training, and career paths. This is why we are evolving our career planning suite of programming, support, talks, and offerings to provide a more robust platform after watching our past clients thrive for over two decades through reflection, engagement, and adjustment to their plan. Now it is time to plan the roadmap for all of our clients so they too can feel empowered during all of the twists and turns of their career trajectory.
Career Flight Path Expansion:
Our goal at College Flight Path is to offer a continuum of service to our clients that follows them from academic planning through all phases of ones career. By offering services on how to leverage their long-term stories, academic assets, and skills, we can build a formidable presence on LinkedIn, develop an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) compliant resume that showcases skills aligned with that job, and create a resume based on each unique job URL.
Declaring our expansion into every phase of the career landscape is because we get to know your story, and have often been with you since you first defined it.
First Define:
Postsecondary success for early career, mid-career, or career changers
Establish networking tools and skills
Connect with professionals within the industry you desire
Provide career coaching for all by establishing a Custom Career Roadmap that lets us help you evolve your story.
Then Engage Our Services:
Resume and cover letter optimization for Applicant Tracking System (ATS)
Job search strategies
URL customization
Strong Interest Inventory and Career Debrief
Interview preparation and confidence-building
Presentation preparation
Career goal setting and professional development
Salary negotiation and career advancement strategies
Ready to begin? Fill out our contact form to get started.
Want to learn more about what we offer and why, click on our Career Flight Path page for more information about how we can help you build your plan. Register for our career series to learn more!
Email hello@collegeflightpath.com or book an exploratory free 15-minute call.
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