Careering: The Pocket Guide to Exploring Your Future Career

By Tamara S. Raymond

Careering offers young people a seamless step-by-step process to help teens avoid career traps. It’s the information-packed guide for students, teens and young adults to explore their career future - and its an ideal size for a pocket!

Topics include how to explore career options; network effectively; apply for jobs; develop interviewing skills; and conduct oneself once landing a job. The interactive, engaging “workbook” format allows for readers to write their plans, interests and aspirations on blank lines provided. Careering also contains a quick reference guide on participating in college immersion programs; summer camps; competitions; seasonal and entry-level jobs; and internships; and offers other key resources. Plus, Tamara offers advice for teens on how to responsibly use social media, so it doesn’t hurt their chances of landing work.

Careering offers a practical way to explore, experience and eliminate possible career paths. Specifically, Careering is a concise and easy-to-read pocket guide that helps young people:

Evaluate their interests, skills, and passions

Identify jobs, internships, and volunteer positions that align with their personal gifts

Identify multiple career exploration avenues, from camps to summer jobs

Put together a resume and references, even if they've never had a "real" job

Learn how to network, apply for jobs and develop interviewing skills

Learn how to pursue entrepreneurial opportunities

Learn how not to use social media if they want to land a job

…and do so much more.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Aug 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781683504030

Book preview

PREFACE

I wrote this book after hearing from students like you, who told me about the challenges and difficulties of navigating the whole job scene. This book is full of helpful hints and tips to guide you along the way. It is designed to get you out there doing, exploring, researching, trying new things, and having helpful, career-related conversations with others.

It is not my intent to add one more thing to the list of fifteen extracurricular activities and ten chores you have to do each day. It is my intent to create a whole new perspective for your thoughts about the future. I want to bring fun, exploration, and adventure—cased in responsibility and accountability—to finding out what’s next for you in life. As a certified leadership coach, I wrote this book to share my years of coaching experience, as well as my personal experiences. I hope to bring a sense of ease and purpose to you as you move forward in exploring what life has to offer.

I’ve been many things in my professional life: successful, an entrepreneur, employed, under employed, unemployed—and the list goes on. I’ve realized, for a major part of my life, I defined myself, as we often do, by how successful (or not) I was at a given point in time. I often got frustrated because I wasn’t where I thought I should be or where other people thought I should be.

However, I have now learned to take a step back, look at what I want, define what success really means to me, and envision what success looks like. Then I can decide I’m worthy of having it. It doesn’t have to look like everyone else’s brand of success, as long as I am fulfilled and can make a contribution to others. After all, people have different viewpoints on success.

What Careers and Industries Are You Most Interested in and Why?

Consider the following questions as you determine your career interests:

•  What impact would you like to make on the world?

•  What changes do you want to see in the world/your community/your neighborhood, and how can you use your talents to make it happen?

•  What are your gifts/talents?

•  Is it possible to make a difference and make a living doing it?

•  What do you like to do?

•  What do you want to be when you grow up?

•  What are you passionate about?

I think these are necessary questions, but, for me, these questions and variations on them have all, at some point, led to varying answers, such as:

•  Are you kidding me? I’m fifteen years old.

•  No, I can’t sing.

•  No, I’m not artistic.

•  I respect nurses, but I don’t want to be one.

At one point, my standard answer was, I want to be a doctor. In full disclosure, I used to give this answer to get people to stop asking me more questions. Yes, I know; I was cheeky even at fifteen. But the constant interrogation from adults led to feelings of frustration, excitement, and sometimes more questions. I would often think, I know what I like to do, but how is that a profession? What’s next for me? Spoiler alert! The goal of this book is to help you figure out some of these questions by giving you helpful and practical steps.

In listening to others, both professionally and personally, one comment I often hear is, I wish I had tried ______, or I didn’t think about doing ______, not to mention, I wish someone had told me ______.

So here it is. I’ve decided to share career-exploration tools many of us didn’t have when we were teens. Let my past experience be your guide. I am drawn to coaching and leadership development because I enjoy helping other people