career exploration research

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Using Your Research Skills for Career Exploration

By  Tina Solvik

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For many graduate students, career exploration can feel like an indefinite challenge. How do you explore the unknown? Where do you begin to identify and keep track of the available options? Career exploration tools and resources exist in abundance, but how can you understand what to use and when? And when do you know that the search is over and you can now make a decision?

When advising students new to considering their career options, I sought a methodology that would resonate with them. For long-term implementation and success, is there a career exploration framework that is logical, accessible and empowering?

The career exploration road map allows for visual mapping of the stages of career exploration, from assessing one’s interests through securing a job offer. Career exploration can also be compared to scientific experimentation , where one gathers information, does the experiment and assesses.

Those two examples inspired me to create a new framework that combines the strengths of both: a visual, iterative approach that connects career exploration to a graduate student’s strength in research. By framing career exploration as another research project to undertake while pursuing your Ph.D., you can immediately understand the nature of career exploration. It requires information gathering and assessment, can have unexpected discoveries, and is a long-term process.

This framework, like a research project, is broken down into five recognizable steps, and while they have a sequence, the process is often iterative. Many research projects deliver unexpected findings that require you to return to the drawing board and explore a new angle within the project, and career exploration is no different. The language in this framework is designed to resonate with all students, regardless of discipline, hence the use of language such as “data collection” instead of “experimentation.” Finally, the framework is career-neutral and can apply equally to careers in academe, industry, government or the nonprofit sector -- or all at once.

Step No. 1: Conduct initial review of research topic. To identify a research question, a graduate student will first survey their research topic using a literature review. That process allows you to elucidate what you know, what you do not know and what you can predict about the unknown -- which together inform your research question. In career exploration, the research topic has two elements: yourself and the career options available. The initial review phase involves assessing your professional and personal identity as well as familiarizing yourself with the myriad careers that graduate students may pursue. But rather than reading hundreds of articles about different careers and reflecting on which may be most interesting to study further, you need only to find a career self-assessment that most aligns with your field of study.

Most career self-assessments explore three key questions: what are you good at (i.e., skills), what do you enjoy doing (i.e., interests) and what is important to you in your work life (i.e., values). These three elements of your identity can help you identify an ideal job. For humanists and social scientists, there is ImaginePhD , an online career exploration and planning tool where students can assess their career-related skills, interests and values and compare those answers to 15 different job families to identify areas of alignment and misalignment. Scientists often use myIDP , where taking self-assessments of your skills, interests and values produces a ranked list of 20 career paths. A similar assessment, focusing on skills and values, exists for chemical scientists through ChemIDP . The benefit of such an approach is that you can reflect on your identity in a guided way and find language to describe what matters most in your career. This process of self-reflection is vital before exploring careers in depth.

Step No. 2: Form your research question. Graduate students use the process of literature reviews to identify their research question and make informed predictions about the answer they will test during the data collection and analysis phase. In framing your career exploration question, you will identify your most significant skills, interests and values from the initial review phase and use those as the benchmark by which you conduct your career research.

In this research process, the question is “How does a career in (fill in the blank here: nonprofit management, teaching-intensive faculty, consulting) fit my skills, interests and values?” The career self-assessments are helpful in streamlining career options from many to a few based on an initial review of your identity. However, to make an informed career decision, a deeper analysis using a variety of sources is required -- hence the career research project. At this stage, you can decide to focus on one career exploration question at a time or to investigate several in parallel.

Step No. 3: Collect data. Gathering data for a research project incorporates a variety of qualitative and quantitative methodologies, such as close reading, ethnographic research or wet laboratory or computational techniques. Similarly, data collection for career exploration can involve a variety of methodologies.

The four main methodologies include reading online or book sources, attending career-related events, conducting informational interviews, and completing experiential learning opportunities. These four methods exist along a spectrum of both the time required and the utility of the information in making career decisions. Online articles or resources can be easy to access but offer a limited amount of information. Informational interviewing and experiential learning are more time-intensive yet enable you to tailor the information you collect to your own interests, skills and values and thereby make a more informed decision. Career exploration is most effective when several of these methodologies are applied.

I recommend you begin your data collection with web and book resources, such as VersatilePhD (which features real-life narratives and application materials of graduate students who began careers outside academe), Aurora (which has a video library of around 200 career interviews with Ph.D.s), and books like Career Opportunities in Biotechnology and Drug Development . Career-related events like panels of people with advanced degrees discussing various jobs, employer information seminars or networking mixers enable you to begin asking your own questions about your career interests to professionals and career advisers.

Informational interviewing is one of the most powerful methodologies you can apply, as you can identify interviewees with relevant backgrounds and skill sets to meet with and ask questions specific to your top skills, interests and values. But it’s important to note that, just like in any research study, one qualitative data point is not sufficient. You should therefore interview multiple professionals before drawing any conclusions about a career.

Last, experiential learning can be a highly valuable way to confirm or challenge your interest in a career. While internships can be extremely valuable, not all students have the time or ability to work full- or part-time for an organization while completing their dissertation. In that case, short-term and project-based experiential learning, such as InterSECT Job Simulations , can enable you to get hands-on experience in a job without the time commitment of an internship.

With career exploration as a research project of its own sort, I highly recommend graduate students establish their own research notebook or folder. Whether you use a spiral-bound notebook, a Word document, an Excel sheet or a folder on your computer or in the cloud, save helpful resources, document any findings and record self-reflections. With an up-to-date notebook, you can always return to your career research without losing progress -- even if you have to pause for a few weeks or months -- or pick it back up later in life as you prepare for another career transition.

Step No. 4: Analyze data. Just as significant in any research project as data collection is data analysis: to find answers to your research question, you apply an analytical framework to conclude meaning and significance from the data. In career exploration, this process requires extensive self-reflection. At this stage, the value of the self-assessment performed at the beginning becomes clear.

In the analysis phase of career exploration, you apply your understanding of your top skills, interests and values to the variety of data points you have collected to interrogate whether they align. That involves asking questions such as: “Does this career allow me to frequently perform responsibilities or tasks that I find interesting?” “Do I have the skills, or the opportunity to develop the skills, needed for success in this career?” “Would I enjoy working with the people I have met in this career?” “Do jobs and organizations in this field support the professional values most important to me?” You may approach this phase of self-reflection in different ways, including journaling, writing pro and con lists, or discussing ideas with a trusted contact or a career adviser.

Step No. 5: Summarize findings (and refine your research question). At the end of a research project, graduate students summarize their analysis and discuss their conclusions to provide an answer to the research question and identify their future directions to answer remaining questions. Career exploration is also iterative in the same way.

You may conclude that the first career you have investigated is a seamless fit with your skills, interests and values and the logical next step is to prepare to apply for roles in that field. More often, however, the process of career exploration reveals information about a career that negates it as an option. You may also uncover additional aspects of your identity and preferences that you realize are critical to consider when weighing career options.

Like a research project, career exploration may deviate from the expected course and reveal that your predictions were wrong or you should ask other, more interesting questions instead. Furthermore, the answer to your career research as a graduate student may not be the same answer in two, five or 10 years, once you have gained further professional experience. In those cases, your skill as a researcher who is adaptable and determined will help you appreciate those new discoveries and refine your research question to resume again.

Career exploration may be the ultimate research project you embark on, as it can continue throughout your life as your identity evolves and you consider new career opportunities. As a graduate student, your hard-won skills in conducting research will equip you well for this endeavor over the course of your career.

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OPINION article

Career exploration of high school students: status quo, challenges, and coping model.

• 1 School of Education Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China
• 2 Center for Research and Reform in Education, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, United States
• 3 School of Teacher Education, Nanjing Xiaozhuang University, Nanjing, China
• 4 Institute of Mathematics and Physics, Beijing Union University, Beijing, China

Introduction

Future career choices of teenagers have always been the focus of researchers ( Pânişoara et al., 2013 ). In 2014, China proposed a new policy for the reform of the New College Entrance Examination (NCEE), which clearly pointed out that students should choose their appropriate subjects for future study and their development and put forward higher requirements for their self-interest and future career development ( Wang, 2021 ). The new model of subjects selection provides more choices, which not only challenges schools and teachers, but also puts forward higher requirements for the ability of the students for career exploration ( Jian, 2020 ). The selection of subjects will affect the future academic achievements, majors, and employment in universities of the students ( Chen et al., 2021 ). Career exploration is one of the hot research topics in the field of career development in recent years ( Jiang et al., 2019 ) and is considered as a great impetus to the adaptive development of people ( Guan et al., 2018 ), which refers to the process that an individual explores the environment related to himself/herself and career development under the impetus of exploration motivation (mainly professional exploration in high school) ( Derevensky and Coleman, 1989 ; Qu and Zou, 2009 ). Under the background of NCEE reform, it is particularly important for high school students to master and apply the ability of career exploration ( Chen et al., 2021 ). After combing the concept, structure, measurement, and influencing factors of career exploration, this study planned to explore the challenges faced by high school students in China, put forward an opinion, and established a new coping model suitable for the career exploration of high school students, to provide help to them for discipline selection and future development.

Literature Review

Concept of career exploration.

The research of career exploration originated from the theory of career development ( Jordaan, 1977 ; Nevill, 1997 ; Super and Jordaan, 2007 ), which divided personal career development into five stages as follows: growth, exploration, establishment, maintenance, and decline ( Hansen, 1993 ; Beale, 1998 ). The career exploration period (15–24 years old) is an important preparation stage ( Gottfredson, 1981 ), and it is also an important period for high school students to know themselves and explore their majors under the NCEE ( Darolia and Koedel, 2018 ; Liu and Helwig, 2020 ). Career exploration, which refers to a kind of psychological or physical activity taken by individuals to achieve career goals, including information seeking, self-cognition, and environment ( Phillips, 1982 ; Blustein, 1992 ; Gross-Spector and Cinamon, 2018 ). Then according to this definition, scholars put forward that the process of career exploration should pay attention to three contents, as follows: information seeking, self-cognition, and environmental cognition ( Blustein, 1989 ). Corresponding to high school students, it mainly involves several aspects, such as the exploration of University majors, the pursuit of subjects selection, self-cognition, and understanding of future University learning environments ( Lau et al., 2021 ).

Career exploration of high school refers to a kind of physical or psychological activity that high school students carry out to achieve the optimization of future college professional learning choices, including the process of self-cognition, college professional information collection, and college learning environment cognition. In the process of exploration, the abilities of self-perception, self-reflection, self-matching, and self-regulation can be formed.

Structure of Career Exploration

Nowadays, researchers have different views on the structure of career exploration, which mainly includes content orientation, process orientation, and general orientation ( Sugalski and Greenhaus, 1986 ).

In terms of content orientation, career exploration is a simple behavior, including the exploration of self and surrounding environment, emphasizing the object to be explored ( An and Lee, 2017 ). Parsons proposed that the exploration objects of individuals in career development include not only their own interests and abilities but also career-related information, which can make a reasonable match between individuals and careers ( Parsons, 1909 ; Baker, 2009 ). There are also researchers in China who divide career exploration into self-exploration and environment exploration from the content ( Jiwen Song and Werbel, 2007 ). Self-exploration refers to the development of self-information, the definition of values, interests, personality characteristics, abilities, life type tendencies, etc. ( Blustein, 1989 ). Environmental exploration includes paying attention to and collecting information related to occupation, work, and organization ( Teixeira and Dias, 2011 ; Xu et al., 2014 ).

In terms of process orientation, researchers pay close attention to the process and dynamics of career exploration, emphasize the continuous development of individuals, obtaining information, and finally determining career goals ( Blustein, 1989 ; Ketterson and Blustein, 1997 ). Career exploration theory put forward that it should pay attention to the belief and process of career exploration, and focus on the initial motivation. Career exploration development theory focused on the process and reflection of career exploration and the gains after exploration. Both theories provide an important theory and foundation for this study, that is, career exploration needs to pay attention to three dimensions, including belief, process, and reflection. ( Stumpf et al., 1983 ; Flum and Blustein, 2000 ).

