Planning Your Career Path
There is a world of difference between “getting a job” and “starting a career”, and it comes down to more than just salary. The road to Career Development is all about defining your goals. You need to understand what actions you can take to open doors for tomorrow and build a path to get you from where you are today to where you really want to be.
Building a career also requires persistence. Careers develop over many years, and setbacks, changing industries, new technology, and shifts in the economy can change even the best plans. Instead of relying on one fixed path, it helps to build more than one viable option by developing transferable skills, earning useful credentials, and building a professional network. Having multiple options makes it easier to adjust and keep moving forward when circumstances change.
What is a Career?
Your “Career” is the road you take through your professional life. Your career will consist of not just the jobs you get hired for, but also the education and training you build up to get better or more senior jobs in the future.
A career should have a clear sense of progression, where the next role or education you seek to gain is based on steps you take now. That does not mean that it must be a straight line, but you should try to build some sense of progression forward. In contrast, a career change is when you change gears down a different path. In this case, there is a clear break between what you were doing before and your next role.
Building a career does not always mean wanting to strive for your next job. There are plenty of people who enjoy their current jobs and are perfectly happy with what they do. Instead, think of your career as building up your career goals and accomplishments, and opening doors along the way in case you do eventually want to make a change.
Flexibility, Adaptability, and Well-Being
A career plan gives you direction, but it should also leave room for change. Flexibility means being willing to consider different ways of reaching your career goals, while adaptability means being able to adjust your skills, plans, and actions when circumstances change.
For example, automation may reduce demand for certain tasks within a job, requiring workers to learn new technology or develop different skills. Someone may return to school or complete a certification to qualify for a growing field. Other workers may make a lateral move into a different role at a similar level to gain experience that opens new opportunities later.
Being adaptable does not mean abandoning your goals every time something changes. It means developing enough skills, knowledge, and options to continue moving forward when your original plan no longer makes sense.
Your career plan should also consider your well-being, or your overall physical, mental, and emotional health. Salary and job title are important, but so are factors such as workload, stress, working conditions, and work–life balance. Protecting your well-being can help you manage change, remain productive, and continue developing throughout a long career.
Education, Training, and Your Career
Regardless of the type of career you wish to pursue, improving your education or training is an increasingly vital part of career advancement and keeping your competitive edge in the job market. At the start of your career, there are a few paths that you can choose from to give yourself a head-start on your chosen field.
College/University Degrees
Depending on your field of choice, having a college certificate or university degree (also known as post-secondary education) may be a nonnegotiable requirement even for the lowest entry-level positions. Obtaining a university degree can be an expensive process. Often, it’s a “path of least resistance” to start a college degree even if you’re unsure of what your career goals are. Some of the key advantages of a university degree include:
- The College Experience. Many university graduates will say that the “college experience” is a worthy achievement in and of itself. Colleges and universities expose students to a wide range of different disciplines, which helps many students get a better understanding of what they want to “do” with their career. Colleges and universities also group you together with many other people your age and with similar aspirations. This can be an invaluable source of networking to build upon for the rest of your career.
- Gatekeepers. It is increasingly common for employers to require ANY kind of university degree to be considered for job openings. Employers see the ability to complete the rigors of a post-secondary degree as a sign of competence, commitment, and skill. This means that many employers view university graduates as more competent and less of a risk than non-university graduates. This applies even for general roles that do not require specialized education.
- Specialization. The most obvious benefit of a university degree is that many career paths absolutely require specialized education to be considered for even the most basic entry-level positions. Think of an engineer, lawyer, or doctor, all these fields require a high level of specialized knowledge.
- Direct Career Advancement Opportunities. Colleges and universities have career offices that help match graduates from their programs with jobs after graduation. While no school has a 100% placement rate, many companies post entry-level positions and internship opportunities exclusively with career development offices at colleges and universities. These can often be the only way to get your “foot in the door” of the career of your dreams.
Statistically speaking, workers with a bachelor’s degree earn significantly more than those who do not. According to 2024 data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, a person with a bachelor’s degree earns 66% more than someone with only a high school diploma. This adds up to over $31,000 more in earnings every year. They are also far less likely to experience periods of unemployment and are more likely to have jobs with benefits (like health insurance, childcare, and flexibility with working conditions). This gap between those with bachelor’s degrees vs those with only a high school diploma only continues to widen every year. This is a very powerful reason why many students transition immediately to college after high school, even if they don’t have a specific career in mind.
Trade Schools
Trade Schools are another common type of post-secondary training. “Trade Schools” give students vocational training or training in specific skills that are applicable to perform certain jobs. The types of jobs can be very wide-ranging from plumbers to mechanics to x-ray operators to pharmacy technicians to dental hygienists.
Compared to a college or university degree, the skills acquired through a trade school are far narrower. If you ever have a career change, your trade school experience is not going to help you transition to your new career path as easily. However, there are some other key advantages that trade school has over a college education:
- Much faster to graduate. A university degree typically takes 4 years but going to trade school is usually just 1-2 years. Depending on the specific type of program you enroll in, this might include a paid apprenticeship with on-the-job training too. This means you start earning money much sooner and accumulate far less student loan debt than someone with a university degree.
- Higher Starting Salaries. Completing trade school tells employers that you are fully qualified to start work immediately without an extensive training period. This means that trade school graduates often have an easier time getting their first job and are paid more earlier.
