Career orientation

Chapter 1
1. The term career orientation is an educational concept that provides people
with informative information based on their past experiences, and assists users with
making effective career choices.
2. Objectives of career orientation
To gain an understanding of your own interests, abilities, aptitudes, and strengths.
To develop an individual inventory of valuable career development foundation skills.
To gain valuable career information and related job training options and opportunities.
To become acquainted with various forms of employment and to develop job
acquisition and job retention skills.
To experience hands-on activities for self appraisal purposes and for exploratory
career experiences.
To develop a tentative career and educational plan relevant to their individual
interests, abilities, aptitudes, and goals.
3. Types of career orientation
Gerber and colleagues (2009) distinguished four different types of career
orientation:
Independent,
Disengaged,
Traditional/promotion-focused, and
Traditional/loyalty focused career orientations
4. The independent career orientation is characterized by a positive
attitude towards frequent changes of organizations and commitment to
oneself rather than the employer.
5. The disengaged type is very similar to the independent type but is
portrayed as rather disengaged from a career in general.
6. Traditional career orientations: loyalty and promotion
7. focused types.
Chapter 3
1. A CV is a very in-depth document that describes your career journey
step-by-step, including all sorts of personal information.
2. The word “resume” describes a one- or two-page summary of your
skills, training, and employment history.
3. Purpose of a resume
Marketing tool
Communicate the highlights
Focus on relevant/important information
The “trailer”, NOT the whole story
To generate interest and get you an interview

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 4. Types of Resumes
Chronological
Lists experiences in reverse chronological order
Ties responsibilities, achievements, and experiences to specific
employers, positions, and dates
Functional
Emphasizes transferable skills/knowledge rather than dates & employers
Employment history is generally minimized
Combination
Mixes format of chronological and functional
Use combination/chronological most often
5. Resume Basics
Use formatting to make important information stand out
Be consistent in formatting, grammar, etc
Make absolutely sure there are no mistakes
Formatting is the easy part.......
6. Objective or Professional Summary
 Objective
Your objective is optional
Focuses on YOUR interests and goal
If not on resume, it must be in your cover letter
Be clear & concise about what you want
If you are not specific, list your career interests
 Professional Summary
Also optional
Lists highlights of background relevant to employer
Encourages employer to read on
Helps highlight skills not evident in work history
7. Education Section
 Must include:
Institution name and location
City & state
Degree
Date of graduation
Major, minor, concentration
 Optional:
GPA
Course work
Computer skills
Financing of education

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 Dean’s list or honors
8. Skills or Qualifications Section
 Skills employers desire:
Oral/written communication skills
Teamwork skills
Interpersonal skills
Flexibility
Leadership
Computer Skills
List hardware, software, & platforms
 Experience/Work Experience
May include internships, volunteering, community service, or work
experiences
Include:
Job title
Name of company or organization
City & state (no zip codes)
Responsibilities/duties/skills required
Dates employed
9. Skill phrases are action statements that describe your experiences.
10.Components of a skill phrase
Bullet point
Action verbs in the past-tense
Specific skill that was learned or honed
Results of your work, or how or why you did the work.

Avoid personal pronouns when writing skill phrases

11.References
Must be on a separate page of same paper
Include
Name & title of person
Company or organization
Address
City, state, zip code
Phone number
Email address
Chapter 4
1. cover letter Your cover letter is your formal introduction.
It includes more detailed information about yourself & showcases
your personality.

