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Career Planning


Self Exploration

The first step in choosing a career path is to learn a little more about yourself. What do you like? What is important to you? What are you good at? Before you can find a career that is right for you, you have to know who you are.

The next few pages contain some tools that will help you in your self-exploration. The more of these activities you complete, the clearer will be the picture of who you are.

A Note About These Tools: The most common problem people experience with the inventories is that the "javascript" and "cookies" functions have been disabled in their web browser (Netscape or Internet Explorer recommended) - these must be active for the inventories to work. (If you are working on a networked computer, these functions may have been disabled by the system administrator and will require that you contact said administrator.)

Another Note About These Tools: Another common problem experienced with the assessment/inventories is "user expectation." The inventories will not suggest a specific career (i.e. "You will be a nuclear physicist!"). They are tools to help you gather information about yourself. Career Planning is very much a process that will continue throughout your life. The more work and research you put into it now, the better off you will be in the future. The proceed buttons merely provide a summary of your answers, not an interpretation. The reliability and validity of the "results" then will be entirely dependent upon how honest one is when completing the checklists. Enjoy the trip!

Want an interesting career? Start by finding out what your interests are. Complete this activity to find out what turns you on.

Interest inventory
Work values inventory

Your values will also have a large impact on whether you find a particular career fulfilling. Here's an exercise to help you find out what is important to you.

Here is another activity to help you determine your priorities. This one concentrates on your lifestyles values.

Lifestyle values inventory
Transferable skills inventory

Interests and values are only one part of self-exploration. You will also want to know what you are good at. Start by identifying some of your transferable skills.

While some skills are transferable to many different situations, others are unique to particular jobs. This exercise will help you discover your job-related skills.

Functional skills inventory
Personal traits inventory Knowing your skills will help you understand what you are good at. Another important part of the puzzle is understanding how you do what you do: your style or personal traits.
Still want to find out more about yourself? The Internet has a lot of resources that can help you in your self-exploration. More self-exploration resources