Making decisions has always been difficult for me: I spent weeks trying to find the perfect science fair project, months choosing a summer camp, and I still have no idea what on earth I want to do in ten years when I’ll finally have to work for a living. So when I was asked to think about about career planning and share my thoughts, I had no clue where to start – how did one go about planning a career in the first place? For an answer, I went to every high school student’s best friend when it comes to research: Google. Here are some of the websites I found, and how I think they’ll be useful in our career search:

www.careerplanning.about.com

This website has a treasure trove of information having to do with everything concerning jobs. Not all of it is targeted toward high school or teen audiences, but there is a lot of important information that could be useful:

• The Career Profiles section allows you to browse through over 170 careers, with brief sections related to job description, requirements, job outlook, earnings, and “a day in the life”. Very useful if you don’t know exactly what career interests you, and you want to look through a lot of options.
• Career Quizzes: Good for if you already have some idea of where you’re going, or you’re deciding between a few career options. Pick a career to get quizzed on, and find out how well you would be suited to it.
• Fastest Growing Jobs: Read about the fastest growing jobs for different levels of education as stated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Includes job growth percentages through 2018, and median salaries.
• The Career Decisions: Self Assessment article helps you use personality and values to aid you in your career choice.
• The Start Your Career tab helps you do more exploring, and allows you to make a plan to put your prospective career into action.

www.mappingyourfuture.org

This is without question one of the most helpful and informative websites I visited. It’s well organized and easy to use. Here are my favorite parts:

• The tab titled middle/HS students has all the information you need to start planning your career.
• Begin by clicking on explore careers. Each link under this section is like a step in your career plan. Go through each one in order to start streamlining your skills and interests, developing a plan, and researching your career options.
• Make sure you click on blue links that may appear in the articles themselves to find out more important information. This includes researching careers, tips on developing resumes, and finding colleges that can provide the training you may need to be successful in a particular field.

Careerservices.rutgers.edu

This is another one of my favorites. I liked it particularly because in addition to being easy to use, it finds you potential college majors that correlate with your career of interest:

• Begin by clicking on the Students tab at the top. From here, click on High School Students (located under the heading “Student Populations”), and then on Rutgers Pre-College Career Planning Site.
• Go down to the “Getting Started” section. Click on “Assess Yourself” (step 1), and take the Interests Assessment to find out in which areas your interests lie.
• From here, go to Generate Options to look at lists of college majors (these are specific to Rutgers but can apply elsewhere) and career options. (Note that this site doesn’t give any specific information about different careers, so therefore isn’t good for browsing)
• The Gather Information section has more information about different fields (but not on individual careers) and links to sites with more career information.
• If you think you’re ready to move forward, click on Make a Decision and Next Steps to help you finalize your career choice and start planning for high school and college.

www.careerplanner.com

A lot of the personality and career tests on this site must be purchased, but there is still some free public information definitely worth taking a look at:

• From the home page click on the Job Descriptions tab for access to over 270 job descriptions and job outlooks, as well as career advice articles.
• Click on the Education tab to find colleges and classes based on the field you are interested in.
• The Career Videos tab shows you five short videos about career planning.

www.myfuture.com

This website will be the most helpful if you are interested in a military career. It also has easy to find job statistics, and allows you to find colleges that fit your career:

• Click on Find a Career on the homepage. You can browse through a list of careers, before clicking on ones that interest you. Job description, job statistics, job growth, salary, and details about education, are all listed for each career option.
• Once you click on a career, the Education & Training tab also offers a list of colleges that offer majors related to the field.

These were some of my go-to websites on the internet. What are yours, do share in comments below. Thanks.