So, you’ve thought about what you are good at and what you like to do, so what’s next. One way to further explore your interests, skills and abilities is with an interest inventory. Interest Inventories, through a series of questions, help group the things you like to do and are good at into a score or a rating. Based on the score or rating received, careers that align with your highest interests and skills are shown. The career lists generated can then be explored further, finding out information about educational requirements, salary information, etc…
Some of the websites that I have used when working with students on career development and exploration are the College Foundation of North Carolina, NCcareers.org, and Educationplanner.org.
The College Foundation of North Carolina (CFNC) is a website that students can use, starting in middle school, to begin their career exploration. To fully utilize the resources available on the site, an account needs to be created. The College Foundation of North Carolina and NCcareers.org have partnered together to offer students several ways to explore career interests through inventories (you can use your CFNC log in with the NCcareers.org site).
Once you have created a CFNC account, you can click on the Plan Your Future tab at the top of the page. Once on the page, you can click on Learn About Yourself to complete an inventory. You can also utilize the NCcareers.org website to complete the skills matcher inventory, which helps identify careers that match your skills, work values sorter, which can help you see and understand your work values and what is most important to you in a career.
Educationplanner.org is a website that offers information and resources for career planning, self-assessments, including an interest inventory, and assessments about learning style, study habits, and character traits. The website also provides information to parents about preparing for their child’s future.
Careeronestop.org is a website sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor that has tools for career exploration, training, and jobs. This site can be useful for students and adults in their career exploration.
Leave a comment and let me know if you discovered anything new about yourself after completing one of the interest inventories.
C.J.