How do I develop a professional direction?
How do I develop a professional direction?
How do I develop a professional direction?
Finding and developing a professional direction is one of the hardest things that a student affairs professional can do. Of course many professionals want to dedicate their careers to working in student affairs, higher education, and serving students in general. But how do you approach developing your own professional direction when it comes to your career?
This article will address how to find and develop a professional direction. It includes re-thinking what we normally envision as the “career ladder” and recreates it more as the “career lattice.” Beginning steps for setting your own professional direction are discussed in addition to how creating your own career goals builds into and connects with existing student affairs competencies.
Steps for creating and developing your own career plan will be covered in detail. This includes how you can begin with outreach and networking. Additionally, you can consider growing with your own job, and developing skills and experience to help you take your next steps. This article ends with a commitment to consistency in following your professional path.
Why find a professional direction?
Finding a professional direction is critical to creating meaning and purpose in both your life and your career. But when was the last time you actually looked at your career and examined what you were doing? If it’s been a while, then how do you know what you’re doing now will benefit you in the future?
Often professionals dig into the “nitty gritty” of their professional direction. They want to achieve a specific title, degree, salary range, or responsibilities by a specific date or a specific age. This approach is important; but it’s not the only thing that you should focus on. Rather, take a step back and look at your life and career from a more metacognitive approach. Ask yourself what are the things that you are passionate about and what are the things that you can leverage in your own profession? Knowing the difference will help you determine what you are enthusiastic about doing and what you can do.
It’s also beneficial to find and develop a professional direction so that you can pounce on and take advantage of opportunities as they arise. Doing so means that you will always be ready to capitalize on the next offer as you discover them without having to spend a significant amount of time reviewing your career and soul searching.
Re-thinking the career “ladder”
Many student affairs professionals approach their career development via a traditional method: the career ladder. They want to start as entry level professionals and then work their way up to the coveted position as a vice president of student affairs. However, examining the ladder is just one way of looking at your own professional direction. That’s because the career ladder approach only provides two directions: you either ascend and are promoted up within your functional area and institution or you move down.
One key takeaway from this path is that you must be certain that your interests, passions, skills, and connections will remain consistent and coherent as your age and your career develops. This occurs for many professionals, but not for all. That’s because people, their interests, skills, and passions change over time.
A more appropriate approach includes where and how you may move up in your career through a vertical approach as well as a multi-directional approach. Doing so assumes that you may want to continue working in your functional area and student affairs in the future. However, it also opens you up to opportunity and possibility that takes best advantage of your passions, skills, and competencies.
By approaching your career through this method you examine your opportunities as “lily pads” and jobs represent smaller steps toward your own ultimate goal. This career hopping makes it so that each step doesn’t necessarily move you up. Rather, it moves you towards what you really want and away from what you don’t.
Therefore, a more helpful metaphor is to think about your career development and direction as less of a “ladder” and more of “lattice.” This interconnected series of jobs, responsibilities, and opportunities helps demonstrate and showcase what you can do, what you want to do, and where you want to go.
Introducing the “career lattice”
The career lattice is much more flexible and applicable to student affairs professionals as a way to approach and determine the next steps in their professional direction. Another apt analogy is to look at your career as a series of “jumps” from one landing spot to another rather than a large and tumultuous ocean. An ocean is a large and often formless space. A career lattice made up of landing pads provides a structure and framework for you to make meaningful moves in your career.
Likewise taking these leaps between spots in your career lattice helps you determine if you are getting closer and better aligned with your interests, passions, and needs. Sometimes those needs represent themselves in job opportunities that also provide you a vertical or lateral step in your career.
A career lattice is made up of a starting position (you) and where you are at right now. That could be in a current job or merely job searching for your next position. A vertical move up would be to increase responsibilities but to stay with the institution or functional area as a whole. An example of this would be a student affairs professional who is currently an area director in residential life who stays with the university to take on an assistant director role. In the new assistant director role she increases her responsibilities but also maintains her relationship in her functional area and the institution.
Enrichment means staying within your current position at your current institution and functional area and growing inside of the role. An example of this is a student affairs professional who works in career development as a coordinator. He chooses to stay within his role because he likes where he is right now but is interested in developing new skills in this area. For instance this coordinator in career development may choose to work with a colleague in student activities in order to co-promote student leadership and career development programming to the university at large. As a result this professional develops collaborative skills with a new professional in a different functional area.
