Good news for career planners looking at education options and financing their next career move. If you have or will have U.S. government guaranteed student loans, your repayment plan may be based on your income level. What a concept! – and hard to believe it has taken this long to implement. You can learn more about the new plan and eligibility at the studentaid.ed.gov website. Jonathan Glater also wrote an excellent article about the new plan in The New York Times today.

And please make sure you max out your federal loan eligibility before turning to higher interest private loans.

Yes, there may be more paperwork to fill out but if you want to go to school, you’d better be able to fill out paperwork. Maybe that should be a foundation skill!

You can learn more at The Career Key website about resources for financing your education – and also at the Career Key Canada website. Canadians: After checking on CanLearn’s section on repayment, it doesn’t look to me as if Canada has a similar income based option for repaying loans. Please let me know if I’m wrong about that. Thanks!

This blog post was graciously submitted to BizzyWomen by The Career Key Blog, run by Juliet Wehr Jones, J.D.  The Career Key™ gives you expert help with your career search and career choices  career change, career planning, job skills, and choosing a college major. Our career assessment helps you find a career by matching your personality with careers and providing you complete and accurate information about each career you choose to explore.

There’s more ammunition in the fight to support community colleges and increase U.S. “degree attainment.”

Jobs for the Future just came out with a report, “Cost, Commitment, and Attainment in Higher Education: An International Comparison” by Arthur M. Hauptman and Young Kim.

Among the recommendations is increased emphasis and support for community colleges. Although over half the students in the U.S. are enrolled in community colleges, these colleges proportionally receive a lot less public funding.

This blog post was graciously submitted to BizzyWomen by The Career Key Blog, run by Juliet Wehr Jones, J.D.  The Career Key™ gives you expert help with your career search and career choices  career change, career planning, job skills, and choosing a college major. Our career assessment helps you find a career by matching your personality with careers and providing you complete and accurate information about each career you choose to explore.

Many people have trouble choosing a career. Some are afraid to make the wrong choice. Others are concerned they might change their mind later. Overwhelmed by options, some people just wait for someone (parent, counselor, significant other) or a career test to just tell them what to do.

To cure your commitment problem, try confronting the truths that scare you the most:

No person/counselor/scientifically valid career test can tell you the one “right” career choice. But part of making a good career decision is gathering and considering a lot of information. Try the exercises in “getting started” and this 4 step career decision making process.

You’re responsible for your own decisions. But look on the bright side – you have access to a lot of affordable help. Your public librarian, your college career services counselor, the Career Key website and other high-quality Internet resources – are just a few. You are ultimately in control of your attitude and making your own luck – look for support and you will find it. Positive thinking and surrounding yourself with positive people, as “woo woo” as it sounds, has been proven effective.

Money doesn’t grow on trees. But it does flow from your work and ideas. You have control over what you do to make money – whether through your own business, working 4 hours a day, or changing the world (or all of the above).

Some of your expectations about work and lifestyle may be unrealistic. (See Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees) Change takes time and effort so start with small, realistic work and lifestyle goals on the road to your larger ones. Short-term goals should be a stretch but achievable through your own efforts.

This blog post was graciously submitted to BizzyWomen by The Career Key Blog, run by Juliet Wehr Jones, J.D.  The Career Key™ gives you expert help with your career search and career choices  career change, career planning, job skills, and choosing a college major. Our career assessment helps you find a career by matching your personality with careers and providing you complete and accurate information about each career you choose to explore.

Recently it’s been hard to find time to blog. I’m preparing for my Career Key Canada presentation and exhibitor table at Cannexus 2009, Canada’s national career development conference, which starts on Monday.

I’ve been addicted to TED and Slideshare watching better presenters than I am to improve my presentation skills. Even though I practiced law and did courtroom litigation for a number of years, I still have to refresh my presentation skills. And just because you’re a lawyer doesn’t make you a good public speaker. I was also reminded that practicing, out loud any oral presentation is absolutely crucial.

And as you can see from the photo of the wonderful Julia Child and her monkfish at left, practicing over a few days gave me the clarity that this was not the right picture of her for my presentation. Associating monkfish, no matter how great it tastes, with my company is perhaps unwise. Don’t get the Julia Child, Career Key Canada analogy? Sorry, have to attend my Cannexus presentation to find out!

If you’re interviewing for a job, conducting an informational interview, or any other oral presentation, I highly recommend practicing what you’ll say in front of the mirror or someone else. It takes me a few “takes” before I realize I can talk less and more effectively say the same thing. And you gain confidence each time you present it, which makes success a self-fufilling prophecy.

My mother told me practice makes perfect – when I was learning the piano. And like any good daughter, don’t I hate she was right! About a great many things…

This blog post was graciously submitted to BizzyWomen by The Career Key Blog, run by Juliet Wehr Jones, J.D.  The Career Key™ gives you expert help with your career search and career choices — career change, career planning, job skills, and choosing a college major. Our career assessment helps you find a career by matching your personality with careers and providing you complete and accurate information about each career you choose to explore.

Never thought you’d hear the word “fun” again? Well, we recommend you include it in your search for the right career choice. In our article, 8 Strategies to Learn About Yourself, we suggest looking at how you spend your leisure time to identify your unique qualities – to help you choose a career that fits you. New research in the Journal of Career Development connects “leisure interests” with Holland’s Theory of Career Choice, which The Career Key test measures.

To begin, write down what you do for leisure activities in the “big picture” and look for patterns and connections with Holland’s 6 personality types. For example,

if you spend a lot of your leisure time in community activities like church volunteering, tutoring young people, or working at ethnic/regional festivals, you can see the parallels between those activities and the Social personality type.

if you enjoy hunting and fishing, restoring old cars, or playing cards and games, these activities are more associated with the Realistic personality type.

No single leisure interest magically shows you the right career path. But when you think about your “off the clock” activities in light of Holland’s Theory, they provide you with more helpful, relevant information for your career decision.

This blog post was graciously submitted to BizzyWomen by The Career Key Blog, run by Juliet Wehr Jones, J.D.  The Career Key™ gives you expert help with your career search and career choices — career change, career planning, job skills, and choosing a college major. Our career assessment helps you find a career by matching your personality with careers and providing you complete and accurate information about each career you choose to explore.

Learning about your career options and planning and preparing your career path are proven success strategies, regardless of generation. Top guidance and career counselors are trained to provide this kind of help. Ideally, you get realistic and practical advice along with encouragement to reach for higher goals.

A good example of top notch career guidance is Ilene Frommer, who was recently profiled in the New York Times. She is a guidance counselor at a public high school in Sonoma County California. Once you read about a typical day in the life of Ms. Frommer, you’ll not only appreciate the critical work she does, but also the work of thousands of other excellent school counselors across the country. Visit her high school’s online college and career planning resources to see what top quality advice she provides her students and parents. If you’re a working adult contemplating a career change, much of the advice is timeless.

Even if you do not have access to a counselor like Ms. Frommer, thanks to the internet you can take a page from her playbook (forgive the sports metaphor) and learn from her career planning approach, which is similar to ours. In fact, Naviance – the online course, college and career planning system her school uses, includes The Career Key as part of their product. Whether you are 17 years old or 50, the lessons are the same – research and planning, career information and preparation, are your tickets to success.

This blog post was graciously submitted to BizzyWomen by The Career Key Blog, run by Juliet Wehr Jones, J.D.  The Career Key™ gives you expert help with your career search and career choices — career change, career planning, job skills, and choosing a college major. Our career assessment helps you find a career by matching your personality with careers and providing you complete and accurate information about each career you choose to explore.