my name is coach Grace Dyson and you can call me coach Grace I'll be your coach and guide throughout this journey I'm the founder of Life Design Careers and as a full-time career coach it is my greatest joy to be able to help students just like you figure out what you want to do in the future as your coach I'm not going to tell you what to do but rather act as your guide on this journey so that you can uncover your own path I can remember a time in high school when my dad and I were talking about what I would take in college honestly I had no clue but I told him I would take business looking back I just pulled it out of the air after two pretty difficult years in college I was still confused until I did what I'm about to share with you today as a coach I speak with lots of students who don't know what they want to do about their careers so I have a question for you are you feeling lost about your career Direction if you are you're not alone I talk to students on a regular basis who sincerely want to know what their path is but they just haven't figured it out yet the bad news is it just doesn't automatically drop out of your brain the good news is there is a way to figure out your career path so don't worry by the end of this course you'll have more information to help you make those critical life decisions so let's talk about what we're going to cover in this course the how to design your career step-by-step course will help you to identify where you are today and help you create a step-by-step career map for the future whether it's a map on your GPS system or a more traditional map you've got to know where you are before you can figure out where you're going so that's what we'll be covering in this course before we get started let's briefly run through the agenda step one will cover the Define step that is the who am I step step two will to cover the Discover step which is where I am step three will cover the develop step how do I and step four will cover the do step which is what do I in the course description I told you that you would be creating a career map and this is where we get started we're going to do that by using the structure of a mind map so what's a mind map well very simply a mind map is a diagram that starts with a central topic and has branches coming out of that topic so before we get started grab a piece of paper as big as you can get it and something to write with you'll see on each slide when it's time for you to create something on your map a pencil like you see here so start with the central Topic in the center of your page and I want you to write career math or you can write your name then draw the four branches coming out now that you have the center of your mind map Drawn it's time for you to add different sections so we'll start with the top of the Mind map you'll see it's labeled number one and you'll write the word Define there this is the first section of your mind map or your career map then you'll go into section two and you'll write the word discover I think it's a good idea for you to add the numbers you always know where you're starting then you'll go down to section three and add the word develop and then into section four and add the word do I'll explain each one of these sections in more detail as we go through all right let's go on to the next slide here is where we start to build out your career map and as you're going through each section think about your life what I did when I realized I was not in the right curriculum I started by reading my life backwards and that's what you're going to do when we look at the first section the next leg that you want to add at the top is who am I wow isn't that a great question it's a question that many times college students won't start with usually when we're talking about any kind of education After High School or even in high school the focus is on where am I going to school I'm going to ask you to hold off on that for a bit and let's just focus on who you are now before we get to who you are I want to add the other three sections so next to section two you're going to write the words where am I and then next to section three you're going to write the words how do I and next is section four you're going to write the words who am I and you can put them in bubbles just like I have them here have fun with it use some colored pencils if you want to or you can fill that in later the beauty of an online course is that if I'm going too fast just stop the video fill it in and then catch up okay so now we're ready to start looking at each section to see how it can help you design your career the first section or step is who am I as you're looking at the next slide you're going to see two words uncover and discover now what do I mean by that I feel like especially with me I was out there trying to discover a career and you know the funny thing about Discovery is if you go out to discover something you may find it you may not so I like to think of this process as more of the uncovering process and what I mean by that is we're uncovering something that's there every one of us we are born with different talents skills abilities desires and all of these things play into your career decision and so this is why you absolutely have to start here defining you it all starts with you let's go on to the next slide and look at this in more detail so now you're going to be adding some more you see the pencil in the right hand corner that means it's time for you to add to your career map so now we want to add four aspects of you that are key in uncovering your career path the first one is your personality we're going to talk more about these in detail the second one are your interests then they're your skills and then there are your values so let's dig a Little Deeper on the next slide okay your personality is how you naturally respond and oh yes we're going to dig deeper into that as well your interests are really those jobs that you prefer those jobs that catch your attention those