Use these resources as appropriate to help you investigate professions and make decisions about elements of your degree. Remember that you may want to investigate both general workforce skills and field-specific knowledge and skills. Record and document your research, as you may want to incorporate some of it into your rationale essay and use it to help refine your course choices for your degree plan.

Conduct an online search of “workforce skills future.” You’ll find many websites devoted to general workforce skills.  You can refer to the textbook page General Workforce Skills, and also  to the different competencies in Part 3 of this text, which align with future workforce skills as well as college learning goals.

Wall Street Journal – The Wall Street Journal is a trusted source for business and professional news.  Read articles, and especially want ads, to get a sense of the knowledge and skills expected in various professional fields.

Occupational Outlook Handbook – Published by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, this resource contains information on “duties, education and training, pay, and outlook for hundreds of occupations.”

O*NET OnLine – This resource allows you to search professions in a number of different ways.  A basic search of professions provides information on expected tasks and skills.  An advanced search allows you to search by particular tasks and skills.

Monster.com – This site contains information about types of careers and covers career duties and education needed for specific careers.

Websites of specific certification agencies – Research and consult websites and any other sources published by the organization offering certification.

ESC Career Development for Students and Alumni – These pages have links to career self-assessments, articles on career trends, and more.

Other professionals are good sources of information.  Talk with professionals in jobs that you aspire to, and ask what skills and knowledge they rely on most in everyday work, what skills they need to advance at work, and/or what college courses best prepared them for their current work.