Career management is a process - not an event! It is the practice of controlling the general course of advancement in one's life within a chosen career path. It is not only about finding a job, but also about acquiring the skills necessary to manage one's own career.

Career Management is particularly useful in today's job market, see Careers Past and Future, where workplace changes are often imminent and positions may be uncertain.

Career management may include:

• Recognising and continually developing or evaluating your knowledge, personal qualities, interests, skills and values. Find out how to evaluate your skills, values and qualities.
• Identifying short and long term goals for your continuous personal and professional development. Find out how goals can help your career
• Creating a plan to achieve them, implementing the plan with care within an agreed time framework.
• Writing a resume or a current record of achievements.
• Discovering the hidden job market and researching job opportunities.

Developing career management skills for the future
The Association of Graduate Recruiters (1995) predicts that the balanced graduate will need to develop four key skill areas in order to flourish in the coming decades. These are:

1. Specialist: Obtain skills in a key area of specialisation and become good at what you do. Up-skill and sell your strengths. For example, focus on a particular branch of law, psychology etc. that you enjoy and have a natural propensity for.
2. Generalist: Graduates should endeavour to develop general business, IT, accounting and problem solving skills. Short courses and industry placements are a good way to build these skills and knowledge.
3. Connectedness: Seek to develop team working, management negotiation, networking, communication and presentation skills. These skills require practice. Seek every opportunity to develop these areas.
4. Self-Reliance: Such skills as negotiating, action-planning, networking, openness to new learning and self-awareness will be needed to compliment knowledge based skills gained throughout your formal education.

In addition to these four key skill areas, employers are likely to seek graduates who display evidence of employability skills.

Self-reliance skills
The need to develop these new "soft skills" appears to be flowing from:

• More frequent career transitions: There is need for graduates to make strategic career choices to reach their career goals. The ability to evaluate your position within the organisation and the company as a whole will aid your action planning.
• The prevalence of uncertainty and change: Flexibility and adaptability are needed to help graduates adapt to a rapidly changing workplace.
• The rapid obsolescence of current knowledge: Knowledge rapidly becomes obsolete. Degree based knowledge and skill needs to be enhanced through industry relevant experience, keeping up with the latest developments in your field and continuing education.
• The disappearance of supporting structures: With the streamlining of organisations and out-sourcing of HR staff development and training functions, "self-awareness" and "self-development" are likely to be necessary to further your career.
• The rapid growth if Information Technology: Growth in IT usage, IT innovation and corporate streamlining suggests that IT familiarity and self-reliant learning will be critical factors for career success.
• The need for skills transfer: Increasingly graduates will need to apply their skill set to a variety of situations. Flexibility and adaptability are increasingly sought by employers.
• The need to manage the professional relationship with work: With the increase in part-time, contract, project work and self-employment, graduates now need to learn how to negotiate with clients and employers in order to achieve equitable outcomes.

Steps to Career Management
Effective career management can take a variety of forms. Regardless of the path you choose you will need to remain Positive and Plan and Practice Persistence in order to become effective. Following are some suggestions to help you in your Career / Life Management.

• Self-Assessment: Think critically and deeply about your likes, dislikes, preferences and strengths. Write these down and list evidence of where you have used these attributes. Write down what appeals /does not appeal to you about the things you prefer / dislike. Try to be objective not emotive.
• Occupational Research: You cannot make an informed decision without knowing the options. Take every opportunity to become more informed. Use the Careers Centre resources, attend workshops, employer presentations and careers fairs. Read the newspapers (many career related articles there), use the web, search company websites, use the yellow pages to identify then call companies in your area of interest to ask for information packs or company information. Talk to people in your industry and network.
• Evaluate options: Think critically about the information you have obtained. Mentally "try on" the possibilities for fit but do not discard any without first challenging your negative thought surrounding that position / job.
• Make a decision: Decide whether you will take action. Resolve to plan a move forward.
• Goal Setting and Action Planning: Decide upon your course of action. This may involve further research. Set realistic and achievable goals. Formulate a time line and plan for reviews on your progress at regular intervals. Don't forget to reward yourself for your achievements.
• Continual Skills Development: Seek to develop those skills that you feel are holding you back. Attend short courses and seminars. Don't forget to develop your strengths as well because these are likely to be your strongest selling points.
• Evaluate your position/progress: Take stock from time to time to identify whether you are on-track. It is all too easy to become side tracked or lose sight of your goal.

More Career Management Resources
Career Management Checklist: http://there.is/directions/career.html

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