HDFS Careers

Brave New World of Work

Welcome! I'm glad you're here! If you are reading this, you are probably majoring in Human Development and Family Studies (HDFS) or a similar major. This is a field that I love and in which I teach as a university faculty member. Like a lot of my students, I chose this field because I love learning about people and families, and I wanted to work in a field that I felt was directly beneficial to people. HDFS is a great fit for those interests. However, it does not always point the way to a specific career path. This post provides some thoughts to consider as you explore your options.

What Can You Do With a Human Development and Family Studies Major?

This post summarizes some of of the very best career advice I have received over the years.

Begin With You:  Identify Your Skills & Values

Before launching into a job search, I always recommend that you first take some time to consider who you are, what you value, and what skills and experience you can bring to the table. This will help you to 1) seek out the right types of opportunities based on your goals and 2) tell your story to future employers. While reflecting, I recommend doing the following:

Begin With You:  Identify Your Skills & Values

Do you feel like you don't know where to start in terms of preparing for your career? Are you frustrated by advice to obtain experience related to the career you want to pursue because you don't feel like you know exactly what that career will be? The goal is to focus your preparation based on what you know about your interests today. In other words, pay attention to what you can control. Some jobs might be eliminated. Others might be created that you can't even fathom yet. You can't control the future job market. You can focus your energy toward obtaining the best experience that you can. How can you focus your efforts?

No, Seriously. What Specific Jobs Should I Look For? (My Spring Break Blog Post!)

If you know me, you know that I have historically been reluctant to listing jobs for family science majors. Nonetheless, I see the value in providing some specific job titles for those who are looking to begin the exploration process. So, here are a few starting points. They are in semi-alphabetical order (but not really because these things often go by various names). These are the jobs I thought of off of the top of my head:

Escaping the Experience Trap

it seems to be VERY common that organizations prefer applicants with at least SOME kind of experience, bringing me to my own list of encouragement/recommendations below:

Asking for a Letter of Recommendation

Here are my tips for asking faculty members for a letter of recommendation.