Exploring Career Options

Why explore?
Career exploration is the process of learning about careers in order to make decisions about career options. At the beginning of the process, it is important to have a clear understanding of your interests, strengths, abilities, goals, and values so that you can assess how good a "fit" various careers are for you. Career Planning Workshops or individual counseling offered by Career Development can help you with your self-assessment. Click here to visit a useful self-assessment website.

The process of exploring career options can take as little or as much time as you would like to spend. You can research career fields in conjunction with a job search during your senior year or you can start as early as your first year of college. The suggested steps for researching each career you are considering are:
  • Learn as much as possible about it through reading career-related information and attending Career Development programs such as Executive-in-Residence and Career Panels.
  • Talk to people who work in, or are familiar with, the jobs, organizations, and industries that interest you.
  • If possible, gain practical experience in the career by trying it out first-hand through an internship, part-time job, volunteer experience, and/or shadowing.
STEP 1: Read about the field
  1. Career Overviews – The best starting point for learning about careers is to read clear, objective overviews. There are several sources of this type of career information in our library. They describe the nature of work, typical work settings, training and qualifications required, employment outlook, and salaries for hundreds of occupations. You can find such information on the careers that interest you in various reference books in the Career Development library.


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  2. Career Guides – There are career guides published for most major career fields. These usually contain sections on: how to know if the field is right for you; descriptions of jobs and work settings; professional associations for the field; industry publications; and job search strategy. Sample titles of popular career guides are: The Career Guide for Creative and Unconventional People, The Fast Track (a guide to jobs in Management Consulting, Investment Banking and Securities Trading), and 150 Careers in the Health Field. These and many others give you in-depth information to supplement what you've read in the career overviews. Many career guides can be found in Career Development, and some can be purchased in bookstores with Career Guide sections.


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  3. Directories – Listings of organizations exist for most industries. Depending upon the specific directory, they may provide names, addresses, phone numbers, executives' or officers' names, and nature of the business for all the organizations in a particular industry. Directories such as these are most useful in the job search phase when you need potential employers to contact, but they can be helpful in career exploration as well. Perusing directories can give you a sense of how many potential employers there are in an industry, where they are located, and how the organizations are structured. Typical directories are: the Standard Directory of Advertising Agencies ("The Red Book"); O'Dwyer's Directory of Public Relations Firms; the Private Independent Schools; and many corporate directories published by Standard and Poor's or Dun and Bradstreet. Directories are located in Career Development and in the reference section of college and public libraries.


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  4. Newspapers & Magazines – Popular publications like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, BusinessWeek, Working Woman, etc. often contain articles that give insight into the employment outlook of various industries or the nature of the work in various careers. Publications you may not be as familiar with are those of professional and trade associations. Examples of these are AdWeek and Publisher's Weekly. To find the association for the field that interests you, consult the subject index of the National Directory of Trade and Professional Associations and contact the association to inquire about any magazines, newsletters, or journals they produce. Many of these publications contain job listings which can give you an idea of typical job titles, qualifications required, salaries, and a sense of how widely available jobs are in a given field. A selection of magazines, journals, and newsletters is kept on the magazine rack in Career Development.
STEP 2: Talk to people
After you have read about your career options, you need to talk to people who are familiar with the field. They can give you information that may be more up-to-date and realistic than that found in published sources. You can talk with people by phone or in person at their place of work or elsewhere. Whether the person is a family friend whom you know well or someone you've never met, you should always approach the discussion as a structured "information interview" (consult the Career Development Informational Interviewing fact sheet for suggested questions). People who may be able to give you information include:
  • Barnard alumnae
  • Employers and co-workers
  • Friends, acquaintances, and family members
  • Teachers and professors
  • Staff members of professional associations
STEP 3: Gain practical experience
The most direct way to get a feeling for what a particular career is like is to work in it. Depending on how much time you have before you have to make a final career decision and start a job search, you may want to consider the following options:
  1. Internships – A paid or non-paid temporary position designed to give you experience in a certain type of job, industry, or the world of work in general. Internships can last for one semester or less, a full academic year, a summer, or several months to a year after graduation. Some organizations have formally established internship programs, while others take on interns for special projects on an as-needed basis. Others might not consider having an intern until you approach them requesting the chance to gain experience in exchange for unpaid work. An internship is an excellent way to explore careers; ask in Career Development for information on the Internship Program.


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  2. Volunteer Work – Similar to an internship, volunteering is unpaid work which can expose you to jobs, specific organizations, and the world of work in general. Volunteer positions tend to be found in non-profit and community service organizations.


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  3. Part-Time Jobs – Paid positions are a good solution for those who have financial constraints that make internships unrealistic. Your duties on a part-time job tend to be narrower than those on internships where you may be more likely to work in different areas of an organization or on different projects. They do, however, give you "real world" experience and can help you make decisions about whether a certain type of work or work setting is right for you.


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  4. Shadowing – Shadowing is following and observing a person in the workplace on a short-term basis. As a shadower, you would see the daily routine of someone in a particular career and may be given small amounts of work to do. Shadowing usually takes place over a day or two, often during January Intersession or Spring Break. Shadowing is a good option for someone with limited time for career exploration or for someone who has a number of career options that need to be narrowed down before selecting a field in which to intern or seek a part-time job. Career Development can help you arrange a shadowing opportunity.
Remember that the counselors here at Career Development are available to help you at any point in your career planning, both while you are a student at Barnard and as an alumna!


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