Successful Career Development

Kennesaw State University via Coursera

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Provider

Coursera
Pricing

Paid Course
Languages

English
Certificate

Certificate Available
Effort

20 hours 49 minutes
Sessions

Self-Paced
Level

Beginner
Subtitles

Arabic, French, Portuguese, Italian, German, Russian, English, Spanish, Thai, Indonesian, Hungarian, Kazakh, Hindi, Swedish, Korean, Greek, Chinese, Ukrainian, Japanese, Polish, Dutch, Turkish, Bengali, Pashto, Urdu, Azerbaijani, Farsi

Found in

Part of

Career Discovery

Overview

No matter the professional level, we can all benefit from learning how to succeed in our careers. Whether a well-seasoned professional, a management trainee, or a service level employee, this course will help you enrich your career by honing your professional behavior and networking. Through industry expert support and resources, this course is designed to prepare you for success in any chosen career. You will develop the habits and attitudes you need to perform effectively in the job market. You will identify a mentor to add value to your career. You will analyze your relationships and develop a practical approach for engaging your LinkedIn network. You will differentiate between networking and networking with intention. You will also discover the most effective ways to ask for help from your peer or professional group. Finally, you will evaluate the best methods of adjusting your career path at various stages of life.

Syllabus

Career Habitudes

Welcome—and congratulations on your decision to invest in your career in a serious, intentional way. This course is designed for professionals at many stages of the journey: young professionals just starting out, mid‑career managers navigating change, pre‑launch executives preparing for bigger leadership roles, and seasoned practitioners designing “Career 2.0.” Wherever you are, you’ll find ideas you can apply immediately to how you work, lead, and build relationships. As a team of professors and higher‑education leaders, we’re passionate about helping you turn good intentions into everyday practices that actually move your career forward. In this module, we’ll introduce the concept of Career Habitudes—the blend of habits and attitudes that shape how you show up at work—drawing on the work of Dr. Tim Elmore, author of the Habitudes series, and on more recent thinking about mindset, adaptability, and professional growth. You’ll explore the attitudes that accelerate careers (like ownership, curiosity, and resilience) and the subtle ones that can quietly derail them (like entitlement or defensiveness). Research consistently shows that misaligned attitudes and behaviors, not just technical skill gaps, are among the most common reasons early‑career professionals struggle or lose their jobs and why mid‑career professionals stall. You’ll also learn how to build these habitudes over time by: finding and working with mentors who fit your current stage, practicing “NetWeaving” to create networking relationships based on generosity and connection rather than self‑promotion, and using modern tools—including AI—as a coach and reflection partner to deepen your self‑awareness and follow‑through. By the end of this module, you’ll have a clearer picture of the habits and mindsets you already bring to your work, which ones you want to strengthen, and practical strategies for turning those insights into daily actions that support a sustainable, meaningful career.

Finding a Mentor

Establishing a relationship with a mentor can be one of the most beneficial and rewarding professional relationships. Regardless of level of career, a mentor will add value when paired correctly. This module will assist you with clarifying the expectations of a mentored relationship, identifying the areas that you feel will add value based on your personal needs, and introduce the difference between a mentor and a sponsor. Mentors can serve different purposes.

NetWeaving: Networking with Intention

In this module, you will be introduced to the concept of "NetWeaving" as introduced by author and networking expert Bob Littell. One of the most important career skills turns out to be a person's ability to create and maintain trusted relationships, both internally within the organization, as well as externally within the business community. NetWeaving promotes three skill sets, and several action steps, that can contribute to building and maintaining trusted relationships. The three skill sets are categorized as connector, law of reciprocity, and network.

Practical LinkedIn

In this module, you will be introduced to the best practices for enhancing your career (and your job search) via LinkedIn. Without a doubt, the best tool for connecting business people is LinkedIn. As of August 2015, LinkedIn has more than 313 million members in over 220 countries, and is adding new ones at the rate of two new members per second. This module offers practical LinkedIn advice and instructions on how to best leverage your skills and abilities online.

