Career Services Office
Career Exploration
Additional Resources to Aid in Self-Assessment and Career Exploration
Meet with a Career Adviser
Next to informational interviewing, the best resource for self-assessment and career exploration is a career adviser. Talking about your interests, values and skills with someone else can be very valuable. Career services professionals are available in:
- The Graduate College for one-on-one advising.
- Numerous discipline-specific career services offices on campus (a comprehensive list on the Urbana campus may be found at www.careerservices.uiuc.edu/).
Many of these career services offices require you to be a registered student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in order to use their services. To make your meeting even more productive, take some time to explore the following resources for self-assessment and career exploration.
Self-Assessment
Assessment Inventories
In addition to the independent investigation, some students find inventories to be useful tools for the self-assessment process. Interest inventories can be especially useful in determining career paths. The following inventories are available at The Career Center:
Strong Interest Inventory (SII)
This inventory is based upon the premise that individuals achieve greater job satisfaction when pursuing tasks they enjoy and when working with people who have similar interests. The inventory contains about 300 questions and takes about twenty-five minutes to complete. Answers are compared to the responses of thousands of individuals who report high job satisfaction, and the inventory suggests optimum career choices based upon your answers.
Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
MBTI is an instrument for measuring a person's preferences, based upon four basic scales: (1) extraversion/introversion, (2) sensate/intuitive, (3) thinking/feeling, and (4) judging/perceiving. These scales result in sixteen discrete personality type combinations. Understanding the characteristics associated with your MBTI inventory may provide you with additional insight about your strengths, skills, and communication style.
Online Interests Questionnaires
Numerous online questionnaires are available to help you identify your interests and strengths on The Career Center's Web site at www.careercenter.uiuc.edu/findingpath/interests.asp.
Career Exploration
Internet Sites
The Internet is a great way to learn more about career options. A great place to start is the Chronicle article Where to Find Info on Nonacademic Careers. Additional sites include:
Chronicle of Higher Education - Career Network
Not-for-Profit Jobs
Philanthropy Careers
Idealist.org
NetImpact.org
Foundation Center
Realizing PostGraduate Talent -- UK
Science Jobs
ScienceCareers.org
Humanities
Sellout
WRK4US - archived discussions
Secondary Education
chronicle.com/jobs/2003/02/2003022601c.htm
Government
www.usajobs.opm.gov/
www.ourpublicservice.org/
Presidential Management Fellowship
Want Ads
Start looking at the want ads in the Sunday paper, particularly in larger markets like Chicago and New York. This can help you start imagining new career options and learn about new jobs.
Books
There are numerous books available for students considering careers outside academia. Some of the best are:
Basalla, Susan and Maggie Debelius. "So What Are You Going to Do With That?": A Guide to Career-Changing for M.A.s and Ph.D.s. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001.
Feibelman, P.J., A Ph.D. Is Not Enough! Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1993.
Fiske, Peter S., Put Your Science to Work: The Take-Charge Career Guide for Scientists. Washington, D.C., : AGU, 2001.
_____. To Boldly Go: a Practical Career Guide for Scientists. Washington, D.C.: AGU, 1996.
Robbins-Roth, Cynthia., ed. Alternative Careers in Science: Leaving the Ivory Tower. San Diego: Academic Press, 1998.
Rosen, Stephen and Paul, Celia. Career Renewal. Academic Press, 1998.
Government Research Directory, Edition 20. Gale, October 2006. [note: edition 19 also available, published June 2005.]
Goldman, Charles A. and Massy, William F. The Ph.D. Factory: Training and Employment of Science and Engineering Doctorates in the United States. Anker Publishing Company, Inc., 2001.
Schiebelbein, Joan. Putting Your Graduate Degree to Work. University of Alberta Press, 2001.
Professional Associations and Trade Journals
Trade journals and professional organizations can be powerful resources for career exploration. To learn more about professional organizations within a given field, look at Associations Unlimited, available online through the University of Illinois Library at www.galenet.com/servlet/AU?locID=uiuc. This is a good source to find associations on virtually any field or topic and provides a starting point for networking.