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 2. The Purpose of cover letter
A. Resumes accompanied by well-written cover letters tell
employers of your sincere interest. Resumes sent without cover
letters suggest that you are randomly sending copies to everyone
without much thought or effort. (This is true for e-mailed resumes
as well.)
B. A cover letter should be written to communicate what you can
do for an employer and why you would be a good employee.
3. The Form of cover letter
A. Each letter is individually prepared and typed or word processed
on good quality paper with a high rag content, preferably the same
paper as that used for the resume. Buy matching envelopes, as
well.
B. Your letter must be addressed to a specific person. If you don’t
know the name of the appropriate individual, call the receptionist at
the organization or go to the organization’s web site.
C. State your reason for writing in the first paragraph.
D. In the second paragraph explain the contributions you can make
to the organization by directing attention to specific skills
mentioned in your resume
4. AIDA
 Attention- Your goal in your opening paragraph is to grab the
reader’s attention.
 Interest- Now that you have the reader’s Attention, you need to
maintain
Their Interest.
 Desire- You need to create a Desire for your employment. This
will be your 3rd paragraph.
 Action- In your closing paragraph, you want to compel them to
take Action to reach out to you! Put the ball in their court, provide
options for contact.
5. Types of cover letter
 There are 3 types of Cover Letter Formats:
The Paragraph Cover Letter
The Specific Needs Cover Letter
The ‘Shopping List’ Cover Letter
6. Paragraph cover letter
This is the most common form and allows you to engage the reader
with a story-telling style using 3-4 short paragraphs.
7. Specific needs cover letter

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 This letter is a little bit different from the paragraph letter.
8. The ‘Shopping List’ Cover Letter
Just like the previous two letters, you start out with your
opening paragraph and close with the same concluding
paragraph, but like the specific needs letter, it’s the central
paragraph that’s a little different.
Chapter 5
 Job search stages

It helps to divide your job search into three stages, each of which
can be a success or failure in its own right:
Stage one: Finding enough vacancies to apply for.
Stage two: Getting interviews.
Stage three: Getting job offers.
 Job market research
Job market research is vital to job hunting.
The two key things you need are information and contacts.
 Getting information
Information helps you build the bigger picture, increases
your confidence and helps you to be in the right place at the
right time.
 Useful information includes:
What’s happening in your field of work;
What’s changing in that field;
What’s new, what’s coming in the future;
Companies who need what you do: who they are, their
background, structure, organization and reputation;
What they do (is it the same as you have always done or are
there differences?);
Where they are heading; what’s new for them;
Who’s moving into the area, geographically or figuratively;
Who’s expanding; who’s getting new contracts; who’s
launching new products and so on;
The key people to contact in these organizations.
 Ways of job hunting
There are three approaches you can take to job hunting:
Browsing;
Broadcasting;
Targeting
 Browsing

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 This is the most widely used job-search strategy, and the
easiest and least demanding.
 Advantages of browsing
You have a clear idea of what the advertiser wants and can
adapt your CV and covering letter to suit exactly.
You know there’s an actual job available.
You are contacting companies who are inviting applications.
You can see the range of what’s on offer and can make
comparisons between advertisements.
 Broadcasting
This method involves sending your CV by post or e-mail to
as many companies as possible in the hope it lands on the
right desk at the right time.
 Advantages of broadcasting
Once you have a CV and covering letter this method needs
little extra thought.
Large numbers of organizations can be contacted in a
comparatively short time. You can contact everyone who
might be interested in you.
Getting picked out of a CV bank by scanning software needs
little effort on your part.
Your CV could land on the right desk at the right time and
you could get lucky.
 Targeting
 This is a selective approach that involves deciding:
 The work you want to do;
 The type of organization you want to work for;
 Who, what and where these organizations are;
 Who to contact within each one.
 Advantages of targeting
All your efforts are directed at likely possibilities.
You get feedback, so you can refi ne your campaign as you
go.
You can pursue positive responses and let weaker ones pass.
You can build on your efforts with follow-up calls and
letters.
You are in control of how you present yourself.
You can adapt your approach to new circumstances that
 Job search strategies

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  The nine strategies are:
1. Answering advertisements for vacancies;
2. CV and follow-up call;
3. Personal letter;
4. Recruitment agencies;
5. Networking;
6. Job fairs;
7. Personal appearances;
8. Foot in the door;
9. Unconventional approaches

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