Embracing Your Career Journey

Welcome to Charting Your Course: A Roadmap to Thriving in the Field of Health! Whether you are in your first semester, nearing graduation, or long past graduation, this career guide is designed to lead you through the career development process: from building self-awareness, to conducting career research, undertaking a job search, to succeeding on the job. Charting Your Course includes relevant, up-to-date information, interactive and self-reflection-based exercises, as well as online resources to help support you to become more comfortable, flexible, and adept at managing your career.

You can access and work through this book at your own pace and in any order you wish, picking and choosing the content that is most relevant to you.

This book is composed of four modules. They include:

Module 1: Understanding Yourself

Module 2: Career Research and Exploration

Module 3: Job Search

Module 4: On the Job Success

By engaging with the content in this Pressbook, you will:

• Develop greater self-awareness of the personal characteristics, external factors, and available resources that contribute to making informed career decisions
• Build your research skills, explore occupational areas of interest, evaluate possible occupations, and set career goals
• Learn the skills necessary to conduct an effective job search, including crafting targeted application documents and job interviewing
• Expand your understanding of factors that contribute to success on the job

Benefits of the Guide

Being prepared and aware of your options is crucial. Career development does matter and can be difficult. Charting Your Course: A Roadmap to Thriving in the Field of Health takes you through the steps to help you remain in the driver’s seat so that you can:

• Cope with challenging transitions and move forward in meaningful and sustainable ways
• Embrace the unknown by offering positive ways to think about and move through uncertainty
• Increase your self-awareness, including learning more about your strengths
• Find hidden opportunities by broadening your awareness and opening yourself up to new opportunities
• Create a network of people with whom you can share information, inspiration, and opportunities
• Adjust your strategies and apply your skills to various situations to meet labor market needs
• Build a more optimistic foundation for  your life

(2020) On the move: eight ways career development gets you going. Canadian Career Development Foundation

Introducing Jane Career

Your guide throughout this book is Jane Career, a (fictional) University of West Florida graduate. She will pop up frequently throughout the modules to provide examples and walk you through exercises.

University of West Florida’s (UWF) Career Services 

To meet the needs of UWF students, alumni, and partners, all services, including scheduled and drop-in appointments, are available both virtually and in person. If you have any questions please contact our office at career@uwf.edu.

• Book one-on-one virtual or in-person appointments for career planning and job search support (including networking, interview prep, and resume/cover letter reviews)
• Register for career-related webinars and events
• Use a variety of online career development tools, such as career assessments, interview prep and networking tools, and career exploration resources
• Review recommended resources including  webinar recordings and employer videos

Handshake is the university-wide job posting system for students and alumni to schedule appointments with career coaches, stay up to date with career events, search for jobs, internships, Co-ops, and more. Handshake will allow you to access job postings and employer hiring events.

Thank You

This work is adapted from “Centennial College Career Success Guide” by Career Services and Cooperative Education, Centennial College, Modifications: Text , images, and selected content modified for clarity and flow is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0