英语作文例文Career Planning
Career Planning
Career planning does not necessarily follow routine or logical steps. Each of us places weight on different factors and may consider certain phases of career planning at different times. 1Career planning includes gathering information about ourselves and about occupations, estimating the probable outcomes of various courses of action, and finally, choosing alternatives that we find attractive and feasible.
Many observers have pointed out that students are not very efficient career planners. They cite evidence that (1) most students choose from among a very narrow group of occupations; (2) as many as 40 to 60 percent choose professional occupations, when in reality only 15 to 18 percent of the work forces is engaged in professional work; (3) young men show a striking lack of interest in clerical, sales, and service occupations, although these fields offer many job opportunities; and (4) 2as many as a third of the students are unable to express any choice of occupation.
A second flaw in the way people cope with decisions is defensive avoidance. 4When confronted with a decision and unable to believe they can find an acceptable solution, some people remain calm by resorting to wishful thinking or daydreaming. Students who fail to think about the implications of their career choices often engage in rationalization (deceiving oneself with self-satisfying but incorrect explanations for one’s behavior) or procrastination (putting off or delaying). Facing the situation may produce anxiety, but examining alternatives could also bring relief.
A third flaw is hyper vigilance. This occurs in career decision making when people believe there is not enough time to find a solution and they panic. 5They search frantically for career possibilities and seize on hastily invented solutions, overlooking the consequences of their choice as well as other alternatives. People who are in a panic sometimes do not think clearly or logically.
The best coping behavior is vigilance. Vigilant decision making occurs when people believe that (1) a choice should be made, (2) they can find a solution, and (3) there is enough time. Under these conditions, students can conduct an effective search for alternative careers, carefully evaluate each alternative, and work out contingency plans in case one or another risk appears.
Following are the keys to career planning.
1. Study yourself. This is the key to career planning. 6 Understanding what you are like, what you value, and what you want to become is the foundation for all career planning. In studying yourself, you examine your strengths and weaknesses, your goals, and the trends in your personal development. The self-understanding that you gain enables you to imagine how certain occupations may best fit your personality, interests, abilities, and goals. All career decisions require us to learn both about ourselves and about work, and to integrate these two kinds of knowledge.
2. Write your career goals down. A technique useful for organizing ideas about your career development is actually to write them down by time blocks in your life. Writing something down forces you to crystallize your thinking and to recognize unclear and half-formed ideas. It may lead to new insights about your possibilities and may help you to see new relationships, patterns, and trends, or to identify gaps in your thinking about your career development.