Getting Started Guide Career Pathfinder - Iraq and …media.iava.org/career_pathfinder/Getting_Started_Guid… · · 2013-02-27online’tool’to’be’accessed’with’the’IAVA’Plus’login

Getting Started with IAVA’s Career Pathfinder

Getting Started with PATHFINDER 1 Jobseeker’s Guide v0.2

Jobseeker’s Guide This guide will help you begin using PATHFINDER, an online career portal designed to guide you through an end-‐to-‐end career decision process, including selecting the right career, preparing to succeed at it, and finding a great job.

Overview of the PATHFINDER homepage

PATHFINDER is powered by Pipeline career technology, created by Futures Inc. This technology also powers other popular websites, including H2H.jobs, USVeteransPipeline.com, and the career portal of the 100,000 Jobs Mission. PATHFINDER contains a variety of useful tools:

• Career exploration, also accessible by MOS You can explore careers by typing an MOS into the “Find Career Recommendations” field or browse careers by industry.

• Portfolios Access your uploaded documents via the digital wallet or create a resume using our resume builder.

• Communities Communities are organized around specific groups and interests. Join the ones that fit your background and interests to connect with the people who can jump-‐start your civilian career!

• Inbox View all internal PATHFINDER messages such as an employer’s invitation for you to apply to one of their open positions.

• Job Search, including MOS-‐to-‐civilian job search Similar to career exploration, you can type an MOS, such as 2629, into the “Search For Jobs” field. You can also search for educational opportunities

• Advice This section contains links to resources that will help you throughout your civilian career.



Setting up your account

Creating an IAVA Plus account IAVA is currently in the process of transitioning many of its online products and services under a single log-‐in: IAVA Plus. Currently, Career Pathfinder is the first and only IAVA online tool to be accessed with the IAVA Plus login. Step 1: If you are an IAVA Confirmed Member Veteran, visit IAVA.org/CareerPathfinder. This page can be found a number of ways, but perhaps the simplest is by selecting the “vet careers” button on the top right of IAVA’s website.

Step 2: On this page, you can select “log in” to receive your IAVA Plus password for the first time. Going forward, you can access Career Pathfinder by selecting the same “log in” button on this page.



Step 3: When you select “log in” you will see this page that allows you to receive your IAVA Plus account the first time you use Career Pathfinder, and log in to the tool in the future.



Step 4: After you log in with IAVA Plus, select the terms of use and click the continue button. Follow and complete the information on the next few screens to create your initial profile. Once you’ve created your initial profile, you’ll then be directed to your personal dashboard.



Using your Dashboard

Your PATHFINDER Dashboard contains a lot of useful items. Here are a few of the most powerful tools on your Dashboard:

• Recommended Jobs Based on what you entered when you signed up (and what you’ll put into your Resume Builder later on), PATHFINDER will determine some of the best jobs available. To customize this list of jobs by Job Title and by Location, click Customize My Dashboard. Then, enter your location and desired range, and select the recommended job titles you’d like to use.

• My.Jobs Your Recommended Jobs are a powerful tool to ensure you are constantly aware of the latest openings. Many recruiters are in a hurry to fill positions, so the first qualified candidates to respond have a huge advantage. However, it’s inconvenient to have to log in every day to see the latest jobs. Your



My.Jobs page will let you see your Recommended Jobs without having to log in. To make one, simple click Create a My.Jobs on the right side of the page, and then bookmark the page that appears.

Building your profile

Using the Resume Builder The Resume Builder is a simple but powerful tool that not only can help you create a resume, but also lets you associate Skills to your profile. Skills help you fine-‐tune your Recommended Jobs and help employers find your profile when they search for you. The Resume Builder makes selecting Skills easy by recommending them based on the information you add to your Military History and your civilian Work History. To get started with the Resume Builder:

1. On your Dashboard, click Resume Builder.

2. Enter your Personal Information. Note that this page also includes a Career Objective field. If you plan to include an objective, be sure to focus on what you can do for a company and explicitly say what type of position you desire. For example, “Use my 10+ years of Project Management experience to drive projects to successful completion on time and under budget.” Do not focus on your own desires or give a generic objective that does not promote your skills or say what position you want. Consider this example of a poor objective, “To gain a high-‐paying job in the transportation industry.” It does not say what job the person wants or why the employer should hire them over someone else.

