2. I Need to Choose a Career
Are you pursuing a general diploma in high school. College or university? Perhaps you have no clear idea of what kind of career you really want to pursue. Or perhaps you need to learn about the basic skills required in most occupations. Whatever your current situation, it’s important to take stock of your personal and professional talents, interests, skills and values in order to plan a career that’s right for you.
Learning to Decide
1. Career Path Adventures
http://www.umanitoba.ca/counselling/careers.html
Home page: http://www.careerbuilder.com/?cbRecursionCnt=1
This site will help you along your career decision-making path. Whether you are unsure of a career choice, are having trouble finding a job, or somewhere in between, you will find assistance here. Start by choosing which path you want make by selecting the statement that best describes your current situation. Then the site will lead you to advice, self-help exercises and more. Each new page brings you to another fork in the road where you get to choose the career path that is most relevant to you.
2. The Career Interests Game
http://career.missouri.edu/career-interest-game
The “Career Interests Game” is based on “Holland’s Code”, one of the most widely used methods to help people make good career decisions. The site will introduce you to the interests, skills and personal traits of six personality types: realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, and conventional. For each type, you will find a long list of occupations that are particularly well suited. Click on any one to find its full description from the Occupational Outlook Handbook.
Tip: This is a great site for exploring career options, but if you want to make a decision based on your own Holland personal type, you will have to take the test. Talk to a career counsellor to find out more.
Exploring Career Options
3. Job Futures (National Edition) – Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC)
http://www.jobbank.gc.ca/home-eng.do?lang=eng
Job Futures (National Edition) is one of HRDC’s premiere labour market information Web sites. This site provides the latest information on the Canadian labour market, information on current labour market conditions and economic forecasts for 226 occupational groups. Job Futures also provides first-hand information based on the work experience of recent graduates in 155 programs of study offered in trade and vocational school, CEGEPs, colleges and universities. Finally, Job Futures offers information on general labour market trends, emerging sectors and occupations, and the skills that job seekers should acquire to remain competitive in the job market all important information that can help a student make the right decision when if come to education and employment training.
Tip: Visit the FAGs (frequently asked questions) section to get answers to important questions you may have about the information found on Job Futures.
CIP: You can find links to provincial versions of Job Futures by clicking on “Provincial Perspectives” below the top navigational bars. These sites offer information on the current and future employment situations in your province.
4. Alberta Occupational Profiles
http://occinfo.alis.alberta.ca/occinfopreview
Home Page: http://alis.alberta.ca/index.html
Produced by the Alberta Learning Information Service (ALIS), this directory already contains more that 500 occupational profiles, and others will be added on a regular basis. Each profile lists a wide range of information, including duties, educational requirements, salaries and working conditions. Profiles appear in alphabetical order by job title. You can also explore these occupations as they relate to specific industries.
Tip: Do not dismiss the profiles by thinking that they only describe occupations in Alberta. The descriptions are applicable to those types of occupations across Canada.
5. Career Gateway – Occupational Description
Home Page: http://www.tcu.gov.on.ca/eng/career/descrip.html
This site is a Web directory of major information sources for specific careers, such as accounting, biology, engineering and health. A major benefit of this site is that the information is organized under three main headings: Canadian, American and Overseas sources. This is a great place to visit to find relevant information about a field that already interests you.
CIP: From the home page, you can access many other interesting resources on education and employment. Most will be of particular interest to students in Ontario.
Other Career Tools
6. Career Awareness – Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC)
http://www.esdc.gc.ca/eng/home.shtml
The Human Resources Development Canada Career Awareness Web site provides Canadians, particularly youth, with information on a wide range of learning and career-related programs, products and services. These information resources better enables Canadians to make informed decisions as they develop their career and learning strategies. Teachers, career counsellors and other employed in the career development field will find these resources beneficial when dealing with clients.
7. Essential Skills We Site – Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC)
http://www.esdc.gc.ca/eng/jobs/les//index.shtml
In many areas of today’s job market, certain skills have become essential and are required of everyone: these include reading, writing and thinking skills. This site helps you discover how important these skills are in a number of occupations: office-work, sales and services, skilled trades, transportation and manufacturing etc. The site also shows how these skills are used in the workplace by providing examples of material drawn from a number of work situations.
8. Salary Expert
How much do accountants, bakers or computer programmers earn? Do they earn more in Vancouver, Winnipeg or Montreal? How much does their buying power compare to that of their colleagues in other parts of North America? This site will answer those questions. In the “U.S.-Canada” section, choose form more that 100 occupations in the first pulldown menu and form a region in the second. You will get an impressive report which includes information on salary average and range, potential earnings in bonuses and benefits, and are available for all major cities and regions in Canada and the United States.