Career Planning Guide
Trying to identify one’s chosen career and then obtain a professional level position can be daunting. Essentially, however, this is a process of exploration and discovery that every student is fully capable of mastering, particularly when done over the course of the individual’s college career.
To help you see the usual components of a conscientious, deliberate career discovery path, here are some suggested ways to maximize your ultimate career success, identified by academic year. While just about all of these tasks or activities could be done at any time during your college career, it is much more manageable to spread out these activities over the course of your full four years. These are simply suggestions about when to start a certain type of task.
Freshman Year
- Concentrate on adjusting to college, developing good study skills and doing well in your courses
- Learn how to find and use resources of the university and the business school
- Visit the Business Career Center and meet your career consultant
- Start to identify your interests, abilities and skills
- Read the weekly electronic newsletter from your career consultant
- Read your majors departmental web page and handouts about your major
- Become familiar with the Career Services web site
- Attend a workshop or event sponsored by the Business Career Center and/or Career Services
- Explore clubs or organizations and join one that interests you
- Make plans to do something over the summer that will add to your skills and/or give you exposure to an industry that interests you
- Become acquainted with some business publications and choose one to read regularly
- Create your first resume and meet with your career consultant to analyze how you want to improve and expand on the contents
Sophomore Year
- Continue to study hard and keep “on track”
- Evaluate your first year experience and make appropriate adjustments in study habits, time management and planning
- Read your weekly electronic newsletters from your career consultant
- Visit the Business Career Center and check in with your career consultant
- Take an active role in the student organization of your choice
- Arrange and conduct informational interviews to gain first-hand knowledge of careers your want to consider
- Look at company web sites and review the descriptions of jobs in which you have an interest
- Develop a resume to use when applying for internships and upload it onto Sun Devil Career Link
- Prepare and practice delivering a 30 second commercial highlighting the attributes you most want a contact to remember about you
- Utilize online tools for career, company and industry research
- Get some relevant career experience through a special project or volunteer experience
- Continue to be strategic by using schoolwork to learn about career issues
- Attend several company-sponsored information sessions to see what they are like
- Read several current books about business
- Apply for spring or summer internships open to sophomores
Junior Year
- Purchase professional attire for formal internship interviews
- Review Sun Devil Career Link at least once per week to avoid missing internship deadlines
- Attend the Business Career Fair, as well as any other recruiting networking events related to your major, such as Accountancy Meet the Firms
- Continue to read your weekly electronic newsletter from your career consultant
- Narrow your career alternatives by creating an A-list of industries and companies
- Determine which of your targeted organizations have formal internship programs
- Become familiar with hiring methods and timeframes for internships of interest.
- Attend Career Fiesta in late September
- Revise your resume and your 30 second commercial
- Upload your revised resume to Sun Devil Career Link
- Participate in at least two workshops or information sessions sponsored by the Business Career Center or Career Services
- Start attending company information sessions on a regular basis
- Consider subscribing to at least one business publication
- Join a pertinent professional association with a student chapter or reduced student membership
- Apply for internships and do thorough follow-up with those firms
Senior Year
- Start your search for your full time professional job early in the fall semester if you are graduating in May
- Expand your professional wardrobe for interviews
- Attend Career Fiesta, the Business Career Fair and any recruiter networking events
- Be vigilant about reviewing at least weekly new listing on the Sun Devil Career Link and insuring that you apply in a timely manner
- Refine and update your resume
- Revise and practice your 30 second commercial
- Thoroughly prepare for every interview you have and follow up with the appropriate correspondence
- Evaluate and compare job offers carefully
- Accept the position with the best fit for your goals and notify all of the other employers with whom you have interviewed that you are withdrawing from further consideration
- Complete the W. P. Carey School of Business Employment Survey to report your new position
Future Students