Exploring Careers
Taking the time to research different careers will
enable you to make better decisions when applying to
internship or job opportunities. It is important
to utilize alumni, professors, family members, and
friends in discovering careers and what they entail.
Career Services can help you assess your skills and
interests, pinpoint careers, and give you additional
resources to learn more.
Getting Started
Understanding your own skills, interests, values,
and personality is the first step toward satisfying
work. Through a careful self-assessment, you can
begin to identify careers and industries to explore.
Developing your self-awareness can be as formal as
taking a personality or interest inventory or as
informal as participation in extracurricular
activities. Here are some suggestions that will help
you learn more about yourself and begin to link this
knowledge to possible careers:
- Inquire about the Strong Interest Inventory or the
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), two assessments
offered by Career Services.
- Visit the Career Planning sections of the Career
Resource Library in 740 Dowling Hall.
- Begin developing your resume or CV by consulting our
online CV and resume
resources.
Research - Getting to know the workplace
After learning more about yourself, you’re better
prepared to explore careers and how they match your
specific interests, skills, values, and personality.
To determine which
career fields may be a good fit, you must do your
homework. This involves researching the workplace
– specifically, the
knowledge, skills, abilities, interests, and work
values that are associated with various jobs.
Vary your research methods: read about careers, talk
to people in jobs and industries that appeal to you,
and gain hands-on experience to explore at a deeper
level. A thorough and varied exploration will offer
you the following rewards: a clearer focus for your
career-decision making, a more targeted and
manageable internship or job search, rich
information to leverage in cover letters and
interviews, and finally - work that you love. You
can get started with the following steps:
- Learn about majors and careers by and engaging
in discussions with faculty and fellow students and
through the Career
Services website, including online resources such as:
- Identify resources offered in specific industries –
professional associations, for example – or broader ones,
such as the government’s
Occupational
Network database. Use the
Tisch Library Career Resources page for
additional databases and materials.
- Use the
Tufts
Alumni Career Network, a database of over 8,000 alumni
who have volunteered to share their career
experiences. Read what they say, observe their
career paths, and note what those in your major are
doing. The most valuable learning will come from
Informational Interviews which you can arrange with
alumni working in areas that you’d like to explore.
- Gather information at
Career Fairs, Employer Presentations, and Alumni
Career & Networking Programs.
Experience - Exploring the workplace
Now, you’re ready to experience the workplace. You can gain this experience through an
internship, volunteer work, a part-time job, or
carefully chosen activities. Each of these options
can help you test what you’ve learned about yourself
and what you’ve learned about the workplace.
Begin by establishing goals based on your
self-awareness and exploration. Focus on
opportunities that require skills which you have
developed and enjoy using. Eliminate options that
seem incompatible with your interests, values, and
personality. Through direct experience, you’ll learn
more about careers that are a good match for you,
develop a professional network, and gain competitive
advantage. Here are some steps to consider:
Making Decisions
You’re ready to launch your job search. The
knowledge gained through self-awareness,
exploration, and experience has prepared you to make
wise career decisions. It has also provided you with
the tools and information to identify appropriate
employment targets and to understand why you’re a
good match for these positions, organizations, and
industries.
Conduct your job search like a marketing campaign,
with you as the product and employers as your target
markets. Your ‘market research’ during the
exploration you have done has taught you what your
target markets need and want. Now, it’s up to you to
demonstrate how you meet their needs (e.g., skills,
knowledge, experience) by employing self-marketing
techniques. Career Services offers you the support
to develop these techniques, from
writing effective
resumes and cover letters to mastering
networking
and interviewing skills.
Remember that the decisions you make today will not
define your entire career. Instead, focus on the
experiences you would like to gain over the next
couple of years. To prepare for life after Tufts,
Career Services recommends the following steps:
Career Services is a lifelong resource
for you.
Career Resources by Field
These are the recommended sites for researching
careers and finding links to internships and job
listings by career field. Some links also contain
related career resources for the particular field.
Not finding the field you're looking for?
Let us know and we can research it for you!
Career Spots
CareerSpots are streaming videos that give you the
practical information you need to aid you in a job or
internship search. Video topics are: Career Center
Benefits; Make Your Resume POP; The Elevator Pitch; How
to Research Companies; and Potential Perils of Social
Networking Sites. To access, login to
WebCenter and select
Career Services Web
Resources from the drop down menu.
|