things that Fascinate You that's part of your vocational interest picture the third area are your skills and your skills are what you naturally do well now you will need more training like all of us but there are some things that you do better than other people that come easier to you than other people and that's a part of your career picture and then we get to values and values are just those things that are important to you those things that are a priority for you in your life my values are my values and yours are yours so we can't really compare each other to figure out what we should do it's really looking inside it's really doing what I had to do all those many years ago reading your life backwards okay let's go into more detail on the next slide okay I know this looks like a crazy slide but we're going to take it column by column okay and each column you get to choose there is a handout with this chart in the app and you should be able to pull that down but for now just make notes on the back of the piece of paper that you're working on okay look at the first one well it's this whole list of things that that describe you are you introverted or extroverted are you quiet enthusiastic social are you a cautious person maybe you're very verbal that would tell us a lot right are you compassionate organized you know if you're organized and everybody else around you does too creative are you structured or unstructured are you imaginative or daring all of these things tell you about you and help you to make really good career decisions so take a moment and I want you just to choose the top four now if you can't choose four then choose six but we're going to narrow it down to four okay so take a second a couple seconds and choose those things about you this isn't a test you know you choose four things and just put a mark next to them or a highlighter if you print it okay we're going to go on to the next section and that's the interest section now this when you think about the interest section I want you to think about professions when you think about the interest section what things just really get your attention that you think are kind of cool you'd want to know more about all of that plays into your career decisions so let's go down this list absolutely not an exhaustive list but a good place to start are you athletic and it's more than just a hobby for you what about being outdoors do you prefer careers that are Outdoors some that are adventurous maybe you're very mechanical very Hands-On what about your desire to protect security and enforcement uh do you care about animals Transportation Finance as I'm going down the list technological science you want a career in technology what about science and health maybe that appeals to you right now you're not choosing your career you're just noting your interests okay career in business or sales International law and politics religious careers are you an educator were you the one that was lining up your dolls or your trucks and trying to teach them counseling maybe you're a writer performing or artistic all of these are interests that may be yours and I've even left the blank if there's something that you just know about already all right I want you to take the next couple of seconds I don't want this to take a long time and choose the top four again if you can't decide choose six and then we'll narrow it down to four all right let's go on to the skills section so the skills section are those things that you naturally do well are you analytical artistic athletic clerical you can work every office equipment comes natural to you uh you're interested in cross-cultural things you like to work with people interpersonal things maybe you're the manager and you've been that kind of manager since you were about eight years old you know as I did this look on myself I discovered skills that I had been interested in since I was eight years old and it absolutely made all the difference what about marketing or math or mechanical are you Musical again are you that one that's just organizing everything you love working with others you have strong writing skills all of these are skills that will play into you making career decisions again Mark your top four if you need to stop the video to do that go ahead but don't take long I'll be here waiting for you all right let's go on to the priorities section on this list these are things that are important to you many times people will leave this piece out of their career decision making when it keeps coming up so we want to make sure that the this is a part of your career decision making do you want a role that has Adventure or risk High income family your family a high priority for you so you're making a decision based on them spirituality maybe you want your environment to be very clean you like working Outdoors you want your schedule to be flexible some people don't care about that for others it's a high priority does your role need to be helping others and if you aren't helping others you won't be happy that's a priority for you what about leadership you like Variety in your work are your friends and Leisure Time very important to you and it would factor into any kind of job that you took what about travel or continuing education all of these pieces are very very important and they play into your career decisions now if we advance to the next slide what you're going to see is what this looks like look like when I did it so here are some things that I highlighted for myself introverted and by the way uh introverted and extroverted sometimes gets the reputation of it being that person who is so outgoing and the other one is so closed closed in really what this means is how you generate your activity or your energy when I think about being introverted by this definition I love being around people I love talking and you may have noticed that already but when I need energy I need to be alone so maybe you're like that too you're a very you appear to be very extroverted but