Take Charge of Your Federal Career: A Practical, Action-Oriented Career Management Workbook for Federal Employees

Do you dream of a better life, higher pay, a challenging position with responsibility and one that takes full advantage of your interests, education, and experience? You can turn your dreams into reality and be one of the many thousands of federal employees each year that are promoted or attain higher level government jobs.

Take Charge of Your Federal Career is a practical, action-oriented career management workbook for federal employees. Packed with proven tips and valuable assessment and evaluation tools. This unique workbook provides federal workers with the individualized know-how and guidance they need to identify, obtain, and successfully demonstrate the skills and experience required to qualify for new and better federal jobs.

What separates those who want to improve and progress in their careers from those who actually achieve success? The fact is that it s not enough to dream about promotions, great new jobs, and higher pay, you have to plan a course of action to achieve those goals. The factors that will determine whether or not you succeed are motivation, personal initiative, and taking the steps (ACTIONS) necessary to make your dreams come true.

If you re not satisfied with your current job or if you ve been bypassed for a promotion don t despair, help is out there if you know where to look. You have many options and career paths to pursue in the federal sector. Even if you lack the required education or experience there are ways to obtain skills needed to reach your career goals.

The Keys to Success There are a number of steps that you must take to develop a viable career development program. Without proper planning you may not succeed and a structured program will improve your chance of success considerably.

These seven essential steps will get you where you want to go:

Each of these steps is important and one without the other often leads to failure and confusion. Each step builds on the other and is discussed in detail in a related chapter of this guide. If you take one step at a time and build on each step as you develop it, you will make a connection.

This workbook, its companion web site at http://fedcareer.info, and The Book of U.S. Government Jobs will help federal employees perform a self-assessment, develop a plan with your supervisor s input to attain short and long term career goals, and prepare a professional resume and application.

Thousands of opportunities exist in all agencies nationwide and overseas for those who plan to make their plan a reality. This step-by-step workbook will help you explore the possibilities and determine what will work personally for you.