- Job Security. Most jobs that require vocational training are considered more stable, meaning they are difficult or impossible to outsource, and are always in demand. While there is not much hard data on the subject, most trade schools list this as a key advantage of a vocational degree.
These advantages do have some drawbacks though. Your higher starting salary is offset by a salary “cap” too. A vocational degree typically prepares you for one specific type of job. While you will likely receive raises as you gain more experience, you will still be locked into the same role for a long time. In contrast, a person with a university degree has more transferrable skills. They are more likely going to be able to take on new responsibilities and secure promotions over the course of their career, with bigger jumps in pay.
Certifications / Short Courses
Another option for career advancement is accumulating skill-based certifications, usually from short programs lasting less than 1 year. Building certifications is a popular alternative to a full university degree in some fields like software development and coding. It can also be an alternative to trade schools by obtaining specific in-demand certifications (like operating certain types of heavy machinery, or specific construction techniques).
Obtaining specific in-demand certificates can be the fastest way to break into the career path you want but is also the least stable. Because certifications are fast and relatively easy to obtain, having just one is not likely to be all you need to maintain a successful career. In fact, the opposite is often true. Increasingly a successful career path in ANY field requires an emphasis on continued education to obtain new or renew existing certifications to stay up-to-date in your field.
This is called “Lifelong Learning” and is frequently cited as the most dominant current trend in planning your career pathway.
Factors That Affect Your Employability
Education is only one factor that can affect your employment opportunities and earning potential. Employers also consider a combination of skills, experience, behavior, and your ability to respond to changes in the workplace.
Competencies are the knowledge and skills you can bring to a job. You can build them now by taking relevant courses, practicing technical and communication skills, completing certifications, and gaining work or volunteer experience.
Commitment is the motivation and enthusiasm you bring to your work. Students can demonstrate commitment by following through on responsibilities, meeting deadlines, participating actively in school or work, and showing an interest in learning.
Competition affects which skills employers need. Globalization, automation, and new technologies can increase competition for some jobs while creating opportunities in others. Researching industry trends and developing transferable skills can help you prepare for these changes.
Training helps you develop or update skills throughout your career. Courses, certifications, workshops, apprenticeships, and employer training programs can all help you remain competitive.
Work ethic includes qualities such as reliability, preparation, effort, and responsibility. Building strong work habits now can help establish a positive reputation with teachers, employers, and future professional contacts.
Abilities include the strengths you develop through education, experience, and practice. Look for opportunities to strengthen both job-specific abilities and transferable abilities such as communication, teamwork, organization, and problem-solving.
Attitude can affect how you respond to challenges, feedback, and new opportunities. Being willing to learn, ask questions, work with others, and adapt to change can help you continue growing throughout your career.
Building these factors takes time. Continuing your education, developing strong work habits, earning useful credentials, gaining experience, and building a professional network can all increase the number of career opportunities available to you.
Your Lifetime Earnings
The type of career path you choose has a serious impact on how your personal finances evolve as well. If you choose to obtain a university degree, you are more likely to start your first job earning less than someone who goes to trade school, but your income will grow over the course of your career until retirement. This means that if you do not start seriously planning for retirement until later, you might be able to catch up by making bigger contributions to your retirement account as your income grows.
In contrast, obtaining a vocational degree will provide more income stability over the course of your working life. This will make it easier to engage in long-term planning very early on but makes it more difficult to catch up if you ever start falling behind on your financial goals.
Obtaining short-form certifications is the most-risky option. While there is a clear advantage of getting into the workforce early (and building valuable job experience), it can also be the most unpredictable in what kind of jobs you will have 5 or 10 years down the road, making financial planning much more difficult.
Your career path can also affect the types of pay and benefits available to you. For more information about evaluating salary, benefits, retirement contributions, and other forms of compensation, see What’s in Your Compensation Package.
Building Your Career Plan
Before choosing a career path, consider both your core values and your core competencies. Core values are the things that matter most to you, such as financial security, flexibility, creativity, helping others, independence, or work–life balance. Core competencies are the skills and abilities you do particularly well.
A career opportunity may look attractive because of its salary or prestige, but that does not necessarily make it the best fit. When comparing education, jobs, and career steps, consider whether an opportunity matches both what you value and what you are good at.
An easy way to think about your career plan is to start by working backward. Visit indeed.com, Monster.com, or our own career center’s job search tool and find a posting for what would be your “ideal” job 10 years from now.
What kind of qualifications does this job require – particularly education requirements? How much job experience would you need, and which specific skills?
Now look for job postings that would give you the type of job experience that your dream job requires. What are the education and skill requirements for these types of jobs? You can rinse and repeat until you find entry-level positions with just education or skill requirements (and not concrete job experience) to identify the specific type of education and skills you need to focus on building today to get where you want to be in the future.
Activity: Which Job Would You Choose?
Imagine you receive two job offers.
Job A pays more and offers opportunities for promotion, but requires longer hours and involves work that does not closely match your strongest skills.
Job B pays less but offers greater flexibility, work that closely matches your skills, and responsibilities that better align with your interests and values.
Which job would you choose?
Compare the two opportunities based on values fit and skill fit, not salary alone. Identify at least three factors that influenced your decision and explain how your choice could affect your longer-term career plan.