Where Do I Find General Information About Employment Trends in My Field?

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is an excellent resource for employment trends, and includes great information on wages, locations and growth in a variety of fields. Visit the Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2010-11 Edition HERE.

Types of Information:

• Nature of the Work
• Training, Other Qualifications, and Advancement
• Employment
• Job Outlook
• Projections
• Earnings
• Wages
• Related Occupations

How Do I Initiate an Informational Interview?

The Yale Career Network (YCN) is a premier resource for alumni contacts across the university, including hundreds of FES alumni. CDO also maintains a data base of alumni as a resource for finding alumni in various institutions and geographical locations. We recommend that you contact alumni of interest through YCN or via email, with a brief introduction of yourself, a reason for writing, and a request for a 20 minute conversation. We recommend the same technique for contacting someone in your field who is not necessarily an alumni of FES.

Sample 1:

Dear Ana,

I am a 2nd year MEM at Yale FES focusing on urban ecology. I am interested in the work you do at x consulting firm, and wondered if you had 20 minutes for a telephone conversation to talk about what you do and how you got there.

I can be reached at xxx-xxx-xxxx, or can call you at a time convenient for you.

All best regards,

So and So

Sample 2:

Dear Mr. Green,

I am a masters candidate at Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, where I am focusing on brownfield remediation. I was hoping you might time for a half hour meeting to talk about the work you do at the Connecticut Office of Brownfield Remediation and Development. I will be in Hartford from approx. 10a-4p daily the week of August 14th working on a project, and would welcome the opportunity to meet with you.

All best regards,

So and So Teal


If you don't hear back or get a luke-warm response, move on to another potential interviewee. Remember that the purpose of the informational interview is to gather information and develop a network, not to ask for a job or an internship. It is very likely that individuals you meet with (or speak to) will offer connections and career-related suggestions to you, and you should be prepared to provide connections for them as well (they may be interested in a faculty member, for instance, and you can provide an introduction).

See Marci Alboher's NYTimes blogpost on the information interview.

Leadership, Inspiration, Networking, and Knowing One's Strengths and Limitations

Under One Minute Workplace Wisdom Via YouTube

Leadership: Scrubs-J.D.'s Leadership Skills, From Scrubs

Inspiration: The Most Inspiring Thing Ever Said...From The Office, American version

Networking: How Not To Network, From Kintish

Knowing One's Strengths and Limitations: I'm a doctor, not an escalator, From Star Trek

What Are Your Salary Requirements?

Daryll Stevens of UCRiverside's Career Development Office hosts a wry career development blog--see his answer to the question, "What are your salary requirements?"

http://singlecellrebel.blogspot.com/2009/04/salaries-redux.html

How do I answer the interview question, "What Are Your Weaknesses?"

"I'm too much of a perfectionist" is NOT a good answer

Check out this post from the Harvard MBA for this common interview question about one's weaknesses:

http://www.asktheharvardmba.com/2008/04/07/why-do-job-interviewers-ask-me-about-my-weaknesses/

What do you think about aptitude, personality, and interests tests in helping to guide career decision making?

What do you think about aptitude, personality, and interests tests in helping to guide career decision making? (Examples: Johnson O' Connor Research Foundation's aptitude testing program, Myers Briggs, Strong Interest Inventory, etc.). How do I align my interests and background with the results of such tests? And do following these test results really lead to a more satisfying career?

In general, a higher degree of self-awareness is always a good thing in terms of career development. Aptitude, personality and interests tests can help define aspects of yourself that you may not already have a good sense of, and may save you from years of making less than ideal choices about career direction and focus, i.e. from learning the hard way. You may be more influenced by supposed-to-be's and cultural ideals or outside pressure in your decision-making, like a business manager who, because of family pressure and tradition, struggles through an MBA and runs several companies into the ground before realizing that he really is best suited for running a B&B. If you have a better understanding of your proclivities and make career choices accordingly, you are likely to be more directed, satisfied and productive.

In an interview with NYTimes career columnist Marci Alboher, Peggy Klaus, author of The Hard Truth About Soft Skills: Workplace Lessons Smart People Wish They'd Learned Sooner, groups self-awareness with other 'soft' skills: "The hard skills are the technical expertise you need to get the job done. The soft skills are really everything else — competencies that go from self-awareness to one’s attitude to managing one’s career to handling critics, not taking things personally, taking risks, getting along with people and many, many more." Self-assessment tests are a good way to boost your self-awareness as well as to identify areas you might want to work on.

The three types of tests measure different qualities and leanings, and can be useful in helping to discover strengths, weaknesses and preferences that you may not be fully aware of or perhaps assume that everyone possesses, i.e. they can help you take a more objective view of yourself. They are part of self-assessment that can help you define and articulate career goals, but are not necessarily going to give you hard and fast answers regarding direction.  You are the final interpreter and arbiter of any such tests, but going through the process will likely lead to some personally resonant and new information that can inform your career planning, areas for personal and professional development and goal setting.

To illustrate the application of self-assessment tools to career development, let's look briefly at the Myers-Briggs personality test, which is based on Jungian psychology and which identifies 16 personality types. In addition to discovering your own type, knowledge of personality types can be extremely useful for navigating interpersonal relationships when you are working on teams, collaborating with colleagues and interacting on all levels with individuals and groups.

