The Career Design Lab: Change your Job, Change your Life (Coursera)

You will define what is important to you in life, discover your core strengths and values, sketch out several possible career paths, and learn authentic networking strategies to help you find your next professional opportunity. Along the way, you will learn insights from design thinking, positive psychology, and career coaching that will help you maintain a positive mindset and make progress with your job search. If you’re ready to change jobs and change your life, this is the course for you.

What You Will Learn

- The difference between a job, a career, and a calling, and how to design a professional life that is meaningful and fulfilling.

- How to use your strengths, values, skills, and beliefs as a guide to explore new career directions and decide which path to pursue next.

- Authentic job search strategies that help you make important professional connections and find your next opportunity.

Syllabus

WEEK 1

Welcome to the Career Design Lab

Should I follow my passion when choosing a career? What if I’m not up for it? And how do I make enough time to change careers when I’m busy with a full-time job or a family? This first module will answer these questions and orient you to the Career Design Lab.

WEEK 2

Using Coherence as your Career Guide

Before you design a career you love, you need to know what you want. This week you’ll do lots of activities that help you write down what’s important to you in a concrete, specific way. You’ll discover your top strengths, virtues, and skills and write short statements about your life philosophy and what it means to do meaningful work. You’ll learn how to use this self-awareness as a “compass” that guides the rest of your career design process.

WEEK 3

Defining Your Next Career Move(s)

What career paths are you considering? If you’re feeling stuck, how can you come up with creative new ideas? And once you have some great ideas, how should you decide which to pursue? This week you’ll get a crash course in design thinking and plan out three different professional paths you could take next. Then you’ll learn how to explore those paths through authentic conversations that help you decide what you want while building your professional network.

WEEK 4

Strategies for Getting a Job

Week 4 is about strategies for getting a job. This is the last module of the course and it’s packed with helpful strategies for succeeding at your job search. You’ll learn how long your job search should last, how to think like a hiring manager, tips for sites like LinkedIn, and how to approach resumes, interviewing, and salary negotiation like a career designer. At the end of Week 4 we’ll talk about staying focused on what matters and how to make hard choices.