Making Career Decisions With Your Values in Mind

Making Career Decisions With Your Values in Mind

Making plans for your future can be challenging. You can begin by gaining insight into your personal attributes, values, skills, and interests through the self-assessment process. Once you have clarity around the values, skills, and interests that are most important to your professional future, you can begin to research regions, employers, and organizations that might create environments where the values identified through your self-assessment process can thrive.

While the “values” discussion can vary from student to student, there is growing interest in learning more about the broader federal and state impact on employers' business decisions. Such business decisions might also influence your decision on which regions best fit you. To have an in-depth conversation about how to align your values, skills, and interests with your post-graduation professional goals, book an appointment with a career advisor through Handshake now!

"Ask The Internet"

To get you started, below are website examples of bipartisan or nonpartisan resources for your consideration, in no particular order of priority. (Please note: these links will route to external websites not managed by CES):

• Ballotpedia: A nonprofit organization that provides online encyclopedia articles regarding topics related to all levels of United States government, searchable by keyword(s), bill number, state, politician, policy/law/legal topic, and so forth.
• Business Insider: Provides articles on trends, legislation, policies, and other topics related to business and the professional world.
• CareerOneStop: Recommended by the National Association of Colleges and Employers as a resource for career planning tools, self-assessments, and job search insights.
• National Conference of State Legislatures: A bipartisan organization that offers information on public policy and laws, organized and searchable by issue topic and/or broader thematic categories.
• State Public Accommodation Laws: Maintained by the National Conference of State Legislatures, this chart shows which states have laws that offer protections to various identities, including but not limited to race/color, sex/gender, ancestry/national origin, and others.

Interviewing Considerations for Evaluating Organizations of Interest

As you prepare for and answer questions during an interview, we recommend that your research and observations of organizations with which you interview help inform your considerations for a good fit for your professional needs.

You can observe, listen for or professionally inquire about the following:

• The types of initiatives or support programs in place to create an inclusive environment for the organization's employees.
• Whether the company has initiatives or programs such as affinity groups or employee resource groups, mentoring programs, and leadership development programs

Other considerations based upon your observations can include:

• Listen for statements about the pathways to upper-level management positions for underrepresented employees or new talent in the organization.
• Observe the diversity of the organization's senior management team on their website, literature, etc.
• Researching causes that the organization supports, affiliates with, or donates to.
• Research any facts about the organization's turnover rate, if available.
• Identify if the organization is a parent organization or subsidiary of another organization.

Additional Resource: Review and complete our Job Offer Evaluation Tool to compare opportunities and evaluate whether offers align with your professional values and interests.