We all know someone that may have graduated with a degree in a specific field, only to wind up doing something completely different. It is easy to be scanned in accepting the first job offer. But where will it lead?

If you are walking out the doors of a fine institution in a cap and gown hoping to be an art director, you will be very unpleasantly surprised. Regardless of how talented you are, you will have to pay your dues like everyone else. If you are in a current job and have aspirations to run the programs or start your own firm, you need to have a strategy as well.

If your desire is to be a creative genius, accept that first job only if there is some creative aspect to it. Even if it is miserable, you need some experience. Stay about a year, then think about your next move. Take all the creative tasks you did on that job and put them on your profile to get the next job and the next one and the next one.

You have to be smart in picking locations. Ask yourself, is this opportunity to build a block to where I want to go? Will there be recognizable company names on my resume? Am I showing continuing progress in my creative profession? The role of production, as an assistant designer role, designer role, senior designer role – they all build toward your ultimate goal.

Finally, don’t hesitate to find a mentor and ask what steps they took to get where they are. You’ll be surprised. Usually it involves a string of bad jobs and then the door opens and everything changes. Envision where you want to be and mark it with a flag. Then plan the road trip to get there.

Selecting the right career is never an easy matter. Career planning is a process that involves several steps, particularly when it is for a teen. Both universities and business organizations have designed programs for teenagers to assist them in identifying suitable options and making a right choice of career. Such guidance can be obtained by making a payment from a university, by a student as well as any member of the public. The guide can include a questionnaire and information about several careers. The questionnaire helps the person to narrow the choices based on several criteria. A program that has been designed well could also throw light on several career choices that the person may not have known about, effectively broadening his or her horizon. Also, as young people are not clear about the growth path of different careers, they also gain clarity on this issue.

Career counselors and teenage counselors have always said that young people and college students must select a career based on their own interest and skills, not due to pressure of family or peers or some image that may have of a particular career. Thus the so called ‘best’ careers may not always be the right choice. Career planning for teens is a process that will try to dissuade them from such a career unless it suits the individual for reasons mentioned earlier. So many websites and magazines may list hottest jobs, best jobs for collegiates and those with highest salary and perks. However, this is not the right way to decide upon a career and hot jobs should not become an automatic choice for a teen or a young job seeker.

The process of career planning for teens exists to make sure that they select the career path and college program that is best for them as an
individual. A lot of young believe, quite wrongly, that they will be stuck with the career choice that they make now, through out their life. Nothing could be more different. People change their career at several stages during their life. So, a career that is chosen now due to a college major or a training program can be changed later. However, career planning for teens goes a long way in ensuring that there is not much heart burn later.

Begin by turning off the news. Stop buying newspapers that display scary headlines about jobs and sales forecasts. Be especially wary of news networks and programs. They have to come up with stories every day and they like to evoke strong emotion.

Journalists are wonderful people but they need startling headlines. They work on a case basis, highlighting extreme experiences. What’s
happening “out there” may not make any difference to you. I talk to people every day who are changing jobs, getting raises and moving up with promotions.With the time you save by not watching news programs, grow your network of positive, successful people.

This one action alone can get you on the right track. You get ideas and connections that will move you to your goals. You get inspiration to develop new goals.

Sadly, you may have to bite the bullet and release negative people from your life. Don’t be too quick to drop someone who’s having a bad day.

But every time I’ve moved away from one negative source, two positive people arrive unexpectedly.

Finally, take the most difficult step: create a second stream of income before you need one. Use your evenings and weekends to take the first step.

For example, “Karla” needs more money. She wants to enjoy life and buy a lot more, but she realizes she can’t get a raise at work.

Since Karla is still working, she cannot violate her employer’s rules on second jobs. More important, she needs to think outside the box. One city government official works in accounting and runs a lawn care business on weekends. He loves it. He gets out in the fresh air. He gets to be physical rather than cerebral. And his target market wants his services on weekends, when he has no obligations to his employer.

You might also consider developing online income. Avoid the “Get Rich Quick” schemes. To earn revenue on the Internet, you have to invest
some time and energy. Chances are you can use find a business model to fit your own talents, preferences and skills.

Finally, some advice doesn’t change in any economy. While you are still working and secure, create your Plan B. Even in a high-performing
environment, we are all vulnerable. After all, you might wake up one day and realize your job or your business is making you sick. This situation is extremely rare and I never advise anyone to quit a job without another one waiting. But it could happen.

