career research paper worksheet

FYE101-103 - Introduction to College, Career and Personal Success

• Researching Careers - Websites
• Researching Careers - Databases
• Researching Careers - Magazines
• Researching Careers - Books

Career Research Worksheet (Preparation for Career Research Paper)

• Cite Your Sources This link opens in a new window
• Class Reflection Exit Ticket
• CAREER RESEARCH PAPER WORKSHEET

Fill out this worksheet to gather data in preparation for your career research paper assignment. Your paper will need to be a minimum of 2 pages and no longer than 3 pages. It will need to be in your own words or using quotes, paraphrasing, summarizing with proper citation. It will consist of research on two possible careers you have researched. The paper will be double spaced and 12 point font.

• Title of Career:
• What are the job duties and responsibilities?
• What qualifications are needed in terms of college degrees, skills, or work experience? What schools or colleges offer this training?
• Are you likely to receive on-the-job training in this field?
• What is a typical career path in this field? Opportunities for advancement?
• What is the employment outlook for this industry?
• What is the average salary for someone entering this field? What are the top salaries in this field? What are the typical benefits?
• Who are the typical employers in this field?
• What are the key professional and trade associations for this field?
• Is relocation to a specific geographic location required?
• What are some related occupations?
• What sources did you use to find out about this career?
• After researching the specifics, are you still interested? How does this mesh with your vision of a lifestyle?

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

• Career Path Research Assignment - Sana Data gathering in preparation for your Career Research Paper Assignment.
• Careers Research Worksheet Assignment - Hoopingarner Data gathering in preparation for your Career Research Paper Assignment.
• Careers Research Worksheet Assignment - Strickland Data gathering in preparation for your Career Research Paper Assignment.
• << Previous: Researching Careers - Books
• Next: Cite Your Sources >>
• Last Updated: Jul 17, 2024 10:27 AM
• URL: https://paradisevalley.libguides.com/FYE101-103-

• Get started with computers
• Learn Microsoft Office
• Apply for a job
• Improve my work skills
• Design nice-looking docs
• Getting Started
• Smartphones & Tablets
• Typing Tutorial
• Online Learning
• Basic Internet Skills
• Online Safety
• Social Media
• Zoom Basics
• Google Docs
• Google Sheets
• Career Planning
• Resume Writing
• Cover Letters
• Job Search and Networking
• Business Communication
• Entrepreneurship 101
• Careers without College
• Job Hunt for Today
• 3D Printing
• Freelancing 101
• Personal Finance
• Sharing Economy
• Decision-Making
• Graphic Design
• Photography
• Image Editing
• Learning WordPress
• Language Learning
• Critical Thinking
• For Educators
• Translations
• Staff Picks
• English expand_more expand_less

Career Planning and Salary  - Explore Careers

Career planning and salary  -, explore careers, career planning and salary explore careers.

Career Planning and Salary: Explore Careers

Lesson 2: explore careers.

/en/careerplanningandsalary/discover-your-career-needs/content/

Explore careers

What types of positions are currently available in this field? What are the average working conditions and expectations? Will this career be in demand five years from now? Research is critical as you begin exploring different career paths.

In this lesson, you'll learn what to look for as you start researching careers. We'll also talk about various online and direct resources that will help you gather valuable information.

How to research

Before you begin exploring different career paths, it's important to understand what you should be looking for in your research. Asking the right questions can make finding a career a lot easier.

Click the arrows in the slideshow below to learn what information to gather in your career research.

Research strategies

You should make use of various methods and resources as you gather information about different careers. Taking a diverse approach to your career research will help to ensure the information you collect is accurate and helpful .

Career research guides

The Occupational Outlook Handbook from the U.S. Department of Labor is the most comprehensive resource for researching any career. You'll be able to learn about the nature of the work , normal working conditions , average salaries , projected job outlook , and more.

CareerOneStop is also a powerful career planning tool. A central resource in the new American Job Center Network , it allows you to browse careers that are in demand , compare different occupations , create a career plan , and learn valuable resume writing and interviewing skills.

