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If you have taken the Strong Interest Inventory and have had your results interpreted, then you know your “theme code,” which is a combination of three letters. Now you can explore the careers that match your theme code. Remember to look at all of the letters in your code. For example, if your theme code is SAE, you should look at careers in the Social, Artistic, and Enterprising categories.
If you have not taken the Strong Interest Inventory and would like to do so, please stop by Bartlett 308 at your convenience to complete the assessment. Then you can make an appointment with the Director of Assessment to receive your results.
If you have some career areas in mind that you would like to explore, the Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH) is a good place to start. This resource is maintained by the U.S. Department of Labor and provides a very good overview of many professions. You may search for a career by entering the job title into the search box, or you can click on the alphabetical index and scroll through the job titles until you find your area. Click on the link below to go to the OOH.
The CC&C has a collection of books related to various majors and careers. Some titles include Great Jobs for Psychology Majors, Opportunities in Animal and Pet Care Careers, and Careers in the Environment. Stop by the CC&C in Bartlett 308 and browse through our holdings. Our books are available for two-week checkout, so just ask if you see something you’d like to take with you.
An informational interview is when you sit down with someone currently working in a field and ask that person questions about his or her work. For example, you could ask how that person got into the profession, what they like most or least about the job, and what advice they would give someone who is thinking about going into the same profession. You can also present them your polished resume and ask for advice they might give regarding improvements to the document.
Another place to go is to your faculty advisor. That person may know of former students who now work in your area of interest.
Other sources for contacts are your parents: Ask them if any of their friends are working in your field of interest. Finally, don't forget about your friends as a source of information: Ask them if their parents are working in your field of interest. Don't be afraid to make your interests known to those around you--networking is often the key to finding what you need.
In addition to the Occupational Outlook Handbook, you can find other online resources by entering a career title into a search engine. For example, you can go to Google at www.google.com and enter “criminal justice careers” as your search term. This search method yields a variety of results that range from professional profiles of people working in the field to professional associations within the field.
Conducting career research allows you to weigh a career against your interests, personality, values, and skills. To explore whether a career seems to be a good “fit” for you, you need to find out the main duties of that career, the type of training required to enter the field, the employment outlook for the area, the potential earnings, and other factors such as these. Even if you think you know all there is to know about a profession, do your research anyway. There may have been new developments in the field of which you weren’t aware, or there simply may be aspects of the career that you had never considered. Don’t rely on career stereotypes or misperceptions!
We live in a very dynamic work world—career fields are constantly changing. Some fields shift their focus or add to their duties to reflect the changes in our society. Likewise, new job titles are often created to meet the demands of our society. Career research is not something you do only once—it is important that you stay abreast of the continuous developments in the world of work.
Don’t be discouraged if you cannot find the career for which you are looking. You may be searching under the wrong title or you may not even know what to call a set of job duties. Come by the CC&C and we can help you with your search.
On the other hand, you may run across an interesting career that the CC&C has not included on our list of resources. Please let us know if this happens, and we’ll be sure to add the job title. Other students may need that information, too!
