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Career Planning and Preparation: Explore Careers

Researching Career Choices

In a perfect world the career you pursue will give you purpose. To help you find a career that will give you that purpose you will want to conduct research. There are many outlets of information when researching a career -- magazine & journal articles; encyclopedias; directories; job advertisements; and much more. Things to explore :

Library Databases

Use the library's database subscriptions to research your career selection.  

    • For example: if you are interested in the outlook for graduates with an accounting degree--use EBSCO's Business Source Complete or the Proquest Accounting & Tax databases. Try typing in a search such as accountants and demand.  Talk to a librarian if you need help getting started.

Government Sources

  • One great starting place is the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Outlook Handbook.  Published each year, this directory profiles many jobs for a variety of elements -- career outlook, salary range and skills needed.  
  • Another US DOL resource is O*Net OnLine, a searchable database of occupations which can be searched by skill-set, interests, work experience, education and more.  O*Net also has a special database for Veterans to help chart how to use specialized military skills after service has ended. 
  • Take a Skills Assessment at CareerOneStop, use the Skills Profiler to create a list of your skills and match them to job types that use those skills. 

Catalog Search

Search the Library Catalog for books, ebooks, and DVDs. 

Books in the library