MyNextMove , on the other hand, will guide you through the career research process and provide a quick, visual summary of the information you need to know. This is a great resource if you're having a difficult time getting started. You might also try another career planning guide, such as US.jobs .

General advice

Career research doesn't just happen online. There are several ways you can learn about careers directly. Let's take a look at some of the most helpful methods.

Obtain first-hand knowledge

Learn directly from someone in the field. You might visit a workplace , job shadow, or interview a person with a position in your potential career. Entry-level positions, internships, and volunteering allow for more in-depth knowledge. You can use volunteer search sites like AmeriCorps.gov or Idealist.org to look for internship and volunteer opportunities in your community.

Research industry organizations

Many industries have professional and trade organizations . These organizations can be valuable resources for learning the latest industry trends and training requirements, as well as making connections with the field. You can find different industry organizations by using this list of industry groups on Wikipedia.

Attend a career fair

Career fairs allow you to meet representatives from a variety of different industries and professions you might not otherwise meet. Talking directly with someone from a career field might give you a different perspective on a position or career path. You can find upcoming career fairs in your area on NationalCareerFairs.com .

Visit a career center

Many community centers, libraries, and colleges have career centers with resources that can help you learn more about what to expect from different careers. Visit the Career One Stop service locator page to find career centers near you.

• Download the Career Research Worksheet ( .doc or .pdf ).
• Navigate to one of the career research websites above to assist you in your research.
• Try answering the questions in the worksheet to start researching a career.
• Think about how you might use one of the methods above to learn more about a career path.

/en/careerplanningandsalary/salary-basics/content/

SDEV 0171/0370 - Career Research Assignment

Research as inquiry, off-campus access, your library.

Career Research LIB-O-RAMA!

• Tools to Start With
• Other Tools
• Class Activity
• Future Planning

Career Research Essay

Open the occupation investigation worksheet, use the library guide to research your chosen career. write a 500 word essay to discuss all sections of the worksheet thoroughly (each item is worth 13 points). use ms word to format your essay. indent your paragraphs, and double-space your lines., include a works cited page in mla format with three or more sources..

• Occupational Investigation Worksheet

Students will understand that research is a process of inquiry.

This activity will help you practice the following skills essential to your success in school and beyond. In this activity you will:

S1. monitor gathered information and assess for gaps and weaknesses

S2. draw reasonable conclusions based on the analysis and interpretation of information

This activity will also help you become familiar with the following important content knowledge:

K1. consider research as open-ended exploration and engagement with information

K2. seek multiple perspectives during information gathering and assessment

• Get out a sheet of paper and write your career at the top.
• Let's find the LibGuide for your course.
• Search for your career in the  Occupational Outlook Handbook .
• Collect and write down 3 types of information: 2 job responsibilities (that either surprise you or responsibilities that you would want to just share with someone unfamiliar with the career), the pay, and the job outlook. [7 min]
• Turn to your nearest neighbor and share! [2 min]
• Whole class shout-outs and discussion: Did anyone have any responsibilities that surprised them? How many careers were in the $400K or more pay range? $100K? $60K? Why are these careers in those ranges? How many careers had a job outlook of over 20%? 17%? 12%? Why is the outlook different for these careers? [10 min]
• Now search for your career in either O*Net or  Ferguson's . Fact check the information you gathered from OOH . Write notes on whether you're finding the same information or different information. [7min]
• Turn to your neighbor again and share what you found to be the same or different! [2 min]
• Whole class shout-outs and discussion: How many of you found different information? Why should we look in different tools? Where does this information come from? [10 min]
• Write a recommendation for another student who is also researching this career. Which search tool would you recommend and why? Give them at least 2 reasons why you think that tool would be best. [5 min]

Texas Reality Check will show you how much your living expenses will cost, and the amount of money you will need to earn to pay for them.

Cost of living calculators are useful in comparing the expenses associated with different cities or regions.

(Department of Labor) Enter a current or past job to get a list of related professions with comparison data for salary, skills, knowledge, and licensure.

