What happened to my Career?

Bad News – In today’s economy people are looking at their career choices and saying, “What happened to my career?  I was supposed to have this career until I retire.  Is it ever going to come back or do I need to change my career? What am I going to do now?”  Their future looks bleak in their own mind.  But what about reality?  Is their career really dead or is it just waiting for the economy to pick up? How are you going to find out this information?

Good News – There is a resource that can help you figure out if your career is heading the way of the dinosaur or if it will be making a come back.  This resource is called the Occupational Outlook Handbook. 

This handbook covers all the details of just about any occupation you might think of.  It even has a “Search OOH box” that will let you search for keywords in occupations.

Once you select a particular occupation, it provides all kinds of information about employment details, training, qualifications, projected growth, earnings, related occupations

Verify your Occupation Projections in your Industry – the job outlook shows projected employment from 2006 – 2016.  It will give you the employment delta as a number and a percentage.  If you discover that your chosen career is receding, it might be time to look at the Related Occupations information.

At this point, many people start to take a serious look at what their Transferable Skills are and where their career is headed.  Many times, they don’t know what they’re going to do next, but they do know the career they once had appears to have disappeared or trending that way in the future, at least until the economy picks up again.

Browse Occupations in other Industries – Remember, all of your experience you have acquired while working and going to school does count for something.  It’s called Transferable Skills.  These are skills learned elsewhere that can be transferred or applied to a future job.  I would encourage you to look at several different occupations available in each industry.

Researching Occupations:

• Career Guide to Industries
• Employment Projections
• California Occupational Guides by keyword (if you know the career you’re looking for)
• California Occupational Guides by topic         (if you’re not sure of the career you’re looking for)
  • Job by Training/Education needed     (This topic shows what you qualify for based on your Training/Education)
  • What jobs match your interests?          (This topic shows which jobs you might be interested in by matching your stated interests)
• O*Net Online

 I hope these sites/tools provide you with some solid career choices as you consider which steps to take next in your career

Good luck in your career research.