In terms of general orientation, the meta model of career exploration is representative of integration orientation, which pointed out that there was still no clear and unified structure in the field of career exploration. Its purpose was not to present new knowledge but to organize existing information and integrate it into a systematic pattern. So a meta model of career exploration divided career exploration into two parts, namely, self and environment. There are four stages in each exploration, such as concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and positive experience. The activities and tasks of individuals in exploring themselves and the environment are different ( Atkinson and Murrel, 1988 ). To sum up, career exploration should include two subdimensions, belief and process while focusing on personal exploration and environmental exploration (Model composition 1).

Measurement of Career Exploration

Up to now, there are more and more empirical studies on career exploration, but no measurement tools of various types. The main research types can be divided into three types, namely, career exploration survey (CES), career development inventory (CDI), and self-developed measures.

In terms of CESs, with the maturity of the theoretical research on career exploration, researchers have developed several scales to test the level of career exploration. Stumpf et al. (1983) developed the 59-item CES to capture three major categories of exploration, including the exploration process, reactions to exploration, and beliefs about exploration ( Stumpf et al., 1983 ). Since its establishment, the CES has become the leading means of career exploration. On the one hand, more and more empirical studies have completely adopted all the topics of CES and obtained different experimental results ( Nauta, 2007 ; Praskova et al., 2015 ; Lent et al., 2017 ). On the other hand, many studies adjust and delete items in the subdimensions of self-exploration and environmental exploration to suit different types of subjects ( Werbel, 2000 ; Zikic and Klehe, 2006 ). However, the long process of CES leads to its limitations in empirical research. Although more and more researchers focus on one of the subdimensions, it cannot solve the overall understanding of career exploration ( Jiang et al., 2019 ). Therefore, the recent research began to seek a shorter experimental way of career exploration.

In terms of CDI, it is an American instrument designed to measure the vocational maturity of adolescents ( Super, 2007 ; Hansen, 2018 ). Resource search, one of its subscales, is often used to measure career exploration. Since the scale has many topics and different measurement contents, later researchers developed a shorter scale, which has also been used in empirical studies from many countries, including Australia ( Patton et al., 2004 ; Rogers et al., 2018 ), Swiss ( Hirschi, 2011 ), Italy ( Chiesa et al., 2016 ), China ( Chen et al., 2021 ), and so on. Compared with CES, CDI emphasizes the exploration or thinking of external resources rather than individuals in the process of career exploration ( Jiang et al., 2019 ). Another problem worthy of pointing out is that the validity of this subscale of CDI is questionable because most projects involve how the information sources are provided, or belief in work or occupation, so there is no clear assessment of the degree of active participation of individuals in career exploration. In view of these limitations, researchers should be cautious when using the career exploration subscale of CDI as a research tool in future work.

In addition to the above two main measurements, researchers have developed some self-developed measures to evaluate career exploration. Most of these CES subscales have something in common, mainly including self-exploration and environmental exploration, which are particularly related to behaviors in the process of career exploration but pay little attention to attitudes and beliefs. The existing self-developed measures mainly include 6-item scales ( Yuen et al., 2010 ; Rojewski et al., 2014 ), 13-item scales ( Tracey et al., 2006 ), and 24-item scales ( Vignoli et al., 2005 ). However, unlike CES and CDI, these new measures have not been widely adopted. It is worth noting that the existing research on career exploration of high school students mainly focuses on the measurement of exploration behavior and belief ( Phillips and Blustein, 1994 ; Brown et al., 1999 ), and has not developed a scale or interview more suitable for high school students. To sum up, career exploration should include reflection (Model composition 2).

Influencing Factors of Career Exploration

The research on the influencing factors of career exploration mainly focuses on family and individual factors ( Ingrid, 2004 ), and this study mainly reviews the research in this field from these two aspects. However, in the background of the NCEE, the importance of peer groups and schools to individual career exploration, especially for high school students, cannot be ignored, which is a very important part of future research and practice ( Lazarides et al., 2015 ).

In the past, the research on family factors mainly includes two types: construct variables and process variables. On the one hand, there are some evidence which showed that family economic status, working status of parents, and education level can affect the career exploration of teenagers. For example, family economic status was confirmed as a powerful predictor of career exploration and choice, which pointed out middle-class parents will consciously participate in the development of children and provide them with an activity place for interest and ability development, whereas working-class parents tend to regard the development of children as a natural process ( Phillips et al., 2002 ). The work experience, employment status, and working conditions of parents have a direct or indirect influence on the career exploration and development of teenagers ( Corey and Chen, 2019 ; Wang et al., 2019 ). On the other hand, it involves parent–child attachment, parental support, and parenting style ( Lindstrom et al., 2007 ; Gagnon et al., 2019 ). For example, parental behaviors predicted the change in career exploration of German ninth graders over the observed period. Moreover, frequent talks with peers about career-related issues were significantly associated with the intensity of information-seeking behaviors and, at the same time, predicted intensification of occupational exploration during the following 6-month period ( Kracke, 2002 ). These two aspects influence each other and play an irreplaceable role in the career development of teenagers.

Previous studies have shown that individual factors affecting career exploration mainly include gender, identity, personality, individual development initiative, career self-efficacy, and so on ( Wang et al., 2019 ; Chen et al., 2020a , b ). For example, compared with boys, girls reported more negative certainty and expectation of results. Moreover, girls show less satisfaction with the information they get and experience more pressure to explore and make decisions ( Lim and Lee, 2021 ). In addition to the Big Five factors, optimism and self-esteem are also the personality factors concerned. Nauta (2007) explored the relationship between the five personalities of college students and career exploration, and found that there was no significant correlation between personality and environmental exploration, whereas openness was positively correlated with self-exploration, and extroversion was negatively correlated with self-exploration ( Nauta, 2007 ). Mota et al. (2012) pointed out that there is a correlation between career exploration, career decision-making difficulties, and career indecision level of 9th-grade Portuguese students. This intervention can effectively enhance the understanding of teenagers of career roles and help them make active decisions ( Mota et al., 2012 ). However, there are different conclusions. Reed et al. (2004) found that responsibility and extroversion are positively correlated with environmental exploration, and openness is positively correlated with self-exploration ( Reed et al., 2004 ). To sum up, career exploration should include personal characteristics (such as interests and personality) and environmental factors (such as University and professional information) (Model composition 3).

Methodology

In order to effectively collect literature on career exploration in high schools, this study was carried out by following the reporting checklist of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis (PRISMA) guidelines ( Moher et al., 2014 ; Chen et al., 2020a ). The literature search, screening, and clustering methods employed in the systematic review are summarized in Figure 1 and described in more detail below.

Figure 1 . Flow chart of the study selection process.

Literature Search

The purpose of the systematic review is to discover the development status and challenges of career exploration in high schools. Three groups of search terms are defined, which are as follows: “career exploration,” “new college entrance examination,” and “ subjects selection.” The list of search terms includes words related to all learning theories known by the author. Search is limited to articles written in English and Chinese from Chinese authors and published from January 2000 to July 2021. The data come from Web of Science and CNKI. The initial literature search was conducted from January 2010 to March 2020 and then supplemented in July 2021. The initial search produced a total of 503 papers (235 from Web Of Science and 268 from CNKI).

Screening of Titles and Abstracts

The titles and abstracts of the articles identified by the literature search were screened by hand using the following inclusion and exclusion criteria: (1) research topics must be career exploration, college entrance examination, personal exploration, or University major selection; (2) the research object must be Chinese high school students; (3) papers must be published in journal articles, conference documents or dissertations, etc.; (4) the article must be in English or Chinese. Screening of titles and abstracts reduced the set of relevant articles to 94.

Screening of Full Articles

Two authors were assigned to each of the learning theories. Both authors read all of the articles in their category and excluded any article that was deemed not relevant to career exploration. Articles that included high school students were not excluded if they also included younger or older participants. Both theoretical and empirical studies were included. Screening reduced the set of relevant articles to 13.

The Challenges in Career Exploration of High School

After analyzing the literature review and the literature collected about career exploration in this study, this study summarizes it into three challenges, which are described as follows:

Not Enough Attention to the Career Exploration of High School

Under the premise of realizing self-cognition, high school students can stimulate their inner needs and become interested in themselves, thus forming the inner motive force for career exploration ( Creed et al., 2007 ). The career planning education of high school includes five basic contents, such as self-cognition, academic mastery, major exploration, career planning, and life planning ( Gu et al., 2020 ). Through the six steps of “self-awareness, world awareness, the initial establishment of career goals, decision-making, action and implementation, evaluation and adjustment,” students can not only cultivate the ability of career planning with the core of choice ability but also cultivate core skills and excellent character to adapt to future career changes ( Rogers et al., 2008 ). These are only important parts of the career exploration period, which also shows that career exploration should be an important part of career education in high school. The emphasis should be placed on the guidance of self-cognition ( Chen et al., 2020a ). However, this study found the following: (1) facing the research of career exploration, more people pay attention to how graduates make the best choices, rather than looking for the reasons that make career choices difficult ( Chan, 2018 ); (2) facing the development of high school students, more and more people choose to pay attention to academic achievements ( Otte and Sharpe, 1979 ; Masud et al., 2019 ), family support ( Pires et al., 2017 ), and school conditions ( Lombardi et al., 2019 ). To sum up, although the attention to the career exploration of high school has risen in recent years, it is still difficult to maintain high attention and in-depth theoretical research, and many studies are borrowed from other research objects without considering the special situation of high school students. To sum up, the main development of career exploration depends on the family and school support (Model composition 4).

No Practical Action to Explore University Majors

Taking NCEE in China as an example, the proposal of a new elective mode is particularly crucial for the exploration of University majors ( Liu, 2014 ; Zhang, 2019 ). However, there is little research in this field. Currently, it mainly involves professional classification and research trips. In the professional classification, Xie (2016) points out that there are currently about 500 majors in colleges and universities in China, which are divided into 18 majors according to their similarities ( Xie, 2016 ). At the same time, through understanding the world map of the 18 academic groups, GPS positioning of academic groups, enrollment promotion meeting, professional GPS positioning, and other links, high school students can explore University majors. In terms of the research trip, Yang pointed out that as an effective complement to school education, research trip has strengthened the connection between schools and society, curricula and the 'lifeworld of students, organically combining tourism, study, and research, helping students understand University majors and promoting their all-round development ( Yang, 2018 ).

To sum up, the premise of carrying out research and study travel activities is the need to correctly understand the basic nature and practical role of its professional exploration in universities ( Huang et al., 2016 ). Designing rich tourism courses and improving the system and mechanism of cooperative organization and management is the cornerstone of carrying out activities. However, it is a pity that although some studies have pointed out the importance of this measure, no pertinent suggestions or practical results have been made. To sum up, the career exploration of high school mainly focuses on the professional exploration of University, and the school should provide corresponding courses as an auxiliary (Model composition 5).

Lack of Operating Mechanism of Environmental Cognition

Environmental cognition, as a very important part of career exploration, is the psychological basis for individuals to adapt to and act on the environment ( Henry and Dietz, 2012 ). How to understand the environment? How to form an impression of the environment in your mind? How do you affect how individuals work with the environment? These issues have evolved into studies in the field of environmental psychology, such as city and architectural images, cognitive maps, and road exploration ( Silvianingsih et al., 2019 ).