Often times we are put into positions where we can neither enrich ourselves in our current role nor do we want to take on the next step in our current organization. This is where re-alignment comes into play. In realignment, the professional takes a step back from their current role, career level, or responsibilities. This could be due to job loss from termination, lay-off, or resignation. In any case, the person in the re-alignment phase examines where they are and what they want. They do this to determine if they should consider moving up in their current functional area or pursue opportunities in other functional areas, institutions, organizations, companies, or other industries. This is the most reflective area of the career lattice.
Finally, lateral changes keep a professional’s current responsibilities and career level but take a step away from the organization or the position to pursue similar responsibilities in a different functional area or another institution. This could come from a director of community standards at a large state school who decides to relocate to be closer to family in another state. In this case the professional takes on the direction of community standards and judicial affairs at a different institution where they are largely in charge of the same responsibilities.
Likewise, a student affairs professional working in academic advising might pursue a role in an educational company in order to put their advising skills to use in a corporate environment. Such a move could open up the professional to new networking opportunities and other methods of working outside the traditional path inside of higher education.
An important aspect to remember in the career lattice is that your career path is not simply a series of jobs that you take in a straight line. Rather, your path could meander, swerve, and move both forwards and backwards as you look towards closer alignment between what you want and what you already have.
This also means that in the career lattice you are allowed and encouraged to take risks and explore different opportunities that encourage your passions and interests. However, note that taking mitigated risks is part of your overall career development. Sometimes it works in your favor to explore a new opportunity to experiment in a different field. Other times it makes more sense to explore new areas while working in your current role.
Beginning steps
Often knowing that you want to create and set a professional direction is one of the hardest things to do. In order to come to this conclusion you have to know that you want to set a direction and that it’ll take time, work, and effort in order to get there. However, acknowledging this also means that you’ll be investing your time and energy into a path that you are proud of and agree to.
The first part of every journey begins with a first step. To set your own professional direction you’ll need to examine your work values. These are the values and qualities about your own work that you hold dear. These values are as diverse as student affairs professionals but one of the most common values is a dedication to supporting students’ educational journeys. Likewise your values could also be more specific like supporting a healthy work/life balance. Otherwise it could be highly personal such as remaining at your alma mater to develop your career.
The next step in his process is to create a personal vision statement for who you want to be in the near and far future. One of the ways to do this is to imagine an image of yourself five years from today. In that vision imagine having a job that perfectly fits with your values, your desires, and your passions. You meet a friend from long ago at an airport terminal. You only have about five minutes to share what you’re doing with your life now. How do you describe your ideal life to this person who knows your past but is unfamiliar with your present? That explanation is your vision.
The final stage in your beginning steps is to translate that “vision” into the building blocks for making it a reality. That starts with looking at your most important skills and translating them into observable outcomes. This is a process of identifying your competencies. Every job requires that you be proficient in a number of competencies. The next step is creating career goals that connect your own competencies with what the job requires.
For instance, a student affairs professional who’s particularly passionate and skilled at listening and empathy could find excellent opportunities in counseling, advising, and career development. Based on those competencies they could look for counseling positions in student affairs; human resources; or social work.
Setting your own career goals
Starting down the path of your career lattice is not an easy one. Now that you have your passions, vision, and competencies outlined, it’s time to focus on creating and setting some career goals.
These career goals are not meant to bind you to a particular path; but rather to guide your decision making towards something that you want to accomplish in both the near and far future. Unlike your beginning steps, setting career goals requires that you examine what you’d like to accomplish and the pathway in order for you to help succeed in accomplishing them.
Now is the time to use your passions, vision, and competencies and refine them by examining the types of needs and opportunities afforded to someone of your background. This step requires much self-assessment that you should do privately as well as professionally with colleagues, mentors, and coaches.
Your next step is to create a definition of success for yourself based on your self-assessment. That success could be the attainment of a new position or a title. However, such steps are often not always within your control. Rather, focus on success that is defined almost entirely by your own progress. That could include learning new skills; working in a new functional area; or writing an article on a topic that you’re passionate about.
Lastly, it’s time to find a direction in approaching your own goal. This could include how you dedicate and set aside time towards accomplishing these goals on a regular basis. You can do on your own on a daily, weekly, or monthly review. Otherwise it also helps to find and have an accountability partner throughout your career development process.
