Career Connections Newsletter • November 2008 

Career Topic of the Month: Goal-Setting
Career Resource of the Month: WetFeet and CareerSearch
Spotlight on Success: SNC Alumni Profile
Career Tip of the Month: Advising Days
Financial Literacy Tip of the Month: Pay Yourself First
Internship of the Month

Career Topic of the Month: Goal-Setting

Goal setting is a valuable way to push your inner motivation to do something that you have wanted to do for a long time or need to do in order to move forward. Goals can be short-term or long-term. Some of the areas in your life in which you may set a goal include school, work, leisure interests, or personal life. Setting a goal and achieving it can be difficult for some individuals because of the follow-through. Goals usually start in high gear for a majority of individuals but at any time they can suddenly start to be prioritized over or completely shut down for a variety of reasons. Some of these reasons include the goal being too big, too far-fetched, not realistic for the individual or group, or not measurable enough and no improvements are being seen immediately.

A way to help you set a goal and make sure you accomplish it is to follow this 5 letter acronym – SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timed. First your goal needs to be very specific as to what you want to do – “I want to do better in class”, is not specific enough. How much better do you want to do in class? This is where measurable comes in. You have to be able to measure the outcome of your goal – was it successful, did you achieve your results and if so how do you know?  What did you base it on? Example: “I want to achieve a grade of B or higher in my English class.” Attainable can only be determined by you. You have to be able to own this goal because you are the first person to point a finger at if it does not succeed. Goals are more successful if the goal is set by the person who wants to achieve it and not set because someone else wants you to do it. The latter approach means there is probably less ownership in the goal by the individual working towards it. Realistic needs to represent whether or not this goal is realistic for you. Can you envision it happening? Do you have an idea of the steps you will need to take in order to achieve this goal and can you accept them?  In order to achieve a B or higher in English class may mean finding a tutor, setting aside more study time which in turn may mean making a sacrifice for something else you generally enjoy doing when you are not studying for English class. Finally, the goal needs to be time-bound. When does the goal need to be accomplished? Going back to our example of English class, “I will achieve a grade of B or higher in my English class by the end of first semester.”

Goals are a great motivator but the key is being honest with yourself as to how realistic and achievable your goal is. Only you can decide this. Remember it is better to have smaller goals which are attainable rather than a larger goal which seems impossible. Goals that are too large and unrealistic are most likely the goals which will not be achieved and can upset you enough to think you cannot do it now or in the future. If at first you do not succeed with setting goals, take a step back and examine the goal that was set. What can be improved with the goal and what did you learn from your experience the first time? It is never too late to achieve.

Career Services is available to assist you is setting SMART goals for the career planning process.  Please contact us if you need assistance in setting your personal career goals.

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Career Resource of the Month: WetFeet and CareerSearch

WetFeet is a new link on Career Services website and can be used to research careers, industries, and employers. Under the Industry profiles in the Careers & Industries tab you can find a love-hate section on the particular industry you are searching. Love-Hate will tell you what others love about the industry and what they hate. You can also access more than 65 Insider Guides on a variety of career topics (username: snccareers; password: greenknights).

CareerSearch is another new link on the Career Services website - it provides you with access to a powerful networking database of over 4 million companies nationwide. The database is compiled from the most respected, industry-specific sources. You can search for information on a particular company, person, industry or location using a variety of search options. And, it has a detailed tutorial to help you get started using it.  You can register for CareerSearch using the Client Referral Code: norbert. 

Please contact Career Services if you have questions about either of these new resources.

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Spotlight on Success: SNC Alumni Profile

Jon Dooley, History and Social Studies Education, 1993
Associate Dean of Student Development, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI

Click here to learn about the work experience and career path of this successful SNC alum.

Check out our growing list of Alumni Profiles to learn more about their career paths, experience and to envision what you can do with a degree from St. Norbert College. 

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Career Tip of the Month: Advising Days

Advising Days are Wednesday, November 5 and Tuesday, November 11. Please remember to make an appointment to meet with your advisor regarding your schedule for next semester. If you are unsure of what classes to take and/or are undecided about your major, Career Services is the place to visit. We have assessments to assist you in evaluating your skills, interests, personality and values and how these aspects can contribute to an occupation or major choice that is best suited for you based on your results and feedback.

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Financial Literacy Tip of the Month: Pay Yourself First
A way to help in saving money is to “pay yourself first”. This can mean putting your money in a savings account where you do not have immediate access to it and cannot spend it first on other items. It does not matter what amount you plan to pay yourself with, the action of doing it – putting away an extra $4 from the coffee drink you did not buy this week can bump up your account $16 each month plus interest. Other ways in which you can pay yourself first include savings as part of your budget, ask your employer or financial institution to automatically deduct from your paycheck and deposit in your savings, put any bonus, tax refund, gift directly into savings, put any loose change in a jar at home which after a month or two you may find is full with an extra $50 that can be deposited.  Having a goal for your money will help in saving it.

For more information on Financial Literacy, please visit: http://www.snc.edu/career/planning/finlit/

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Internship of the Month: Public Relations Intern

Why intern? Internships are a great opportunity to apply classroom theory to real life work and to acquire experience to make yourself more marketable for future employment. It can also be one way to "test" your chosen career area to determine if it is a good fit for you.

Public Relations Intern,  Aurora Health Care, Green Bay, WI

As an intern with Aurora Health Care’s public relations team in Green Bay, you will have the opportunity to help carry out integrated communications plan for our entire north region, which includes Brown, Door, Marinette, Manitowoc and Outagamie counties.

In your role, you will assist the public relations team with its three main areas of responsibility: Media relations, internal communications and crisis management. As part of your internship, you will have the opportunity to observe how our team reacts to crises, and how we prepare for handling them well before the event hits. While it’s impossible to predict when a crisis will hit, there are steps we take to be as ready as possible.

In addition to the above roles, our team also supports special events, community education programs and speaking opportunities in the community. Again, you will have the opportunity to help plan, promote and execute these initiatives.

To apply for this internship please e-mail a cover letter and resume to Kristine.behnke@aurora.org.

For more information on this internship and to search for additional internships, please login to Career Connections.

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