What Kind of Job is Right For You?

Whether you are searching for your first career or looking for a new one, it is important to find a career that helps you earn enough money to meet your needs, that you can do well, and that is satisfying to you. It is also important to develop your skills in new ways. It is great to find a job that you enjoy doing, but it is also important to think about how what you are doing now can prepare you for your long-term goals.

Even if you have a long way to go to reach your goals, thinking about your long-term career can help you focus on your current job search. But you don’t have to know exactly where you want to end up. Each job you have will help you learn more about your interests, acquire new skills, and develop your long-term goals.

Thinking carefully about the skills and interests you have now is a good way to begin your search for a satisfying job. The tools below can help you get a clear picture of your interests and skills.

Discovery: Understand Yourself

Self-Assessment/Personal Inventory

There are many tools available to help you learn more about your likes, dislikes, and how your personality fits with different work settings and occupations. Some assessments can cost money, while others are free. Different assessment tools work differently and focus on different things. It can be a good idea to take more than one assessment, to get a broader look at yourself.

The Job Accommodation Network (JAN) has an excellent guide called Finding a Job that is Right for You: A Practical Approach to Looking for a Job as a Person with a Disability that has helpful information for your job search. The guide is divided into four steps, and the first step, "What kind of job is right for you?" includes links to worksheets to help you learn more about what is important to you, your interests and strengths, and what you need from a job. The worksheet links are located under "Do you have the skills to do the job?" and each worksheet has a slightly different focus:

• The Job Priority List Worksheet helps you list the things that interest you the most and the job features that are most important to you.

• The Overcoming Obstacles Worksheet helps you anticipate challenges you may find when looking for work. Thinking of solutions to problems that you might run into before you get started can make your job search easier and more effective.

• The Personal Inventory Worksheet helps you begin building a resume by organizing your experiences to show your interests and strengths.

The Alaska Career Information System (AKCIS) has mulitple tools to help you, including an Interest Profiler to identify your interests and how they relate to possible careers, and a Work Importance Locator to find careers that match your work values.

CareerOneStop.org explains how self-assessments can help you find a good career fit. The site offers three different assessments:

• Interest Assessment looks at how much you enjoy different tasks and activities
• Skills Matcher focuses on your skills and knowledge
• Work Values Matcher looks at the qualities in a job or workplace that are most important to you

You can answer a series of questions on the U.S. Department of Labor's O*NET Interest Profiler to discover what you like to do. The Department of Labor also hosts MyNextMove.org, with tools to help you figure out what you want to do for a living.

Talking to a Career Counselor

It can be hard to choose from all the different self-assessment tools. It can also be difficult to know what to do with the results once you have them. A career counselor can help you choose the right tool, understand what the results mean, and help you get started with your career planning. Often these services are at a low cost or no cost to you.

You can find a career counselor at an Alaska Job Center or at a Division of Vocational Rehabilitation (DVR) office.

Your Individual Needs

Interests and skills are important when deciding what work you might like to do, but it is also important to know what you need your job to do for you. The Alaska Career Information System's Reality Check tool helps you see which careers might match your financial needs. Another way to explore the financial and other benefits you need from a job is to complete the Personal Needs Assessment Worksheet (located under "Does this job meet your financial needs?") inside the Finding a Job that is Right for You guide from the Job Accommodation Network (JAN).

Reasonable Accommodation

If your disability makes aspects of your job difficult, you may want to ask for a reasonable accommodation. A reasonable accommodation is any change in the work environment or in the way things are usually done that leads to an equal employment opportunity for you as a person with a disability.

Reasonable accommodations can include modifications to the facility, changes in the job process, and assistive technology allowing you to meet the expected job performance standards. You can learn more about accommodations in the Alaska State Commission for Human Rights' Disability and Reasonable Accommodation Guide, and the Alaska ADA Compliance Program lists accommodation resources.

You usually start an accommodation request, either verbally or in writing. Get information on how to put your request in writing. If you have developed strategies or used equipment to successfully accommodate your disability, then you may want to share this with your employer. DB101's Job Supports and Accommodations article has more detailed information about ways to ask for an accommodation.

If you need help:

• The Alaska Division of Vocational Rehabilitation (DVR) can help you decide what accommodations you need, and DVR might pay for needed evaluations, assistive technology, or modifications to your home or vehicle. A DVR counselor can coach you on how to ask for accommodations and, if needed, contact an employer and help identify resonable accommodations.
• Assistive Technology of Alaska (ATLA) can help you find assistive technology that best meets your needs.
  
• The Job Accommodation Network (JAN) is a free service that offers:
  • Accommodation experts to guide you through the accommodation process.
  • Publications with accommodation suggestions for different situations.
  • The Searchable Online Accommodation Resource (SOAR), which asks you about your situation and then offers accommodation suggestions.

Finding Careers That Match Your Strengths and Interests

Once you have a clearer picture of your skills and interests, you’ll need to figure out what type of work might suit you. The sites below have tools that help match your interests with possible jobs. They also explain what types of education and training you may need to prepare for the career you are interested in. Even if you already have a job or career in mind, it is a good idea to explore some of the sites below. They may suggest a career you hadn’t thought of, but matches your interests.

• AlaskaJobs lists Four Steps to a New Career, with links to tools that help with each step.
• The U.S. Department of Labor’s O*Net Online offers careers search tools. O*Net lets you look for jobs that use a specific skill, tool, or software. It also allows you to browse groups of similar occupations so you can learn about jobs that are related to the job you are interested in.
• CareerConnect, from the American Printing House for the Blind, lets you browse careers by field or interest area. It also allows you to explore specific careers and offers details about the knowledge, interests, skills, and abilities needed.
• CareerOneStop has an education and training page that includes the education requirements and training needs of different occupations.
• Although it is aimed at high school students, Career Exploration from the Bureau of Labor Statistics helps you use your current interests to find and explore different careers.
• Careers and the disABLED magazine has in-depth articles and information on career options.

What Does the Future Look Like for the Type of Job You Are Seeking?

Before you become too focused on a specific career, it is good to understand how easy or hard it is to find a job in that area.

The Department of Labor and Workforce Development publishes the Alaska Economic Trends monthly magazine which reports on statewide economic topics, including a yearly jobs forecast. (Online subscriptions are free.)

CareerOneStop has information on:

• Industries with the Fastest Growth
• Occupations with the Largest Employment
• The Highest Paying Occupations
• Wages and Employment Trends by Occupation, Job, and State
• Wages by Education Level

In addition to resources for exploring careers and job searching, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has information on occupations that are expected to:

• Suffer the largest wage and employment declines
• Experience the largest growth in total number of jobs
• Grow the fastest

By looking at websites that list jobs, you can see the types of jobs that are in demand in your state or local area. You can find local job openings at Monster.com and Indeed.com.