Building Authentic Relationships

In this module, you will explore practical ways to build and maintain authentic professional relationships—skills that matter at every stage of your career. You will focus on how trust is built over time, how to ask better questions that deepen conversations, and how to encourage and inspire the people you work with. We will highlight concrete best practices such as being genuinely yourself, getting to know people beyond their job titles, being transparent about your intentions, and sharing ideas generously instead of guarding them. You will also look at what it means to keep your commitments, follow through reliably, and adopt a “pay it forward” mindset—looking for ways to create value for others without expecting an immediate return. By the end of the module, you should feel more equipped to approach relationship‑building as an intentional, everyday part of your career, both online and in person.

Asking for Help

Professionals often balance the need to solve problems on their own versus asking for help, thus exposing their lack of knowledge and/or experience. This module will assist you in making that determination, understanding their culture of their professional environment, while scanning the environment for style and preference.

Adjusting the Career Plan

Careers rarely unfold in straight lines anymore. Instead of climbing a simple “ladder,” most people navigate something closer to a rock wall—sometimes moving sideways, diagonally, or even a little down before they can move up again. In this module, you will explore practical ways to regularly review your career direction and adjust your plans as your interests, opportunities, and the job market change. You will look at best practices for checking in on your goals, experimenting with new roles or skills, and making intentional moves rather than waiting for things to happen to you. The focus is on becoming more nimble and adaptable: learning how to spot when it is time to pivot, when to double down, and how to treat each step—whether it feels like a step forward or sideways—as part of building a meaningful long‑term career.

Taught by

Dan Stotz, Elke M Leeds, Ph.D., Ana T. Baida, Ed.D. and Wes Rhea, J.D.

Reviews

4.7 rating, based on 9 Class Central reviews

4.7 rating at Coursera based on 1478 ratings

Start your review of Successful Career Development

Ronny De Winter @RonnyDeWinter
368

From time to time you have to stand still at your career development. If you don’t, nobody else will. After all, you are the CEO of your own career. If you feel that time is now then this course will be helpful for you, whatever the career phase yo…

From time to time you have to stand still at your career development. If you don’t, nobody else will. After all, you are the CEO of your own career.

If you feel that time is now then this course will be helpful for you, whatever the career phase you are in. I am in my 50s, worked the last 15 years as an independent IT consultant, and I regularly review my career path, typically when changing project, about once per year. But also if you are at the start of your career this is a useful course to take.

The course provides interviews with career coaches, papers, and youtube videos (TEDx for example). You are encouraged to apply the lessons in your own career.

After the introduction explaining the key to performance and habits and attitudes of leadership, every week topics are covered that are important for successful career development: mentoring, networking, LinkedIn, building relationships, asking for help, and planning your career.

The quizzes are rather simple and short, they do not add much to the learning experience. You better define some personal action point for each of the chapters, plan them in your schedule, execute them, and reflect on the results and further actions.

Keep on learning and growing!
Nguyen Ha Minh
4

Pros: Interesting and useful advices. Lots of reading and videos by prominant speakers.
Cons: Few advices are substantiated by research.
Nivrutti
3

I want to development my career for professional development in my office so that I don't have to feel awkward when my friends are speaking English so fluently and I feeling little depressed.
So I want to to be successful career development in my life.
Nakul Verma
3

This online course are very important part of life and easy use to the body language and communication skills some people are used in Daly life
Anonymous

Your review helps other learners like you discover great courses. Only review the course if you have taken or started taking this course.
Anonymous

This one is the must-have course on Coursera! I highly recommend it to everyone who wants to succeed in their life. Thank you, amazing creators of such an important topic! I am very grateful to get this information!
Chhotu Mahali

This doesn’t mean you have to lie about your career goals to make them fit. Find a way to relate them to the scholarship committee or other elements of the scholarship.
ROHIT MOON
1

it was a really good experience to do this course & I am very lucky to know about this course i would like to say this is best course ever
Anonymous

Must have. Especially for young professionals. Easy to understand, encouraging with not very difficult tests, I highly recommend this course to everyone! Thank you, dear professors.