Chapter 12: Career Development: Finding a Job

Study Questions

SQ1 – What are the two specific skills necessary for your career? Explain how to acquire the necessary skills for your career goals.

SQ2 – What are the stages of career development

SQ3 – What are the strategies for networking? Describe effective strategies to prepare for an interview.

SQ4 – What are the different types of interview situations? Describe various question types in interviews.

SQ5 – Describe the differences among functional, reverse chronological, combination, targeted, and scannable résumés.


Why It Matters: Finding a Job

Why learn to network and apply for jobs?

Photograph of a young business woman on a cell phoneNadine had worked as a manager at the local grocery store while attending college, working towards graduating from university with a BA in business. She appreciated the store’s support during her years of employment as the company allowed her to work around her class schedules. However, she did not anticipate making this her life-long job—or even her first long-term career job. With her degree and experience, Nadine was ready to jump to a larger employer with greater opportunities and variety.

Despite knowing that she wanted to move on, Nadine wasn’t sure where exactly she wanted to go—or how exactly she would go about finding that career job with a bigger company. If she couldn’t say exactly what it was she was thinking about doing, she was going to end up staying at the local store by default.

Nadine knew that if she wanted to move on in her career, she needed to make a plan; take stock of her goals, her years of experience, and her degree; and turn her knowledge and qualifications into actions.