Occupational Exploration

Occupational exploration is a way to learn about jobs and careers. For a given job, you can find information such as:

Training Needed

Expected Job Prospects

Education Needed

What Workers Do On The Job

Earnings

Working Conditions

Now that you know more about your skills, interests, and values, occupational exploration can help you match those characteristics to specific occupations.  Occupational exploration can also help you identify skills that you may want to improve.

There are many ways to find information about occupations.  These include:

Websites

Informational Interviews

Occupational Profiles (LinkedIn)

Career Fairs

Videos

Office Tours

Finding Occupational Information Online

In this activity you will be using different websites to research three occupations. First, download the Occupational Exploration Worksheet and print out three copies.  Use the worksheets to guide you as you gather information about your three occupations.

Here are some websites that are useful for researching occupations:

LinkedIn

LinkedIn lets you look up companies, employers, and employees. To look up companies in a specific field, click on the “jobs” tab, and in the “search jobs” field enter the field of work that you are interested in. Once you have found a company that matches with your interest and skills, you can search employees and see their profiles to give you a general idea of the job qualifications needed.

Occupational Outlook Handbook

The Occupational Outlook Handbook lets you search occupations by a number of different criteria.

America’s Career InfoNet

America’s Career InfoNet centers have been set up to help people get information on different careers, education opportunities, and various other opportunities. On the left-hand side of the home page, click on “Occupation Information” to start searching.

Massachusetts Career Information System

Massachusetts’ state website for career information offers occupational information, as well as information about degrees offered by colleges and universities in Massachusetts and across the U.S. There is also a wide variety of financial aid resources.  On the home page, click on either the “Adult” or “High School” user on the left side. On the next page, mid-way down, use the drop-down menu to highlight a town in Massachusetts, then enter its zip code, and indicate what type of user you are.  On the next page, click on “Occupations” on the left-hand side.

Online Videos

Watching someone going about the daily tasks of a job can be very informative and provide information that you might not get by simply reading about an occupation.  There are many videos of different occupations that you can view on the internet for free.

To help you think about whether an occupation is a good match for your skills, interests, and values, download the worksheet Using Videos to Learn About Occupations and print out three copies.  Use the worksheets to record what you observe when you watch videos about the three occupations you have chosen.

Three of the websites described above include videos about individual occupations.  The videos are found within the occupational descriptions on each website. Once again, here are links to the three websites with videos:

If you are an ex-offender or have been incarcerated check out our I am a Formerly Incarcerated Student page for more information.

What’s Next?

Now, it’s time to learn about Educational Planning!