Career Exploration
One student's journey through the process of discovering a career.
Over the past several weeks, I have been looking into the Focus 2 assessments and exploring careers and job families related to my results. This week, I decided to learn more about one of those careers by interviewing an expert in one of those job families. I know that in my last entry I said that of the most common families in my results, I was interested in legal careers the least since they tend to be very social. However, the fact that it showed up did grab my attention. My dad is a patent attorney, so I have learned some things about having a legal career (most of which have dissuaded me from pursuing one), but seeing that family pop up on my results has made me think that I might want to look into it again.
One of the people who works next to office is Victor Reinhold, the director of international trade compliance in his company. Basically, he deals with import and export laws, trying to make sure all goods shipped between countries meet the regulations of both parties involved. This can be a tricky process; just because a good can be exported according to one country’s policies does not mean the other country can legally import it. My dad has been trying to get me to meet with Mr. Reinhold about this career for a long time, since I have always been interested in travel. I figured that since I have shown some aptitude for a legal career, this would be a great opportunity for me to learn more about one. First things first, I asked a few basic questions: what major do employers typically look for? What skills do I need for this job? How much more schooling would I need? The answers to these questions were surprisingly not very clear cut. Like many other companies I heard from at the Career Expo, undergraduate major is not the most important thing considered when hiring. Business and International Studies majors are the most common, but Mr. Reinhold actually has a Bachelor’s degree in History. Master’s degrees in the aforementioned subjects are more important to employers; however, they once again are not necessarily required. His assistant only had a Bachelor’s degree, and she might take over his position when he retires (if she is still there). The reason for this, though, is that she has very good written and verbal communication skills, which are important to the position. Some of the most important skills for a career in trade compliance are public speaking, writing, problem solving, and memorization. This seemed to confirm my fears about aegal career – I get very nervous when I have to speak in front of audiences, and I am not a fan of constantly writing papers. However, Mr. Reinhold assured me that the speaking really was not so bad. Most of the time, you would be speaking to a very small group of people (around 10-20), and usually you already knew those people from being in contact with them online over the course of several years. The biggest point he emphasized, though, is that you must be the expert in your company; no one else should know more about these agreements than you, or your job is pointless. The rewards from this job can be pretty great. According to Mr. Reinhold, you can get a decent amount of time for exploring and traveling if your boss is nice enough. He has been on boat rides down the Amazon, seen the Great Wall of China, and explored mountains in Italy – all during business trips. I have to admit, that part is definitely up my alley. This interview helped me to get a better idea of what this job is all about. While I may not like parts of it, it is definitely not as bad as my original thoughts on legal careers would have led me to believe, and it does seem like something worth pursuing.
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The Focus 2 assessments really are useful tools for determining where I should focus my attention in my job search. In the last post, I briefly described my results and determined what was accurate to my perception of myself and what was eye-opening to me. Now, I am able to delve even deeper into these results and find out what Job Families (or groups of similar jobs) I might be interested in researching more. My first step is to determine how each of my work interest areas are seen in my everyday life. As I have already mentioned, my creativity lies for the most part in my hobbies; I love playing the violin, singing, and daydreaming. My ability to help others is especially seen in my volunteer work. From middle school to about halfway through high school, I would help my church out with children’s camps, and I often helped tutor my peers in high school. I also have a lot of experience with Appalachian Service Project, an organization devoted to rebuilding homes in the Appalachian Mountains. Last but not least, my aptitude for thinking and investigating can be seen in my scholarly interests and talents, such as all of the calculus, chemistry, and biology classes I have taken.
While all of this is important to take note of, the more important question here is what impact these experiences have made on my life. Well, my creative interests have taught me to think outside of the box. I am now able to pay attention to the overall musicality of a piece rather than just hearing it note-by-note, and I am able to pursue the “what ifs” I dream up on my own time. My interests as a thinker have caused me to have a systematic way of thinking and to constantly ask questions: how does x affect y, what steps do I need to take to understand this, what effect can I have on this relationship, etc. And while volunteer work obviously impacts others, as they get a better understanding of course material or a warmer, safer, and drier home out of my service to them, it also impacts me, as I learn how to work with others and accomodate their needs in the process. These impacts are not just noticeable to me; Focus 2 was also able to determine them in my personality assessment. Most of the comments it gave me were very similar to the ones I have just listed. It says I am innovative and love discovering new ways to learn things, both of which correspond to my creativity. It also states that I am intuitive or perceptive, a quality needed to help others. By far the results point towards my investigative nature, with my independence, systematic order, and goal-oriented behavior being defining characteristics. Since Focus 2 was pretty spot-on with my personality assessment, the Job Families that occurred most frequently were for the most part ones I would have expected: Life, Physical, & Social Sciences, Architecture & Engineering, Computer & Mathematical, and Legal. All of these require an investigative nature of some kind and can be traced back to the very scientific course load that I have taken throughout high school and college. I am not so much interested in Legal careers, as those may put me in a more social spotlight than I would like. None of the fields relate exactly to my experiences with creativity and helping, but at least Architecture & Engineering and Computer & Mathematical jobs require some degree of creativity, and all of them can help others out in the long run. While there are still tons of Job Families out there that I may enjoy, these are a pretty good start for determining where I want my career to go. |
AuthorHello! I'm Tricia Bacon, a sophomore at UNC Chapel Hill and a current explorer of potential careers. Archives
November 2016
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