Career Development
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.
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.
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 62% more per year than those who do not. They earn over $1 million more over the course of their lifetime, are 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.
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.
Building Your Career Plan
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.