Environmental cognition of returning to high school mainly includes cognition of high school learning environment, experience, and cognition of future professional learning environment of the University. However, little is known about the research in this field. Only Song in 2011 put forward the correct understanding of the environmental education in high school geography teaching research to effectively promote the formation of environmental protection values and sustainable development of students ( Song, 2011 ). Therefore, when it comes to environmental cognition, career exploration should learn more from the relatively mature environmental psychology at the level of smashing psychology and carry out deeper exploration. To sum up, career exploration in high school needs to pay attention to personal characteristics such as personal professional values and practical experience (Model composition 6).

Research Findings

Literature characteristics.

Based on the analysis of the characteristics of the last 13 papers, this study found the following: first, the documents lack a strong theoretical basis, and most of the papers do not adopt the characteristics of high school students but directly adopt the theory of adult career exploration, which leads to the inability to teach students in accordance with their aptitude; secondly, among these 13 papers, six English papers are empirical research and journal articles, and seven Chinese papers are theoretical research and mainly dissertation. This reflects that the career exploration research in high school is paid attention to and the research is scattered, which is most likely caused by the lack of mature career exploration guidance in high school; and finally, all the 13 documents were published after the reform of the new college entrance examination of China in 2014, which shows that career exploration started in China not long ago, and so it is extremely urgent to provide a reference coping model.

Literature Content

Based on the analysis of literature and practice, this study found the following: (1) there is little research on career exploration in high schools, and a unified concept definition has not been formed yet; (2) all empirical studies are focused on some practical operation, lacking systematic and complete career. Therefore, this study attempts to establish a coping model of career exploration in high schools to explain the implementation of career exploration in high schools, which has important theoretical and practical significance.

Coping Model of Career Exploration

On the practical level of career exploration, the Chinese researchers are basically in the process of focusing on school activities, and rarely discuss the actual needs of high school students under the NCEE ( Chen et al., 2021 ). Even though some studies suggested the necessity of career exploration of high school students ( Xie, 2016 ; Chen et al., 2020a ), there were no effective measures to form the concept of exploration for high school students who were in the process of experience, even after tracking the experience. Therefore, the greatest practical value in this study lied in trying to establish the coping model of the career exploration of high school students based on the actual needs of high school students in China. As shown in Figure 2 , the final coping model is formed by synthesizing the conclusions of the 6-model composition mentioned in the full text, which is helpful for high school students to have a reference sequence and theoretical basis in the process of career exploration, thus realizing effective topic selection and career exploration under NCEE in China.

Figure 2 . Coping model of career exploration for high school students.

Firstly, establish the career exploration beliefs. Due to the characteristics of high school students, taking schools as the main body and teaching through courses is considered as one of the more effective measures to solve the career exploration and future career preparation of Chinese high school students ( Gu et al., 2020 ; Chen et al., 2021 ). Therefore, this study believes that the knowledge and information of career exploration under NCEE can be taught to high school students through career courses so as to use career-related means to clarify self-awareness, understand their needs and interests, and form a basic methodology. It should be noted that, in the practice of this study, it is found that all the teaching can be completed with the help of assessment and other technologies so as to ensure that students can form a methodology of self-cognition and career exploration.

Secondly, experience the career exploration process. Through the establishment and understanding of the connotation, structures, methods, and influencing factors of career exploration, the career exploration process is aimed at the needs of high school students, especially at the important stage of entering University. It can develop the ability to self-collecting University major information, combine the part of self-cognition, analyze and adapt to our University majors, and purposefully understand the future courses, learning, occupation.

Finally, make the career exploration reflection. Through the exploration of the above two steps, high school students can build up self-confidence, yearn for and perceive a better future, and thus further stimulate the motivation of career exploration, and through each stage of career reflection, make appropriate adjustments to the exploration process to achieve more suitable development.

Career exploration in high schools is a rising star in China, especially under the impetus of the new college entrance examination reform policy. The new college entrance examination requires students to choose subjects in advance, which promotes students to explore their careers in time so that they can make better decisions and lay a good foundation for future career development. Therefore, after sorting out the concept, structure, measurement, and influencing factors of career exploration, this study uses the method of systematic review to screen articles for analysis and points out the great challenges it brings to career exploration. In addition, this study takes the reform of NCEE in China as an example and pays more attention to the reaction, in addition to the process and belief that should be paid attention to in the reflection of career exploration. From these three dimensions, it puts forward relevant coping models and guidelines for supporting the development of high school career exploration, which provided a theoretical model and coping path for the practice of high school career exploration. Although there is a serious lack of research on career exploration in high school in the existing literature, with the promulgation of various policies, more and more researchers realize the importance of career exploration. As this study only puts forward an opinion, it does not give guidance or form an action guide from the practical level, which is the focus of future research.

Author Contributions

All participated in the study design. HC, FL, YW, LL, and XG wrote the first draft. SC and HL modified the manuscript.

This study was funded by Project of Scientific Research Innovation plan for Postgraduates in Jiangsu Province, Grant Number KYCX20_1145, Jiangsu Province Basic Education Prospective Teaching Reform Experiment Project, and Jiangsu Province University's Advantageous Discipline Construction Project, Grant Number PAPD.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Acknowledgments

This study would like to extend our sincere gratitude to reviewers.

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Keywords: career exploration, challenge, coping model, high school, China

Citation: Chen H, Liu F, Wen Y, Ling L, Chen S, Ling H and Gu X (2021) Career Exploration of High School Students: Status Quo, Challenges, and Coping Model. Front. Psychol. 12:672303. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.672303

Received: 25 February 2021; Accepted: 26 August 2021; Published: 24 September 2021.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2021 Chen, Liu, Wen, Ling, Chen, Ling and Gu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Xueying Gu, 02099@njnu.edu.cn

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Career Exploration: Important Steps in the Process

Explore careers, planning your future: a guide to career exploration.

It's never too late─or too soon─to start preparing for your future. High school is an important time to engage in career exploration so you begin working toward your long-term goals. At this stage, a career search is all about investigating what's out there and finding opportunities that interest you so that you can decide what you need to do next.

Exploring possible career paths can guide your academic and extracurricular pursuits . When you have a general idea about future goals, you can pursue relevant coursework, obtain skills, and effectively transition into education or work after graduating from high school.

But where do you begin? Follow these tips to find career paths worth exploring.

Step 1: Identify What Matters to You.

There's an entire world of career possibilities before you. It might feel a little overwhelming to settle on something now while you're still in high school. Even if you change your mind later, knowing which options best fit your needs can help you stay on the right track to a fulfilling career. That’s why we recommend starting with your preferences .

One of the best ways to begin is by completing an interest survey, like the BigFuture Career Quiz, which matches your preferences to potential career opportunities. Next, think about your values and skills. Is salary the most important factor when thinking about your career? Consider what else a job might provide. For example, some can pave the way for owning a business, making an impact on the world, or growing your skillset. Identifying what’s important to you can help you focus on best-fit options.

Step 2: Research Career Options.

Once you have a list of career matches, research the opportunities to determine what's right for you.

Career Exploration Questions to Answer

To determine if a career is right for you, here are questions you should ask and find answers to:

What do people in this career do?

Can you imagine how you want your day-to-day routine to look? It's easy to think that a career is a good fit when you look at generalized job descriptions. But what does someone with a specific occupation that interests you actually do in a typical workday?

In what type of environment do people in this career work?

Your future work environment matters. Some people thrive in a closed-office setting. Others would rather be on the go, spending some or all of their working hours outdoors. Some people do better when working alone and setting their own pace, while others prefer to work in a challenging environment where they can collaborate with their colleagues face-to-face. Figure out what sort of environment your potential career involves.

What salary do people in this career earn?

Once you land on an occupation, start looking into salary potential. The importance of pay to your search might change over time but will always matter to some degree. Although you can’t know for sure what you’d make in a specific job, you can learn more about what most people make in that occupation.

Every job will have a wide range of pay rates depending on factors such as location, scale, and experience. What entry-level professionals make will be vastly different than the salary of someone in a leadership position. That's why doing adequate salary research is critical.

Is this salary enough?

To better understand if a job salary would cover your expenses, you can assume that you’d pay the average U.S. tax rate of 22% and deduct that from the overall salary number. Once you see the potential annual take-home pay, divide the annual salary by 52 weeks to get a sense of what you’d make every week.

Think about what your potential expenses might look like. What’s average rent where you want to live? What about potential car payments? Entertainment expenses? Healthcare costs? Talk to different adults to learn more about their weekly costs. Consider how yours might stack up.

Viewing potential weekly take-home pay can help you consider if you’d have enough money to cover your cost of living. There are variables, but you want to start with at least an estimate.

Is this career growing?

Job outlooks change as technology and society evolve. Numerous jobs from decades ago no longer exist. Investigate job forecasts when exploring potential career paths. Although you can't predict the future, you can dig into anticipated occupational changes to get a better idea about the best positions to pursue. BigFuture Career Search relies on dynamic labor market information to get you the most relevant insights as they emerge.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, many occupations will experience significant growth in the next decade. They include:

• Wind turbine service technicians
• Nurse practitioners
• Solar photovoltaic installers
• Occupational therapists and assistants
• Statisticians
• Information security analysts

What education or training is needed to enter this career?

Some career paths require complex job training that could affect your educational timeline and costs. A variety of potential education and training options after high school lead to good jobs, including four-year college, two-year college, apprenticeships, certificate programs, and other skills training. You can explore some of these paths at BigFuture College Search .

Keep in mind that some programs have better outcomes than others as you explore. Many s cholarships and educational grants help you pay for your education. Knowing what you're in for can help you start your career with a better financial strategy.

Step 3: Set a Goal.

Once you’ve identified some career options, think about where you see yourself long term and the right next step to explore further. Commit to doing something to get started. You can learn more about setting career goals here .

Step 4: Review Your Plan.

Career exploration isn’t a process you go through just once. People will go through the experience across their lifetime. As you learn more, you know more about what you do and don’t like. Check in often to make sure your current interests, values, and skills match the goals you set. If there’s misalignment, start the process again, and update your plan.

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Career Exploration | Career Readiness

What Is Career Exploration & How Do You Teach It?

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May 7th, 2024 | 9 min. read

Brad Hummel

Coming from a family of educators, Brad knows both the joys and challenges of teaching well. Through his own teaching background, he’s experienced both firsthand. As a writer for iCEV, Brad’s goal is to help teachers empower their students by listening to educators’ concerns and creating content that answers their most pressing questions about career and technical education.

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As a career exploration curriculum developer , we hear from thousands of teachers every year interested in teaching career readiness.

During those conversations, teachers ask six common questions about career exploration:

• What is career exploration?
• How does career exploration work?
• Why is career exploration helpful?
• How often should students participate in career exploration?
• How do you know when career exploration education succeeds?
• How do you teach career exploration?

In this article, we'll dive into the answers to each of these questions to help you better understand what career exploration is and how to teach it.

1. What Is Career Exploration?

In education, career exploration is the process of researching, evaluating, and learning about modern work opportunities and how students can pursue the careers of their choice.

That makes career exploration one of the most important subjects in terms of long-term life planning for students in any grade. Learning career exploration early can make a difference in learners' abilities to understand their options and choose a fulfilling profession. For this reason, many teachers and schools consider career exploration an essential part of their middle and high school curriculum.

With that in mind, let's consider the different aspects of career exploration in detail, starting with how career exploration works.

2. How Does Career Exploration Work?

Different schools, education experts, and teachers all have a different way of   teaching career exploration.

For the most part, they break down the four main steps that help students learn more about the working world around them:

Before jumping right into these steps, it’s often helpful to start with a list of careers that are either common or popular in the world right now. Careers like software developer, serial entrepreneur, social media strategist, and others are all great places to start for modern careers.

You can also use any number of more established or “traditional” careers , like accountant, psychiatrist, construction worker, clerk, and more.

