Making Your Career Decision

Career Exploration is a life-long process. With the changing times in our society, making the "right" decision can feel somewhat overwhelming. Therefore, it's important NOT to randomly make your career decision. Making a good career decision can be a lengthy process, although many think that it is a decision that can be made very quickly.

When making your career decision, it's important to look at the following factors:

• personality
• values
• skills
• interest
  

How can the Career Services Office help you? We suggest that you try to break the process down into steps so that it won't feel so "overwhelming". Here are the steps along with some of the resources offered by the Career Services Office:

• Assess your interests The Strong Interest Inventory and CHOICES Computerized Career Guidance System are the tools we use to assess student's interest.
• Assess your personality The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is the tool we use to assess an individual's personality type. This tool helps to look at career options that may be related to an individual's preferences.
• Assess your skills This link allows you to assess your own skills. This type of self-reflection may help you as you work through the Career Exploration Process. The Career Services Office does not currently have a "Skills assessment". We are currently looking at adding this component to our services. CHOICES (located in the Career Center and in the Extended Learning Center (ELC) has a "Transferrable Skills" assessment, which allows the individual to assess his/her own skills.
• Assess your values The Career Services Office has a brief "Values Assessment" exercise. This exercise can be done individually with a career counselor. However, by clicking on this link, it will help you to think about the things that you value the most. This is an important factor to look at when making your career decision. Most people who choose work that is congruent with their values feel more satisfied and successful in their careers.

Steps in Deciding on a Career:

1. Develop career options based upon the above assessments
2. Research the career options
   Once you have completed your self-assessment, other factors, such as occupational outlook, individual situation, salary, etc. should be considered. However, it's important NOT to choose an occupation solely because it makes a high salary or that you're "guaranteed a job". If you won't enjoy it or if it doesn't "fit" you, you may not be happy. There are various ways to research career options:
   • Look up career information on CHOICES
   • Look up career information in the Career Center
   • Look up career information using the internet
   • Conduct Informational Interviews
3. Focus down the career options based upon your research
4. Continue to research remaining career options
   • Continue conducting Informational Interviews
   • Think about doing an Internship in the area you are considering
   • Volunteer within the field you are considering
5. Make career decision
6. Continue to evaluate your decision