Career Finder

What do you want to be?

Now that you have learned a lot more about who you are — your interests and values, your talents and skills, and your personal traits — you are ready to start exploring your career options.

But where do you start? Experts estimate that there are somewhere between 7,000 and 10,000 different occupations in today’s work world. That is a lot of starting points! Fortunately, you won’t have to go through all 10,000 options to find what’s right for you.

There are two main steps you will want to follow as you look for that perfect career:

  1. Create a list of different occupational choices that might match what you like and what you are good at. At this stage you should try to cast your net as wide as possible; you can throw away the little or unappealing fish later. You may already have some options in minds, but don’t forget that there are thousands of possibilities, and there may be some that you haven’t thought of that would be good career choices for you.
  2. Once you have hauled in your catch of possible occupations, your next step will be to sift through these and narrow down your options to the two or three most suitable candidates for your dream job. How do you do this? Research! This step is going to be time-consuming. But if you do your homework and spend a little time thoroughly researching and narrowing down your options, you just might end up with a lifetime of fulfillment and satisfaction rather than a lifetime of drudgery and regret. The choice is yours.

This process won’t be completely clear cut, and you might often find yourself going back and forth between the two steps. You might do a little research as you create your list of different occupations, and later, as you do your research, you may come across different occupations you want to add to your list from Step 1.

To help you minimize the time you have to spend in this stage of your career exploration, refer to your Student Success Plans and get help with both steps of the career exploration process.

Making Choices

You’ve come to the point where you have to make some choices. You’ve done a little “soul-searching” and learned more about yourself — what you like, what you’re good at, and what your values are. You’ve found some occupations that seem to match these aspects of your personality, and you’ve done the research and learned more about these particular occupations.

The next step is to evaluate your options and make a choice. Deciding on your future is a big step. It is a step you will have to make, but you will want to be sure you consider all the options and weigh the positive and negative aspects of each. Even then, there may not be one choice that stands out above all others. Your goal should be to find the most appropriate one, not the “correct” one. Here are some tips to help you make that decision:

  • Name your first choice
  • Name 2 or 3 alternatives
  • Test your choices by taking a summer job in the field(s), taking a course related to your choices, volunteer in the area, shadow someone who works at the occupation(s) or intern

What does the job market look like in Delaware?

So you have your top job choices named, and hopefully you’ve gained some type of first-hand experience. The next step is to research available opportunities in the job market. If you’re thinking about working in Delaware, check out another great Internet resource that provides the following information specific to Delaware:

  • Fastest-growing jobs
  • Jobs with the most openings
  • Highest-paying jobs
  • Education and training required for jobs
  • Delaware job resources

Another great Internet resource is the Education Planner site, by American Education Services.