Plus, you can always consider local or regional jobs that are on the rise. In many areas, that includes   healthcare careers   like certified nursing assistants, phlebotomists, or another area of expertise.

Now that you have your list of common and popular careers, you can dive into the steps of career exploration ! Each of these steps includes its own processes and procedures. We’ll take a look at each one in sequence so you can plan the best career exploration class possible!

To start, let’s talk about   research .

Career Exploration Step 1: Research

The research step of career exploration introduces students to specific careers that they want to understand more about.

This is where students take your starter list, choose a few careers that sound interesting, and learn more about them.

There are many different ways to go about career research . The most popular method is to have students go online to school-sanctioned websites to learn more. Your school may even pay for career exploration software that’s specifically designed for students to learn more about the working world.

Another way is to give class talks or lectures about careers . This relies on your knowledge of careers and traditional classroom resources (like textbooks) .

A third way is to network with professionals in your area and have them come discuss their career with your class.

This teaching method requires clearance from your school and some degree of coordination with individuals outside your school, which can get to be a lot of work on top of your regular teaching responsibilities. But if students seem drawn to one career in particular, you have a perfect opportunity to contact someone who actually works in that field to speak to your class.

Regardless of how you teach the research phase of career exploration, you’ll have a perfect segue into the next step —   evaluation .

Career Exploration Step 2: Evaluation

The evaluation step of career exploration empowers students to analyze the research they’ve conducted so they can get a deeper understanding of their favorite jobs.

Part of that understanding may be learning that a career simply isn’t a good fit for them at the moment. This doesn’t mean that students will completely disregard a career, especially if they’re elementary- or middle-school aged students.

But it   does   mean that they can start looking into similar careers that may be more interesting to them. The process tends to follow a similar pattern for any grade level in career exploration.

First, the students look at the career(s) that they chose to evaluate . Then, they also look at the careers that support (or are supported by) their first career . That lets students branch off from their initial career interest and learn more about a collection of careers instead of just one at a time.

This method is especially useful for tech-oriented careers like a software developer. While software developers are in high demand, they need to work with information technology professionals, business professionals, quality assurance, marketing teams, and more.

In other words, a student may   start   the evaluation process by looking at a career that they think is perfect. By the time they’re done reading, they may have a different career aspiration, purely because they learned something new!  

The important learning outcome here is that you’ve expanded your students’ horizons so that they can understand the breadth of possibilities in their futures. Once students have done that, they can share their findings with the class during the   discussion   phase.

Career Exploration Step 3: Discussion

The discussion step of career exploration encourages students to talk about what they learned with their peers. This lets students compare the careers they chose, why they liked those careers, and other offshoot careers that they discovered.

Students may also learn about new job tracks from their peers. The student from our previous example could tell their friends about IT and how interesting it is. Likewise, two students may find out that they have a mutual career interest and begin talking about the requirements and possibilities of the job.

Students may   also   disagree about which careers they like. This can lead to a constructive conversation about the benefits and drawbacks to working in particular industries. Ideally, your students will discuss about what they liked about one career and disliked about another. This helps learners appreciate what interests can lead to specific careers while discovering others' perspective on career opportunities.

With that in mind, students can now get to the fourth step of almost any career exploration curriculum .

Career Exploration Step 4: Decision

The decision step of career exploration revolves around students deciding which career they’d like to pursue more.

This   does not   mean that a student is choosing the career they’ll be for their entire lives. But just like the first three steps of the career exploration process, it gives students a direction so they can follow their passion to a fulfilling career.

This phase is typically the fastest of the career exploration steps since it's informed directly by the previous three steps. Since students have already learned about opportunities in different career pathways, they might be prepared to make a decision about which pursue they'd most like to pursue.

Now is the time to talk to your students about the next steps in moving forward with a career path. You can set whatever requirements you think will help your learners move forward, or leave the decision-making process entirely up to them.

Regardless, these four steps are the basics of career exploration. But why should you spend time on career exploration?

After all, if your students are only with you for a semester or a quarter, can they really learn everything they need to improve their career outlooks? The answer is yes! 

3. Why Is Career Exploration Helpful?

First and most obviously, career exploration helps students discover the jobs that are available to them after they’ve graduated from school.

In addition, they also learn what level of education, work experience, and professionalism they need to succeed in their chosen career.

For example, someone who wants to go into marketing — a career available to individuals with or without a college education — requires significantly different requirements than someone who wants to pursue the decade of post-secondary education required to be a medical doctor.

Students also learn about the income they can expect from a career, how they can obtain that income, and how they can advance throughout the tiers of their career’s expertise. In other words, students get a head start on their post-school lives by learning about the real world.

When you have someone from that career speak to the class about their experience, you increase that value exponentially as well. After all, career exploration classes are responsible for creating internship, externship, co-op, and apprenticeship opportunities for students.

That’s the final reason why career exploration is so helpful. With the right support and direction, students can actually start on their careers  today .

They don’t have to wait to graduate or develop a complete resume of experiences. Instead, they can make progress toward their careers through taking CTE classes that help them develop the skills they need for the future. Your learners may also benefit from taking additional career exploration classes to reevaluate their skills and interests and consider if they're on the right path to meet their future goals.

4. How Often Should Students Participate in Career Exploration?

With the ever-increasing pace of technology, the American job market can change overnight. That’s why it’s so crucial to take a look at career exploration opportunities for students throughout their academic careers — not just in one grade!

Due to economic change, job market fluctuations, or a change in location, people are often prompted to reconsider their careers and pursue other opportunities. Because of any one of these factors, employment options may change in terms of scope, requirements, tools, salary, and availability. 

The best way to make sure students are ready for these changes is to keep them updated with the information they need for their careers and aware of new opportunities they could pursue. That way, they can successfully learn all of the information relevant to pursuing the jobs of their dreams.

Still, this leads us to our last question about laying out your career exploration curriculum: how can you tell when your career exploration class is successful?

5. How Do You Know When Career Exploration Succeeds?

“Success” is a tricky topic when it comes to teaching. Everyone wants to know whether they’re teaching successfully — but how do you actually   measure   that success?

For career exploration, you have a couple different methods at your fingertips.

First, you can measure the percentage of students in your class who have concretely chosen a career they want to investigate further.

In other words, you keep track of how many students have a definite answer in the   decide portion of career exploration. For the students who don’t have a definitive answer, you know that you have to follow up with them to get them engaged with the subject or a career that’s more suited to their interests.

Another way to measure success is with a  summative assessment  given as a traditional test or essay.

This lets your students answer questions about the class based on what they learned — not necessarily a right or wrong answer. Instead, you get students to talk about what they learned in a class, why they liked something, why they disliked something, and what they want to do next.

From the results of your assessment, you'll be able to see which students have engaged with the material and thought about career opportunities as well as which learners could use a little more attention and guidance in honing their career interests. You'll be able to make adjustments to your instruction based on the what you learn from the summative assessment.

With these two options, you’re all prepped and ready to run a career exploration class with a clear indicator of success!

So with everything said and done, let’s talk about one big question we haven’t answered yet: how do you actually teach career exploration?

6. How Do You Teach Career Exploration?

When it comes to teaching a career exploration curriculum, there are hundreds of options available. Mainly, you'll find career exploration lessons and activities for middle school, which is the most common age group where career exploration is taught.

Most of the resources you can find online can be a great supplement to fill out an existing career readiness curriculum.

However, if you’re in need of a full curriculum to teach career exploration among other concepts and skills, consider checking out iCEV's comprehensive career exploration curriculum .

iCEV's curriculum contains hundreds of hours of content to help you teach dozens of career readiness skills with pre-made lesson plans, engaging projects and activities, and more.

To see if the curriculum is the right fit for your classes, sign up for a free trial . You'll have full access to the iCEV career exploration curriculum to decide if it's right for your students.

What is Career Exploration and Why Does it Matter?

• Finding Your Career Path

Are you perplexed and confused about which career to pursue? If so, you may want to consider creating and executing a comprehensive career exploration plan to make sure you’ll know exactly what you’re getting into before you pursue any occupational track.

As a concept, career exploration isn’t just a casual search for information about a chosen job category, carried out by visiting websites that are essentially paid advertisements for schools or trade associations that offer training programs in that field. It is instead a thorough and impartial investigation that leaves no stone unturned in the search for the complete and unvarnished truth about a particular job or career option. Career exploration bypasses public relations or sales pitches in a quest to get the real lowdown on what various careers entail so when you choose one over the others, you’ll be making an intelligent and informed decision.

Career exploration and you

Whether you’re a young person getting ready to enter the job market for the first time, or a career changer looking for something new and different, finding the ideal career is a challenge you may feel unprepared to meet. From your current perspective, no job may feel quite right, or, conversely, you may find many possibilities equally highly enticing. You may be plagued by confusion and uncertainty, which could lead you to make the wrong choice, if you make any choice at all.

Career exploration can help you resolve such dilemmas. It makes you the prime author of an extensive research project into occupational categories that intrigue you, and what you find will help determine the course of the rest of your life.

You can learn a decent amount about any kind of job by visiting websites or reading articles or books that describe the duties and responsibilities associated with that position. However, you’ll need to look a lot deeper than this if you want to discover the important details.

A great career exploration plan will include part-time jobs, internships, or volunteer positions in the relevant field. This type of hands-on learning replaces hopes and dreams with actual real-world experience, allowing you to evaluate career paths based on reality rather than illusion.

A well-designed career exploration plan will also include multiple informational interviews with people who have worked or are working in that industry or field. These interviews should be of the candid, off-the-record type, so the people you’re talking to will feel comfortable about opening up. If you’re lucky, your source for information may even let you shadow them for a day or two while they’re on the job, letting you see for yourself what that potential career is all about.

Self-reflection will also be a vital part of any successful career exploration plan. You must resolve to take a closer look at yourself and your deepest preferences to discover what you really want as opposed to what you think you want or believe you should want.

As you can contemplate the responsibilities a particular job would entail, you should imagine yourself working at that job day after day for many years to see what kind of emotional response it triggers. Your response during this type of thought experiment will be spontaneous and natural, and thus will reveal much about whether you could fit in and find happiness.

If you take it seriously, career exploration can be incredibly valuable. It eliminates a superficial perspective and replaces it with deep and authentic knowledge, enabling you to match your true preferences with actual job responsibilities. When you finally find the right fit, you’ll know it and you’ll trust your conclusions, built as they are on facts rather than wishful thinking.

Empowerment through career exploration

Career exploration empowers you in several ways, all of which will make it easier for you to identify the most promising careers for someone of your character, inclinations, and abilities.

For example, career exploration can help you:

Clear your mind of preconceived notions that could steer you in the wrong direction

You probably have some general ideas about what any career you’ve considered is really like. With some occupations you may have read enough or heard enough to convince yourself you have a good handle on what that job involves and, therefore, don’t really need to look into that career choice more deeply.

But can you really trust your conclusions? Unless you’ve performed a thorough career exploration, you may be acting on limited or partial information that is inaccurate or misleading. The point of career exploration is to gain more of an “insider’s view” of what a particular job option is actually like, and once you acquire that perspective, you may come to realize that some of your preconceived notions were entirely false.

Narrow or broaden your career search, depending on your present state of mind

When considering career options, first-time job seekers and career changers alike will almost inevitably face one of two problems. They will either struggle to find something that they’re sure they would enjoy, or they will be attracted to so many different options that they’re not sure which is best. Their list of potential job possibilities will be either too short or too long, and as a result they will be unable to move forward  with their career plans (or with their lives).

Career exploration is equally efficient at solving both problems. Career exploration asks you to put aside at least some of your ideas about what types of jobs you’d enjoy and which you wouldn’t, so you can enter the exploration process with an open mind. If you can adopt this attitude your understanding of your true needs and interests will widen as your career exploration plan progresses. That helps you either broaden your scope or narrow your focus, depending on which direction you need to go.