Student affairs competencies
Developing your professional direction also requires you to think about where your own professional competencies lie and how they integrate well with the needs and demands of student affairs professionals. Those core competencies vary widely. They include working with diverse populations; community building; conflict resolution; counseling; advising; leadership; and assessment.
Working with diverse populations comes with the territory for student affairs professionals. This includes diverse populations of students as well as faculty, staff, administrators, alumni, and parents. So knowing how to work with individuals from these constituent groups as well as how to best honor their needs, capacities, and concerns is essential.
Likewise, student affairs professionals also need to work hard to develop and build communities. The most visible of which are communities of students in residential environments; co-curricular clubs; and experiential learning. This means that student affairs professionals must be well versed in bringing together individuals with a common theme and purpose.
However, those common themes don’t always work in practice without some friction. That’s why student affairs professionals also need to be skilled and competent in conflict resolution in order to mitigate some of those conflicts as well as counseling and helping in order to help students see the growth opportunity in these experiences.
Often times the relationship skills necessary for student affairs in conflict resolution and counseling apply directly to some functional areas like advising. Advising is about providing students with guidance, feedback, and direction in their own personal, academic, and professional endeavors in order to help them determine a path that fits what they would like to accomplish.
All of these student affairs competencies often come into practice through student facing roles. However, as individuals move up and around in the field they will be called upon to fulfill more administrative responsibilities and leadership roles. As such, student affairs professionals often need to tap their own skills in leadership development and management to continue to succeed in the field.
Finally, student affairs professionals must constantly review, evaluate, and assess the success and impact of their programs, activities, and initiatives and how it affects students and the institution as a whole. Assessment therefore is a critical competency necessary for student affairs professionals to determine how their activities impacts their day to day work as well as the field overall.
Creating a career plan
With these factors in mind it’s important to lay out the ground work for creating and developing your own personal career plan. Your plan is an outline of your strategy, direction, and focus. This plan helps you determine how your skills, interests, and competencies help set a direction for your career and the steps necessary to move you in the direction you want to go.
Developing, following, and revising your career plan helps you move from job hopping to developing and curating a rewarding career. Like the career lattice, your career plan can be laid out in many ways. You can start with a goal for where you want to be and the steps necessary to get there. Or you can start with your competencies and find out what positions and opportunities make best use of those competencies and then seek out open positions.
Many student affairs professionals will look at a career plan as a linear map: a way for one person to get from one end to the other. Whereas an easier and more applicable example would be to create a personal experience map based on what your interests, skills, and competencies are and how to make best use of them.
An example of this would be to focus on one of your interests (working one on one with students) and one of your skills (interpersonal communication) that you could develop into a student affairs competency (helping and advising). Opportunities in the field that would best use this combination of interests, skills, and competencies would be in academic advising; opportunity programs; or community standards.
With this in mind you could start laying out the groundwork of your career plan to best develop your interests and skills in opportunities in your current job or internship that help you reach your ideal position in academic advising. Ideally this should be done in a way that provides you steps to accomplish this goal over a span of time. Over that span of time you will work to curate and develop your own skills to ready yourself for your ideal position when the opportunity arises.
Outreach and networking
One of the best ways to develop your own career is to connect and reach out to other professionals in the field. You can start this outreach by asking friends, family, and colleagues about their jobs. Ideally this should be done in order to get you used to learning more about the work that other people are doing. Afterwards, you can transition to speaking with other student affairs professionals about their work and about the day to day responsibilities of their roles.
Based on the information that you gain from these informational interviews you can then examine and review career information by researching the institutions, companies, and organizations that these professionals work for. Do they seem like they would be interesting for you? If so, what positions do you see open that you could see yourself fulfilling?
Many industries have established leaders and influencers who have a big say in what happens in the field. It helps to find and follow these individual online and through social media in order to learn more about their own individual philosophies and roles.
You should always work to expand your network. No matter if you connect with a close friend or an influential colleague. This means that asking these individuals who they find influential and thought provoking could be useful. Simply ask them at the end of your conversation: “is there anyone else you think I should speak to?” goes a long way.
