Unlocking Potential: Helping Students Develop Career Navigation Skills

Career Navigation Skills are the problem-solving and planning skills necessary to identify careers of interest, reflect on and clarify one’s thinking about careers, and begin to map out a personalized education and career plan. Career Navigation Skills are utilized in the career preparation phase of learning, and have continued value as an individual enters the world of work.

Career Navigation Skills are built on the foundation of two types of knowledge. First, students learn about their own innate talents (called aptitudes), and second, they learn about the broad contours of the modern economy and types of jobs. Next, they enter a process of exploring specific career paths, and they begin to hone their talents into skills and knowledge aligned with those career paths. They are able to choose and pursue postsecondary education and training that supports their career objective, and they are able to enter the workplace and begin building a career when they enter the workplace.

Career Navigation Skills

The Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities to:

• Understand innate aptitudes and talents;

• Explore the world of work;

• Research and evaluate career options;

• Select, apply, enroll, finance, and succeed in postsecondary education and training;

• Seek, gain, and advance in employment;

• Continually learn and grow in the job; 

• Plan for the next job; and 

• When necessary, pivot to a related industry or new career.

Importantly, they develop skills and find success in their current job while also thinking about future opportunities in their current setting or elsewhere. And with this future mindset, they can even pivot to another industry and, when necessary, move toward a different career path. Career Navigation Skills are problem-solving, planning, and adaptability, applied to the specific challenge of building a personal career path.

Most of us, when driving from one point to another, use a GPS system to show us the fastest route. But using a GPS isn’t a perfect metaphor for navigating career life because using a GPS requires that we know, in advance, the exact location of our destination. In our career life, we don’t know exactly what our destination will be. It’s more like being an explorer moving into uncharted territory: We have a general sense of direction, but we don’t discover the destination until we arrive. 

As a teen or young adult, we may have a general idea of careers, and we may have learned stories from other travelers, but our own career journey takes shape as life progresses and new experiences and opportunities present themselves. And even when we enter a desired career path, the journey continues.