Impress interviewers and increase your chances of landing your dream job, whatever it might be

When you interview with a potential employer you’ve identified through an extensive career exploration process, you’ll be auditioning for a job that you understand well and would be thrilled to land. If asked why you think you’re a perfect fit for the position, you’ll be able to answer with enthusiasm and conviction, and with enough detail to prove you know what the job is all about.

If you’ve done your homework and are truly prepared for a job interview, this will impress your potential employer and give you a leg up on your competition. This level of readiness reflects diligence, commitment, and professionalism, and those are exactly the qualities that all employers are seeking.

Personality matters, but maybe not as much as you think

Personality can play a big role in the types of careers you find satisfying. Your emotional and psychological needs are reflected in your personality type, and in an ideal world your career would allow you to meet all of those needs on a daily basis.

Unfortunately, we do not live in an ideal world. The best that most of us can hope for is to find a job that will satisfy at least some of our needs, while not forcing us to make sacrifices or compromises that actively violate other needs. Your chosen career shouldn’t be in conflict with your personality type, even if the latter doesn’t complement the former completely.

One thing you should realize is that not every single person who shares a personality type will share the same career interests. There may in fact be jobs that appeal to you that aren’t normally recommended for your personality type , jobs that most who share your Myers-Briggs or Enneagram classification wouldn’t enjoy or appreciate.

If you decide to follow a career path that diverges from your personality type in some way, you may occasionally feel stressed out by events or circumstances that wouldn’t bother most of your colleagues. But if that is what you really want to do you shouldn’t be afraid to pursue your dream, even if it requires you to develop strategies to minimize your exposure to anxiety-inducing situations.

You should certainly read up on the kinds of careers that most often appeal to those with your 16-type or Enneagram personality, or that match your performance on the Career Personality Profiler test. But if your career exploration process ultimately takes you in another direction, it’s perfectly okay to trust that process and follow your heart.  

Know the job and know yourself

The idea behind career exploration is to increase your knowledge of the legitimate options, while bringing your deepest personal preferences more fully to light. Through a career exploration plan you’ll increase your knowledge of both the job market and your own interests, and your added comprehension will allow you to more precisely target careers that are likely to bring you joy and fulfillment.

Nathan Falde Nathan Falde has been working as a freelance writer for the past six years. His ghostwritten work and bylined articles have appeared in numerous online outlets, and in 2014-2015 he acted as co-creator for a series of eBooks on the personality types. An INFJ and a native of Wisconsin, Nathan currently lives in Bogota, Colombia with his wife Martha and their son Nicholas.

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Career exploration: when should you settle?

What the research says about how much to explore in your career

By Benjamin Todd · Last updated November 2021 · First published September 2021

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Career   exploration:   when   should   you settle?  

On this page:.

• 1 Career exploration in a nutshell
• 2 The information value of exploration
• 3.1 Tradeoffs of career exploration
• 4.1 1. Pursue ‘upside options’: a rational reason to aim high
• 4.2 2. Plan to try out several paths through careful ordering
• 4.3 3. Explore within your job
• 5 Be more willing to quit
• 6 How much should you explore at different stages in your career?
• 7 Conclusion: exploring step-by-step towards your best career
• 8 Learn more
• 9 Read next

Suppose you’ve researched different career paths, and now need to make a choice:

• ‘Settle’: commit to the path that seems best now.
• Explore: try other paths with the hope of finding something even better.

What should you do?

Steve Jobs liked to say you should “never settle,” but there’s a real balance to be struck between exploring and committing.

Many hope to be able to find and commit to their career calling right away, but this is rarely possible because it’s so hard to predict where you’re going to succeed in the long term.

Rather, you should approach your career like a scientist doing experiments. This means you should be prepared to test out several paths, if possible.

While everyone would ideally do some career exploration, the interesting question is how much you should plan to explore, and how best to balance the costs of exploring with its upsides.

There’s been plenty of research in decision science, computer science, and psychology that can help us answer this question. In this article, we combine these findings with what we’ve learned from advising people one-on-one, and summarise some of the bottom lines.

We’ll argue that if you want a career that’s not only satisfying but has a significant positive impact — our focus at 80,000 Hours — then the value of exploration is even higher.

Table of Contents

Career exploration in a nutshell

• In addition to building career capital and having an impact, trying a job gives you ‘information value’ about which paths will be best for you in the long term.
• The paths with the highest information value are the ones that might be a lot better than your current best guess, but that you’re very unsure about and can learn about relatively quickly.
• One strategy is to choose the path that would be highest-impact if it goes unusually well (in an ‘upside scenario’), stick with it if it works out, and try something else if it doesn’t. (Though make sure you’re OK with this degree of risk and have a backup plan.)
• Another strategy is to plan to try out several paths, which could include ‘wildcards’ outside your experience, minimising the costs by carefully ordering your options. This strategy is most attractive right at the start of your career and for perhaps 2–8 years in total.
• In general, it’s most important to explore early in your career, since you have more uncertainty at this stage and more time to benefit from what you learn, and the costs of trying different jobs and careers are lower.
• Be more open to quitting: people tend to stick in their current path too long even when it’s not working out.

The information value of exploration

The typical 25- to 34-year-old changes jobs every three years , and changes are not uncommon later in life too. 1 Many successful people have tried several paths before finding one that worked out — Tony Blair even worked as a rock promoter before going into politics.

Many people don’t have the luxury of exploring different paths, but if you do, taking that time can easily be worth it. For instance, if exploring meant you could find a career path that’s twice as good as your current best guess, it would theoretically be worth spending up to half of your career searching for that path.

We’ve argued that some career paths open to you will do 10 or 100 times as much to help the world as others, and so even if you spent 10 years searching for a path like this, it would be worth it — in your remaining 30 years of work, you’d achieve as much as would have taken 300 in your previous path. It’s often possible to find paths that are more enjoyable or give you better skills too.

We can analyse the value of exploration by using a concept from decision science — ‘ information value ‘.

The information value of trying a job is what you learn about which longer-term paths are best. The value depends on the chance that you discover a path that’s better than your current best guess, weighted by how much better that new path is (based on whatever you value).

When comparing jobs you might take during your job search, you care about both:

• The immediate impact of and satisfaction you gain from the job
• How well it sets you up to find better opportunities in the future

We can now see that the latter consists not only of the career capital you gain from the job (such as transferable skills, professional network, and reputation), but also the information value it gives you. We could say:

Contribution to long-term impact of job = immediate impact + career capital + information value

The best job for you is the one that delivers the most value across all three factors, plus the personal satisfaction you gain from it.

A job could be a ‘failure’ in the sense that you didn’t have any impact, or hated it and quit. But if you’re able to eliminate a long-term path as a result of this experience, that can still be valuable — you’ve just saved yourself years of wasted effort.

To sum up: each job you take is also an experiment to help you learn about what’s best for you in the long term.

Which jobs should you take to explore?

The paths that are best to try out (i.e. have the most information value) are those that:

• Might be a lot better than your current best guess: if a path isn’t much better than your current best guess, then even if your test goes well, you haven’t gained much.
• You’re uncertain about: if you already know it’s better, then you should just take it now.
• Could let you reduce your uncertainty relatively easily: if trying the path wouldn’t tell you much about your fit, then there’s also not much to be gained from testing it — better just to take your best guess now.

Can you think of a career path that meets all three of these conditions? If so, there’s a pretty good case for trying it out.

We often advise people who feel very uncertain about which paths are best for them, but are tempted to try out a corporate job, like accounting or consulting. While this might make sense because of the helpful career capital, it often doesn’t have much information value — these people usually don’t expect that the corporate path is their best long-term path, and they’re normally pretty certain about that.

Tradeoffs of career exploration

The temptation to do the corporate job, however, does illustrate a real tradeoff: your best job for information value might not be the best for career capital, impact, or satisfaction.

Trying out a different career path not only takes years, but the costs can be even higher than they first seem.

Some competitive careers have an ‘elevator’ structure, where if you get off the standard track, it’s hard to re-enter — and even if you can re-enter, it’s hard to make it to the top. This can make it higher-risk to try out alternative paths early on, since by leaving you might miss your chance of outsized success.

Academia is the most common example of this among our readers. Going from a PhD to a postdoc, and then into a permanent academic position, is very competitive , and it’s unlikely you’ll succeed if you don’t focus the vast majority of your effort on research. This makes it hard to re-enter academia if you try something else after your PhD. 2

Exploring also delays your impact, which could be a significant cost if you think there are especially urgent opportunities to do good right now that won’t be around in the future. For example, if you’re trying to shape fast-moving technologies , that will be harder to influence as time goes on.

But we’ve also argued above that the potential gains to exploration are very large too, especially if you want to have an impact. Going from ‘very good’ to ‘excellent’ might only increase your own wellbeing a little bit, but it could mean having 10 times as much impact.

So, both the benefits and costs of exploration can be large. What strategy should you take to balance these?

Career exploration strategies

This question has been studied in computer science, as part of research into topics like the ‘ explore-exploit tradeoff ‘ and ‘optimal stopping’ (of which the ‘ secretary problem ‘ is one example). We discuss what we might learn from this research in-depth in our interview with Brian Christian , author of Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions .

The lesson we take from this research is that there are two exploration strategies that make sense practically. The first we call the upside option strategy, and is usually our first recommendation. The second involves trying out several paths early career, and then picking your best guess after that.

1. Pursue ‘upside options’: a rational reason to aim high

As we saw above, information value is higher the better an option might be, and the more uncertain you are about it. This favours taking long shots — paths that might be outstanding if they go well, but have a good chance of not working out.

Here’s a concrete process for doing that:

• Rank the longer-term paths open to you in terms of upside — how much impact you would have in them if you performed unusually well compared to your best guess? (To be more precise, you could imagine how each path would look in the top 10% of scenarios.) We call the career options that seem best in these ‘upside scenarios’ your ‘upside paths.’
• Try out one of your most promising upside paths.
• If you find it’s going well, then continue.
• If you’re not on track to hit the upside scenario, switch into the next-best upside path.

This strategy is similar to the ‘upper confidence’ algorithm we discussed with Brian .

It’s attractive because there’s an asymmetry: in the good case, you’ve found an amazing new career path, which you can continue with for many years; if it doesn’t work out, you can switch to something else relatively quickly. The costs of spending a few months or even years trying out a path are often low relative to the huge benefits if it turns out well.

Taking this strategy is also attractive because if you’re trying an elevator career, you can stick with it until you’ve decided you’re not likely to have outsized success, which is often where most of the impact would come from . (There are also several other reasons we think it’s good to aim high .)

However, there’s an important caveat to keep in mind: the asymmetry argument only works if the downsides of exploration are capped:

• First, you have to make sure that you’re in a sufficiently robust position — personally, professionally, and financially — that an experiment not working out won’t do you considerable long-term harm. That means making sure you have a backup plan and remain able to switch into something else if it doesn’t work out. We discuss how to do this in our career planning process .
• Second, if you’re focused on impact, then in certain areas — ‘fragile fields’ — it’s easy to make things much worse than you found them. If you’re doing something high-stakes in one of these fields, it’s important to modify your plan to reduce the chance of setting back the field before pursuing upsides. We cover this in our article on accidental harm .

Finally, note that what counts as an ‘upside scenario’ should depend on how much you want to prioritise exploration, which depends on how much you prioritise impact and how early you are in your career. For instance, if you’re right at the start of your career, you might want to aim at what’s best based on the top 5% of scenarios; if none work out after a while, then reduce that to the top 20% of scenarios — and eventually focus on the most likely scenarios.