3. Click Save & Continue, and then enter more details about your Military Experience. Enter specifics in the large blank field for each position you held. When describing your positions, it’s good to focus on specific accomplishments and, when possible, verifiable numbers. If you held multiple Military positions, click Add Additional Military Experience at the bottom of the page. You can add as many as you need.



4. Click Save & Continue, and then enter more details about your civilian Work History. As in your Military Experience section, when describing your civilian experience, it’s good to focus on specific accomplishments and, when possible, verifiable numbers. If you have not held any civilian positions, leave these fields blank.

5. Click Save & Continue, and then enter your Education information. The Highest

Degree Obtained field will be used when employer search for you. The other, more detailed educational information will be added to your resume.

6. Click Save & Continue and select the Skills you’re proficient in. To select a skill,

click Add Skills next to it and then select how much experience you have. Note that some skills will not require you to select a year range. If you possess a Skill that is not listed in your recommended skills, click Add a skill near the top of the section, and then search to find the Skill you’d like to add to your profile / resume.



7. Click Save & Continue and add any Other Sections you think are appropriate to your resume. To add more sections, click Add Another Section at the bottom of the page. You can add as many sections as you need.

8. Click Save & Continue to go to the Publish Resume section. Here, you can Preview your resume, Save a Copy to your Digital Wallet or to your computer in either Word format or PDF, or Save & Exit back to your Dashboard.

Uploading documents to your Digital Wallet Your Digital Wallet on PATHFINDER is a place to store uploaded documents, including Resumes, Cover Letters, Recommendation Letters, Work Samples, Certificates, and more. However, please do not use it to upload sensitive information, such as separation forms.

1. On your Dashboard, click Digital Wallet.

2. Click Upload a Document. Here, you can select a document from your computer to upload. Naming your document is important, as this is the title that will appear to employers when they view your profile.



3. Manage existing documents on the Digital Wallet and Archived Documents tabs. • Set a Default Resume:

Under each Resume document you’ve uploaded, you will see an option to set it as the default that will appear to employers. The default resume will be labeled in your Digital Wallet. Please note this feature is only available in the Digital Wallet tab, not the Archived Documents tab.

• Archive documents: Archived documents are not visible to employers. You can move a document from the Digital Wallet tab to the Archived Documents tab by clicking Archive under the document.

• Deleting documents: To delete a document from your Digital Wallet, simply click Delete under it.

Exploring careers PATHFINDER contains a wealth of information to help you decide which civilian career is right for you. It’s designed to help you no matter where you are in the decision process, whether you’d like to pursue a career similar to your MOS, have a general idea of the industry you’d like to be in, or have no idea at all and need help getting started.

Taking a Career Assessment If you do not know which career you’d like to go into and need help getting started on your search, PATHFINDER provides a brief, 14-‐question career assessment. It will then display the top 50 careers that might be a good match for your interests. Please note that this assessment is designed to help you get started with your career search by recommending a few of PATHFINDER’s nearly 1,000 civilian career paths. It is not intended to tell you exactly which career you should go into. You’ll still need to review the career information and decide which career is right for you.

1. Click the Career menu. The Career Assessment is located on the right side of the page.

2. Answer the 14 questions. Take time to read and understand each question, but do not spend much time pondering them. Go with your initial instinct.



3. Click See Your Results. A list of the top 50 careers that may interest you will appear.

4. If you want even more specific results, use the left nav area to narrow your results by Minimum Salary, Maximum Required Education, and Industry, though we recommend only using the first two as Industry may limit your results too much. You can also choose to limit your results to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) careers only.

Exploring Industries PATHFINDER not only contains information about specific careers, but it also contains information about higher-‐level Industries, to help you better understand what area of civilian business you’d like to go into.

1. Hover over the Careers menu (but don’t click) and click Career Paths.

2. Review the Industries in the Browser Career Paths by Industry section. When you find an interesting one, click Learn More.

3. Review the Industry page to find out more about it. Some key features: • Industry subcategories:

Most Industries have subcategories that let you “drill down” into the more detailed areas of the Industry.

• Top Career Paths: These are a sampling of the top careers in the Industry. It will update every time the page is refreshed, so reload the page if you’d like to see some other Industry-‐related careers.

• Industry Education: This section will help you determine the education you need to succeed in the industry. However, for educational purposes, finding a specific civilian Career will give you much more detailed information, plus let you connect directly to relevant educational opportunities.



