Career Exploration
Career Exploration
It's possible to quickly choose a career. But to find a career that's right for you, it's helpful to slow down, give it some thought, and take the time to get it right. This is useful whether you are choosing a career for the first time or changing careers for the forty-first time.
Career exploration is not the same as job searching. Job searching is a short-term pursuit of a position that matches your financial and career goals. Career exploration is a long, progressive process of choosing education, training, and jobs that fit your interests and skills.
Assessing yourself
Assessing yourself is the first step of the career exploration process. To find a career that's right for you, it's important to know a lot about yourself. Know everything about yourself already? It can be surprising to discover what you may have overlooked or taken for granted. Assessing your past and present will help you make the right decisions about your future.
• The Skills Profiler identifies skills and matches them to jobs.
• Employability Checkup provides a snapshot of your employability.
• Princeton Review
• Career Zone
• The Career Resource Library lists additional assessment resources.
Explore Career Options
Once you have assessed yourself, it's time to explore career options. A wide variety of information about industries and occupations is available. Exploring several industries and occupations will help you to discover the options that most interest you.
First, it's important to think about the difference between occupations, industries, and work options. An occupation is a specific type of position within an industry (like nursing assistant or carpenter). Industry refers to the field type of business of a company or employer-such as health care, manufacturing, or real estate. Some occupations (like administrative assistant or sales representative) are available within several industries. Many work options-such as self-employment, full- or part-time employment, or temporary employment-exist across industries and occupations.
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