All jobseekers need to take the time to step way from the day-to-day grind of work and spend quality time reflecting on your career and developing some plans for your future. Whether you love your current job and employer or feel frustrated and confined, career planning can help. Think of it as building bridges from your current job/career to your next job/career; without the bridge, you may easily stumble or lose your way, but with the bridge there is safety and direction.

Workers can expect three things in the workplace: 1) constant change, 2) ever-expanding expectation, and 3) an increasing need for flexibility. Are you up to the challenge to adapt to new roles and learn new skills on the fly? You may have acquired the work habits you currently utilize in a very different environment. This means it may be necessary to update, tweak, or refine your skills. Perhaps what you saw as a bright future and a clear-cut upward career trajectory have not materialized. Instead, your job is a dead-end going nowhere and you feel stymied.

This sounds like tune-up time!

While you are busy with spring cleanup — tending your garden or cleaning up your house — it may also be time to put some renewed energy into sprucing up your career. If your career has been in idle, now is the time to rev up your engine, get in gear, and head toward career opportunities and advancement while increasing the green in your paycheck.

This endeavor requires total honesty about your current situation. If you are unhappy in your work, it’s time to commit to making the changes that will advance you in your efforts and aspirations.

How do you begin with this endeavor? Following is a 10-step career tune-up plan.

1. Examine Your Life and Your Career

• Are you where you want to be in your career?
• Has your career been making steady progress with both the short and long-term goals you have envisioned?
• Does your career feel out of balance?

2. Set Career/Job-Search Goals. Studies have shown that if you set tangible goals you can achieve you more. It’s true that some of us succeed without goal setting, but having a vision of your career will motivate you to achieve those goals.

• Do you know who you are what you really want to do with your career? (Self-assessment tests such as Strong Interest Inventory, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, and Liftoff are some that Alumni Career Services offers.)
• Are you clear about the values you require and desire in an employer?

3. Expand your network and reconnect with acquaintances and friends. Personal contacts are vital in the job-search arena and still represent the most reliable way to find a new and better position. Tap into the power of expanded networks to take full advantage of the hidden job market. Make a commitment to reconnect with the people in your current network — family, friends, classmates, neighbors, colleagues, peers, mentors, former teachers, etc.

4. Upgrade your knowledge/skills. What tools are in your toolbox? If your skills fall behind or become obsolete, you will be left stranded when the next downturn happens. Still, the most generally sought after soft skills are communication, interpersonal teamwork, problem solving, time management, and adaptability. So sharpen or add to the tools in your kit.

5. Consider additional training/education. In addition to a college degree, certification in many fields has become vital. Additional training shows your current or potential employer that you are consistently working towards greater productivity, professional growth, and worker efficiency. Reflect on your career goals and figure out what kind of training will help you achieve your goals.

6. Update/Polish Résumé. Bring that résumé out of mothballs and retool it to employers’ requirements of today. Are you able to quantify or qualify successes? Do you understand and utilize current résumé trends? How many résumés do you need in your arsenal for job applications? Résumés should be tailored and fashioned to each specific job and employer. And remember: Mass produced, generic, template-ridden résumés don’t cut it any more.

7. Learn/Refresh Job-Search Techniques. Do you know how to generate job leads? Do you waste your time on the huge job boards believing that your job-search is productive? Do you understand what it takes to find a job in today’s market? If you lost your job tomorrow would you know what to do? Job-hunting techniques are ever evolving and shifting as the market changes. Staying current is critical to success in this arena. There are tutorials and guides available that can help in this process.

8. Practice Interviewing. Your skill at interviewing will have a major influence on the success of your job-search — and thus your ability to generate job offers. If you haven't been on that side of the desk for a while, now is the time to review and polish those skills. Employers use multiple interviewing strategies, including behaviorally based interviews. You need to know the latest techniques.

9. Test Your Marketability. Job-hunting is essentially about marketing, networking, and understanding your value in the workplace.

10. Consider Advancing Internally. Are there opportunities within your current place of employment that you have overlooked? Pay attention, and don’t dismiss growth and career opportunities within your organization. Your employer will respect your request for an alternative career track rather than your quitting the company.

To all current members of the University of Utah Alumni Association, Alumni Career Services is offering a free one-hour session to jump start your career tune-up. If you are not an Association member, we can offer you an introductory tune-up special for $36 (the cost of an individual one-year membership).

For more information, contact Julie Swaner
Program Manager, Alumni Career Services
( 801) 585-5036