Guidelines for Personal Career Development Essay
1. Your essay should have the title “Personal Career Development”
2. It should be between 4-6 pages.
3. Your essay is an expansion of your professional pitch presentation which means
that you MUST discuss the following:
a. What are your career goals? (you want to be an entrepreneur, a counselor,
a doctor)
b. What factors (mentor, parent, relative, job market) shaped your career
goals? Do these factors continue to influence you now? This question
refers to past factors that may have initially inspired you.
c. What motivating factors encourage you to continue pursuing your career
goals? This question refers to present factors that inspire you today.
d. What are your career-related weaknesses? (low G.P.A., no job experience,
fired from last position?)
e. What qualities make up for these weaknesses? (high G.P.A., you have
great faculty recommendations, wealth of job experience)
f. What are your career-related strengths? (you work well on teams, your
G.P.A. is high, you have published books etc.)
g. What is the job market like for your field? (is there a high demand for
doctors, since 9/11 do people need more counselors, are there too many
computer programmers)
h. How do you see the job market affecting your career goal or field? (do you
have to work harder to make yourself stand-out, are you guaranteed a high
paying job)
i. What are your plans in the event of your goals not being fulfilled? (would
you go back to school, open your own business?)