What can I do with my major?
Finding out details about careers can be one of the most difficult things for college students. It’s easy to feel like there aren’t websites that can provide detailed information about careers. But O*Net OnLine is a website that easily fixes that.
O*Net OnLine, available through the Charleston Southern University Career Center, is a website that prides itself on being a great tool that explains what each job is like, what you have to learn to get that job, and the outlook for that career.
When going to the site, it gives you several options for how to search for a career. If you already have an idea of the career you want to find information on, all you need to do is look it up in the search bar. But if you’re not sure where to start, they give you several options for ways to narrow it.
The Find Occupations tab shows several categories that you can search under. It determines what jobs you can look for based on if they have a bright outlook, their career cluster, technology skills that may be required, their industry, job family, job zone, or what areas require disciplines from STEM.
The careers that have a bright outlook are determined by several factors. They are determined by if they are experiencing rapid growth, if they have a lot of job openings, or what’s new and emerging. You click on one of those factors to see what careers have that certain outlook.
The career clusters, industries, and job zones are all based on the skills that are needed for that career. If a skill carries over from one career to another, then both of those can show up in the results.
The job zone shows how much experience you would need in order to get a job in that career. These are usually based on the educational level you have, or the amount of training required.
If you don’t know what career to look for and you were a part of the military, there is a tab that can help determine a specific area for you. It will ask what branch of the military you were a part of and how long you served, and it will suggest jobs that have skills that can carry over.
If you don’t know what job you’re interested in and are not a veteran, you can use O*Net’s Interest Profiler to help suggest careers you may like. The platform asks a variety of questions that will then be placed under certain traits for a career. These traits are based on how realistic they are, investigative, artistic, social, conventional, or how much enterprising is involved.
Once you finish the interests profiler, it will then ask you the kind of salary you want and the job zone that you fall under. Once those are selected, they will suggest occupations and show what they think is a great fit first, then a good fit, then other careers that may not fit, but are still related to the previous ones. From there, you can click on a job, and learn the information.
When you click on an occupation you want to learn more about, it gives you a ton of information on what you want to know about this job. It displays the tasks you have, technology skills that would be useful, work activities, and what working in this environment entails.
It then displays the experience that is required for that career, starting with the job zone it lies in. It then details what education is needed, what training is like, etc.
It then shows you where you can get the training for this job. It shows the best places you can get the education needed in a state of your choice. You can even narrow it down to local training by entering a zip code, and it will show a place within your area.
Each career also has a list of the typical knowledge and skills that people in this field usually have. It also shows the values and styles that workers have.
From there, it will show the median wages that the occupation can provide, and it can be narrowed down by looking within your state or within your local area.
The site also provides trends for the career you’re looking at. It shows the projected growth and job openings that may occur within the next few years. It will also display the industries which this job can be applied to.
At the end of the page, it provides several links that you can use. You can search for job openings within a state or in a local area. You can search for related jobs that are in the same industry or have interests that carry over. And you can click on links to sources that can provide more information.
O*Net OnLine is a great place to begin a search for what careers you may be interested in. The website is very informative and specific. The platform is very accommodating and will help you find the job you may be a perfect match for. It will provide very realistic outlooks for the job but mainly focuses on its mission to inform you of what you may be looking for when finding your ideal job.
Justin Brennan is a senior Charleston Southern student, interning with the Marketing and Communication office.
