LibGuides: Urban & Regional Planning Resources: Certification & Career

Certification

The American Planning Association's American Institute of Certified Planners certifies planners' academic qualifications, work experience, skills, and commitment to ethical practice. Certification includes a comprehensive exam, and continuing education once certified. Advanced Specialty Certification is also available for transportation planner, environmental planner, and urban designer specialties.

American Institute of Certified Planners
An entity of the American Planning Association, the AICP certifies planners' academic qualifications, work experience, skills, and commitment to ethical practice. Find here eligibility requirements, and exam application, tips, and guide. Advanced Specialty Certification is also available for transportation planner, environmental planner, and urban designer specialties.

Career Resources

A Guide for the Idealist: Launching and Navigating Your Planning Career
"A must for young professionals seeking to put their idealism to work. Speaking to urban and regional planners and those in related fields, the book provides tools for the reader to make good choices, practice effectively, and find meaning in planning work. Built around concepts of idealism and realism, the book takes on the gap between the expectations and the constraints of practice. How to make an impact? How to decide when to compromise and when to fight for a core value? The book advises on career "launching" issues: doubt, decision-making, assessing types of work and work settings, and career planning. Then it explains principled adaptability as professional style. Subsequent chapters address early-practice issues: being right, avoiding wrong, navigating managers, organizations and teams, working with mentors, and understanding the career journey."
Advance Your Career from American Planning Association
The American Planning Association provides numerous resources about careers, including webinars, online resources, tips for job searches, professional development information, salary survey, and more.
Becoming an Urban Planner: A Guide to Careers in Planning and Urban Design
"Becoming an Urban Planner answers these key questions:What do urban planners do?What are the educational requirements? How do I enter the field?How do I choose between the different types of planning, from land use planning to policy planning?What is the future of the urban planning profession?Here is a completely up-to-date guide to today's careers in urban planning--a clear and concise survey of the urban planning field and advice for navigating a successful career. Filled with interviews and guidance from leading urban planners, it covers everything from educational requirements to planning."

NOTE: UIUC students, faculty, and staff access with netid / login.
Management Skills for Effective Planners: A Practrical Guide
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Table of Contents:
Introduction
1. Planning, Is It For You?
2. Measuring Effectiveness : Competencies and Capabilities
3. Interpersonal Capability
4. Generic Capability
5. Personal Capability
6. Intellectual Capability
7. Profession-specific Capability
8. Meeting Employer and Manager Expectations
9. Lifewide Learning, Mentoring, Networking, Creativity, Imagination
10. Conclusion.
Occupational Outlook Handbook: Urban and Regional Planners
National, state, and area information about duties, work environment, education, training, pay, and outlook for jobs related to urban and regional planning from U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Outlook Handbook.

Licensure and Registration

New Jersey:

Only one state, New Jersey, requires licensing of planners. The New Jersey State Board of Professional Planners is "responsible for the regulation of professional planners and planners in training in New Jersey."

New Jersey State Board of Professional Planners
The New Jersey State Board of Professional Planners is “responsible for the regulation of professional planners and planners in training in New Jersey.”
http://www.njconsumeraffairs.gov/plan/Pages/default.aspx
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Related regulations:

NEW JERSEY STATUTES ANNOTATED, Title 45, Chapter 14A

NEW JERSEY ADMINISTRATIVE CODE, Title 13, Chapter 41

Michigan:

The State of Michigan Bureau of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs formerly offered an exam and certification for a “professional community planner” (PCP) designation (related to MICH. COMP. LAWS § 339.2301 and MICH. COMP. LAWS § 339.2304). But this was optional and the program has since been discontinued.