when it's time to close it down you need to close it down that extroverted person recharges around people kind of the life of the party I'm sure if you're extroverted you know someone introverted and vice versa so the other things I chose for myself were compassionate creative imaginative on the interest side education counseling writing artistic from a skills perspective artistic cross-cultural interpersonal love working with other people writing is a part of what I do priorities yes I I like I like a high income I've gotten kind of used to living indoors and eating right family helping others and travel what I want you to note about your chart that you might see from mine is that there is consistency across so to just look at your interests and not consider your personality or to just look at your skills and not consider your priorities sometimes can result in job boredom and job frustration and so that's why we want to look at all four of these sections and that will you'll see that clearly on the next chart this is where we take into consideration or you should take into consideration all four areas because when you have all four areas working for you it equals career fit imagine having the personality to do something the skills and the abilities didn't violate your values but you had no interest in it you would experience frustration and boredom so I urge you to look at all four areas when you're looking for career fit all right we're ready to go on to the next section and that is step two the Discover section now the way this works is that once you have a good handle on who you are now you can look for Where You Are and when I say where I'm talking about career areas so where am I this is where you can discover you where do you see a career fit and I call this the discovery area because many times we can't make good decisions because we really don't understand what's out there I can tell you this for sure as a long time coach you can do more than one thing but you'll be happy you're doing it in certain places let's go on to the next slide and so now we're getting ready to add another piece to your career mind map see the pencil in the right hand corner so get ready it's time to add the next few sections so the Discover piece the where am I piece gets us to look at five career areas and I'm going to give you these labels to put in the box and into your sections but I'll have to Define them for you because they may not be as clear so in the first box I want you to write the word doing in the second box I want you to write the word helping in the third box I want you to write the word analyzing in the fourth box I want you to write the word influencing and in the fifth box I want you to write the word expressing if you need a minute you can pause your video and come back once you're done all right so you've got all five of those labels in there and eventually we're going to cross out some of those labels because you won't find careers that you're interested in in all of the sections you may find some in some or some one or two of the sections so let's go on to the next slide and break it down so really what we're looking at is 21 career groups inside of five career interest areas and so as we look at them you'll recognize these names because I read them to you when we were looking at your interests that's why it's important to do the who am I before you do the where am I so let's take a look and see what we've got going here and as I go over these I'd like you to either make a note or if you printed it Circle a few of these areas that jump out to you so in the doing section and let's read the column down this is these are careers where you're actually using your physical body in some way Athletics outdoors and agriculture very physical work um Adventure mechanical you're using your hands security and enforcement so there are people that absolutely love this kind of work and would not be happy sitting at a desk that's just not what they do unless we mix it with something else so that's the doing section underneath the helping section these are going to be more consumer-based careers Animal Care any kind of service that you're providing for someone consumer science careers you might find a chef or a hairdresser or someone that is providing that type of service Transportation could be a pilot could be a um a bus driver it could be you know anyone that's providing any kind of careers in a service with a career in transportation underneath the analyzing careers this is where you're going to find your stem careers Finance um Tech science and health anything where you're analyzing data or putting things together from a technology standpoint would fall underneath these careers influencing this is where you're in a career that's influencing someone else sales very much in influencing career Management International Business law and politics religion education and certainly counseling all working with someone and then expressing careers so these are going to be writing performing and communication it could even be teaching from a training perspective and then your artistic careers now one thing that this chart doesn't tell you is professions and so I want to talk to you about that for a minute because thinking about that it always reminds me of this mental picture it's a little silly so hang with me there suppose we walked into a restaurant we sit down the server comes over and says to me ma'am what would you like to eat and I say oh would you please bring me some protein the server might scratch his or her head and say I I don't know what you want can you be a little bit more specific and I say oh I'm sorry bring me some meat the server still doesn't know what to bring me but you know they know what not to bring me because I didn't ask for vegetables and so I say oh okay I'm sorry let me be a little bit more specific could you bring me some beef well the server still is not quite sure what to write down on the pad but they know what not to write down