Career Planning

A good place to start is to articulate your interests, skills, and values. What do you enjoy doing? What do you excel at? What things come easily for you? On the other end of the spectrum, what types of projects or activities do you detest? What types of things do you not want to spend your time doing? To discover these answers, consider your past academic, work, and personal experiences. When you choose a career related to who you are, your aptitudes, strengths, and passions, you’re more likely to look forward to your work.

  essential activity

• Complete the SuperStrong Career Assessment

  deeper dive activities 

• Meet with a Career Advisor 
• Take an In-Depth Career Assessment 
• Participate in a Student Success Workshop 
• Explore Your Social Identities  and Big 10+ Dimensions of Social Identity

Most students are not aware of the large range of career possibilities. Focus on exploring career paths that align with your interests, skills and values.

 essential activity

• Explore Career Clusters in WOIS  

 deeper dive activities 

• Explore careers using these recommended resources 
• Meet with a Career Advisor 

Many students don’t like the term “networking,” so think of it as building relationships. How do you do this? To learn more about a potential career path, connect with and have conversations with professionals, employers and our campus community. Develop your own personal network to help you gather information, perspective and advice about careers, helpful resources and experiences, internships, and jobs.

 essential activities

• Build a LinkedIn Profile
• Conduct an Informational Interview

 deeper dive activities 

• Attend a career-related event 
• Participate in a student club 
• Check out community events at Clark College your local chamber of commerce, or online networking platform such as MeetUp 

Improves your career opportunities by participating in an internship, practicum or clinical. These experiences help you gain relevant work experience, on-the-job training, employability skills and connection to professional networks while you’re still in school. Whether or not it is required for your program of study, make the time to take this essential step in clarifying career choices that are the best fit for you.

 essential activity

• Determine Work-Based Learning Graduation Requirements 

 deeper dive activities 

• Participate in Work-Based Learning
• Identify Your Employability Skills 
• Visit the Work-Based Learning page
• Meet with the Work-Based Learning Program Manager 

Developing a clear strategy for your job search will increase your success at landing a job that’s a good fit for you. The activities and resources included in this section will help you identify, develop, practice, and improve your employability skills. In the long term, these activities can ensure that you will be well equipped to manage your career over a lifetime.

 essential activity

• Build a resume 
• Build a cover letter 

 deeper dive activities 

• Create a Self-Introduction 
• Complete a Practice Interview in StandOut 
• Identify Your Employability Skills 
• Review the Find a Job webpage

While you’re still in school, you can develop your professional skills—including problem solving, communication and teamwork. You can develop these skills everywhere—in a group project, in a student club, in a classroom presentation. By attaining these skills, you become a more valuable employee.

 essential activity

• Complete the Professional Readiness Self-Assessment 

 deeper dive activities 

• Revisit your Professional Readiness Self-Assessment each term and create new action steps
• Add these competencies to your resume
• Actively participate in class, gain employment experience and engage with campus activities