When I was a senior in college, I did an independent study with my favorite design professor, Haven (who recently became the dean of the school of fine arts) that changed my life forever. I was trying to break into advertising, so my proposal was to find a real company and pitch them a campaign they could actually run.

But by the second week of the semester, it was clear that I was biting off more than I could chew. So instead of building my portfolio, Haven suggested I come in the following week with a career plan.

As a naive college student, I didn’t ask the right questions. Namely, what’s a career plan? I showed up the next week empty-handed and we designed the first outline for my career plan.

We started with some basic questions:
What qualities did I want in a job?
What was I looking for in a boss?
What environment do I do my best work in?
Where did I want to live?
What kind of work did I want to be doing every day and what type of portfolio was I hoping to build?
What are my salary expectations and if they’re not met, what kind of benefits would I be open to?
Short term goals? Long term goals?

It’s been 14 years since I made my first career plan. I revisit it at least once a year, usually twice. I’ll rewrite it, and edit the format to add or delete whatever’s relevant in my life at the moment. It’s helped keep me clear on what my next moves are and what I’m hoping to accomplish. I can’t recommend it enough.

If you’re curious or want to make one, here is the original outline I used, and here’s a word doc template and a Notion page template that I use now.

But feel free to make it your own.

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Jake Kahana is a cofounder of Caveday. Sign up for his personal emails, called “The Email Refrigerator” here.