because I didn't ask for tofu I didn't ask for fish I've asked for some beef so then finally I come to the order and I say could you bring me a burger and now the server knows a lot more about what to bring me I might need to tell him or her how to get it done this is what happens when you ask someone what they want to do and they say like me business we don't know what they want when someone says to me even psychology I don't know what they want and so we have to drill down and let's go to the next slide to to get a picture of what that looks like because your destination is different from your occupation so if we look at this chart what we're seeing at the top is this person who wants a career in technology and but it doesn't tell us where they want that career because potentially a career in technology which could be anywhere would be different at the local hospital than it might be in a Communications company so let's say that person now made the decision that they want to be in the communications field we still don't know what they want to do until we get down to the profession level the occupation level so a destination is different from an occupation or in other words you've got to get from protein down to the Burger you need to do that for yourself so that you can research careers so you can see what they're really like you know one of my goals is really to help students to be able to make these decisions before they graduate even before they graduate high school to get closer to what their career choices are if you look at this link that I have down here at the bottom and it will make sure that you get that as well in the app this is a website called onetonline and this will give you an opportunity to to research thousands of careers all you have to do is put it in at the top of the um the browser and it will take you down and give you lots and lots of detail let me read that for you just in case you want to write it down right now www o-n-e-t-o-n-l-i-n-e dot org this is a fantastic website to be able to research because remember I told you these decisions aren't just going to drop into your brain it's going to take a little work and a little research but the closer you get to what you are really interested in you'll have more information in order to make good decisions going forward all right let's go on to the next slide now how do you research occupations or how do you research professions here are some ways you can do that I just gave you one way by researching online but also networking now I hope you're listening because I'm about to tell you something that is really really important for you the best thing that you can do for your career whether you're a high school student or a college student is to learn how to connect with others and find out what they're doing this is called networking that's all networking is it's just connecting with people you've been doing it your whole life now you need to learn how to do it professionally and you can do that by doing something called informational interviewing and you you can Google informational interviewing it's just where you have 30 minutes with someone to ask them about their profession how did they get into this profession how long did it take them to go through school what did they learn while they were in school what did they wish they had learned imagine having that kind of information before you get out of school that'll save you time money and energy this is the number one thing that you can do another thing you can do is to read the bios of people or talk to them once you see them find out what their bios are and then another way is job shadowing now I know we are still dealing with the effects of the pandemic and so this might be a little hard but as long as you do have YouTube you can do at least a little bit of peeking over the shoulders of people in different professions but do that after you do the networking so those are some ways that you can research professions all right let's go on to the next section we're moving through here all right section three or step three is the develop section so you know more about who you are and you've now been able maybe to pick a couple of those sections to say I'm interested in influencing careers and I've drilled down and I think I want to be in sales or I think I want to be in some sort of international business or I want to be an educator and so you've drilled down you've researched you've gotten yourself down to the level where you are actually looking at professions and you can talk to people now we can talk about your education far too often people choose an educational path before they have figured out steps one and two and what does that result in not just one change of major listen we've all been there right but maybe three and four changes of major because you're ending up guessing your way through and it doesn't have to be that way so now we're ready to talk about your development so let's go on and look at what your development plan should be this is where you're looking at the research that you've done and you're saying okay I'm going to need X Y and Z in fact with networking and informational interviewing I recommend that college students do this every semester one of the main reasons why you need to do it is because you're gonna need friends when you get out of school so having this mindset that you're not waiting until your last year to be able to connect with people in your field is very very beneficial all right let's go on and get ready to add to the next section of our mind map or our career map and that's the develop section so what you're seeing here is that there are three things you need to educate yourself in number one your field whatever education is is applicable to the field that you're in you need to walk that road and you'll know it because you did your research and 10 people told you the same thing the second thing is that you need some experience this is the stuff of resumes this is the the kind of