3 Tools to Help You Explore Careers

September 20, 2018
Pam our advisor waiving hello
Pam the Advisor is here to help with your career exploration.

By Pam Henderson, Academic Advising Manager

Engineer? Lawyer? Doctor? Scientist? Landman??? What's a landman?

With so many choices, it can be a daunting task to select a college major that suits you. Understanding yourself is key in deciding the right path for you to take. We're here to help! Using these three tools starts your discovery about yourself, your interests and your values.

Tool 1 - My Next Move

My Next Move is hosted by the U.S. Department of Labor and identifies your interests. These interests are grouped into six categories - Realistic, Investigative, Enterprising, Conventional, Social and Artistic.

Visit mynextmove.org and click Start under Tell us what you like to do to complete the Interest Profiler. It takes approximately 5 to 10 minutes to complete. Record your score for each interests.

Tool 2 - O*Net Online

Now it's time to start looking at possible careers by visiting O*Net Online also hosted by the U.S. Department of Labor. Navigate to onetonline.org.

Click Advanced Search and Interests.

  1. Using your highest interest score, select one interest from the My Next Move exercise.

  2. Select Job Zone 4 for Bachelors or Job Zone 5 for Graduate level work.

  3. Review the list of careers.

  4. Select a career and read the information about it. How well does it match with your interests? The goal is to select a career that match 2 or 3 of your highest-scoring interests.

  5. You can add your next highest interest score to narrow your choices.

Another way to approach your career exploration is to use the Occupation Quick Search feature at the top of the O*Net Online page. After entering your anticipated career, review the description to determine how it fits your interests.

Tool 3 - O*Net Work Values

O*Net also provides a summary of work values that are important in determining if a career fits your lifestyle. For example, working conditions such as security and independence may be important to you and should be taken into consideration.

Visit onetonline.org and click Advanced Search and Work Values. Read through the work values summary. Pick three values of importance to you and write them down. Look at the careers you selected before and see if the work values are a good fit for you.

Using these tools gives you a good start on making a decision about your college major and future career!

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