Coping with Change

With rapidly advancing technologies, change is certain. There are three things you can do about change: accept it, reject it, or ignore it. If you accept change, you can be part of it and help it happen. If you reject change, you will be run over by it; progress cannot be stopped. If you ignore change, you will be left behind, wondering what happened. By rejecting or ignoring change, you will be very frustrated, unemployed, or both. By reading, becoming a lifetime learner, taking classes, and completing a self-assessment, you can be aware of changes and make an action plan that will enable you to cope with changes and reduce the stress of uncer­tainty.

A variety of resources follow national and international trends, from general technology to specific industries. Computer maga­zines or online technology news sources, such as CNET and Wired magazine, will keep you informed of technological advances enter­ing the marketplace. In addition, you need to read newspapers and magazines to keep up with what is going on in the United States and in the world.

Both at work and in your personal life, be interested in what is going on. Ask questions. Talk to people. Follow news and special events. Participate in community activities. Care about what is going on in your area and in the world. Joining professional and service organizations will also keep you informed of what's new in specific job areas. You can find out about workshops and seminars that will keep you aware of trends. This will make you a more interesting person to talk to, to work with, and to be around. And it is essential to your successful career development.

Sometimes technological advances are too complex to learn by yourself, so you should actively seek new knowledge by taking classes to gain new skills. Upgrading is advancing to a higher level of skill to increase your usefulness to an employer. Many jobs, especially those affected by technological improvements, will require regular upgrading by employees. Retraining is learning new and different skills so that an employee can retain the same level of employability. Community college and vocational training is being geared as much to retraining displaced employees as to preparing employees for entry-level positions.

Technical courses are often available through corporations for retraining their own employees. Those who volunteer and are eager to learn will position themselves for advancement. Other training is available through technical schools, vocational centers, job placement services, business colleges, and community colleges. Training over the Internet is becoming increasingly common. For many careers, applicants will need a college degree before they will be considered for employment.

Young people are staying in college longer before entering the workforce than ever before. Advanced degrees are specialized, intensive programs (taken after the first college degree) that pre-pare students for higher-level work responsibilities with more challenges and higher pay. An advanced degree may be a master's, a doctorate in a specialized field, or a professional degree in medi­cine, law, engineering, and so on. A master's degree often requires one year beyond the first college degree. A Ph.D. may require an additional three years after a master's degree. It is also possible to earn a Ph.D. without first obtaining a master's degree. This path usually takes longer (up to five years).

As you go through life, your needs and values will change. It is important to look inward to define what is important to you and then use this knowledge to an your future. You should think about what you like doing, what you do well, and what skills and knowledge you want to enhance. Located at a college or technical training institute, a college placement center offers advice and counseling to help you determine a career direction. Vocational testing is also available through these college placement centers. You can compare your interests with those of successful people in various profes­sions. A values clarification test will help you determine what is important to you both personally and professionally. You can find many self-assessment questionnaires at online career sites or by searching with the keyword "self-assessment."

Private career counselors are listed in the Yellow Pages and may be consulted for a fee ranging from $25 to $75 an hour. A less expensive and more productive approach is to do your own research, using the sources listed in this chapter as well as The American Almanac of Jobs and Salaries. This book evaluates job opportunities in many career fields and gives a full range of salaries for positions and levels. You can do industry research and look into major job categories (service, professional, and so on, as listed in Chapter 2).

Specific company research will help you determine which com­panies can offer you the best career opportunities. You might want to check your library to find sources such as Standard & Poor's Regis-ter of Corporations, Directors and Executives, United States and Canada, or The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America to read about major American companies and why they are successful. You might also want to visit company Web sites and read their descriptions of themselves. Finally, you can do field research and talk to people working in careers that interest you. These interviews will show you strengths and weaknesses in some careers that you might not have anticipated. All this information is crucial in determining your needs and matching them to an appropriate career.

Changing Career Opportunities

Career planning is changing as never before. A career choice is not a permanent decision but is subject to rapid, unpredictable change. To understand how the job market will be affected, let's examine some of the major changes sweeping the country and the world.

Long-Term Planning

Businesses must be concerned with what will happen in the long run. Otherwise, they will be totally unprepared when new tech­nologies that require massive changes emerge. Individuals also must look to long-term planning to protect themselves from the effects of a rapidly changing technology. They must be in the midst of the change and help it happen. Career plans must span several decades and must be as broad, diversified, and open to future opportunities and challenges.

A World Economy

The idea that we can isolate ourselves from the rest of the world and live in total peace and security is a myth. We are now part of a worldwide, interdependent economy. The Internet has helped to open the world market to companies of all sizes. As a nation, we must seek ways to survive and grow internationally. As individu­als, we must be aware of the changes occurring worldwide, particularly in Third World countries. Third World countries are nations with developing economies.

The twenty fastest growing economies of the 1990s were all in Third World nations, including the oil-exporting countries, South Korea, Singa­pore, the Dominican Republic, Taiwan, Mexico, and Brazil. The economic powers of the Third World are taking over the industrial production tasks formerly controlled by more developed countries, and they have the potential workforce to do it.

Should we try to go back and recapture our role as leader of a modern Industrial Revolution? Most experts agree that the answer is no. Instead, we should adapt and move forward in the area in which we are the leader—information.

Networking

Businesses and individuals are moving away from formal, individual-oriented structures and toward networks. Networks are communication lines established for people to talk to each other and share information. Networking includes making phone calls, sharing lunch, and creating opportunities to give ideas, share resources, and receive needed information from someone who has it. To find a career, you will need to establish a network of contacts—people you know who have information you need. Through networking, you can get inside information without being an "insider."

You can begin now to create your network by making a master list of people you know through your parents, school and business acquaintances, and personal friends and associates. By communi­cating within your network, you will learn how to prepare yourself for a job, where the openings are, and how to pursue them.