 Sort Link Group  

 Add / Reorder  

Library databases require a login from off-campus!

• ACES username is required for login
• ACES password is your password for login

What does the login page look like?

• Next: Cite >>
• Last Updated: Sep 14, 2024 1:31 PM
• URL: https://sacguide.libguides.com/careers

Graphic Organizer: Research a Career

Ever wonder what your dream job is really like? Research it to find out! Have students use this graphic organizer to compile notes from multiple sources as they learn all about a career that interests them. Designed for a middle grades literacy curriculum, this Graphic Organizer: Research a Career worksheet will support the development of research strategies, note-taking, and prewriting skills.

View aligned standards

For Teachers

Career exploration worksheets, understanding careers, student interest inventory, career research, career skills development , increasing hiring chances , career planning and exploration, about the author, peter brown.

Career Exploration for Students and Kids (19 Free Resources)

By: Author Amanda L. Grossman

Posted on Last updated: December 29, 2023

• 3.5K shares
• Facebook 46
• Pinterest 3.5K
• Flipboard 0

Teach students and kids about careers with these 19 free worksheets and lesson plans. Career exploration for students to do.

One of the most important reasons behind a formal education – besides teaching your students how to think for themselves – is to get kids ready to take on an engaging and exciting career.

And a career? Well, that’s the foundation to any person being able financially provide for themselves – what we call, financial independence.

That’s why I take a real interest in helping kids, tweens, and teens get the best fun career exploration activities resources out there.

So that one day, they can find a fulfilling job and be able to earn enough money to not only survive, but thrive.

Career Exploration for Students

What all is involved in career exploration for students?

To be honest, there’s a lot to cover here.

You want to provide fun and engaging activities for topics like:

• Understanding Careers : The foundational blocks of understanding how a person earns money, having a job versus working on a career, how to develop your career, etc.
• Career Interest Assessments : Which careers intersect a child’s natural abilities and a child’s interests?
• Career Investigation : What does a day look like when holding down a job in one of those career fields that interests a student? What’s the salary like? This can include activities in the classroom, research, and also shadowing.
• Skill Identification and Development : What skills do they need to pursue a job that interests them? What level of education would they need?
• Understanding How to Get Hired : Things like interviews, creating a resume, job searches, etc. are critical for students to know how to do.
• Career Stepping Stones : What steps can the student take right now (and before they graduate high school) in order to set themselves just a few steps closer to getting into that career field (i.e. internships, volunteer activities, writing a first resume (here are free teen resume templates ), type of afterschool/weekend jobs)?
• Income and Paycheck Management : Discussing how to not only manage a paycheck from a real-job, but also how to manage your career so that your income more than matches current cost of living needs. Also, going over paycheck taxes, pay type (salary, hourly, commissions), insurance, workplace retirement contributions, and other deductions.

Whew – that list wasn’t meant to overwhelm you.

Rather, I wanted to inspire you with what an important and life-changing topic you’re covering with your students and kids.

Plus, to outline some of the areas you can cover with these fun career activities and resources I’ve found for you, below.

Career Exploration for Kids – Free Career Assessments

First up, let’s talk about how to get your kids and students actually interested in career exploration activities.

There’s no better way to pique a student’s interest than to find out what THEY are most interested in learning about.

One way to do this is to start off your unit of study with free career assessments.

1. Truity.com Career Assessment

I spoke with the people at Truity.com, and they said a good age minimum to take their free career assessment is 14/15 years of age.

The test is free to take, plus you get a basic report with results. You don’t even need to have a student register for them to do this!

However, if you want to be able to view each of your student’s results, you’d have to sign up for a Pro account.

2. CareerOneStop’s Career Assessment

This free, 30-question career quiz from the U.S. Department of Labor will help a student figure out some possible career choices.

3. O*NET Interest Profiler

Another career assessment test sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor is O*NET’s interest profiler. There are 60 questions in total.

Psst: want even more career websites for students? Here's 14 career websites for high school students .