2. Plan to try out several paths through careful ordering

The second career exploration strategy is to plan to try out several paths, and then decide later which is best. If you order your options carefully, it’s often possible to try several paths with minimal costs, then decide later which is best.

This strategy is similar to solutions to the ‘ secretary problem ‘ in computer science. The standard set up of the secretary problem seems to overstate how much you should explore, but spending 5–20% of the total length of your career with exploration as a top priority seems reasonable for people focused on impact, and that would be 2–8 years. 3

One common pattern is to do a gap year before college, then try several internships while at college, then do something more unusual and risky for 1–2 years after graduating. If the unusual option goes well, you can continue, and otherwise you could try going to graduate school, which ‘resets’ you onto a more standard path. For instance, you could try an unusual startup or nonprofit project for a few years, and then do a PhD and continue with academia, or go to law school and continue into policy, and so on.

Later in your career, if you’re genuinely unsure between two options, you might want to try the more ‘reversible’ one first. For instance, it’s easier to move from business to nonprofits than vice versa.

While examples of people who specialised early, like Tiger Woods, are often salient, it doesn’t seem necessary to specialise that early, and it’s probably not even the norm. In the book Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World , David Epstein argues that most people try several paths, and that athletes who try several sports before settling on one tend to be more successful — holding up Roger Federer as a foil to Tiger Woods.

Another recent paper in Nature found that ‘hot streaks’ among creatives and scientists tended to follow periods of exploring several areas. This is just a single paper, but at least suggests exploring several paths can be a good strategy in some cases.

Compared to the ‘upside options’ strategy, this strategy keeps you from committing to anything for years, so has significant costs. If you can identify an upside path now, trying it right away is usually better.

Planning to try out several paths is most attractive when you’re very uncertain, when you won’t risk compromising your future in an ‘elevator’ career, and when you’re early in your career (when the costs of exploration are lowest).

Jess – a case study in trying several paths

“80,000 Hours has nothing short of revolutionised the way I think about my career.” Read Jess's story

When Jess graduated with a degree in maths and philosophy in 2012, she was interested in academia and leaned towards studying philosophy of mind, but was concerned that it would have little impact.

So the year after she graduated, she spent several months working in finance. She didn’t think she’d enjoy it, and she turned out to be right, so she felt confident eliminating that option. She also spent several months trying different types of work — working in nonprofits and reading about different research areas.

Most importantly, she spoke to loads of people, especially in the areas of academia she was most interested in. This eventually led to her being offered to study a PhD in psychology, with a focus on how to improve decision-making by policymakers.

During her PhD, she did an internship at a leading evidence-based policy think tank, and started writing about psychology for an online newspaper. This meant that she was exploring the ‘public intellectual’ side of being an academic, and the option of going into policy.

At the end of her PhD, she can either continue in academia, or switch into policy or writing. She could also probably go back to finance or the nonprofit sector. Most importantly, she’ll have a far better idea of which career options are best for her.

Consider including a wildcard

One drawback of both of the strategies above as written is that your best path might well be something you haven’t even thought of yet.

This could suggest exploring and testing out options outside your normal experience, to give yourself the chance of uncovering something totally different. That might mean living in a very different culture, participating in different communities, or trying different sectors from the ones you already know (e.g. nonprofits, government, corporate).

For instance, I (Benjamin) went to learn Chinese in China before I went to university. I didn’t have any specific ideas about how it would be useful, but I felt I learned a lot from the experience, and it turned out to be useful when I later worked with an expert on China to create our resources for people working on Sino-Western coordination around emerging technologies .

This is similar to how in computer science, many exploration algorithms have a random element. Making a random move can help avoid settling into a ‘local optimum.’ While we wouldn’t recommend literally picking randomly, the fact that even computer algorithms find randomness helpful illustrates the value of considering paths well off your standard track.

3. Explore within your job

An alternative approach is to take a job that lets you try out several areas by:

• Enabling you to practise many different skills. Jobs in small companies are often especially good on this front.
• Enabling you to work in a variety of industries, such as certain types of freelancing or consulting positions.
• Giving you the free time and energy to explore things outside of work.

Be more willing to quit

Another rule of thumb to consider: if you’re on a path that’s only going so-so, you should probably try something else. (If you can afford to.)

If the path is only going so-so, it’s probably not an upside option, and so doesn’t have much information value. It’s probably also not a great fit .

Due to the sunk cost bias , we’d expect people to continue with their current path for too long. We’d also expect people to want to avoid the short-term costs of switching, and to be averse to leaping into an unknown new option.

This all suggests: if you’re on the fence about quitting your job, you should quit.

This is exactly what an influential randomised study found . Steven Levitt recruited tens of thousands of participants who were deeply unsure about whether to make a big change in their life. After offering some advice on how to make hard choices, those who remained truly undecided were given the chance to flip a coin to settle the issue — 22,500 did so.

Levitt followed up with these participants two and six months later to ask whether they had actually made the change, and how happy they were one a scale of 1 to 10. It turned out that people who made a change on an important question gained 2.2 points of happiness out of 10. Of course, this is just one study, and we wouldn’t be surprised if the effect were smaller on replication. However, it lines up with what we’d expect.

How much should you explore at different stages in your career?

It varies by person. If you’re following the upside option strategy, and you luck into something great early on, you might never need to try anything else. Or, you may need to try over and over again to get a hit.

However, there are clear arguments that people should generally explore more earlier in their career. This is because when you’re early on:

• You have the most time remaining to take advantage of new options you discover, whereas if you find a new career path when you’re 60, you can only benefit for a few years.
• You have the least information about what’s best, since you haven’t tried many jobs.
• The costs of exploring are lower: young people are expected (often encouraged ) to change jobs more often, and there are low-cost opportunities to try things out (like internships), which aren’t always available to older people.

This is the justification behind the common advice to be more ambitious and broaden your horizons while young. The younger you are, the more you can focus on information value — and the more you’re focused on information value, the more ambitious the upside paths to aim for. As you get older, you’ll focus more on ‘exploiting’ your best-guess choice rather than exploring to find something even better.

However, you’ll keep learning about your fit and which options are best throughout your career, so information value remains important for everyone. A middle-aged person who has just quit a long corporate career would suddenly face more uncertainty and lower costs to experimentation than most people their age, and so might do well to go back into exploration mode for a period.

Conclusion: exploring step-by-step towards your best career

It can be intimidating to try something new, but it’s often well worth your while. You don’t need to figure out your best career right away, and it’s not the norm. Most careers proceed via a series of steps, each of which is an experiment. The best you can do is have a good exploration strategy — one that minimises the costs of exploring while giving you the best possible chance of finding an even better path.

• Podcast: Brian Christian explains what we can learn from computer science about how much to explore in your career
• How long should you take deciding your career? on Applied Divinity Studies further investigates how to apply the secretary problem to career choice
• If you’re unsure whether to quit, probably quit
• Podcast: David Epstein on Mastery, Specialization, and Range on EconTalk (the book itself doesn’t add much to the arguments, though has more examples)
• How to Measure Anything by Douglas Hubbard has one of the best explanations of ‘information value’ that we’ve seen, and is a great book in general (or check out this summary )
• Four examples of value of information
• Podcast: Alex Lawsen on avoiding 10 mistakes people make when pursuing a high-impact career
• Biases in career decisions and what to do about them

This article is part of our advanced series. See the full series , or keep reading:

How to balance impact and doing what you love

In which career can you make the biggest contribution?

Notes on good judgement and how to develop it

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Notes and references

Median employee tenure was generally higher among older workers than younger ones. For example, the median tenure of workers ages 55 to 64 (10.4 years) was more than three times that of workers ages 25 to 34 years (3.0 years). A larger proportion of older workers than younger workers had 10 years or more of tenure. In January 2014, among workers ages 60 to 64, 58% were employed for at least 10 years with their current employer, compared with only 12% of those ages 30 to 34.

Archived link , retrieved 24-Apr-2017. ↩

• Though it’s easier in some subjects like computer science or economics, and it’s fine to take a break before your PhD. ↩

However, it assumes there’s no cost to exploring, and aims to maximise your probability of finding the top ranked option, rather than maximise expected value. Accounting for both of these effects significantly reduces how much time you should spend exploring (even if you assume the value of options are distributed lognormally).

On the other hand, the secretary problem assumes you can never go back to an old option. Adding the ability to return significantly increases how long you should spend exploring. However, our sense is that this probably isn’t enough to offset the factors above.

Another complication is that you’ll become more productive over your career, which reduces the costs of exploring early. On the other hand, we should also discount future impact, which reduces your planning horizon. These two effects partially cancel out, but overall we think the net effect is to reduce how much time you should spend exploring.

The secretary problem also assumes you have no prior information of your options and how good they are compared to other options you might take. In reality, you have a lot of knowledge of this kind. This probably reduces how much time you spend exploring (because you already have much of the relevant information), and means it can be worth committing early if you find something great.

Learn more in this analysis by Applied Divinity Studies . ↩

Career Development Resources

Tools, websites, and apps to help you succeed.

CareerExplorer is a free career test made for success seekers and the curious minded.

Embarking on a career exploration journey can be both exciting and daunting. With the multitude of options available and the ever-changing landscape of the job market, it’s essential to have the right tools and resources at your disposal.

We’ve put together a curated list of online resources designed to assist you in your career development and exploration. From career assessment tools that help you uncover your strengths and preferences to job search websites that connect you with exciting opportunities, professional networking platforms that expand your connections, and skill-building courses that enhance your capabilities, these resources are invaluable assets in navigating your career path with confidence and clarity.

Career Assessment Tools

The following career assessment tools can provide valuable insights and guidance to individuals seeking to explore their interests, strengths, and potential career paths. Whether you’re a recent graduate, career changer, or someone looking to advance in your current career, leveraging these assessment tools can help you make informed decisions and pursue fulfilling career opportunities.

• Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) : The MBTI is one of the most widely used personality assessment tools worldwide. It categorizes individuals into one of 16 personality types based on preferences in four key areas: extraversion/introversion, sensing/intuition, thinking/feeling, and judging/perceiving. The MBTI can provide valuable insights into an individual’s personality traits, preferences, and potential career paths.
• Strong Interest Inventory : The Strong Interest Inventory assesses an individual’s interests across a broad range of occupational areas, activities, and hobbies. It identifies patterns in an individual’s interests and matches them with specific career fields, helping users explore potential career paths that align with their preferences and motivations.
• Holland Code (RIASEC) : The Holland Code assessment categorizes individuals into one or more of six personality types based on their preferences for different work environments, tasks, and activities. These six types include Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional (RIASEC). The assessment helps individuals identify career options that align with their personality traits and vocational interests.
• CareerExplorer : CareerExplorer offers a comprehensive suite of career assessment tests, including personality, interests, values, and skills assessments. It provides personalized career recommendations and insights into potential career paths based on individual strengths, preferences, and goals. CareerExplorer’s assessments are based on empirical research and psychometric principles, ensuring reliability and validity.
• CliftonStrengths (formerly StrengthsFinder) : CliftonStrengths assesses an individual’s natural talents and strengths across 34 themes, helping users understand their unique abilities and how they can be applied to various aspects of their lives, including career development. By identifying and leveraging their top strengths, individuals can gain insight into potential career paths where they can thrive and make meaningful contributions.

Job Search Websites

The following job search websites offer comprehensive features and resources to help job seekers find relevant job opportunities, research companies, and navigate the job market with confidence. Whether you’re actively looking for a job or exploring career options, leveraging these platforms can streamline your job search process and connect you with exciting career opportunities.

