5 Guidance Sites to Find a Career Path and Pick the Right Job for You
Reading Time: 4 minutesThese fantastic career guidance websites will find the perfect job for you, whether a traditional profession or a self-employed project.
What is the best job suited to your skills, personality, values, and knowledge? What do you need to get that job in terms of education and other qualifications? What is the career path for a professional in that field, and what sort of growth and future prospects can one expect? These fantastic career guidance websites have all the answers you need, whether you are following a well-structured traditional job or striking out on your own to create a project.
1. Become (Web): Find Career Paths, Required Education, and Expected Salary
Become, formerly Learn How to Become, is one of the best websites to get career advice on practically any profession you want to pursue. It broadly divides these categories into arts and humanities, vocational, finance and business, computer, engineering, medical, science, and technology.
In each category, you’ll find several professions, each with its own guide. For example, take the guide on how to become a filmmaker. Become explains how you can prepare for it through school and the types of courses or degrees you can pursue in college. It even tells you which type of course is right for you based on your current level.
For each type of role in the film industry, Become gives you an idea of what the job is all about, the educational requirements for it, the skills you will need for the role, and the average salaries of all the roles. Become also cites reliable resources to find trends and future outlook for the industry. Overall, you’ll get a basic overview of how to plan your career path for any chosen profession.
2. My Next Move (Web): US Dept of Labor’s Official Career Guides
The US Department of Labor runs an online portal called My Next Move for anyone to find their potential career and see what their work life will be like in any profession. It’s up-to-date with the latest industry and employment statistics from the Bureau of Labor and O*Net (Occupational Information Network).
On the homepage, you can search for a career using keywords, browse the entire list of over 900 professions by industry, or take the O*Net Interest Profiler quiz to determine which career you are likely suited for. Do note that My Next Move has a special section for veterans transitioning from the military to civilian careers. The website also highlights careers with lots of job openings right now or in the near future in the Bright Outlook section, while Job Prep shows careers that need the same level of education and training.
When you select any profession, My Next Move will give you the basics you need to know in a summary. You’ll find what they do, what you’re likely going to need to do on the job, as well as the education, knowledge, skill set, technology, and abilities you would need. It also explains what type of personality is best suited for that profession. You’ll also find the average salary and job outlook for that career and additional links if you want to know more about pursuing that profession.
3. CareerOneStop (Web): Tools and Quizzes to Find Jobs by Skill, Salary, Personality
Another website by the US Department of Labor, CareerOneStop features a variety of tools and free quizzes to find the right career for you. The starting point is self-assessment, which helps you figure out a good career fit based on your personality and skills.
Start with the interest assessment quiz of 30 questions, take the skills matcher test to identify which professions your skills are best suited for, and finally, take the Work Values Matcher to figure out which qualities are essential for you in your workplace. CareerOneStop experts say it’s best to take self-assessment skills multiple times before you fix one path.
The website includes a series of other cool tools that will help you make a decision about which career path to take. For example, the Compare Occupations tool shows a table of two professions, comparing their salary, skill sets, level of training, licenses, certifications, and other related data. You should also check out the ‘Resources For’ menu to see guidance for certain types of people, like entry-level workers, career changers, 55+ workers, workers with disabilities, and more.
4. What Career Is Right For Me? (Web): Detailed Career Aptitude Test and Jobs Database
What Career Is Right For Me (WCIRFM) features a variety of tools and resources to figure out which profession you should pursue. It has one of the more detailed career aptitude tests on the internet, as it assesses your skills, interests, work style, professional and personal values, targeted salary, educational requirements, and job growth. Based on these inputs, the app will tell you which jobs you are most suited for.
WCIRFM offers a few cool ways to browse its database of all careers. For example, you can sort the list by the highest paying careers for the most lucrative career paths based on median salary from national surveys. Similarly, you can check the list of the fastest-growing careers to see which jobs are in most demand in the United States.
When you click any job, you’ll find a short description of what the work entails, along with two boxes. In the first box, you’ll find the median annual wage, educational requirements, projected growth, tasks involved in the job, and skills needed to execute it. The second box shows current job listings for that profession, so you can get an idea of what the market value and demands are like.
5. Find a Path (Web): Interactive Workbooks to Make Your Own Job
In today’s industry, most professionals are pursuing some side hustle apart from their regular job. If you haven’t started yet or don’t know what you should be doing, head to Find a Path. It features a series of interactive workbooks that will guide you on how to start a side project and make it successful.
As the developer says, there are several guides and advice articles online about what you should do, but nothing on how to come up with the right side project for you. Find a Path attacks this missing information by splitting the process into a series of exercises: looking within yourself, studying the world, understanding people, brainstorming your idea, validating your idea, building to bring it to life, promoting yourself, and monetizing to quit your 9-to-5.
Each exercise is a Google Doc that takes you through each step, asking questions you must answer in the Doc itself. As you go through the process, you’ll clarify your thoughts, throw out bad ideas, and find a purpose for your side hustle — hopefully, turn it into a successful primary source of income.
Don’t Be Afraid to Change
Through these various career guidance resources, you’ll feel confident enough to start on a path that will reward you. But do remember that you don’t need to stick to that goal forever. People change, circumstances change, and goals change; if you aren’t satisfied with your job journey, you can always revisit these websites to reevaluate your choices.
Reference: https://www.makeuseof.com/guidance-sites-find-career-path-pick-the-right-job/