Adding a career planning portal to your association’s online job board helps your members at every career stage – providing value that engages and retains members as their careers evolve.
If you read this blog, you probably know that offering an online job board is a great way to deliver big value to your association’s members. If you’re looking for a way to get members even more engaged with your organization, adding a career planning portal is a great approach.
A career planning portal does more than just help your members find and apply for jobs several times during their careers. It helps your members throughout their entire careers – giving them career-building resources that keep them engaged for years to come.
For example, the Career Planning Portal, which comes with YM Careers job board software, is a career growth hub that can provide your members with resources to advance their careers. It includes
- Career Advice – Custom career content that supports members’ growth
- Career Paths – An interactive career path tool to help your members plan their careers
- Career Insights – Detailed job and career data to give your members deep insights into roles in your industry
- Career Coaching – Expertise from a diverse pool of coaches to help your members develop critical skills
- MentorBoard – Guidance, support, and a positive influence for members provided by mentors
Let’s take a closer look at how the Career Planning Portal from YM Careers can help your members in each career stage:
Students and new graduates
First-time job seekers are new to interviews and don’t have specific employment experience to draw from. They’re often unsure of exactly which jobs are well suited for their skills, knowledge, and career goals. The Career Planning Portal can help them in the following ways:
- Career Advice provides resources to help new job seekers learn about developing résumés and cover letters, preparing for interviews, building a personal brand in our social media-driven world, presenting a professional LinkedIn and internet presence, and navigating the challenging world of networking.
- Career Paths helps new job seekers and entry-level employees understand the typical prerequisites for a given position. It also helps them identify the best career path for their goals so they can get their careers started in the right direction.
- Career Insights provides information about various positions within an industry to help new professionals determine what types of jobs make sense for them, including job outlook, average salary, and day-in-the-life videos.
- Career Coaching provides a professional resource to connect with and practice necessary skills to land a job, such as interviewing, networking, résumé writing, and personal branding.
- MentorBoard provides a mentor to offer lasting professional relationships through the exchange of experience and advice.
Career Advice
Career changers
It’s not unusual for people to make changes during their careers. Maybe they’re making a lateral move to alter their career direction or, perhaps they’re ready to advance to an entirely new level in their careers. Maybe they’re starting over in a completely new career path. The Career Planning Portal helps optimize career transitions in multiple ways:
- Career Advice offers articles about how to manage job or role transitions, with clear advice from experts. This content gives professionals the confidence they need to take the next steps.
- Career Paths helps your members assess their skills and capabilities to identify the best fit for a career path, gives them a thorough understanding of what they will need to do to enter the field, and what the work entails once the career has begun.
- Career Insights uses data to inform those who are switching jobs of what a new job might entail, including responsibilities, day-in-the-life examples, education requirements, and salary information.
- Career Coaching provides real-world advice, mentorship, and experience to help professionals in the midst of switching jobs.
- MentorBoard similarly offers a support system: A mentor helps professionals navigate career changes through advice from a more experienced colleague
Career Paths
Remote workers
For professionals who are working from home, Career Planning Portal offers multiple resources:
- Career Advice provides articles on topics that help navigate the remote-work world, including expectations of employers, how to plan and structure the day, and how to stay connected.
- Career Paths makes it easier to see the path to a professional’s next position and what it entails, which can be hard to know when you’re removed from the office environment.
- Career Insights displays data and insights for specific occupations and what the position entails, helping remote workers to understand which career paths might be more, or less, appropriate for at-home work.
- Career Coaching helps professionals work through a career plan so they can succeed in a work-from-home environment.
- MentorBoard keeps professionals connected with one another if they are feeling isolated and need additional advice.
Career Insights
Unemployed professionals
Being between jobs can be stressful. Career Planning Portal provides unemployed professionals with resources to help them through this time:
- Career Advice offers specific articles regarding unemployment, including how to address layoffs and how to resurface in a career. Articles also help with advice for résumé-building, writing cover letters, and personal branding to help professionals land the next job.
- Career Paths shows the next step in a career hierarchy, allowing the unemployed professional to understand what is involved in a particular job and where it may lead should they stay the course.
- Career Insights offers extensive data about specific occupations within certain locations for professionals looking to relocate, or for those just wanting to gain a thorough understanding of a position.
- Career Coaching helps job seekers practice interviews, navigate challenging discussions about unemployment and résumé gaps, and encourage professionals who are not getting traction in job searches.
- MentorBoard allows unemployed professionals to connect with seasoned mentors to help expand their network, explore new opportunities, and get career advice
Career Coaching
Professionals returning to the workplace
People leave the workforce for multiple reasons, including raising a family, caring for a family member, and retiring. Many also return. Career Planning Portal offers the following resources for professionals who are returning to the workforce after a gap in employment:
- Career Advice offers relevant articles so that those who have stepped away from employment can bring themselves up to speed on changes in the job market. It helps them to gain confidence in how to discuss their time away.
- Career Paths reminds professionals who have stepped away from work of the trajectory of a certain position and the skills needed to move forward.
- Career Insights provides an outlook on positions in one simple place so that this group of professionals can understand requirements and skills needed in a specific position.
- Career Coaching works with professionals who are rusty in their skills of interviewing, résumé writing, and more, so that they can rejoin the workforce. Coaches equip and guide professionals to secure a job.
- MentorBoard connects professionals with others who have left and returned to the workforce, or with someone who has stayed and kept up to date with the industry, so they have someone with experience to guide them back into their career.
MentorBoard
Late-stage careerists
While professionals who are in a late career stage have a host of experience and knowledge, they also face challenges. Career Planning Portal can help them optimize the later years of their careers with the following tools and resources:
- Career Advice offers articles about topics such as how to stay relevant in a career as technology continues to advance, how to find a new job when you are late in your career if you need to, and how to make a job transition after working at one company for a considerable amount of time.
- Career Paths provides help for late-stage professionals who want to make a late-stage career change, such as a lateral move or a step to the next level in their careers.
- Career Insights offers valuable job outlooks for professionals who are considering a career change or are starting to think about timing their retirement.
- Career Coaching is available to help reinvigorate professionals in the later career stages by sharing experiences, providing a plan of action, and practicing skills or conversations to encourage career advancement.
- MentorBoard allows seasoned professionals who are experts in their field to provide guidance and support to other professionals looking for career growth.
Learn more
Your members look to your association to help them grow their careers. Giving them tools and resources to help them make more informed career choices and optimize every stage of their careers will give them a better member experience – ultimately translating into greater member loyalty.