Expanding your network in this way has the added benefit of surrounding and connecting yourself to other people who you can trust and want to see you succeed and triumph. Likewise, you don’t always have to worry about being the person in need. There will come a time when you will be an influential person yourself. When that time comes remember to examine the steps that you took to reach the point where you are today and pass on the knowledge to young and up and coming student affairs professionals.
Growing within your job
Creating a clear plan shouldn’t ignore the biggest opportunity that you already have: growing within the job that you are working right now. In this vein you want to work with the resources that you job has. Not against them. This means examining where your job provides you opportunities to take on new responsibilities or experience different work in other functional areas. Once you’ve discovered those opportunities take the time to work with your supervisor and your colleagues to complete and contribute work to those fields in order to grow your own competencies.
Likewise use your internal network of contacts in your current job to discover other roles and opportunities with your organization to explore. Often making a lateral move inside of your own organization can be much easier than finding different responsibilities in a different institution.
Student affairs professionals may also want to take advantage of human resources and programs offered that provide guidance and insight on an individual’s career. This could be internal mentorship opportunities; lunch-and-learn professional development events; or other resources offered for professionals. Look for these programs at your current institution in order to help you take your next step in the field.
If you don’t see an opportunity at your current institution to take advantage of, then offer something up where you can grow and develop your own skills. This could be funding for professional development materials like books, webinars, and virtual events. Just remember to align what you’ve hope to accomplish with these materials and how they align with the institution’s overall vision and mission.
Skill and experience development
Knowing what skills and competencies you want to further develop help you determine what steps you want to take next. In your career plan you want to indicate different opportunities in functional areas where you want to grow your skills. This could be working with your colleagues in another functional area (i.e. student engagement) on a cross collaboration program. Likewise you could also take on managerial responsibilities by taking on a leadership position in a professional organization such as NASPA or ACPA.
Now that you have connections to these areas; it’s time to focus on growing and developing new skills and contacts. This could include focusing your communication style to be more collaborative rather than directorial. It could also include working with new groups of students that you may not have had direct experience with before (i.e. veterans, first generation, or non-traditional aged).
No matter what you do, it’s important to note that your career development should focus on diversifying your experiences; applying your skills in different contexts; and curating your network for new opportunities as they arise.
Demonstrate value
It’s also important that, whatever you choose to do, you continue to demonstrate your value as a successful professional to the institution. This is often difficult for student affairs professionals to accomplish as requires them to actively communicate their worth to others. Some people might see this as “bragging,” but actively acknowledging and demonstrating how your skills and experience help others is critical.
Demonstrating this value is important because as technology, the economy, and society advances so do competing priorities and opportunities for positional responsibilities to shift and change. When that time comes, it’ll be up to you to demonstrate to your colleagues and supervisors just what kind of impact your work has on those around you.
Actively demonstrating your worth also has the added benefit of opening other opportunities for you as a seasoned individual who can clearly add value to other teams that you become involved with. This value can be communicated in an interview; but it’s also worthwhile to document your achievements and accomplishments constantly in your resume by providing bullet points on the quantifiable effects that your accomplishments have had on the institution.
Commit to consistency
Many student affairs professionals may approach finding a professional direction as a one and done activity. However, focusing on making sure that you revisit your career direction regularly and consistently is key.
It’s important that you keep your career direction and plan close at hand and review it regularly. You may find it helpful to schedule and block out time during your week and once a month to regularly review and revisit your plan. Doing so makes sure that you examine your activities on a regular basis to determine if you’re headed in the right direction.
Also take landmark events in your personal and professional life as a time to review and revisit your plan. This could be when you transition out of your job into a new one; moving in with a spouse; or having your first child. Reviewing your interests; desires; commitment; and priorities is critical to determine when and where you can go next.
Takeaways
This article defined how to find a professional direction. It included a re-definition of what most people think of as a “career ladder” and instead envisioned it as a “career lattice” where you can move in different areas fluidly according to your own interests and competencies. Beginning steps for creating your career plan were covered which included setting your own goals and comparing them to student affairs competencies. Outreach and networking; growing within your existing job; and prioritizing skill and experience development were all key areas to consider for continued professional development.
I hope that you found this article useful! If you need some additional help on your student affairs job search, then check out the eBook The Student Affairs Job Search: A Comprehensive Guide available here.