Your Plan B includes provision for health insurance, alternative income sources and a clear idea of how you will support yourself for the next six months to two years. It’s scary to put all these components together when you’re under the gun. So if your job feels comfortable or you’ve just started a job, make creating a Plan B your first priority.

Suppose you have shortlisted two candidates for a job. Both of them are well qualified and possess all the technical expertise needed for the job. Whom will you choose to fill up the vacancy? Personality assessment tests will help you to ascertain their non-technical qualities through a series of questions and enable you to judge the work style of a person, ability to work in a team, judgment power and goal orientation.

The major benefit of the assessment tools is not confined to the hiring process, but also used as an effective tool of employee retention. The assessment tool will identify the gap between employee work style and job needs. They provide you a road map for recruitment of prospective employees and the further development of essential traits such as, leadership ability, individual development, team communications and conflict resolution. It will also help the employees to make better, satisfying and successful career choices.

Nowadays, employee personality assessment tool is absolutely tailor made for clients to choose the types of behaviors that are most significant for their particular jobs and work culture of the organization. More and more companies are using these tests to hire skilled and reliable employees. Use Pro.file pre employment and employee personality assessment tests to improve organizational performance. Assess and align staff behavior to achieve optimal performance!

Pro.file Performance System™ is a world class behavioral assessment and development technology designed to help build high performance organizations. Through a combination of insightful executive education, proprietary assessment technology and experienced consulting input, they help organizations to more effectively and consistently recruit, retain, develop and manage their human resources. By aligning an individual’s natural thinking, behaviors and motivation to your specific positions and organizational culture, a higher level of performance, productivity and positive morale results.

Usually, if you take a test designed and interpreted by a professional such as a career counselor, you can expect reliable results. However, you can also find some very good online tests which you can take for free. Like the paid ones, many of the free tests do not take long to answer and you can easily follow the online instructions. Some sites even interpret your results right after you finish with your answers.

The downside of online free tests is that many of them are not standardized. They may come with disclaimers that they do not hold any responsibilities for the interpreted results. It is therefore important to take these tests only as a guide and read the results together with more professional advice from a career counselor. Bear in mind that even reliable standard tests should not be viewed as an oracle that has to be strictly followed.

Some career sites may offer free tests only as a teaser, and the designed questionaire usually can perk your interest. In fact, these test items may just be a small portion of a more reliable and comprehensive career assistance package which you can only get at a cost.

You may like to register with career sites that offer a wider range of career services, if you are serious about your career advancement. You may have to pay for joining. However, if you screen with care, you may find that what you get is really worth the price. After all, your career is an important part of your life, and you would like that part to be enjoying and rewarding.

As you can see, free career tests do hold values. In case you have just started to question your career choice, you can take some free tests as a guide for your judgement. However, if your problem gets serious, you may need the professional assistance from some career experts. In either case, free career tests can just be a perfect starting point to diagnose your career dilemma.

There are many individuals who are clueless about their pursuits after graduation, as they do not plan ahead. Finally, they end up earning little and feeling dissatisfied. Career planning can help you to realize your intentions and dreams – and if you want to have a stable future, proper planning is the key to success.

The Multi-Skill And Multi-Tasking Trend

The focus today is on acquiring multiple skills and cross functionality, and not on specialization. With proper career planning, we can avoid dead end jobs. Career planning helps us to focus on our positive and negative traits.

Planning your career basically starts after the secondary level of education. After a certain level of education, we have to decide on our careers, to be able to pursue higher education that will help us to secure good job opportunities.

Advantages

Career planning helps to pave a secure path. For example, if a person wants to become a banker, they have to possess a Bachelor’s degree in finance. Preplanning can help us achieve our educational targets effectively and also helps us to evaluate our personality. In short, career planning is necessary to guide us towards a proper and safer future.

Without proper planning, we may find ourselves lost – it will also be difficult to find the job we want in the future. Career planning motivates and drives us to accomplish the task.

A well-planned career helps us to achieve our goals and dreams. As time passes by, we grow and our needs change. Therefore, to keep pace with the future, we need to plan well ahead. Career planning helps us to make many adjustments along the way as we keep learning throughout our lives. Successful people are those who have adopted proper career planning.

Mentors and guides play a pivotal role in career planning. Career planning is an important aspect of our lives, but we should not put too much pressure on ourselves, as that would probably discourage us from making any real, profitable choices.

Career planning is something that everyone is faced to find a suitable job and go ahead with success. But the most important of all is to be honest and realistic with yourself, and make sure you ultimately choose a path that will make you happy and keep you financially secure.