If you haven’t done so, please check out my previous post on some career exploration tools you can use to begin your career journey. But, if you have been following along with the previous posts, you’ve thought about your career interests, what you like to do, what you are good at, and explored your interests through interest inventories, and explored and researched some careers that match your interests – so, what’s next? Something that has been helpful for the students I’ve worked with is to write down the top three careers that match your interests, based on the results of the interest inventory taken. This helps to narrow your focus and plans moving forward. After selecting the top three careers presented, utilize the information provided to research available information about the careers, including educational requirements, skill requirements, salary information, and future outlook.
Your plans moving forward will depend on where you are in your career journey. If you are a student, think about some classes you can take for further career exploration. If magnet schools are offered in your school district, you can research a school that might best match your career interests. In the district where I work, there are middle and high magnet schools that offer various programs in the arts, science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), career and technical education, to name a few. You can also do job shadowing to see how someone in a career of your interest works in their position and learn a little bit more about the day-to-day operations of the career. Interviewing someone in the profession(s) of interest to learn about the job and their experiences can also be helpful.
C. Flynt