Happy searching,
References
Beaton, C. (2016, October 10). How To Find Direction And Learn Your Professional Purpose As A Millennial. Retrieved January 08, 2021, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinebeaton/2016/10/10/how-to-find-direction-and-learn-your-professional-purpose/?sh=424f4bd01686
Buj, M. (2020, October 05). 11 Tips for Career Planning at Any Age or Career Stage. Retrieved January 08, 2021, from https://www.livecareer.com/resources/careers/planning/career-planning-tips
Effron, M. (2018, November 30). A Simple Way to Map Out Your Career Ambitions. Retrieved January 08, 2021, from https://hbr.org/2018/11/a-simple-way-to-map-out-your-career-ambitions
Eng, D. (2019, July 22). Informational Interviewing. Retrieved January 07, 2021, from https://www.jobhakr.com/blog-1/2019/7/22/getting-the-edge-student-affairs-informational-interviewing
Eng, D. (2019, May 13). Mastering Your Student Affairs Career. January 07, 2021, from https://www.jobhakr.com/blog-1/2019/5/8/mastering-your-student-affairs-career
Eng, D. (2020, January 14). Institutional Culture and Structure. Retrieved January 07, 2021, from https://www.jobhakr.com/blog-1/2020/1/14/institutional-culture-and-structure
Eng, D. (2020, July 28). Changing Functional Areas. Retrieved January 07, 2021, from https://www.jobhakr.com/blog-1/2020/7/28/changing-functional-areas
Eng, D. (2019, September 16). Work Life Balance. Retrieved January 8, 2021, from https://www.jobhakr.com/blog-1/2019/9/16/work-life-balance
Finding Career Direction Video. (n.d.). Retrieved January 08, 2021, from https://www.mindtools.com/pages/videos/career-direction-transcript.htm
Heathfield, S. (2019, November 3). How to Create a Career Development Plan for Employees. Retrieved January 08, 2021, from https://www.thebalancecareers.com/steps-to-create-a-career-development-plan-1917798
How to Make a Career Plan in 8 Steps. (2020, December 22). Retrieved January 08, 2021, from https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/make-a-career-plan
How to Map Out Your Career Path – 6 Easy to Follow Steps. (2020, July 24). Retrieved January 08, 2021, from https://tallo.com/blog/career-path/
Learning & Organization Development. (2014). Retrieved January 08, 2021, from https://learning.ucsf.edu/staff-development/staff-learning-portal/professional-development-guide/identifying-competencies
Learning & Organization Development. (2014). Retrieved January 08, 2021, from https://learning.ucsf.edu/staff-development/staff-learning-portal/professional-development-guide/self-assessment
Learning & Organization Development. (2014). Retrieved January 08, 2021, from https://learning.ucsf.edu/staff-development/staff-learning-portal/professional-development-guide/set-your-direction/identify-your-work-values
Learning & Organization Development. (2014). Retrieved January 08, 2021, from https://learning.ucsf.edu/staff-development/staff-learning-portal/professional-development-guide/set-your-direction/vision-success
Levine, A. G. (2020, January 06). To advance your career, think of yourself as a business. Retrieved January 08, 2021, from https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2020/01/advance-your-career-think-yourself-business
Long, Dallas, "Are Student Affairs Professionals “Educators?:” Student Affairs and the Scope of the Educational Exemption of Copyright Law" (2013). Faculty and Staff Publications – Milner Library. 52. https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/fpml/52
Maruthai, K. (2020, December 11). 14 Tips to Shape Your Career Path in the Right Way. Retrieved January 08, 2021, from https://careermetis.com/decisive-tips-shaping-your-career-path-right-direction/
MIT Career Advising & Professional Development. (n.d.). Retrieved January 08, 2021, from https://capd.mit.edu/explore-careers/career-first-steps/make-career-plan
Rolfe, A. (2017, January 17). How to: Make a career plan. Retrieved January 08, 2021, from https://www.reed.co.uk/career-advice/how-to-make-a-career-plan/
What is Metacognition? (n.d.). Retrieved January 08, 2021, from https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_leading-with-cultural-intelligence/s06-02-what-is-metacognition.html
Cite this Article
Eng, D. (2021, January 18). How do I develop a professional direction? Retrieved MONTH DATE, YEAR, from https://www.jobhakr.com/blog-1/2021/1/18/how-do-i-develop-a-professional-direction
Internal Reference: JHKRRLNQGISGT