things that will not just say I was in school and I didn't do anything else but this is the the different types of experience that you can get and the third thing that I put here is job search now you won't often see this but what I find when I work with college students who are now ready to hit the job market is that this piece of their Career Development hasn't been done college students who maybe have never done a resume um who don't understand interviewing skills who don't understand what it takes to be actually able to look for a job so I add that as part of your education and you may have to reach out for it you may have to approach your career development department your career services department and ask for it but this is a part of what you need in order to be able to move forward so let's go on oh I'm sorry let's stop there's the pencil um and it's okay we're fine where we are make sure that you put education experience and job search and then now we're ready to look and see what that education looks like so for whatever field you're in there's going to be education that's associated with it it could be a university more than likely will be a university or it could be some sort of technical or trade education you might need a certification you might find that you've got your degree but you're going to need some sort of certification that could be something you work on over a summer but how would you know that if you didn't do your research maybe during the summer you can add an online course oh like this section that you're in you're already ahead of the game all right let's look at experience so in the experience section this is where you are actually getting some Hands-On now hopefully you got to do a little job shadowing when you were in section two um the Discover section but if you didn't now's the time to do it you definitely want to do internships did you hear the S on the end of that internship internships do as many as you can if you find out that a company doesn't allow you to do an internship until your junior year then go back and do a job shadow some way that you're able to see what the inside of that profession looks like you can also volunteer all of that becomes experience that's really important for your resume now you're going to need to find a way to remember what you did the best way you can do it is to keep adding it to your resume so that that resume is a working living document otherwise you'll have an experience in your first year that you won't remember in your fourth year so or your fifth year whatever the case may be and then there's even more apprenticeships now if you are a person that is about to get out of school or you just got you just finished you just graduated then I want you to look into postgraduate internships they exist companies have them and many times they're paid so don't give up if you were the person that you know you were heads head down in school and you really didn't do as much as you um maybe should have or could have you can still work this through by creating or asking for a postgraduate internship these things are possible everything I'm telling you you can google and find out not making up any terms here for you okay now let's go on to job search what do you need to know about job search well I went over some of the the items already you need to know how to do a resume now I would recommend you get help with this because there's lots of examples on the internet that are just really not good they're not good um you know and they're not recommended so the stuff that I'm telling you are the things that recruiters have told us career coaches they like to see so you can get help so that you can put together a resume that fits the field you're in uh I typically don't recommend a picture on your resume unless you're a model but um you know you really want to match the feel that you're in you might not put Graphics extensive graphics on your resume but if you're a graphic artist you might so you want to match the field that you're in and get help find the coach if you're enrolled in a university and you've not visited your career services department or if you're in an internship and you haven't talked to your University recruiters you are not taking advantage of benefits that are available to you at no extra cost please please please take advantage of those things interviewing skills today there are lots of ways to get interviewing skills that are online where you can practice answering questions making sure that you're looking at the camera and lots of interviewing today is done online so the skill sets a little different definitely you want to get educated and then about applying for jobs and really understanding the market and how you apply if I were to ask you what is the most effective way to apply for a job I am sure many of you would tell me to apply online do you know that that is the least most effective way to get a job you have to do it but you have to combine it with other job search strategy so that's just a little I'm not trying to teach that to you right now but just to let you know that along with your education and along with your experience you want to have some job search skills they'll make a difference for you all right let's go on to section four or step four and that is the do section so I know that sounded a little strange what do I do what I mean by that is what do I do next now that you have all this good information about who am I where am I how do I what do you do next what's the next step for you when you finish this course and you um click the close button you need to get busy so let's look at what that involves it's time for action what do you do next you look at yourself to decide going on to the next slide you're going to see we're now into the do section of your career map and you've got your pencil so let's go ahead and add that what do I do or what do I do next section Bel um Circle to your mind map and then let's go on to the next section or the next