What is Career Literacy™?

Career Literacy™ was coined by Career Vision to identify the basic knowledge and skills that we all need to help us read the 21st Century work environment. While it isn’t news that the workplace is changing, it is always news when those changes impact us. To be prepared, we need to understand what forces are driving the changes and what we need to know to position ourselves for a successful and satisfying work life. Career Management is the application of the Career Literacy skill set to manage your career over time.

Historically, career planning was less important. There were more varied and less competitive opportunities. The requirements were often less specific. Often any college degree was sufficient to get in the door. Not anymore. This new reality is being driven by the sweeping impact of science and technological advancements and the speed at which innovation and businesses are evolving. Today, we need to be resilient and responsible for our growth and development. The need to understand the basics of Career Literacy, to make educated choices about career direction and learning throughout our working years is now essential.

What do you need to know?

We all need a baseline of information about ourselves.

Foremost is a good understanding of our aptitude profile — an objective indicator of our strengths. This stays relatively stable across the lifespan, and serves as the foundation of your work profile. Other baseline information includes your interests, personality style, and values. These may change a bit over the years as you gain experience or are exposed to new ideas. Taken together, Career Vision can help you to develop a comprehensive work profile that you can use to evaluate educational and career goals throughout your working years. A solid understanding of yourself is one of the few constants you can rely on in a changing environment.

We need to understand the economics of work.

Why do employers hire us? What is our talent worth? What industry or profession are we associated with? What trends are going to have ripple effects in our work life? We know that the speed of change is a hallmark of the 21st Century. For example, while we are adjusting to one new technological change, others are emerging. It probably isn’t a big problem to miss a change the first year or two, but it’s dangerous to not see the signs of a trend. Today the shelf life of many knowledge and skill sets is only three years. Understanding workplace basics and knowing how to monitor trends is an essential element of Career Literacy.

It's critical to recognize that as sudden shifts or incremental changes in the world impact our work lives, we may find that our work profile and job descriptions are no longer aligned.

We will increasingly be called on to personally define the type of work that will be satisfying for us. To make informed choices, we will increasingly depend on understanding our work profile so we can adapt and find new opportunities that “fit” who we are. According to a National Career Development Association survey, 1 out of every 5 people expected a job change within three years, either by choice or through downsizing. And that was in mid-1999, when we enjoyed a robust economy!

Career Literacy is having the knowledge and basic skills to evaluate your performance in today’s workplace. Career Management is how you apply the knowledge, communicate and implement your plan to create a meaningful work life for tomorrow.