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Career Exploration Cycle - Assess Self, Discover Options, Build Experiences, Prioritize Goals

Exploration is a cyclical process without a defined beginning and end. If you don’t know where to start, you can always lead with self-reflection. Each new experience presents you with the opportunity to assess yourself, discover options, build skills, and prioritize goals.

The Office of Career Development & Professional Engagement has a variety of programs, resources, and events to help guide you through each part of this process no matter your starting point.

Career Exploration Cycle

A collapsible single-column list of the career exploration cycle.

Assess Self

  • Awareness of your VIPS (Values, Interests, Personality, and Skills) is important in the exploration process as you evaluate potential options. As you explore and gain experience, your VIPS, as well as your goals and priorities, may change.
  • Focus 2 is an online, self-paced assessment resource provided by the Office of Career Development & Professional Engagement that can help you identify your VIPS.

Discover Options

The Career Center offers a variety of programs for you to listen to, learn from, observe, and ask questions of recruiters, alumni, parents and family members, and partners of William & Mary. Additionally, you can learn a lot through Informational Interviews, or Career Conversations, where you get to ask questions of those already working in the fields that interest you; you have access to your global W&M networking through One Network. (Note: You can find more information about these programs in TribeCareers.) They include, but are not limited to:

  • TribeShadow Externship Program
  • Fairs (Career & Internship, Graduate School, Industry-Specific)
  • Information Sessions
  • Meet Ups
  • Panels
  • One Network

Build Experiences

Each experience you have helps you develop skills, test out possible options, and expand your network. These experiences can provide valuable lessons, as well as marketable skills, to include on your resume:

  • Academic coursework
  • Athletics
  • Clubs/Organizations
  • Externships
  • Internships
  • Part-time jobs
  • Research
  • Community service

Prioritize Goals

  • Making a decision does not mean you have to decide on the one career you will pursue from graduation to retirement. Instead, prioritize your options to create strategies for pursuing your goals.
  • Priorities can depend on strong interests, upcoming deadlines, availability of opportunities, and more.
  • Recruitment schedules vary by industry; while some industries recruit year-round, typically hiring just before a position will begin, others have early deadlines and hire a semester or two prior to the position beginning.

Explore By

  • Values, Interests, Personality, Skills (VIPS)

    Research and evaluate career options aligned with your values, interests, personality, and skills with Focus 2, a self-paced online self-assessment tool.

  • Industry

    We utilize an industry model, offering programming and resources specific to five industry areas.

  • Major

    Coursework provides you with a perspective you will take into any career you pursue.

  • Networking

    Get to know people who already work in your field(s) of interest.

Explore Events

  • My Active Career Exploration (MACE)

  • Employer Information Sessions

  • Externship Program

  • Career Fair VIP Pass

Exploration Exercises

  • Wanderings Map

    Mine your past experiences for themes and patterns that can help you explore what kinds of positions, industries, and experiences might be a great next step.

  • Skills Inventory

    Identify what skills you have used to achieve previous accomplishments or impact you had made throughout an experience.

  • Perfect World Scenario

    Think about all aspects of work in your perfect world, from attire and commute time, to your supervisor and what success means to you.

  • Values Inventory

    Identify and prioritize your core values as they relate to how you value your work environment, your work interactions, and your work activities.

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Contact Us

Located in the Cohen Career Center, our office is between the Sadler Center and Zable Stadium on Stadium Drive.

We are open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday.

Career Development & Professional Engagement

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Street Address

Cohen Career Center 180 Stadium Drive Williamsburg, VA 23186

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Mailing Address

Cohen Career Center P.O. Box 8795 Williamsburg, VA 23187-8795

Contact Us

  • Email: career@wm.edu
  • Phone: 757-221-3231
  • Fax: 757-221-3329
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