page I should say on here you're going to see some of the things that you saw as we were going around your career map so the question is do you have a good firm handle on who you are from a personality from a interest from a skills and from a values perspective if not that's your next step you want to get some assessment I love assessments but remember what you're measuring some assessments only measure one thing personality or interests or values you need all four so you can possibly find an assessment there are some out there that measure more than one thing or you take separate assessments and you may need the help of a coach to help you understand what you're reading don't don't get upset if you can't figure it out get some help again you can go to your career services department or find a coach that's able to help you what do you do next if you have a good handle on who you are and what you like and what you prefer then you can go on to the Discover section where am I so maybe you know who you are but whoa where where am I going to be this is the research section and the informational interviews so once you've picked a couple of different sections that you're interested in maybe you're interested in the influencing section and the um analyzing section now you want to drill down and find out what types of jobs what types of professions feels you're drilling down now remember you've got to get down to that occupation level so if you have a great idea of who you are you're really settled on where you find yourself where you are those areas that you add value now we can talk about your education and that brings us to the thing that you would do next you're good on on um section one and two now you're just trying to figure out well how do I get there so you're going to use the information that you got during your informational interviewing you're going to look at different schools you're going to look within you're already in school so now you need to look and see what your college offers maybe even talk to some alumni you want to look and see what kind of experience you can get you need education and you need experience you need education and you need experience both are important to being able to get to the next step and you need some job search skills and you don't want to wait until you're about to graduate to um learn how to do a resume if you'd been if you'd started putting that resume together even in high school guys even in your first or second year you could capture all of those things that you've been doing and in some form be able to share that with a potential employer so let's put it all together here's your map your personality interests skills and values you can look at your chart to see what you selected you look at your discover section to see What professions were interesting to you which ones fit your personality which fit your skill set you've come down you've made some choices about your education and you're actively working your process and this is how it connects together who am I tells me where to look just like when I asked for beef at the restaurant I automatically eliminated fish I automatically eliminated tofu when you make choices you exclude other things and that may be all right for you maybe it's just been overwhelming trying to figure out what you want to do well that may be because you're looking at too many areas let your life tell you what you need to do so I did tell you that when I was doing this process for myself I went back and I looked at the things that I had been interested in and I discovered this person who loved television behind the scenes the first time I was in a television station I was eight years old I was there for a children's television show on my birthday and I was so excited to be there but what I can remember even now is how big the cameras were and how fascinated I was with things that were behind the scenes as time went on I got more interested in photography and radio stations loved radio stations so when I went to school for business and nothing wrong with business I did go back later on and get a business degree when I understood more about what it was what it was there for when I looked at what I was interested in and saw what my first choice in college was it didn't match so I ended up going back to school for television production and that's where I spent a good part of my first career just loving everything about Communications and so when you look at yourself it tells you what to do I didn't know what school to go to until I decided I was going for Communications and broadcast production my life and what I was interested in told me where to look next so let me give you a couple of reminders from coach Grace things that I want you to walk away with this number one start with you if you're over focusing on education pieces that don't make sense just take a minute it doesn't take long we did this in an hour right and start with you look back at your life number two discover set yourself on a discovery path do your research and involve others in your career Journey so you may need to talk to your family you may need to talk to a career coach or a your career services person please don't don't forget that benefit that you've already paid for right and then look at the development piece your education the experience that you're going to need and those job search skills and then the do piece start your action plan today it's never too early to begin so if I'm talking to some high schoolers right now and you're saying when I'm only in high school be careful because you might be saying that in college well I'm only a sophomore I'm only in my second year no start now these interests that you have you've had them for a long time you may not have thought of them as a profession and that's why your curriculum and your research and your development piece all work together to help you figure out what's next I hope that that was very helpful to you thank you so much for all your time foreign