Welcome back to the shatteredcube presents “The Career Contender, a college graduate’s guide to their first job”. This is the third installment of our series and quite possibly the MOST important.  Ironic that I would go from “least” important to the most important back to back, but that’s the way it is.

If you haven’t read the first in the series or the second, I recommend you do so because the personal inventory and “not for me” list are both great tools.

We’ve reached the final step before starting what most would consider real job hunting.  I know it may seem like we are exploring a lot of tangents, but I assure you that having these three tools will help you succeed in your career search and in maximizing your joy in life.

We know who you are, what you like and don’t like, what you don’t want to do and what you might want to do.  The “Now” is established and the “how” exists, all that stand is for us to point ourselves in the correct direction and shoot for the stars.  We will be doing this by creating a 5 year plan.  It’s super simple and allows for you to fantasize a bit.

I want you to grab a pen and paper.  (You and that pen should be good friends by now.)  Write down “Now” and under it I want you to list what your current salary is (2000*hourly wage if you work 40hrs/week), your current job title and on a scale of 1-10 the number that best describes your happiness with the current situation.  (10 being the highest.) Don’t worry if your choices sound stupid and don’t be afraid to put a negative number for salary if you are a student. The goal here is to be honest with yourself. (If there is more info you want to list then go right ahead, the more the merrier.) Next write down “1 Year”. Go ahead again and write down ideal salary, ideal job title and preferred happiness rank. Feel free to be more specific on the job as well. The more specific your goals are and the more attainable they are, the more likely they are to become reality.  This should be balanced with the fact that if your goals are very outlandish that this exercise won’t be of much use unless you really struggle to make them reality.  Repeat the process for 5 years. Anything beyond 5 years is way to hard to predict in my book. You should now have a sheet of paper with the most simple of road maps for your life.

Alrighty then!  We now have three documents.  Who you are, what you don’t like and where you want to go.  For those keeping track, that leaves how and why.  How?  That’s pretty much addressed by the rest of the posts.  Why?  Because food doesn’t grow on trees…er…hmmm…because there’s no such thing as a free lunch?  You get the point.  To be a productive member of a modern society you need to have a source of income.  To be a free member of society that source needs to be legal.

We are now armed and ready to move into the foxhole of the career search.  You better bring your big kid underwear because it’s about to get dirty.  Until then…

Happy Hunting!