careernav.

By Anne Parker

Where do you get RELIABLE career information and what is it?

There’s a lot of it out there but is it reliable? For example it’s interesting to talk to your subject teachers about the courses they did but courses change and it’s quite likely that their knowledge is out of date. Similarly, speaking to someone about the training they did even 5 years s ago is probably dated.

To have the most recent and accurate information on courses and training you need to go to the institution’s website, visit the future students course centre at the institution or speak to your careers teacher or counsellor if you have one. There are other sources but in terms of reliability always go to the source i.e. the organization running the training or course.

For an accurate description of an occupation, go to the careerNAV website www.careernav.com.au and navigate yourself through the 150 career and occupation profiles. Whilst your there check out the life skills and the success stories of young Australians. Also get hold of the Jobguide, it’s excellent. Updated annually, it’s given free to every year 10 student in Australia. It will also be found in your careers room at school or you can find it online at: www.deewr.gov.au

To gain a sense of what the daily tasks are for a particular job you can’t beat doing work experience or if that’s not possible the next best source are people who currently work in that field. Also don’t be fooled by the glamorization of jobs that are portrayed in TV shows! They don’t tell it like it really is.

Sponge or clam –what are you?

Most schools run careers programs which often involve guest speakers who come and talk about their careers and how they got to where they are. Your school or community may hold a careers night or EXPO. Whatever is offered take advantage and SOAK IT UP! Be open to everything especially if you are clueless about what it is you want to do after school.

Other resources to look out for are: open days at tertiary institutions, Career Expos, course and training information sessions. They are all advertised in major newspapers and on their own websites.

The job market: glut of famine?

When considering what career to pursue it’s good to know a bit about your chances of employment, work conditions and pay.  Don’t use this information as the sole basis for choosing a career though. There’s not much point in becoming a plumber because there’s a shortage and it’s a well paid job if you’re not suited to the work and conditions You have to like the work and be good at it too. A few good sources of information for this are:

• Australian Jobs (the latest edition). It gives a lot of statistical information about labour market trends and average earnings from data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. It’s online at www.workplace.gov.au and in school career centres.
• The professional association or trade union of interest to you – try Googling
• www.workplace authority.gov.au

Combining forces

Earlier I pointed out that you have skills and personal attributes that are transferable to the workplace. At times you can combine interests, knowledge, beliefs and attitudes with your work For example I once listened to a young woman explain how she became an employee at a marine park. Initially she completed a science degree and one of her interests was scuba diving. This combination led her to being employed at the marine park. What a great thing to do!

Engineers without borders is an example of an organization that brings together  a desire to help those less fortunate  with  much needed skills and knowledge in engineering.

Another factor to consider when gathering career information is what working conditions do you want for yourself? What do you want to wear a suit, a uniform or casuals? Do you prefer to be mostly inside or outdoors, sitting or being active, using your brain or swinging an axe (so to speak), being in the country or a city, on the coast or inland?

Do you need to factor in a disability or circumstances that may limit where and what you do?

Reality check

Whatever career or course that you end up choosing to pursue if you don’t have the necessary level of education, the pre requisite subjects for the course, the ENTER score, the personal presentation and other personal attributes stated  then forget it, you won’t be considered.

Pearls of wisdom

• Set up a career folio for storing the information you gather. If you go one step further and arrange the information alphabetically it will be easy to find when you need it. You could do this on your PC too and have a list of favourite sites.
•  To locate a private career practitioner visit www.cdaa.org.au these practitioners are all registered with the Career Development Association of Australia (CDAA).