COM 300. Strategic Guide to Career Success. Communications & Media

 
Strategic Guide to Career Success
Prepared by 
Proposal submitted on May 8th, 2020
12 Capen Hall
Buffalo, New York 14260-1660
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this project is to inform and prepare new students at the University at Buffalo on how to best prepare for the field of finance. Together, our team conducted interviews with 12 finance professionals, exploring their perspectives on what facilitates advancement in this field. This produced nineteen specific skills, experiences, and training these professionals feel would enable a new professional to thrive in finance. I then identified a series of steps that, if taken, I believe will facilitate development in these nineteen areas. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………………….…..           1
TOC……………………………………………………………………………………….…        2
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY……………………………………………………………........         3
INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………………..         4
FINDINGS…………………………………………………………………………………..          5
CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………………..          7 
APPENDIX…...…………………………………………………………………………….          8
Executive Summary
Purpose: In the contemporary career field, there is an assumption that employment is more of a contractual agreement rather than a relational concept. This has made the career line to be punctuated by the concept of turnover as well as lateral moves within the hierarchy of the firm. However, several kinds of research have been conducted on the success that comes with a boundary-less career but less has been done touching on the early careers. The paper focuses on providing knowledge that can guide career entry processes through the integration of research management of career alongside adult-life development theories. Enhancement of the understanding of career planning mechanism at the early stages calls for the integration of theoretical as well as empirical evidence on appropriate setting and implementation of career goals. This paper provides a brief review of the literature on career management and developmental theories of adult-life that focuses on success. Then there is the provision of various limitations that are associated with early conceptualization and alternative models that could be applicable for success in a specific career for new entrants within organizations. 
Methods: The study participants were selected without any form of bias towards their professional background. In this case, professionals were selected from different organizations and fields and this helped in the process of constructing a robust view of the study from the participant’s point of view. The selection criteria considered research participants of over 25 years of age and who were also willing to participate in the interviews and have work experience of at least five years. The researcher was key in the taking of important notes, making necessary observations, and at the same time ensuring personal direct contact with respondents. The interview guides applicable in this case took the format of a semi-structured interview. The process of the analysis entailed the following: a) reading of the scripts from the interviews to understand the content with the context of the guiding question b) then identification of the relevant segments of data that relates to the question, then extracting them as identified codes c) then the codes are collated to present first-order themes d) afterward, the first-order themes were ordered into clusters that provided the second-order themes and then third-order themes finally created e) third-order themes were taken as the main themes from the interviews f) then the third-order themes were reviewed to match them against existing codes g) then finally third-order themes named to appropriately match the constructs from the models. 
Findings: The findings provided the following skills as necessary for new graduates for better positioning in the market: a) Internships, b) Work Experience, c) Communication skills, d) Reasoning Skills, e) Spatial ability, f) Critical thinking, g) Adaptability skills, h) Technical skills, i) Professionalism, j) Teamwork and collaboration, k) Data visualization, l) Leadership skills, m) Intercultural fluency, n) Career management, o) Functional skills
 
Introduction
The aspect of providing useful information on career strategies for new college graduates entering the employment field. The transition stage from being a student to embracing the employment field is considered critical in the pursuit of career success. However, such a level of success is dependent on the proactive as well as deliberate steps that are considered by the college graduates. The concept of the earlier career success could well be explained by the use of appropriate models and theories such as integration of important aspects from adult-life development as well as career management, where major drivers can be identified. The theories of self-concept and also environmental conditions could be useful in explaining the process through which individuals develop goals and implementation as relates to the selection of jobs, gaining entry into organizations, and ultimately experience early success in a career (Colquitt et al., 2011). 
Success can be defined from either subjective or objective terms or both terms. In this case, success could be defined as a feeling from employees and at the same time as something that can be tangibly measured for instance in terms of salary, promotion, or ranks. In terms of feeling it can provide a sense of satisfaction by offering an opportunity to learn, providing a sense of security as well as social relationships. Importantly, the early models on the management of career focus on a wide set of behaviors that may require a perpetual habit of goal setting and performance, problem-solving, and decision-making abilities. However, the ultimate idea of this paper focuses on models of individual responsibility that pertain to job-related decisions that appear stable within any career field. Such abilities are a clear reflection on the existing broad economic as well as socio-cultural changes that have prevailed over the past decades. The aspect of emphasizing the self-concept as well as proposed developmental stages allows for the provision of necessary theoretical drivers that are crucial in the understanding of career planning at the individual level. Some of the skills that college students require for the workforce include interpersonal skills, writing skills, cognitive skills, adaptability skills, communication skills, critical thinking and technical proficiency, internships experience, and work experience (Cooper-Thomas et al., 2012). 
 This study utilized thematic analysis which entails the process of recognizing similarities as well as differences for defining categories and data further grouped as per the identified categories. The grouped data is then compared both across and within categories. In this case, data from the interviews were segmented, categorized, summarized, and ultimately reconstructed to capture key insights given from the dataset. The data were coded into categories and later used for identifying existing connections and influence on one another. The patterns from the interviews were uncovered and interpreted using the thematic analysis. 
The findings of this study attempt to provide the various categories that define effectiveness in career planning and development of greater self-awareness.  Some of the categories identified include internship experience, work experience, communication skills, critical thinking, adaptability skills, and technical skills (Cooper-Thomas et al., 2012). Most of the new college graduates are short of adaptability skills when they first enter the workplace environment after graduation. Then there is the need to learn interpersonal skills such as communication, critical thinking, and technical proficiency skills. The entire process brings out some sense of objectiveness as well as subjectivity gained form internship and work experiences. This concerns tangible value such as expected salary and ranks and feelings such as a sense of satisfaction through security, relations, and opportunities. 
Findings
In this section, I present the nineteen skills, training, and experiences the interviewed professionals advocate you acquire. First, I present the name of each category and define it. Beneath each category, I then provide bullets of a series of steps one might take to facilitate the development of these skills, experiences, and training.  Internship experience, work experience, communication skills, critical thinking, adaptability skills, and technical skills
Internships: Sources stressed the value of practical, industry experience and the networking internships provide. As such, students should learn early in their program how to access, research, and undertake internships in their area of interest. Students must learn how to articulate to employers what they experienced during and learned from these internships. 
• Speak with your advisor about how and when you can take internships for credit in your program, as well as how to access them.
• Speak with Ed Broka at Career Services, who will connect you to the Bullseye (UB job search system).
• Speak with Dr. Vivian Williams (357 Baldy Hall), Director of Internships in Communication, to learn how to prepare for doing internships.  Work Experience: the participants mentioned the necessity of having a first-hand practical approach as one of the key areas that allow the student to apply their theoretical knowledge into practical skills. This eventually helps the students to learn personal relationships required at the workplace. 
• Organize with their departments on how to get some short-contract work placement during long vacations
• Learn how to find online jobs that can also be done while still at school
Communication skills: It is a necessity that the new college graduates can communicate with acceptable levels of clarity, consistent demonstration of skills as well as attitude. This also entails the appropriate use of non-verbal skills for the purposes of delivering messages.  
• Discuss with tutors to organize regular class presentations where students are allowed to participate
• Organize with the department on part-time communication classes
Reasoning Skills: The participants' consent to the fact that it is a necessity for the student to have the abilities that would enable them to anticipate as well as perceive when something might not work, and the ability to develop new ideas. There is a need for the student to have a proper application of dedu...