Career Developer

What is Career Readiness?

Career Readiness is a term used to broadly describe a stage in a person's life when they are equipped to journey out on their own and have the skills to make millions of decisions, some big and many small, that effect the direction of their lives.

Most commonly we think of career readiness preparation as something young people need to do before becoming an adult. However, Levine (2005) in his book Ready of Not, Here Life Comes outlines that the most current research indicates that today we have an epidemic of work-life unreadiness among people of all ages.

This might surprise you because currently in BC there seems to be good employment opportunities which make unemployment rates low. And while this is true, it is also important to note that career unreadiness does not only include people unemployed, but it also includes people who are underemployed and unhappily employed. Do you know anyone underemployed or unhappily employed? Our guess is yes!

If you are hoping to avoid this situation and be counted among the 25% who report satisfaction with their careers you will want to increase your understanding of career readiness. At a basic level being career ready means:

• understanding your values, interests, talents and challenges.
• understanding the nature of work locally, nationally and globally.
• possessing a technical skill set, personal self management, mental energy, critical thinking skills, effective support network building skills and creative problem solving skills.
• having both the desire and ability to remain open to learning, continuous change, and personal growth.

So, how do you do this? A good place to start is by creating a development portfolio. Don't worry -- it can be as formal or informal as you like. You can choose to share it during a job search or you can use it just to keep track of all the things that contribute to your career readiness.

You may be surprised, after using the resources in Career Developer, how much you already know about yourself, the workplace and your skills.

For Portfolio Creation Tips click here

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Levine, M. (2005). Ready or not, here life comes. New York: Simon & Schuster.