Deciding on your career path requires time and intentional effort to explore who you are, including your skills, interests, values, and goals. This process involves building self-knowledge, connecting your academic and professional interests with potential careers, and finding opportunities to network with professionals in your field.
CCE has resources to help you begin your career exploration journey. We offer self-reflection activities, information about the career paths different majors can lead to, and networking strategies to launch your career.
Build Self-Knowledge
Building self-knowledge about your identities, values, interests, skills, personality, and likes and dislikes can help you better understand yourself and your motivations. This process can offer you direction in choosing majors and careers that align with who you are and what you want in your career.
Identity
Your identity can be tied to your community, worldview, values, interests, and self-image. This identity-defining activity can help you reflect and ground yourself as you begin your career exploration journey.
CCE’s Info For pages offer identity-specific information and resources to support you in your career exploration and job search.
Values
Your values can play a central role in career satisfaction. Values are your beliefs, pursuits that bring you joy and meaning, and your life’s priorities. This values activity can help you reflect on what is most important to you.
Personality
Your personality makes you who you are; it is a combination of distinctive and defining qualities. Your personality consists of preferences and characteristics that feel most natural and comfortable to you. How do you gain energy, perceive information, make decisions, and organize your external environment? This personality activity can help you learn about how you prefer to navigate the world.
Interests
Your interests are your passions. What do you like doing or learning about? Reflecting on your interests can provide clues about careers you may enjoy. This interests activity can help you clarify what sparks your interest.
Competencies/Skills
Before, during, and after Columbia, you will have many experiences that teach you valuable competencies or skills that you can utilize in your career. This competencies activity can help you identify examples of your competencies in action. Download the fillable (accessible) PDF below.
Likes and Dislikes
Through your experiences, you will not only develop skills, but you will also learn about your likes and dislikes. When reflecting on your work-related preferences, consider elements such as the environment, schedule, people, managerial style, commute, job tasks, and culture. This likes and dislikes activity will help you reflect on what you value in your ideal work environment.
Connect Self-Knowledge to Potential Careers
Now that you have developed self-knowledge and new insight into your identity, values, interests, personality, skills, and likes and dislikes, it’s time to connect who you are to potential careers.
Majors
Your major can reflect both your pursuit of your intellectual interests and your preparation for your future career. Declaring a major can be intimidating as you may not have a clear idea of how your intended major can connect to your career. CCE has compiled majors tip sheets with the job titles, industries, and companies of recent alumni to give you a sense of what others who have graduated from your department have later pursued. Our premium resource What Can I Do with This Major? also provides detailed information on industries and roles for which your major can prepare you.
Our Majors and Careers for International Students In the Know post offers more information about campus resources, support, and insight into choosing a major for international students at Columbia.
Industries
Do you have some industries of interest and want to learn more — or feel lost and want to explore the world of work? Are you looking for internship opportunities or jobs in your industry? CCE’s Industry Pages provide insight into a variety of sectors and can be used to explore career options, learn about industry-specific job boards, and find resources that Columbia and CCE have to offer.
Career Research and Exploration
Developing a strategy for exploring careers can help you avoid overwhelming yourself with information, stay organized, and reflect along the way. There are many online and in-person tools you can use to develop a strategy tailored to your needs.
Your online strategy can include using career platforms like LionSHARE, LinkedIn, and the resources on CCE’s website. Your in-person strategy can include attending events like information sessions, industry spotlights, and alumni panels. Reading job descriptions, learning about companies and industries, and meeting professionals are all part of your research and exploration process.
As you work through your career exploration strategy and begin to learn more about the options that are available to you, take time to reflect on and analyze the information you are taking in. Ask yourself questions such as: Does the industry culture align with my core values? What skills can I bring to this experience and what skills can I develop from it? Does this opportunity fulfill my top priorities?
CCE’s Connecting Your Self-Knowledge to Career Options page offers information on building online and in-person strategies, ways you can reflect on and analyze your findings, and tips on tracking your learning.
Explore Careers Through Networking
Networking is an important skill to have in any industry. Networking can help you build support systems, find mentors, share ideas, and learn about job openings. Networking practices such as informational interviewing, attending employer programs, and job shadowing can also help you with career exploration.
Informational Interviewing
Informational interviews are an informal way to connect with and learn about career paths and everyday work from a professional in your field of interest. Informational interviews are your chance to ask questions that can help you decide if a career field is right for you, such as: What kinds of roles exist in that industry? What are the typical projects? What is the work environment like? What knowledge and skills are necessary?
These informational interviewing tips and sample questions provide guidance on reaching out to professionals, preparing for interviews, generating questions to ask, and following up.
Employer Information Sessions
Many employers hold information sessions and coffee chats to promote their company and share information about job and internship opportunities. Participating in these employer events can help you learn about career paths within the organization and connect with recruiters or Columbia alumni. Employer events are often posted on LionSHARE. Student organizations and academic departments also host employer information sessions.
Job Shadowing
Job shadowing is a way to get real-world insight into the day-to-day work in your field of interest. You can shadow a professional to learn about daily operations and tasks, observe organizational culture, and ask questions. Depending on the job and industry, job shadowing can be done in person or virtually. Virtual or in-person job shadowing should be discussed and agreed upon with the professional or organization.
Our virtual job shadowing page shares tips and resources for creating a shadowing experience.
Set, Track, and Reflect on Goals
As you are exploring careers, it may be helpful to create a personalized Career Design Plan as a structured approach to setting, tracking, and reflecting on your goals.
Please view and download this fillable (accessible) worksheet to work on your competency-based SMART goals.
Additional Resources
Here are additional resources to provide support and information to guide you on your career exploration journey:
- Explore potential careers for different majors with What Can I Do with This Major?.
- Check out resources for making career connections in CCE’s Networking Guide.
- Connect With Columbia Alumni in your industries and companies of interest.
- CCE Internship Programs are an ideal way to explore careers and gain experience with professional development support from CCE.
- Experience comes in many forms; see different Ways to Gain Experience.
Career exploration is a continuous process; use Be SMART to Set and Achieve Your Career Goals to keep yourself on track.