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Career Selection and Planning Guide
2nd edition: August 25, 2008

Congratulations on completing Step 1!

You should now have a good picture of your personality style.  Please make sure that you have completed the interest assessment found in Step 1.  If not, return to Step 1 now and define your interests.  Defining your interest is required before starting this second step.

Hopefully, you took the option to complete some or all of the optional assessment areas (skills, values and/or behavioral traits).  If there are any areas of assessment that you did not complete, but would like to do so, please return to Step 1 now and complete those assessment exercises before beginning this step.

When you're ready to begin:

The purpose of this second step is to help you create a list of career options (job titles) that match your interest findings - occupations that you want to consider as possible career goals.  To produce your list, you will use the interpretation reports from the two interest inventories that you completed in Step 1, as well as an online database of occupations cross referenced to various interests.

Directions:

1. Print a copy of this checklist.  On your printed copy, check off each step as it is completed to keep a record of your progress through this exercise.

2. Complete each step in the order presented.  Note: for the hyperlinks found below to work, you must be viewing this checklist online.

Steps

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[1]  Print a copy of the List of Possible Career Options (Form 2).

Click the link to the right.

List of Possible
Career Options

MS Word   PDF

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[2]  Review your interest assessment findings.

Review the two reports that you printed after completing The Perfect Career Interest Inventory and the Choices Planner Interest Profiler.

Check those occupations (job titles) on each report that seem interesting to you and are worthy of further research as possible career goals.  When finished, move on to the next step.

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[3]  Start your list of possible career options.

On your printed copy of the List of Possible Career Options (Form 2), record the job titles that you selected in the previous step.

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[4]  (Optional) Expand your list of possible career options.

If your list of possible career options contains 5 or less job titles, then we recommend that you expand your list to ensure that you have identified all possible career options.  To expand your list, please do the following:

1. When instructed to do so, visit the O*NET Online database (click link to the right).

2. Locate the Keyword search function (upper left hand corner).

3. Enter a word or phrase that describes one of your interests and click the GO button.

Examples: writing, helping people solve problems, math, traveling, wildlife.

 

For clues to your interests, refer to the Interest section on your Personality Style Profile (Form 1).

4. Review the list of suggested occupations that will appear.  (Click any job title for a description.)

5. Add any job title to your List of Possible Career Options (Form 2) that you find that is worthy of further consideration as a possible career goal.

6. Repeat the above process for all the interests that you recorded on your Personality Style Profile (Form 1).

Please completed this step now and move to the next step when finished.

O*NET Online

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[5]  What should you do next?

When you believe that your list of career options is sufficient, move on to Step 3: Research and profile your career options.