Career Planning Websites

Preparing for a Career

As noted in the Parent Guide to Careers, it is important for your child to start preparing for a career at an early age. This doesn't mean that a child should have to make important career decisions right off the bat. On the contrary, preparing for a career involves self-discovery, self-assessment, and research before any important decisions are made. You can help your child do these three things by using Florida eChoices.

Florida eChoices www.florida.echoices.com. Florida eChoices is arguably the best career exploration resource available on the Internet. The website is highly recommended for use by every Take Stock in Children student. As a parent, you can help your child make good decisions based on the information that this website can produce. Follow these steps and use these tools to get the most from this site:

1. Interest Profiler The Interest Profiler is a good place to start. It will help your child discover his or her interests and relate them to various types of work.
2. Work Importance Locator This tool identifies your child's "work values." These are the things he or she values about a job or career.
3. Transferable Skills Checklist This is an excellent self-assessment tool. Your child can use it to decide how his or her skills can be used in various types of work.
4. Career Exploration/Occupations This tool lets you search occupations and identify career paths necessary to enter specific career fields.
5. Planning/Planner This will help you and your child do educational planning, build a resume, and create a career plan online.

Explore Careers

You and your child can explore careers using the following websites:

1. Beginning Search www.overview.com/colleges
2. Advanced Search www.acinet.org/acinet
3. General Search www.stats.bls.gov/emphome.htm

Identify Career Interests

The following sites are good places to visit if you and your child want to focus on matching interests to careers.

1. www.bgsu.edu/offices/sa/career/process/step1.html
2. www.montana.edu/wwwcp/selfas.html