Job Shadowing

One of the best ways to learn about a career is by job shadowing. Job shadowing means that you --for one or more workdays-- work with a professional in their field. This will give you direct insight into what is required on the job and have an individual to give you their personal experience. Those are two strong reasons to try to do this as soon as possible in your professional development. You will be able to form your own personal opinion and have someone who does the job for a living give you theirs. But
prior to going on a shadowing experience, gather information about the organization. The shadowing experience will be more meaningful if you research the facts about what type of industry the organization is, what products or services it offers, and the organizational structure. Also don't be afraid to ask educated and well-thought-out questions during your job shadowing experience as it will make you more knowledgeable about the position. Finally develop your ability to work with persons of different educational, economic, cultural, religious, and ethnic backgrounds so this will remove any bias that you may have about the job based solely on the person you were shadowing.

If you have any of your own personal experiences job shadowing please feel free to comment. Also feel free to leave tips on how to be more effective as an individual who is shadowing a professional.

CareerCruising

The past few blogs have been centred around identifying skills and finding jobs where those skills can be used. For many, that's where the hurdle is. Not having been exposed to the actual work world, we really don't know too much about jobs that can utilize our unique talents. Fortunately there is a great website that can help with this and it's called CareerCruising. CareerCruising actually has its own questionnaire to help identify skills that you may have. If you feel that you have enough intrapersonal knowledge, then you can skip right ahead to finding jobs based on traits such as having the ability to work and process numbers quickly. Now CareerCruising is a pay-to-use site but fortunately, being Sheridan students, you can log on to the site using the link below and inputting your student number.

http://www.careercruising.com/home/Lib_Sch_Login.aspx?HTTP_REFERER=www.sheridancollege.ca

Please leave feedback about your personal experience using this website such as:
Was it helpful for you?
Is it easy to navigate?
Have you used  this site before?

Free Online Self Assessments

Previously I made a post that gave steps towards finding the right career for you. One idea I took personally from that was step #4: taking online self assessments. Again many people (myself included) already think we know where our strengths and weaknesses lie but I was shown different by some of the self assessment tests I had written online. I had discovered that I have a strong sense of teamwork and an ability to work cohesively with many different types of personalities. I also discovered that some times I may not clearly be able to communicate ideas I can bring forward in team meetings. So here is one of the online tests I wrote. Its absolutely free and will help you discover traits about yourself you may not have known existed. Post below with some of the findings you got from this test.

http://www.3smartcubes.com/pages/tests/career_skills/career_skills_instructions.asp

Some helpful Youtube videos

Now reading blogs and articles on  career selection can get boring. So to switch things up a little, I have linked two very short videos that are actually incredibly insightful.

Please take a look at the video link below. It's 6 simple steps (for step 5 you have to look at the Canadian equivalent). Overall the steps look simple and can easily be dismissed as "useless" but I would highly encourage everyone to legitimately try this.

In this video the commenter goes on about how you really have to remain true to yourself in order to properly screen what maybe the right job for you.

Career Coaching

Hey guys,

The idea behind this blog is to get you help in possibly finding the right job/career for you in the future. So to start this off, i would like to just ask a few simple questions just to get this going:

1. What career are you thinking of pursuing in the future?
2. What made you choose this career?
3. Have you had any guidance to selecting this career?
4. And if so, who did you ask/what service did you use?

I will do my best to give you feedback and possible advice that I can offer you but take it with a grain of salt. Do your best to inquire about where you plan to be in the future because it affects you directly. Further on in other blog posts, I will talk more about the advice that was given in the book and other online sources that I found very helpful on this topic. I will also welcome any resources or advice that you can offer on this topic.