Pick of the week!

I'm starting a new thing, inspired by some other blogs I follow. Basically I'm going to pick something awesome every week to highlight which is book or library related. It can be a website, book, program, database, whatever!

The very first pick of the week is:

Career Cruising

Career Cruising is a database which does what it sounds like: helps you cruise for careers. But that's not all! Not only can you take fun quizzes which will let you know which careers may be a good fit for you (I got fashion designer, probably because I love sewing and being creative) you can also work on your resume, research careers and find out what classes you need to be taking NOW in order to become an architect or librarian or engineer. It also has interviews with people in that career field, which is kind of neat.

It's really easy to use and more fun than I was expecting. Okay, off to pursue my career in fashion design (kidding. Librarian is the best fit for me). Let me know what career it thinks you should have!

Career Help!

So according to the latest poll, I lot of people are sort of iffy on what they want to do with their life. Luckily you have a bit of time to figure it out and there's awesome resources to help you.

Career Cruisers is an awesome database that has lots of information on what sorts of courses you need to be taking now to get your dream job.

To get there - on our main page (hpl.ca) click on Online Resources (near the top in blue). On the left hand side, click on Jobs and Careers. Scroll until you see Career Cruisers (or click here).

If you already know what job you're thinking about, click Explore Careers. You can narrow it down my exact job or classes that you like taking or by cluster such as Science and Engineering.

If you're curious what sorts of jobs you might be good at, click Assessment at the top of the page. You can do a career matchmaker in about 2 minutes to see what fields you may want to look at. When I did this in highschool, I got CEO as the top of my list (watch out, Ken Roberts!). I just did it now and I got:

1. Website Designer
2. Industrial Designer
3. Desktop Publisher

Interestingly, I have done website design in the past and as much as I would love to be a designer, I really don't think I have the skills there. If you don't like your answers, you can fill out more questions to narrow it down. It's not perfect - Clergy is my #19, despite not being religious (but I do like helping people, so that's where that comes in). When I answered more questions, it came up with new suggestions (including Fashion Designer - Project Runway here I come!).

Librarian is nowhere on my list sadly, even though we're creative, helpful people. However if you know what you want to do, you can then see how that career matches up with your skills/interests by clicking "See how other careers match up with my answers".

If I search for a career - say, Fashion Designer - it gives me Core Tasks, Workplace (what kind of hours, environment, etc), Earnings, Education and Training, and Attributes and Abilities. If you click on MORE for Education, it will tell you exactly what course you should think about taking in each grade which I find super useful. It even gives you what schools in Canada offer courses in that field (I could study fashion design at Ryerson, for instance).

Hope you have fun exploring and find the career for you!