MBA Career Management Center

Working Professionals

Brand Management: Your Career Map

Having a cohesive, career narrative gives you clarity in where you want to go. It also gives others clarity on how they can help you. Use the diagram below to
sketch out your career aspirations, list out your experiences, and develop a career narrative that aligns with your career goals. The focus of this worksheet is to
help you discover threads in your career that tie together where your career path has been and where you want to go.

Instructions: Write in Bullet Points! Try to get down main ideas.

Step 1: Ultimate Career Goal- What kind of impact do you want to have or job title are you shooting for? You can list out specific things (CEO) or be more broad
(Designing strategy in technology organization).

Step 2: Starting Point of Inspiration – At what point did you know you wanted the career goal you listed in Step #1? What inspired it? When you were a kid? In
undergrad? In MBA program?

Step 3: Career Experience Bubbles – Plot your experiences above the curve
 Above the line write our major decision points and career experiences you have had
o Positive Career Experiences: with a (+) symbol, note things you liked about the experience, specific things you liked, how your expectations
were met, skills/perspectives you pick up along the way
 This will help you go back and think about how you acted and felt in positions you enjoyed
o Negative Career Experiences: with a (-) symbol note specific things that were not what you wanted, things you didn’t like, what didn’t work
for you, what you were missing
 This will help you understand why things didn’t work for you, what motivated you to move on and seek new experiences
 Below the line write out
o I did this change because
Step 4: Today, Current Status – job you are currently seeking or in right now. This is not where you ultimately want to go in your career. This is about where you
are today in relation to your Ultimate Goal in Step #1. What is the gap between where you are and where you want to be? This should include being in an MBA
program and things you are doing to make progress towards your Ultimate Goal.

Step 5: Threads – As you discuss and start constructing your career narrative, make notes of patterns in your experiences of what you liked and didn’t (try for 3
positives, 2 negative), the skill sets you have and want to highlight. Note some key words that describe the value you bring and the impact you want to have.

Step 6: Feedback – How well defined are steps 3 (Experiences), 4 (Today), 5 (Threads) – How do they support your Ultimate Goal? Review specific reasons for
moves and explain decisions. Can you explain thread in detail, transferable skills?

(Adapted from Interview Logic by David Ohrvall. Great book for interview prep!)
 3. Experiences 1.
4.

[Threads]
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2.
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(Adapted from Interview Logic by David Ohrvall. Great book for interview prep!) _____________________
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