ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns the beginning of the planner's career. It focuses on traits and skills that employers look for when seeking and selecting new employees to fill entry-level professional positions, positions that inevitably lead to more and more responsibility and the need to develop still more skills. To work effectively with others no matter what the setting, planners must be able to: cope effectively with stress; cope with difficult people; foster interpersonal relations; handle client services effectively and be responsive to client needs; and contribute to a harmonious relationship with fellow workers and planner's supervisor. Planner must fully understand the nature of the problem which they try to analyze and solve and have the ability to attack it in an intellectually creative fashion. They attack may include literature and public record searches, surveys, listening to and recording information from interviews, and identifying problems, wants and needs.
