What is Career Planning

What is career planning?

Working backwards by finding the requirements of the requirements.

Backward planning involved, deciding on an end goal. Figure out the requirements. Figure out the requirements for the requirements. Figure out the requirements for the requirements of the requirements and so forth. 

Let’s start with an example. Many of you have gone to the movies with your friends before, right? Normally, you don’t think much about this process, but today we’re going to break down some of the decisions you make when you go. Let’s think through this. Our goal is to see the movie at 8 p.m.  That’s our final, or nth, step. (Explain that n is a math term to designate the last number in a series with an unknown number of steps.) To see a movie, the only requirement is that we need a ticket. (Since that is right before the final, we would mathematically express it as “n” minus one.) In order to buy a ticket, we need to give them some money. (Second-from-the-last step would be “n” minus 2. You see how that works?) To be able to give them money, we have to get to the theater. Now, to get to the theater so we can buy the ticket, we have to use some form of transportation (car, bus, walk, etc.). To do this, we have to plan our route and time to leave the house. So you see, the final step on the path, “n” is watching a movie at the theater. The next step back “n minus 1” is buying the tickets at the theater. Each step back shows you the path you will need to take when you are working forward from now. exchange money at the theater, be at the theater in time to buy the ticket, arrive via transportation, and figure out the rout and travel time. 

Now lets apply that to a career plan. Lets say you want to be a pediatrician. 

Let’s imagine for moment that after the exploring you will be doing in the coming lessons, you decide that you want to someday be a pediatrician. 

Now, let’s see how you might use backwards planning to make a career path to become a pediatrician.

Just like we did when we were talking about going to see a movie, you will begin your planning with the end in mind. By working backwards, you can be sure that you are connecting all the dots between your goal and your present circumstances. Okay, let’s say you want to be a pediatrician. There is really only one requirement to do so "A pediatric medical license". Simple right? But wait, how do you get a that? Well, you have to pass the Medical Licensing Examination. OK, so you just study for this test and pass it? You can’t “sit” for the exam until you have completed a 3 to 7 year residency at a hospital or clinic in your specialty area And you can’t get a residency until you complete your medical degree. And to finish medical school, you need to Start medical school, right? So how do you get accepted into medical school? Do well on the MCAT’s. Wait, and who can sit for the MCAT’s, you ask? People with a bachelor’s degree. You’ll also need to be sure to take all the pre-med classes offered there so you can be accepted to med school and do well on the MCAT’s. So you need to go to a four-year college before all that? Yep.  Or transfer in from a two-year school. And four-year colleges require the SAT or ACT? Yes. And to go to college there is one more thing you definitely need, right? A high school diploma—the more rigorous the better.

In our example, we can see that there are 9 steps listed for becoming a pediatrician, and each step will lead you closer to your ultimate goal. So now you know where you need to place your feet as you start out: work on a high school diploma. Having this path will assure you as long as you put your feet on each step, you will end up at your goal.

So what might you do immediately after Job Corps? If you decide to become a pediatrician, the quickest route would be to get accepted to a four-year college during your Job Corps enrollment. This will require advance preparation, and will require you to decide on the appropriate college or university and apply. The My PACE process will help you ensure all of those tasks are checked off if you choose this as your placement pathway.

Clearly, this isn’t necessarily the only thing to do immediately after Job Corps; it is just required at some point along the way. It is the first step on the shortest path, but the shortest path isn’t necessarily the right one. People who are in their 30’s, and 40’s go to medical school.  

If you don’t go to a four-year, it is even more important to backwards plan to ensure you are attaining the four-year school’s requirements at your two-year school—and that those credits will transfer.

You need to be doing everything it takes to get accepted into a college program. This might sound challenging, even impossible sometimes. There are a lot of things you will need to do, but the lessons that we will be doing over the next few weeks (the My PACE career planning process) will explain what you need, and help make sure you have the tools you need, to ensure that you will do everything that you need to in order to get accepted.

If you need a high school diploma, you can earn that here as well—provided you study hard and put in the work. If your ultimate career goal is pediatrician, or anything else that requires some college, it is strongly recommended that you take a college prep pathway in your high school classes here, or aim for the college ready scores on your HSE test. This will ensure you will arrive at college prepared and can hopefully go right into credit-bearing courses. Put the extra effort in now to save effort and money in the future!

The last major step of your MyPACE Career Planning process is to determine what training program to take here on center.

If you had chosen pediatrician as your dream job, you’d use MyPACE to look at related medical fields at varying levels of education.  Once you find a Job Training Match you could say with certainty that the training you take at Job Corps will be aligned with what is required of that job.  

MyPACE has an educational stairway graphic to help you see these relationships. Here you can see that pediatrician is not a Job Training Match with any of our programs. This is mostly just because it requires so much additional school: it is on the highest stair: Advanced Degree. But if you look just two stairs below, at the Associate’s Degree level, you will find that Registered Nurse is related to pediatrician, and it is a match with at least one of our programs.

When you click on that stair,

MyPACE will take you to the Registered Nurse page. And here you can see all the Training Program Areas that match to this job.  Look for one that your center offers. In our case, we have selected LPVN.

MyPACE makes finding a Job Corps path to your dream job very easy!

Lets take a look at the outline of what we discussed today. Notice that it is just an outline here, and there are ellipses, that dot-dot-dot, to indicate missing steps that we don’t know and can’t predict yet.  We don’t know all of the wonderful and amazing things you are going to do when you leave our doors; we don’t know where your life will take you; and we don’t know the exact steps you may make to get to that dream job: we can’t say now which graduate school will accept you and when, or whether or not you get hired right into the position of your dreams or need to network or get promoted. That’s why we labeled the final step “n,” an unknown number.  We will broadly sketch out the entire process with all of the requirements to get that dream job in the coming weeks, but we will be primarily focused on 3 GOALS, or steps, the three P’s that will be most impactful, and demand our most immediate attention at Job Corps. Because we backwards-plan these goals, the first choice is your final step, step n, your long-term goal: 

Profession: choosing your ultimate dream job!

The second goal we will focus on is the step you have to make as your leave our doors and confront the “real world.” We call this your mid-term goal: Pathway: the route you will start out on to get to that dream job. Your choices here will be whether you want to be placed in an internship, an entry-level job, a branch of the military, a two or four-year college program, or one of Job Corps’ Advanced Training options.

The third goal you will decide upon is your short-term goal: Program: what Training Program Area you will pursue here. We know that some of you are really sure of your trade choice already, but we have a ton of career exploration exercises and surveys in the coming weeks that will allow you to know yourself like never before. We ask you to be open to the idea that you may discover something new and change your mind.  

Once you have the outline of the entire path and three concrete anchor goals, you have a solid plan to achieve your dreams.

So you can see that planning backwards allows you to move forwards with confidence.

You know where this path is taking you: you made it! And like the intimidating maze, you worked it backwards from the end, so you know it leads to your goal.

Remember, if you develop the path in advance, you will be less likely to stumble. Your unique path will lead you to your own best career. Future career satisfaction awaits!

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