Occupational Careers
For a listing of all occupations in alphabetical order, go to the A-Z Index and select a letter.
U.S. Department
of Labor
Bureau of Labor Statistics
Occupational Outlook Handbook
Finding a Job and Evaluating a Job Offer
It often takes months of time and effort to find a job that matches your qualifications and desires. Actively pursuing multiple leads will maximize your search efforts and reduce the time it takes you to find employment. This means devoting as much time as you can to your job search. If you are unemployed, treat your job search like a full-time job, waking up early and working a full day. If you are working or in school, it is still important to devote time every day to your job search.
Inform people you know that you are looking for a job. Read the classified ads. Use the Internet, including general job search sites, special interest sites, company Web sites, and trade and professional association Web sites. Directly contact employers in which you are interested, even if they are not advertising a job opening. You may also wish to consult State employment service offices and to consider private employment agencies.
Where to learn About
Job Openings
Job Search Methods
Applying for a Job
What Usually Goes Into a Resume
Job Interview Tips
Evaluating a Job Offer
Click here for more information
Links to information about the job market in each State
Career Information
Career is a term defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as an individual's "course or progress through life (or a distinct portion of life)". As of 2006, the word usually only pertains to one's remunerative work (and sometimes also formal education).
A career is traditionally seen as a course of successive situations that make up a person's work life. One can have a sporting career or a musical career without being a professional athlete or musician, but most frequently "career" in the 20th century referenced the series of jobs or positions by which one earned one's money. It tended to look only at the past.
As the idea of personal choice and self direction picks up in the 21st century, aided by the power of the Internet and the increased acceptance of people having multiple kinds of work, the idea of a career is shifting from a closed set of achievements, like a chronological resume of past jobs, to a defined set of pursuits looking forward. In its broadest sense, career refers to an individual’s work and life roles over their life span.
In the relatively static societies before modernism, many workers would often inherit or take up a single lifelong position (a place or role) in the workforce, and the concept of an unfolding career had little or no meaning. With the spread during the Enlightenment of the idea of progress and of the habits of individualist self-betterment, careers became possible, if not expected.
Career Assessments are tests that come in a variety of forms and rely on both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. Career Assessments can help individuals identify and better articulate their unique interests, values, and skills. Career counselors, executive coaches, career development centers, and outplacement companies often administer career assessments to help individuals focus their search on careers that closely match their unique personal profile.
Career counseling advisors assess people's interests, personality, values and skills, and also help them explore career options and research graduate and professional schools. Career counseling provides one-on-one or group professional assistance in exploration and decision making tasks related to choosing a major/occupation, transitioning into the world of work or further professional training. The field is vast and includes career placement, career planning, learning strategies and student development.
By the late 20th century a plethora of choices (especially in the range of potential professions) and more widespread education had allowed it to become fashionable to plan (or design) a career: in this respect the careers of the career counselor and of the career advisor have grown up. It is also not uncommon for adults in the late 20th/early 21st centuries to have dual or multiple careers, either sequentially or concurrently. Thus, professional identities have become hyphenated or hybridized to reflect this shift in work ethic. Economist Richard Florida notes this trend generally and more specifically among the "creative class."
Information Courtesy of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
