2. Explore Your Career

After thoroughly examining your assignment, now it's time to look for some initial background research on your topic. Try a search in the following database to learn more about your topic.

Ferguson's Career Guidance Center
- This link opens in a new window
Provides detailed profiles of more than 3,300 jobs and 94 industries. Proxy Bypass

Analyze Your Career - Break it Down

Ferguson's has profiles of many different jobs. Each article provides some information about that job. The information in the entries varies somewhat, but here are some of the common sections you may encounter:

Job duties/description - what will you be doing?
Salary/earnings - how much money will you make?
Education/training/licensing - what education, training, or licensing does it take to get a job in this area?
Advancement - how do you move up or advance in this job to higher positions? is there room for growth?
Work environment - what will the environment be like? Is it inside/outside? Will I be sitting or standing? Is it very physical / labor intensive? What is the stress level like? etc.
Job Outlook - is this a growing or shrinking field? Will there be jobs in the future?
Skills/Personality Traits - what kind of skills or personality traits are required to be successful in this job?