• LinkedIn : LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional networking platform, connecting millions of professionals worldwide. In addition to networking opportunities, LinkedIn offers a robust job search feature where users can explore job listings, apply for positions, and connect with recruiters and hiring managers. Users can also create a professional profile showcasing their skills, experience, and accomplishments to attract potential employers.
• Indeed : Indeed is one of the largest job search engines, aggregating job listings from various sources, including company websites, job boards, and recruitment agencies. It offers a user-friendly interface with advanced search filters, allowing users to narrow down their job search based on criteria such as location, salary, and job title. Indeed also provides resources for resume building, company reviews, and salary information to help job seekers make informed decisions.
• Glassdoor : Glassdoor is a comprehensive platform that provides company reviews, salary information, interview insights, and job listings. Job seekers can research companies, read employee reviews, and access salary data to evaluate potential employers. Glassdoor’s job search feature allows users to search for job openings, read job descriptions, and apply directly through the platform. Additionally, Glassdoor offers career-related content, including articles and guides on topics such as resume writing, interview preparation, and career development.
• CareerBuilder : CareerBuilder is a leading job search website that offers a wide range of job opportunities across industries, locations, and experience levels. Users can search for jobs, create personalized job alerts, and upload their resumes to apply for positions directly through the platform. CareerBuilder also provides resources for resume building, career advice, and job market insights to help job seekers navigate their job search and advance their careers.
• SimplyHired : SimplyHired is a job search engine that aggregates job listings from various sources, including company websites, job boards, and online classifieds. It offers advanced search filters, allowing users to refine their job search based on criteria such as location, job type, and salary range. SimplyHired also provides resources for resume building, salary information, and career advice to support job seekers throughout their job search journey.

Professional Networking Platforms

The following professional networking platforms offer valuable opportunities for professionals to connect with peers, build relationships, and advance their careers within their industries or fields of interest. Whether you’re looking for job opportunities, seeking mentorship, or expanding your professional network, leveraging these platforms can help you achieve your professional goals and stay connected within your professional community.

• LinkedIn : LinkedIn is not only a job search platform but also the world’s largest professional networking platform, with over 700 million users worldwide. It allows users to create profiles highlighting their professional experience, skills, and accomplishments. LinkedIn facilitates connections with colleagues, industry peers, recruiters, and potential employers. Users can join professional groups, participate in discussions, and share content related to their field of expertise. LinkedIn also offers job search features, career resources, and opportunities for professional development.
• Meetup : Meetup is a platform that facilitates in-person and virtual networking events, workshops, and meetups based on shared interests and professional affiliations. Users can join groups focused on specific industries, career paths, or hobbies and connect with like-minded professionals in their local area or globally. Meetup events provide opportunities for networking, learning, and collaboration, fostering meaningful connections and relationships within professional communities.
• Professional Associations : Professional associations and organizations within specific industries or fields often offer networking opportunities for professionals to connect with peers, share knowledge, and advance their careers. These associations may host networking events, conferences, webinars, and workshops, providing opportunities for professional development, learning, and collaboration within the industry. Examples include the American Medical Association (AMA) for healthcare professionals, the Project Management Institute (PMI) for project managers, and the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) for HR professionals.
• XING : XING is a professional networking platform primarily used in Europe, with over 18 million members worldwide. Similar to LinkedIn, XING allows users to create profiles, connect with professionals, and join industry-specific groups and communities. XING offers features for job search, company research, and professional development, as well as opportunities for networking at events and conferences. It is particularly popular among professionals in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
• AngelList : AngelList is a professional networking platform and job board specifically for startups and the tech industry. It connects entrepreneurs, investors, job seekers, and startup enthusiasts, facilitating networking, mentorship, and collaboration within the startup ecosystem. AngelList offers features for job search, company research, and fundraising, as well as opportunities for connecting with founders, investors, and industry experts in the tech community.

Skill-Building Courses

• Coursera : Coursera offers courses, certificates, and even full degree programs from universities and institutions worldwide. Courses cover a wide range of subjects, including business, technology, data science, and healthcare. Coursera’s partnerships with universities ensure high-quality content, and many courses offer hands-on projects and assessments to reinforce learning.
• Udemy : Udemy is a popular online learning platform with a vast selection of courses taught by industry experts. Courses cover diverse topics such as programming, digital marketing, graphic design, and personal development. Udemy’s courses are self-paced, allowing learners to study at their own convenience, and often feature practical exercises and quizzes to reinforce learning.
• LinkedIn Learning : LinkedIn Learning offers thousands of courses and video tutorials covering business, creative, and technology skills. Courses are taught by industry professionals and cover topics such as leadership, project management, software development, and graphic design. LinkedIn Learning’s personalized recommendations and curated learning paths help learners build skills relevant to their career goals.
• Skillshare : Skillshare is a platform focused on creative and entrepreneurial courses, workshops, and projects. Courses cover topics such as design, photography, writing, and entrepreneurship, and are taught by practitioners and experts in their respective fields. Skillshare’s project-based approach encourages hands-on learning and creative exploration.
• edX : edX offers online courses, certificates, and even full degree programs from universities and institutions worldwide. Courses cover a wide range of subjects, including computer science, business management, language learning, and humanities. edX’s courses are designed to be rigorous and engaging, with interactive elements such as quizzes, assignments, and discussion forums to support learning.

Career Exploration Websites

The following websites offer a wealth of information and tools to assist individuals in exploring and planning their careers effectively. Depending on your specific needs and interests, one or more of these websites may be particularly useful for your career exploration journey.

• O NET Online : Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor, O NET Online offers comprehensive information on hundreds of occupations. It provides details on job tasks, required skills and abilities, salary data, and projected job outlooks, making it an invaluable resource for career exploration.
• CareerOneStop : Another website sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor, CareerOneStop offers a variety of tools and resources for career exploration. It features self-assessment tools, information on in-demand occupations, training programs, and resources for job searching and resume building.
• My Next Move : My Next Move, also sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor, offers an interactive tool called the “Interest Profiler” to help individuals identify their interests and explore careers that align with them. It provides detailed information on various occupations, including required skills, education, and typical tasks.
• Glassdoor : While primarily known for its job search and company reviews, Glassdoor also offers valuable insights for career exploration. Users can explore salaries, read employee reviews, and access interview tips and insights into company culture, helping them make informed decisions about their career paths.
• CareerExplorer : CareerExplorer provides a free comprehensive career test to help you explore your top career recommendations. Additionally, the platform offers detailed content on over 1,200 careers. You can search for any career and learn about the day-to-day responsibilities, required skills, and educational path needed to pursue that career.

Professional Development Resources

The following professional development resources offer a wealth of knowledge, inspiration, and practical advice to help individuals enhance their skills, advance their careers, and achieve their professional goals. Whether you’re looking to improve your leadership abilities, expand your knowledge base, or stay informed about industry trends, these resources will help to support your professional development journey.

• TED Talks : TED Talks are renowned for offering inspiring and educational talks by thought leaders and experts across various fields. These talks cover a wide range of topics relevant to professional development, including leadership, creativity, communication, and personal growth. TED Talks provide valuable insights, innovative ideas, and practical advice to help individuals enhance their professional skills and mindset.
• Harvard Business Review (HBR) : HBR is a trusted source of knowledge and insights for professionals in the business world. It offers articles, podcasts, and webinars on topics such as leadership, management, strategy, and career development. HBR provides access to research-backed insights, best practices, and real-world case studies from top business thinkers and practitioners.
• Fast Company : Fast Company is a leading publication known for its coverage of innovation, leadership, technology, and creativity. It offers articles, videos, and podcasts that provide insights into cutting-edge trends and strategies shaping various industries. Fast Company’s content explores emerging technologies, disruptive business models, and innovative approaches to problem-solving.
• Toastmasters International : Toastmasters International is dedicated to enhancing public speaking and leadership abilities worldwide. Toastmasters provides a nurturing environment for individuals to hone their speaking skills, receive constructive feedback, and cultivate leadership qualities through structured programs and workshops. Members benefit from regular opportunities to deliver speeches, gaining confidence and refining their delivery techniques.

Career Coaching and Mentorship Platforms

The following career coaching and mentorship platforms offer valuable resources and support for individuals seeking guidance, advice, and mentorship to advance their careers. Whether you’re looking for personalized coaching, industry-specific expertise, or leadership development, these platforms provide access to experienced coaches and mentors who can help you achieve your professional goals.

• The Muse Coach Connect : The Muse offers personalized career coaching services provided by experienced coaches who specialize in various industries and career stages. They offer one-on-one coaching sessions, resume reviews, interview preparation, and career strategy sessions to help individuals achieve their career goals.
• SCORE : SCORE is a nonprofit organization that provides free mentoring services to entrepreneurs and small business owners. SCORE mentors offer expertise in various industries and business areas, including marketing, finance, and strategic planning. They provide personalized guidance, advice, and support to help entrepreneurs start, grow, and succeed in their businesses.
• Career Contessa : Career Contessa provides career coaching and mentorship services tailored specifically for women. Their team of certified coaches offers personalized coaching sessions, resume reviews, interview coaching, and career planning guidance to support women at all stages of their careers.
• BetterUp : BetterUp offers professional coaching and mentorship services designed to enhance leadership skills, resilience, and overall well-being. Their platform connects individuals with certified coaches who provide personalized coaching sessions, goal setting, and feedback to help professionals reach their full potential.
• Coach.me : Coach.me offers coaching services across various areas, including career development, productivity, fitness, and personal growth. Users can choose from a network of certified coaches specializing in career coaching to receive personalized guidance, accountability, and support in achieving their career goals.
• MentorCruise : MentorCruise connects individuals with experienced mentors who provide personalized career guidance and support. Mentors offer insights, advice, and mentorship in various fields, including tech, business, design, and marketing. The platform facilitates one-on-one mentoring relationships tailored to each mentee’s needs and goals.

Personal Branding and Online Presence Resources

The following resources offer valuable tools and strategies for building and enhancing your personal branding and online presence. By leveraging these platforms, you can establish yourself as a credible and influential voice in your field, attract new opportunities, and advance your career.

• BrandYourself : BrandYourself is a platform that helps individuals manage and improve their online reputation. It offers tools for monitoring search engine results, optimizing social media profiles, and addressing negative search results. BrandYourself also provides personalized advice and strategies for enhancing your online presence and building a positive personal brand.
• Personal Branding Books : There are numerous books available on personal branding that offer valuable insights and strategies for building a strong personal brand. Some recommended titles include “Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion” by Gary Vaynerchuk, “Me 2.0: 4 Steps to Building Your Future” by Dan Schawbel, and “Brand You: Turn Your Unique Talents into a Winning Formula” by John Purkiss and David Royston-Lee.
• Blogging : Blogging is a powerful way to establish your expertise and build credibility in your field. By regularly publishing high-quality content on topics related to your industry or interests, you can attract an audience, demonstrate your knowledge, and enhance your online visibility. Platforms like Medium, WordPress, and Blogger offer user-friendly tools for creating and sharing blog posts.
• Social Media Platforms : Social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook can be valuable tools for building your personal brand and online presence. By sharing relevant content, engaging with your audience, and participating in industry conversations, you can demonstrate your expertise and personality to a wider audience. Choose platforms that align with your goals and target audience, and maintain a consistent and authentic presence across them.
• Online Communities and Forums : Participating in online communities and forums related to your industry or niche can help you establish your expertise and build relationships with others in your field. Platforms like Reddit, Quora, and industry-specific forums offer opportunities to share knowledge, ask questions, and engage in discussions that can enhance your online presence and contribute to your personal branding efforts.
• HubSpot Academy : HubSpot Academy offers free online courses and certifications on topics related to marketing, sales, customer service, and professional development. These courses cover a wide range of subjects, including personal branding, content marketing, social media strategy, and inbound sales. By completing HubSpot Academy courses, individuals can acquire new skills, stay updated on industry trends, and enhance their personal branding and digital marketing expertise.