Exploring careers by MOS or keyword If you know the career you’d like to go into or if you’re interested in careers related to your MOS, IAVA’s Career Pathfinder (PATHFINDER) Career Search can help.

1. Hover over the Careers menu (but don’t click) and click Career Paths.

2. Enter your Keyword or MOS in the Search for Careers field and click search. You should see a page similar to this one:

3. If you want more specific results, use the left nav area to narrow your results by Minimum Salary, Maximum Required Education, and Industry, though we recommend only using the first two. Additionally narrowing your results by Industry may limit your results too much. You can also choose to limit your results to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) careers only.

4. When you find an interesting career, click its title to learn more about it. The next section will provide some more information about career overviews.



Exploring the Career Overview After you find an interesting career and click its title, you’ll see the Career Overview as displayed below. This page provides a large amount of information to help you determine if the career is right for you.

• Salary information: PATHFINDER includes the typical salary range for nearly every career.

• Typical education: (under What It Takes) This section will help you determine the education you need to succeed in the field.

• Detailed tasks: (under the Details tab) If you click the Details tab, you can see in-‐depth information about the tasks and skills needed to perform them.



• Day-‐in-‐the-‐Life videos: Most PATHFINDER careers have videos associated to them. These videos give you a quick, 60-‐90 second glance into the work life of a real person in the career.

• Relevant Education and Jobs: The Career Overview also contains links to take you directly to school programs ad job opportunities related to the career. Click Find Jobs Now or Get Education to go directly to relevant search results with a single click.

• View similar careers: If you like the career but want to explore other careers that require similar interests, skills, or work environments, click View Similar Career Paths. Then, you can click the chart to select the criteria that are most important to you. After you clicked the chart, select View Results to see careers that match the criteria.

• Explore careers in the same job family: Although similar to the previous bullet, the Move Up From This Career section will show you careers that are in the same general category, so you can select ones that pay more, etc. This is a simpler way to see similar careers, but offers less control than the View Similar Career Paths option described above.

Searching for jobs Searching for jobs is the most popular activity on PATHFINDER by far, and with good reason. You only need to discover the right career once (maybe twice). However, if you’re serious about finding a good job, you should be looking every day. In fact, even after you’re employed, it’s still always good to see what jobs are available.

Searching by MOS If you want to find a job that requires skills you gained in your MOS, follow these steps:



1. Click the Search menu item.

2. Enter your MOS and select the title that corresponds to your Military job. Note: If your title is not listed or no titles appear, click Support at the bottom of the page and let the PATHFINDER technical team know. Please include your MOS, the title, and your separation date, along with any other details that may help them with their research.

3. On the results page, to narrow the results, click one of the related Civilian Job Titles that appear above the search results. The search will be re-‐run using that job title, to provide even better results.

4. If you wish, you can Narrow Your Results further by selecting from the options on the left side of the page.



5. After you find a job that looks interesting, click it to see a more detailed description. Note that PATHFINDER contains two types of jobs: PATHFINDER jobs and jobs provided by Indeed. If one or more PATHFINDER jobs match your search, they will always appear first. When clicked, Indeed jobs will take you off the PATHFINDER website. Below is a sample of a job on PATHFINDER:

6. If the job looks interesting and it is an PATHFINDER job, click Apply for Job. If it is an Indeed job, there should also be some sort of Apply link available, but the exact wording will vary. If the company wants you to apply via PATHFINDER, it will say so and your profile will be sent to them for review. If the company wants you to apply on their website, you will be directed to the location on that companies website where you need to apply. Make sure you have a recent copy of your resume saved to your computer so you can either upload it or copy and paste from it into their application.



Networking with PATHFINDER Communities PATHFINDER offers more than just career planning; it also can help you grow your professional network. Communities are organized around specific groups and interests. Join the ones that fit your background and interests to connect with the people who can jump-‐start your civilian career!



Preparing for job searching, interviews, & more with PATHFINDER Advice The PATHFINDER Advice section contains links to resources that will help you throughout your civilian career, including tips on preparing your resume, getting ready to interview, finding good job fairs to attend, and more!

Contacting PATHFINDER Support If you ever need help with PATHFINDER, look on the bottom of any page. The Support link will connect you to a knowledgeable and friendly PATHFINDER support representative.