What Kind of Job is Right For You?

Whether you are planning for your first career or searching for a new focus around which to organize your work life, it is important to pursue a career that will help you meet your financial needs, that you will be able to do well, and that will be satisfying to you. It is also important to take steps 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 will help prepare you for your long-term goals.

Even if you have a long way to go before you reach your ultimate goal, thinking about your long-term career goals can help you to 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 that you have now is a good way to begin your search for a satisfying job. Below are some tools designed to help you get a clear picture of your interests and skills.

Discovery: Understand Yourself

Self-Assessment/Personal Inventory

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. The guide has information that can help you with each step of your job search process.

The guide begins with a series of quizzes and worksheets to help you learn more about what is important to you, your interests and strengths, and what you need from a job. Each one includes a completed example to look at.

Each worksheet has a slightly different focus:

• The Job Priority List helps you organize lists of the things that you are most interested in and the features of jobs that are most important to you.
• The Overcoming Obstacles Worksheet is designed to help you anticipate possible obstacles you may find when searching for work. Thinking of solutions to problems that you might run into before you get started on your job search can help make your job search easier and more effective.
• The Personal Inventory Worksheet is designed to help you begin building a resume by organizing your experiences to show your interests and strengths.

Self-Assessment Resources

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. Different types of assessment tools work differently and focus on different things. Some of the assessments will cost money but others are free. A great place for self-assessment tools is the U. S. Department of Labor's CareerOneStop website. The site's Career Exploration page includes a section on self-assessments and a discussion of why they are helpful to job seekers. CareerCircle is also an excellent resource for job seekers with disabilities.

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. There are people available to help you choose the right test, understand what the test results mean, and help you get started with your career planning. Often these services will be offered at a low cost or no cost to you.

You can find a career counselor at a local office of the California Department of Rehabilitation.

Your Individual Needs

Interests and skills are important to figuring out what type of work you might like to do, but it is also important to know what you need your job to do for you. A good way to explore the financial and other benefits you need from a job is to complete the Personal Needs Assessment Worksheet available 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 perform at the expected performance standards. Ability Tools, California's Assistive Technology Act Program, provides information on assistive technology.

An accommodation request is usually started by you and may be requested verbally or in writing. For information on how to put your request in writing, click here.

If you have developed strategies or have used equipment to successfully accommodate your disability, then you may want to share this with your employer. However, if you have not needed an accommodation before and do not know where to start, contact the Job Accommodation Network (JAN). JAN is a free service that offers accommodation experts to help guide you through the accommodation process. JAN also has a website with publications containing accommodation suggestions for different situations and an interactive website called the Searchable Online Accommodation Resource (SOAR). SOAR asks you about your situation and then leads you to accommodation suggestions, including information on where to buy a product if one is suggested.

Finding Careers That Match Your Strengths and Interests

Once you have a clearer picture of your skills and areas of interest, you’ll need to figure out what type of position might suit you. The sites below have tools designed to help you match your interests with possible jobs. They also have information on 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 the sites below. They may suggest a career option you hadn’t thought of, but that is a good match for your interests.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s O*Net Online offers a helpful set of tools for searching for careers. O*Net allows you to search 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, is a great site that allows you to browse careers by field or interest area. It also allows you to explore specific careers and offers extensive information about the knowledge, interests, skills, and abilities necessary for each position.
• CareerOneStop has an education and training page that includes information on the education requirements and training needs of different occupations.
• Although it is aimed at high school students, Exploring Career Information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics is an excellent tool for anyone exploring careers. The site is designed to help you use your current interests to find and explore different careers.
• Career Planning, from MyPerfectResume.com, offers links to an extensive set of sites designed to help you explore careers and occupations and choose a career path.
• Career Exploration, from the University of California Berkeley, offers tools and resources to help plan your future, investigate career paths, and learn about potential careers.
• Careers and the disABLED magazine has in-depth articles and information on various 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 the prospects for finding employment in that area.

CareerOneStop has information on:

• Industries with the Fastest Growth
• The 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
• That are expected to experience the largest growth in total number of jobs
• That are expected to grow the fastest

Every two years, the California Employment Development Department gives short-term (two years) and long-term (10 years) predictions of job trends statewide.

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 www.Indeed.com.