Here is some basic information on the INTJ (Introvert, Intuitive, Thinking, Judging), a rare personality type:

Hallmark features of the INTJ personality type include independence of thought, strong individualism and creativity. Persons with this personality type work best given large amounts of autonomy and creative freedom. They harbor an innate desire to express themselves; that is to be creative by conceptualizing their own intellectual designs. Analyzing and formulating complex theories are among their greatest strengths. INTJs tend to be well-suited for occupations within academia, research, management, engineering and law. Differentiating the INTJ personality type from the related INTP type is their confidence. They tend to be acutely aware of their knowledge and abilities. Thus, they develop a strong confidence in their ability and talents, making them "natural leaders." It is this confidence that makes this personality type extremely rare. According to David Keirsey it is found in no more than 1% of the population.

How can this understanding be applied to career choices and personal development?

If you are an INTJ, you might want to be looking for positions where you have a high degree of autonomy and can work creatively on long-term strategic planning, rather than one where you are doing highly energetic short-term management as part of an interdependent team. You might want to focus on organizations that have a reputation for being extremely well-managed, as opposed to one where your role will be to efficiently create order and be a mentor to young people.  INTJ's are often "surprised when others don't see things the same way."  If this is something you newly understand about yourself, you might spend some time developing the ability to build consensus around your ideas, an area that might not come naturally to you. 

This kind of introspective work can certainly help in career development and in other areas of your life, can bring a depth to understandings you may already have about your personality, interests and aptitudes, and can be especially helpful if you find it difficult to accurately assess yourself.

Is there hope for those of us who make up our careers as we go along, without very many definite goals or clear plans?

Guest blogger Kevin Doyle, Principal, Green Economy, shares his answer to a recent question from an F&ESer who attended one of his workshops.  Kevin is a columnist for Grist and a regular presenter at Yale F&ES where he shares his wealth of knowledge on career development and environmental careers.  

Dear Kevin,

I attended one of your career workshops and came away feeling a bit discouraged. You focused a lot on the need for career goals and action plans to achieve your goals. And, you told us that having long range goals was particularly helpful. I remember that you said that people who knew where they wanted to be ten or twelve years from now had an advantage over those who didn't have that kind of clarity.

How depressing! I just can't imagine living my life that way. I can't even begin to guess what opportunities might come my way over the next few months, much less the next few years. Is there hope for those of us who make up our careers as we go along, without very many definite goals or clear plans?

Goalless

..........................................................

Dear Goalless,

No worries, goalless. Millions of people have lived happy, successful lives without ever once creating career goals or long-term plans. In fact, my experience has been that most professionals don't have goals and plans and they manage somehow without them. So, yes, there is hope and more for the goalless.

Do you sense a "but, still..." coming? How perceptive of you!

One of my favorite quotes about this subject comes from President Eisenhower, who once said that "Plans are nothing, but planning is everything."  I agree with that and I think that it applies to our careers, and our lives.

Planning is the process of thinking about where you want to end up, and how you're going to get there. Let's look at those two components separately.

For lots of people, "where I want to end up" is super clear - in all of its dimensions. They can tell you where they want to live, what kind of work they want to do (and for whom), how much money they want to make, when they want to retire, how many children they want, which parts of the world they want to see before they pass on, how tall their spouse should be, and so forth. I'm happy for them, and I sometimes envy their clarity.

For other people, "where I want to end up" is not as clear. It just isn't. There's no need to judge that reality negatively, if that's what is true for you. "I don't know" and "I'm not sure" are fine answers to the question "What kind of career do you want to have?"

However! I've never met a person who didn't have some idea of their hopes, dreams and preferences, however amorphous they may be. You can name those aspirations "North stars," "rainbow ends," "destinations," or ... goals.   The experience of career coaches is that most people have clearer aspirations than they actually admit to. Through patient, careful questioning, we can usually help you download at least some of them.

Whether you have many clear aspirations or a few vaguer ones doesn't really matter. The important thing is to find out what you do know about what you want. Even if it's only one thing, you can work with it. That one thing will give you some sense of where you want to end up. And, since you already know where you're starting from, you have two key elements of an initial road map.

For our purposes here, the key thing is to make time in your life for thinking about the question of where you want to end up. And then, to take your own answers seriously.

What about the second part of planning: "How you're going to get there?"

The planning process is basically the same.

Start with what you know. Then, identify what you don't know.

Don't worry too much if the "don't know" box is full to overflowing, and the "know" box is close to empty. Better to acknowledge that honestly - especially to yourself. Being clear with yourself about what you don't know about how to fulfill your dreams is one of the biggest parts of wisdom.

If you find that your education, life experience, and network of colleagues has already given you the knowledge and confidence to start down the road to where you want to go, then by all means get going. What are you waiting for?

If, however, you find that you don't know how to begin moving toward your aspiration, that's ok. Most of us don't. Fortunately, that's what friends, colleagues, teachers, mentors, family members, books, websites, and career coaches are for. Start gathering information and advice about how other people have accomplished what you might want to accomplish. Before you know it, you'll be filling in that big blank part of the map between "starting place" and "destination."  Or, perhaps you'll change your intended destination as you learn more. Who knows?

So, what are the takeaway lessons from all of this?

(1) Make time to reflect on what you want to accomplish with your life and career.
(2) Listen to the answers and take them seriously.
(3) When the answers are detailed, that's your reality. Good. When the answers aren't so clear, that's your reality. Also good.
(4) Reflect on what actions you need to take to get where you want to go.
(5) If you come up with answers you feel pretty good about - take action.
(6) If you end up with more questions than answers, go looking for answers. The search for answers is your action.

So shake off the discouragement, goalless. The act of planning is much more important than having "a plan." And planning is something that anyone can start - and restart - and restart again - at any time. Give it a try and see what happens.

Keep the questions coming, FESers. I'm glad to help if I can.

Kevin