Identify your career options

Consider:

• Your personality
  What type of person are you and what are your best personal qualities?
• Your values
  What's important to you at work? When your values are matched to your work, you are more satisfied.
• Your interests
  What work, roles and industries attract you?
• Your skill strengths
  What are you good at? What skills do you want to use at work?
• Your preferred lifestyle
  Where would you like to be working, with what type of people, doing what sort of work?

Career Voyage and Pinpoint

Career Voyage is an Australian/NZ computer program that will help you identify types of work that match your interests and preferences.

The program:

• produces an interest profile and list of job suggestions for you to research
• broadens your horizons by looking at a wide range of occupations
• helps you by confirming (or otherwise) your existing ideas
• provides back up suggestions
• suggests types of work not previously heard of or considered.

PinPoint is a US computer program that offers various careers for your consideration after looking at your:

• personality type (based on Jung's theory of psychological types, popularised by the Myers Briggs Type Indicator)
• occupational personality code (based on Holland's theory of occupational themes)
• interests
• character traits
• preferred activities
• preferred work contexts, including values.

Career Voyage and Pinpoint are available at University Careers Services in the ClockTower. Please make a one hour appointment with a Careers Consultant to go through one of these programs.

Other self-assessment resources available from University Careers Services

• Skills web pages and careers workshops. Visit Identify your skills and Careers workshops.
• Career Values Card Sort appointment
• Values Inventory appointment
• Motivated Skills Card Sort appointment
• Job From Heaven/Hell exercise appointment
• Occupational Work Settings Card Sort appointment
• Careers.Sci, an online career planning program developed for Faculty of Science students. The program is available via Cecil.

To make an appointment, register/login to Auckland CareerHub.

Resources on the web

• CareerQuest:
  A New Zealand tool that suggests jobs based on your interests.
• My Guide:
  An Australian career guidance program.
• Prospects Planner:
  A UK program which helps you generate new jobs ideas.
• TypeFocus Personality Type Profile
• MU Career Centre Career Interest Game:
  This game from the University of Missouri will help you work out how your personality might fit in with specific work environments and careers.
• Your career and you: self assessment for students and graduates (and all lifelong career planners):
  This Australian booklet contains a series of challenging exercises which are designed to assist students and graduates gain a clear understanding of their skills and attributes.

Here are a few ideas to get you started with gathering information about your career choice:

• Go to Careers fairs.
• Attend employer presentations. For more information visit Employer presentations and career seminars.
• For job outlines and other information see the Careers New Zealand website.
• Read newspapers, the internet, industry magazines, and company brochures.
• Explore the sections Industry profiles and  Career resources in your faculty.
• Join your professional association.
• Get work experience or volunteer. See Internships and voluntary work.
• Make contact with the Alumni Careers Network.
• Download information on Networking and informational interviewing (56KB PDF).
• "Reality test" careers of interest by reading/ talking/trying.
• For links and tools for researching jobs, occupations and more, see Researching careers.

• Good grades are important.
• Gain some relevant work experience.
• Involve yourself widely in extra-curricular activities.
• See a Careers Consultant to do some career planning. For more information visit How University Careers Services can help you.

• Career resources in your faculty
• Career planning steps to take at University
• Making decisions