About Career Kindling
Helping Students Make Career Decisions With Clarity
Career Kindling was created to help students make one of the most important decisions of their lives with greater clarity and confidence: choosing a career path.
Too many young adults commit years of time and thousands of dollars toward degrees or training programs without truly understanding what the jobs on the other side are like. When expectations don’t match reality, frustration and career changes often follow.
Career Kindling exists to help students align their career aspirations with the realities of the workforce before committing to a path.
Why I Started Career Kindling
While I was finishing my bachelor’s degree in psychology, I found myself facing the same question many students struggle with:
What career path should I actually pursue?
Like many students, I had ideas about careers that sounded interesting, but I didn’t fully understand what those jobs were like day to day.
To figure it out, I started reaching out to professionals and asking if I could sit down with them to learn about their work. These conversations—known as informational interviews—completely changed how I thought about career planning.
By speaking directly with professionals in careers I was considering, I learned what those jobs actually involved, what qualifications mattered most, and which paths were truly a good fit for me.
Those conversations gave me clarity and confidence about my career direction in a way that traditional career advice never had.
That experience eventually led me to build the Career Kindling framework.
Professional Background
Career Kindling was built on both personal experience and professional work with students navigating career decisions.
Education
Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology
Master’s Degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling
Professional Experience
Four years working as a school counselor in rural public high schools, helping students explore education and career pathways.
In addition to school counseling, I have worked with students through small group workshops and one-on-one coaching focused on career exploration, informational interviews, and building clear career plans.
Through that experience, I saw firsthand how often students were asked to make career decisions before truly understanding the careers they were considering.
Career Kindling was created to give students a structured way to explore careers, talk with professionals, and build a plan toward their future.
Prepare
Students build an Aspiring Resume, mapping out the education, experience, and qualifications needed to become a competitive applicant for their future career.
Discover
Students identify their interests, skills, and hobbies to uncover career paths they may not have previously considered.
The Career Kindling Framework
Verify
Students research careers and conduct informational interviews with professionals to understand real job responsibilities and work environments.