CareerScribe

For awhile now, I've been telling professionals that doing a good job managing your career is like dieting and excercise. No one can argue that you should be doing it, but unfortunately, our educational system is only now starting to incorporate(require) students to learn some of the very basic skills/habits, such as maintaining a career portfolio as a routine.

State workforce development offices are starting to recognize the importance of these skills. Realizing it's only a bandaid to provide resume services and certain types of training. These things may help the person at the time, but you're not equipping them with skills to help them throughout their career. Professional portfolios are the way to go when it comes to candidate evaluation.

The bad news is, like dieting and excercise, many of the career management skills and habits being taught to professionals with 5-10+ years of experience, likely won't stick. The employment pool has been so negatively reinforced with their habits, i.e. "I only update my resume when I'm unhappy or been told I'm going to lose my job", that it's very tough to unlearn that way of thinking, and realize the good career management habits can be fun. Documenting your successes and accomplishments, which ultimately creates more value and can help you further your career, should be fun. If you own a house, doesn't it make you feel good when the house has been freshly painted, you've planted flowers, mulched and just mowed the lawn? All these things add value, and you feel that inside.

Hopefully, the current employment market issues will translate into long term changes to our education system and the services our tax dollars provide through regional workforce offices.