Welcome!

Welcome to the Career Success Guide! Whether you are in your first semester, nearing graduation, or long past graduation, the Centennial College Career Success Guide is designed to guide you through the career development process: from building self-awareness, to conducting career research, undertaking a job search, to succeeding on the job. The Guide includes relevant, up-to-date information, interactive and self-reflection-based exercises, as well as online resources to help support you to become more comfortable, flexible, and adept at managing your career.

You can access and work through the Guide at your own pace and in any order you wish, picking and choosing the content most relevant to you.

This book is composed of four modules. They include:

Module 1: Understanding Yourself in the World of Work

Module 2: Career Research and Exploration

Module 3: Job Search

Module 4: On the Job Success

Through engaging with the content in this Pressbook, you will:

• Develop greater self-awareness of the personal characteristics, external factors, and available resources that contribute to making informed career decisions
• Build your research skills, explore occupational areas of interest, evaluate possible occupations, and set career goals
• Learn the skills necessary to conduct an effective job search, including crafting targeted application documents and job interviewing
• Expand your understanding of factors that contribute to success on the job

Benefits of the Guide

With rapid change occurring in the nature of work and less certainty than ever before, career development matters more than ever. The Career Success Guide takes you through steps in the career development process so that you can:

• Cope with challenging transitions and move forward in meaningful and sustainable ways
• Embrace the unknown by offering positive ways to think about and move through uncertainty
• Increase your self-awareness including learning more about your strengths
• Find hidden opportunities by broadening your awareness and opening yourself up to new possibilities
• Create a network of people with whom you can share information, inspiration, and opportunities
• Adjust your strategies and apply your skills to various situations to meet labour market needs
• Build a more optimistic foundation for  your life

[Reference: Canadian Career Development Foundation (2020). On the move: eight ways career development gets you going.]

Introducing Jane Career

Your guide throughout this book is Jane Career, a (fictional) Centennial College graduate. She will pop up frequently throughout the modules to provide examples and walk you through exercises.

About Centennial College’s Career Services and Cooperative Education Department

Centennial students and alumni can access staff support from the Career Services and Co-operative Education department and through ExperienceCentennial, our online resource hub, where you can:

• Book one-on-one virtual or in-person appointments for career planning and job search support (including networking, interview prep, and resume/cover letter reviews)
• Register for career-related webinars and events
• Access job postings and employer hiring events
• Use a variety of online career development tools, such as career assessments, interview prep and networking tools, and career exploration resources
• Review recommended resources including  webinar recordings and employer videos

To connect with Career Services:
Career Services & Co-op Education
email: careerservices@centennialcollege.ca
telephone: 416-289-5233

Land Acknowledgment

Centennial College is proud to be a part of a rich history of education in this province and in this city. We acknowledge that we are on the treaty lands and territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation and pay tribute to their legacy and the legacy of all First Peoples of Canada, as we strengthen ties with the communities we serve and build the future through learning and through our graduates. Today the traditional meeting place of Toronto is still home to many Indigenous People from across Turtle Island and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work in the communities that have grown in the treaty lands of the Mississaugas. We acknowledge that we are all treaty people and accept our responsibility to honour all our relations.

Thank You

The Career Success Guide is a product of the collective effort of staff in the Career Services and Co-operative Education department.

Much appreciation and admiration goes to the team beyond the department who helped transform the content from text on a page to an accessible and interactive online tool: Vicki Smith, Project Manager; Jayne Butler, Instructional Designer; Drew Bennett, Multimedia Specialist; and Dwayne Carnochan, Educational Technologist.

We would also like to thank Centennial College’s OER Lab for adapting our content for this Pressbook.

A special thank you to all those across Centennial College – including staff, faculty and students – and beyond who have contributed to the Career Success Guide with their insights, edits, and creative ideas. We appreciate the effort and time all have put in to enriching the content.