Career Exploration

Estimated time for lesson: 5-10 minutes

NOTES FOR INSTRUCTOR
Students don’t usually see the relevance of starting the career exploration early on in their college experience. The following is a guide you can use to assist students to understand the importance of career exploration and some resources.

MINI-LESSON: CAREER EXPLORATION
I. The typical career process is simply:

Step 1: Self-assessment helps you understand your personal and career goals, your interests, preferences, strengths and weaknesses.
Step 2: Consider your career options and identify which available roles fit your interests and abilities.
Step 3: Decide on your career goals
Step 4: Develop and implement a career strategy

Step 5:Review and adjust your career strategy

  • Why should I prepare a resume now if I’m not looking for a job?
  • Encourage students early to consider internships to discover career fields that they may like that they haven’t considered before
  • Linking curriculum in the classroom to specific transferable skills in the workplace

II. Use online tools to explore the steps above
http://www.onetonline.org – O*NET OnLine is a web-based application that provides user-friendly access to occupational information contained in the O*NET database. O*NET OnLine offers users the opportunity to:

  • find occupations to explore;
  • search for occupations that use their skills;
  • look at related occupations;
  • view occupational summaries of the worker and requirements of the work;
  • view details of occupations, such as skills, knowledge, interests, and activities;
  • use crosswalks from other classification systems to find corresponding O*NET occupations; and
  • connect to other on-line career information resources

FOCUS2 is an online, self-guided program that will help you explore and make decisions about your career goals and your major areas of study. This tool looks at 5 different inventories for self-assessment that include: values, interests, personality, interests and leisure activities. Focus2 can be found on the MCC Career Website, https://www.middlesex.mass.edu/CareerServices/