As you navigate your career exploration and development journey, remember that the path to success is as unique as you are. Utilize the wealth of resources available to you, from career assessment tools to job search websites, professional networking platforms, and skill-building courses. Take the time to reflect on your interests, strengths, and goals, and don’t be afraid to seek guidance and support along the way. With determination, perseverance, and the right resources at your disposal, you can unlock new opportunities, achieve your career aspirations, and embark on a fulfilling professional journey.

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Discover Your Calling: Effective Career Exploration Worksheets

Career exploration worksheets: uncover your true calling, the importance of career exploration.

Career exploration is a crucial process that allows individuals to discover their true calling and align their passions and interests with their professional pursuits. It involves self-reflection, research, and decision-making to gain a deeper understanding of oneself and the various career opportunities available.

Exploring different career paths provides individuals with the opportunity to identify their strengths, weaknesses, and areas of interest. By understanding these aspects, individuals can make informed decisions about their future career paths, leading to greater job satisfaction and fulfillment. Additionally, career exploration can help individuals set meaningful goals, create action plans, and navigate their professional development more effectively.

Introduction to Career Exploration Worksheets

Career exploration worksheets are valuable tools that facilitate the process of self-discovery and guide individuals through the various stages of career exploration. These worksheets provide structured exercises and questions that prompt individuals to reflect on their personalities, skills, values, interests, and goals.

Self-assessment worksheets are an essential component of career exploration. They help individuals gain insight into their personality traits, strengths, and talents. By completing a  personality assessment , individuals can identify their personality type and understand how it aligns with different career paths. Similarly, a  skills and talents assessment  helps individuals recognize their unique abilities and transferable skills that can be applied to various professions. Additionally, a  values and interests assessment  helps individuals clarify their core values and explore fields that align with their personal preferences.

Research worksheets play a crucial role in career exploration by providing individuals with guidance on gathering information about different industries, job roles, and related education and training requirements.  Exploring different industries  allows individuals to gain a broad understanding of various fields and the opportunities they offer.  Investigating job roles and responsibilities  helps individuals explore specific careers and gain insights into the day-to-day tasks and responsibilities associated with those professions. Gathering information on  education and training  requirements helps individuals understand the qualifications and skills necessary to pursue a particular career path.

Reflection and decision-making worksheets assist individuals in analyzing their findings, identifying potential career paths, and setting goals.  Analyzing findings and patterns  helps individuals identify common themes and trends in their assessment results and research findings. By recognizing these patterns, individuals can begin to narrow down their career options.  Identifying potential career paths  involves exploring specific professions or industries that align with an individual’s skills, interests, and values. Finally,  setting goals and creating action plans  empowers individuals to develop a roadmap for their career development, outlining the steps they need to take to reach their desired objectives.

In addition to career exploration worksheets, individuals can seek  professional career counseling  to receive personalized guidance and support throughout their career exploration journey. Online tools and resources are also available to supplement the worksheets and provide individuals with additional information and guidance. Furthermore, networking and mentoring opportunities allow individuals to connect with professionals in their desired fields, gaining valuable insights and advice.

By engaging in career exploration and utilizing career exploration worksheets, individuals can uncover their true calling and embark on a fulfilling career path that aligns with their passions, interests, and skills.

Self-Assessment Worksheets

Before embarking on a career exploration journey, it’s crucial to take the time for self-reflection and self-assessment. These  self-assessment worksheets  are designed to help individuals gain a deeper understanding of themselves and uncover their true calling. The three key areas of focus are  personality assessment ,  skills and talents assessment , and  values and interests assessment .

Personality Assessment

Understanding your personality traits can provide valuable insights into the types of careers that may align with your natural tendencies and preferences. The personality assessment worksheet encourages individuals to reflect on various aspects of their personality, such as their strengths, weaknesses, preferred working styles, and interpersonal skills. By identifying these characteristics, you can begin to explore career paths that capitalize on your unique attributes.

Skills and Talents Assessment

Assessing your skills and talents is an essential step in career exploration. This worksheet prompts individuals to evaluate their existing skills, both technical and transferable, that can be utilized in different career fields. It also encourages them to identify areas where they may need further development. By understanding your skills and talents, you can narrow down the career options that best align with your capabilities and interests.

Values and Interests Assessment

Exploring your values and interests can provide insights into the types of environments, causes, and activities that resonate with you on a personal level. The values and interests assessment worksheet helps individuals identify their core values and determine what truly matters to them in a career. Additionally, it encourages individuals to reflect on their hobbies, passions, and areas of curiosity. By aligning your values and interests with potential career paths, you can find fulfillment and satisfaction in your professional life.

Taking the time to complete these self-assessment worksheets can lay the foundation for effective career exploration. They provide a starting point for identifying your strengths, interests, and values, which are essential factors in finding a career that brings you joy and fulfillment. Once you have completed these assessments, you can move on to the next stage of the career exploration process, which involves researching different industries, investigating job roles and responsibilities, and gathering information on education and training requirements.

Research Worksheets

To effectively explore different career options, it’s important to conduct thorough research. The  research worksheets  provide a structured approach to gathering information about various aspects of potential careers. This section will cover three key areas of research:  exploring different industries ,  investigating job roles and responsibilities , and  gathering information on education and training .

Exploring Different Industries

The first step in career exploration is to gain an understanding of the various industries that match your interests and skills. The  exploring different industries worksheet  helps you explore and evaluate different industries based on factors such as growth potential, job opportunities, and alignment with your values and interests.

Consider using online resources, industry reports, and professional associations to gather information about different industries. Some factors to consider when exploring industries include potential salary ranges, job stability, work-life balance, and industry trends. By systematically evaluating each industry, you can narrow down your options and focus on those that align with your career goals.

Investigating Job Roles and Responsibilities

Once you have identified industries of interest, it’s time to delve deeper into specific job roles and responsibilities. The  investigating job roles and responsibilities worksheet  helps you explore different career paths within your chosen industries and gain insight into the day-to-day tasks, required skills, and qualifications for each role.

Use online job portals, company websites, and informational interviews to gather information about specific job titles. Take note of the skills and qualifications required for each role, as well as any certifications or training programs that may be necessary. This research will help you assess which job roles align with your strengths and interests, and guide your decision-making process.

Gathering Information on Education and Training

Understanding the educational and training requirements for your desired career paths is essential for effective career planning. The  gathering information on education and training worksheet  helps you compile information about the educational programs, certifications, and training opportunities available for your chosen career paths.

Start by researching universities, colleges, vocational schools, and online platforms that offer relevant programs. Look for information regarding the curriculum, duration, costs, and admission requirements of each program. Additionally, consider exploring professional certifications or licenses that may be beneficial for advancing in your chosen field.

By gathering comprehensive information about education and training options, you can make informed decisions regarding the necessary steps to pursue your desired career paths.

Research is a critical component of career exploration as it provides valuable insights into various industries, job roles, and educational requirements. The  exploring different industries ,  investigating job roles and responsibilities , and  gathering information on education and training  worksheets are powerful tools that will help you make informed decisions about your future career path. Remember to consult additional resources such as  networking and mentoring opportunities  to enhance your research process.

Reflection and Decision-Making Worksheets

Once you have completed the self-assessment and research phases of career exploration, it’s time to reflect on your findings and make informed decisions about your potential career paths. This section focuses on three key worksheets that can assist you in this process:  Analyzing Findings and Patterns ,  Identifying Potential Career Paths , and  Setting Goals and Creating Action Plans .

Analyzing Findings and Patterns

The  Analyzing Findings and Patterns  worksheet allows you to review and evaluate the information you gathered during your self-assessment and research. Take some time to carefully analyze your assessment results, research findings, and any other notes or observations you made along the way.

Consider any patterns or recurring themes that emerge from your analysis. Look for connections between your personality traits, skills, interests, and the industries or job roles you find most appealing. This analysis will provide valuable insights into the alignment between your own strengths and preferences and the potential career paths that may suit you best.

Identifying Potential Career Paths

The  Identifying Potential Career Paths  worksheet helps you narrow down your options and identify specific career paths that align with your interests, skills, and values. Review the list of industries and job roles you explored during your research phase and consider which ones resonate with you the most.

Take into account the insights gained from your self-assessment and any patterns you identified in the previous worksheet. Consider the potential growth opportunities, job prospects, and work-life balance associated with each career path. It may be helpful to consult resources such as professional career counseling or online tools to gather additional information and insights. Check out our article on  career planning worksheets  for more guidance.

Setting Goals and Creating Action Plans

The final worksheet in this section,  Setting Goals and Creating Action Plans , helps you outline actionable steps to pursue your chosen career paths. Start by setting specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals. This could include acquiring relevant education or training, gaining practical experience through internships or volunteering, or building a professional network in your desired industry.

Break down each goal into smaller, manageable tasks and assign deadlines to keep yourself accountable. Consider any additional resources or support you may need to achieve your goals, such as mentorship or networking opportunities. Remember to regularly review and update your action plans as you progress on your career exploration journey.

By utilizing these reflection and decision-making worksheets, you can gain clarity and direction in your career exploration process. The insights gathered from analyzing your findings, identifying potential career paths, and setting goals will serve as a solid foundation for pursuing a career that aligns with your passions and aspirations.

Additional Resources

In addition to the career exploration worksheets, there are various resources available to further support individuals in their journey of discovering their true calling. These resources can provide valuable guidance, knowledge, and opportunities for personal and professional growth. Here are some key additional resources to consider:

Professional Career Counseling

Professional career counseling can be an invaluable resource for individuals seeking guidance and support in their career exploration process. Career counselors are trained professionals who can help individuals identify their strengths, interests, and goals. They can provide personalized advice, offer assessments and tools for self-reflection, and assist in creating effective career plans. Engaging in career counseling sessions can provide individuals with a deeper understanding of themselves and their career options, enabling them to make informed decisions about their future.

Online Tools and Resources

The internet offers a vast array of online tools and resources that can aid individuals in their career exploration journey. These resources include career assessment tests, job search platforms, industry-specific websites, and professional networking platforms. Online tools and resources can help individuals explore different career paths, gather information about job roles and responsibilities, and gain insights into education and training requirements. Some tools even provide personalized recommendations based on an individual’s interests and skills.

Networking and Mentoring Opportunities

Networking and mentoring opportunities are essential for career exploration and growth. Building connections with professionals in industries of interest can provide valuable insights, advice, and potential opportunities. Attending industry events, joining professional associations, and utilizing online networking platforms can help individuals expand their professional networks. Mentors, on the other hand, can provide guidance, support, and expertise based on their own experiences. They can offer valuable advice and help individuals navigate the challenges and opportunities that arise throughout their career journeys.

By taking advantage of these additional resources, individuals can enhance their career exploration process and gain a deeper understanding of their true calling. Professional career counseling, online tools and resources, and networking and mentoring opportunities can all contribute to a well-rounded approach to career exploration. Remember to utilize these resources in conjunction with the career exploration worksheets to maximize your potential for success.

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From K to 12: Engaging Students in Career Exploration

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Early and consistent exposure to potential career paths is critical to student motivation, engagement, and success as they enter our ever-changing world. According to a recent EdWeek Research Center survey , 87 percent of students feel more motivated in class when they see a direct connection between what they are learning and their future job or career skills.

Learn how your school or district can equip educators, kindle student curiosity toward relevant industries, and build the transferable skills they need for their dream career. This on-demand session, led by instructional technology expert and LEGO ® Education Solution Architect Dr. Colleen Cannon-Ruffo, will cover:

• Skills and competencies today’s students need for tomorrow’s careers
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• Making connections to CTE/CT(A)E pathways through project-based learning
• How to incorporate career exploration and career awareness across the curriculum

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