Career design is a creative process to envision a career that’s a perfect fit for your personality, preferences, values, and interests and then design that career step-by-step. It’s a process, based on research and neuroscience, that breaks through the internal and external barriers that are keeping you from the life that you want.
Career design reimagines the monotonous, tedious, and soul-crushing job search of sending your resume to HR black holes into a journey of self-discovery, dreaming, building castles in the sky, and then (to poorly paraphrase Henry David Thoreau) building the staircases to get you there. The career design process is not easy, but it is effective, thought-provoking, and (dare I say it?) fun!
As you design your career, you’ll learn about yourself, your strengths, your value, and your ideal life and then take that learning and start matching it to reality. What’s the state of the industry that you’re interested in? What companies are hiring for your ideal job? Which ones do you want to work for? What skills or experience are you missing? How can you get them? Then, you’ll learn effective strategies that work with your strengths to build yourself into your perfect-fit job.
It’s like creating a mosaic. All these things–personality, wants, interests, industry, companies–are the pieces that you’ll be bringing together to create something beautiful. And just like creating a piece of art, you’ll need to do a lot of the work yourself.
This doesn’t mean that you can’t get help–many famous artists collaborated extensively. But this is your life! You need to live it and live it fully. That’s why the career design process has many tips, tricks, and strategies to keep you on track and focused.
Sheri Mahaney has worked as a therapist, career counselor, supervisor, staff mentor, group facilitator, teacher, and consultant throughout her career in social services and higher education. Now in private practice, she created New Insights Consulting to provide national certification (NCDA FCD) and private practice tools for those getting into the career coaching field.
