Career development resources are among the most important member benefits. Here’s how to provide the ultimate career development resource for your association’s members.
Providing career advancement opportunities is a big win for professional membership associations. In fact, association industry research from Community Brands shows that job opportunities and career development resources are constantly among the most important member benefits.
Creating an online career planning portal, or online career center, is an ideal way to provide the career resources your members need. An online career center is a one-stop location for your members and prospective members to search for and find jobs and other resources to advance their careers. Offering this type of career development destination will help you to drive more value for your members, your industry, and your association.
Here are four steps for creating an online career center that makes your association the ultimate career growth destination for your industry or profession:
1. Offer career content and advice.
To help job seekers move their careers forward, make sure your online career center offers relevant career content. Offer a library of articles and other content about topics such as:
- Résumé and cover letter writing
- Personal branding
- Networking
- Job interview techniques
- Job search and career growth ideas
Also, connect your members with certified career coaches to guide your members through things like career planning, résumé building, and negotiation. Coaches can also help your members to:
- Work through career challenges
- Add direction to their career goals
- Prepare for job interviews
Set up a directory of coaches that members can search through by practice or industry and find the right match for their needs.
2. Connect your members with mentors.
Offer an online mentor board that helps your members link up with mentors who can provide ongoing career guidance and support. This can be especially useful to members who are early in their careers and those who are making career changes. It facilitates the creation of strong professional relationships that help your members grow their careers.
3. Deliver career insights.
Your members need the ability to understand more about their chosen paths within your industry or profession. By giving your members access to data about their potential careers, your career center can help them gain the knowledge they need to move forward or change direction.
Here is some key career information to provide in your career center:
- Career descriptions
- Statistics of typical education levels of people in each role
- Occupational outlooks
- Activities performed by people in each role
- “Day in the life” videos
- Salary benchmarks
- Unemployment data
- Comparison of employment statistics using local, state, and nationwide averages
- Related occupations
Providing this type of information helps your members understand:
- Where they are in their careers compared with projected growth
- What opportunities exist around a particular career path
- What related occupations could be next steps in their career paths
- Considerations related to a potential career or location move
With Career Planning Portal from YM Careers, you can provide members with valuable insights into every role in your industry or profession.
4. Offer a career pathing tool.
Take your online career center even further by giving your members a way to create a clear roadmap to reach their professional goals. Provide them with an online tool to visually map out and achieve their career aspirations.
This type of tool helps your members with:
- Confidence – They can plan the next step in their careers with the assurance that it will help them reach their ultimate career goals.
- Self-assessment – Using a description of each role in their career paths and a list of skills needed to be successful in each role, members can evaluate themselves along the way, determining what professional education and experience they need to move forward.
- A tailored action plan – Members can design their own personalized career action plans, including learning, training, and experience required to reach their career goals.
Using Career Planning Portal from YM Careers, you can empower your members to map out their professional career goals using an interactive, step-by-step career pathing tool.
Creating a robust online career center provides your members with more than just a place to go to find jobs several times during their careers. It can help them to grow and develop throughout their career lifetime.
