You have taken the time to get to know yourself better through self assessment. (Refer to the Self Assessment section if you haven't.) The results from self assessment have created some ideas about possible career options — or maybe you have some from childhood dreams or suggestions from family and friends. Undoubtedly you already have a fairly good understanding of what some of the suggested occupations involve, while others may be less familiar to you. Before making any decisions, you owe it to yourself to learn as much as you can about each field that interests you (and maybe about a couple that don't interest you, simply because you don't know enough about them).
Career Research Plan - a template for keeping track of your research
Online Resources
Career Cruising
Welcome page > in the left navigation "What do you want to do?"> "Learn About Careers">"Explore Careers"
The" Explore Careers" section gives you several different ways to search for careers:
Keyword search - alphabetical index
- Search by school subject - to see which careers it might lead to
- Career cluster search - such as Arts & Culture, Law & Government
- Career Selector - Search for careers based on a variety of criteria, like earnings, core tasks, and more.
Each in-depth occupation profile includes the following information:
- Job Description
- Working Conditions
- Earnings
- Education & Training
- Direct links to related college and university programs
- Sample Career Path
- A list of related occupations
- Links to other sources of information
- Multimedia interviews (2 per occupation)
Sector Councils
Operating at an arm’s length from the Government of Canada, sector councils are national partnership organizations that bring together business, labour and educational stakeholders. They can be found representing key sectors of the Canadian economy such as biotechnology, environment, mining, automotive, and more. The Links section lists websites of specific sectors.
National Occupational Classification (NOC)
The National Occupational Classification (NOC) contains information on approximately 40,000 occupational titles. Some of these titles are clearly occupations, such as librarian and chef, while others reflect specializations within an occupational area, such as music librarian and pastry chef. Still others represent a range of jobs, such as furniture assembler and sawmill machine operator. Each occupation title has a description of the main duties, employment requirements, and other similar titles. Visit the NOC website for more information.
Government of Canada Job Bank
This website created by the Canadian government contains information about careers, job search, and labour market trends. In the Explore Careers section of this site, you can find available jobs, wages, outlooks, and job requirements specific to an occupation.
Informational Interviews
One of the best ways to learn about your options is to have conversations with people. This is known as informational interviewing. By talking to people in your fields of interest, you can determine whether an occupation, industry or company is a good fit for you. You can also find out if further education would be beneficial, and specifically what programs are valued. Developing these connections adds to the network of people who may be helpful to you in your future work search.