The Truth About Common Career Lies

So I just finished my new book, So What Do You Do?: A Simple and Effective Guide To Career Planning & Development, and people seem to be surprised at the intro in which I state that most careers are not planned. I get it - how can I call myself a career & professional development specialist and promote that perspective?

It's easy. Because it's the truth.

I don't spend my time helping people plan their careers; I spend the majority of my time helping people develop strategies to capitalize on career and work opportunities. Some you plan for, the others - many others - you don't.

The bottom line is this: Any career professional who says that it's essential to plan your career in order to have career success is lying.

Sure, you can plan a career, while in college, but you will be planning with limited knowledge about the vocation, and about yourself. Additionally, many of the jobs and careers that you are probably best suited for, don't exist at this moment...but they will after you graduate with a degree that doesn't qualify you to get them. But that's another story, and another blog entry.

The real lies in career planning aren't made by professionals, they are made by those planning their own careers! These common lies revolve around choosing, and remaining, in unfulfilling jobs, and as the video states below, dismissing your career dreams to settle for work that only enables you to (financially) take care of your children.