Note. This is a plan–your plan. You must use data (e.g., test results, self-assessments), charts, figures, diagrams, and cite recent, relevant career research.
The Career Plan is the most important project in HRM 630. The Career Plan provides the opportunity to integrate the knowledge that you have gained in this course (and elsewhere) applying it to your career, professional, and personal life. Your Career Plan integrates your new understanding of your career behavior based on the past and projecting into the future. The emphasis should be on the connection between self-knowledge (Drucker’s “take an inventory of self”) and your career goals.
The time horizon should be the next 5-10 years. Where do you want to be in your career? What are your specific career goals? How do you see yourself attaining them? What events in the past suggest that you will be successful in your quest? What roadblocks need to be overcome? What are your goals for a balanced life (whatever that may mean to you)? How important is the career in your life-space? How important is family in your life-space? What developments in the economy, business, and corporate worlds are likely to influence the attainment of your goals? What effect will the global marketplace have on your career path? If you did not have to pursue a work career (i.e., you are independently wealthy) how would you spend your time? How do you think that your career and life values will change over time?
Your Career Plan is not a traditional research paper. You are the subject matter, full of complexities and nuances, of this venture (adventure). Nevertheless, part of doing a comprehensive job with your plan is reviewing the available research on careers–including this research material is critical for a successful plan.
Evaluation–The Successful Career Plan
Obviously, you are in the best position to make inferences about your career. However, the effectiveness of your Career Plan will, hopefully, be enhanced through the application of your new understanding and recognition of the concepts and issues that are the focus of this course. As such the successful Career Plan will:
Be well-written and logically organized (approximately 25 pages in length, though frequently longer), double-spaced, 12pt Times-Roman font, and 1 inch margins
Support arguments with data from self-assessments, exercises from The Pathfinder, value preferences, WWW links, and other information available to you
Include 15 or more references (minimum expectation, not including the text) from the career literature and the internet
Use prose to explain processes and issues and supplement using figures, tables, and quotations
Explicitly link self-knowledge to career goals and expected outcomes
Demonstrate knowledge and concepts from your study of career management
References should be listed at the end of the Career Plan using the following style:
Beutell, N. J., & O’Hare, M. M. (2006). Career pathfinders: A qualitative study of career development. Psychological Reports, 98(2), 517–528. Link: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/6988657_Career_Pathfinders_A_qualitative_study_of_career_development
For website references please provide the URL, Uniform Resource Locator, e.g., www.careers.com , in alphabetical order with other references that you cite.
In the body of the paper do the following: Beutell and O’Hare (2006) examined career perceptions among MBA students or research has examined career perceptions among MBA students (Beutell & O’Hare, 2006). For website references include the URL in the parentheses.