Step Two – Exploring Options
Watch the brief video below to learn more about Career Pathways in our region.
Once you have a good idea of your interests, abilities, skills and needs, the next step is to explore options based on what you’ve learned. There are many great websites and local resources that can help you explore. Here are a few:
1. Traitify
Hopefully you’ve already completed the personality assessment, but did you take the time to look through the career matches? Each career you review has information about salary, education levels and more. Some include links to local employers and other local information. Each career has links for O*Net (national career information) and NCWorks.gov (local job listings). There are also great worksheets which can be used to help further this exploration. Self-Discovery Guide will help students think about how their personalities match with a variety of careers, as well as the types of work environment they prefer. Profiling One Career is a great deep-dive to get a lot more information about a career you are interested in. Most of the information can be found on O*Net. Doing several of these worksheets for different careers can help you make a more informed decision about which to pursue.
2. NCCareers.Org
This website has many different options available for exploring.
a. Career Clusters Match – Uncover which Career Clusters match your combination of work, skill, and academic interests. The National Career Clusters Framework identifies 16 career clusters and related career pathways that are designed to grow career awareness and exploration. Career Clusters are groups of occupations in the same field of work that require similar skills. Each cluster contains several smaller groups called career Pathways that connect to educational programs, industries, and jobs. While a Career Cluster paints a broad picture of a group of occupations, a Pathway helps you focus on and develop a clear, more informed, educational plan over time.
b. Occupations – Search for an occupation from over 800 job titles or browse the fastest growing jobs in North Carolina. Filter and sort results by: location, career cluster, star rating (a composite rating of occupations computed by LEAD), salary range, education level, interests and/or abilities.
3. CFNC.org
Click here to explore colleges across from across the state. You can see tuition costs, number of students and a lot more information.
4. College Scorecard
Use this US Department of Education website to learn more about colleges and apprenticeships throughout the United States.
5. Career Village
CareerVillage.org‘s mission is to democratize access to career information and advice for underrepresented youth. We do that by crowdsourcing the answers to every question from every student about every career. Together, we’re building a massive open-access reference source that every online learner can access anytime, anywhere. Join our movement of over 4,000,000 learners and over 50,000 volunteers.
6. NCWorks Career Centers
NCWorks Career Centers offer a variety of FREE services to assist people looking for work. This includes job market information, career assessments, workshops and sometimes training opportunities. Visit https://next.ncworks.gov/jobseekers/ to learn more or visit your local NCWorks Career Center.
Click the link for addresses, contact information and social media links for our regional NCWorks Career Centers.
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