4. CommonLit Career Day at Pixie Academy

Age: 4th Grade

Here's a reading passage that's centered around some great career and job terms. The theme of the story is Pixie finding a new job.

Assessment questions and a teacher's guide are included.

Career Exploration Worksheets for Students

While I don’t recommend you center your entire career unit around career exploration worksheets, the ones below can definitely add to students discovering jobs, industries, etc.

1. Find Your “Right Now” Job

Suggested Grades: 6-8

Scholastic has some fantastic worksheets and lesson plans to help with career exploration for students.

In the “ Find Your Right Now Job ” worksheet, students will research jobs and apprenticeships around their area of interests to find two jobs that they could apply to (when they're a bit older).

2. Career Research Worksheet

Here’s a simple, one-page worksheet you can get for free with a free account on Teachers Pay Teachers.

It will help focus your student’s career research.

3. Career Family Tree

This free worksheet of fun career activities has an idea that I love – for students to create a family career tree. They’ll need to ask family members and do the research, which of course is a great way for kids to understand their loved ones even better (plus to learn a thing or two).

4. Classroom Job Application

With a free Teachers Pay Teachers account, get this simple classroom job application your students can fill out to “apply” for classroom jobs.

5. Earning Income Career Earning Worksheet

BizWorld has this free, simple worksheet to help your students research a career and salary information.

6. Collection of Career Exploration Worksheets (9-12 grades)

Here’s a bunch of different career activities and worksheets for grades 9-12 .

Worksheets include:

• Reality Check Worksheet
• Networking Bingo
• Speed Interviewing

Career Lesson Plans

Looking for more than just career preparedness worksheets?

Check out these enter career lesson plans, available for free.

Hint: many of them include both worksheets and videos.

1. National Retail Federation's Library

The National Retail Federation (NRF) has a program called RISE Up , a certifying program with curriculum that helps students and young adults get hired in the retail industry.

Check out the RISE Up classroom activities section to find lots of short videos from people actually in the retail industry, answering questions students might have and teaching students about their industry. It also includes a worksheet for each video.

2. PWC’s Earn Your Future Digital Classroom

Check out Level 3 (for Grades 9 – 12), Module Chart Your Course . It talks about:

• The relationship between education and careers
• The opportunity cost of pursuing additional education
• The importance of monetary and nonmonetary compensation when selecting a job

3. BizKid’s It’s a Job to Get a Job

Download an entire lesson plan for high schoolers that include topics like:

• Job search techniques
• Interviewing
• Adding value as an employee

4. NGPF's Career Unit

This is a full-year course, with the following units:

• Unit Plan & Assessments
• Career Basics
• Choosing a Career
• Workplace Skills
• Finding a Job
• Your LinkedIn Profile
• Resumes & Cover Letters
• Interviewing for a Job
• Outcomes of a Job Interview
• Starting a New Job
• Career Sucesss

5. Louisiana Department of Education's Virtual Workplace Experience

The state of Louisiana has come up with these free resources to help students explore careers in LA's highest-demand industries. These are project-based learning activities.

Honestly, there's a ton here.

They've broken it down into the following units:

• General Resources
• Portfolio Projects Resources
• Getting Started
• Healthcare and Pharmacy
• Automotive Service & Repair
• Construction Crafts/Skilled Trades
• Information Technology
• Advanced Manufacturing
• Transportation and Logistics
• Business Management and Finance
• Sales and Customer Service

Career Games for Kids

These career games for kids and teens create an engaging way to teach career awareness.

1. Career Charades

Age: 7-9 years

Students are asked to brainstorm lots of different careers (it's suggested that they can ask parents, grandparents, and others to come up with ideas ahead of time).

Each student writes these ideas onto a piece of paper, and everyone takes turns acting out a career while others try to guess what they're doing.

Great for better awareness about career options!

2. Claim Your Future

Students select different career paths, are given a typical salary, and then are given various spending choices. The amount of money they spend throughout the game is tracked so that they can see, and make any adjustments as needed.

3. The Payoff

Suggested Age Range: 14 years and older

Practical Money Skills has come up with another free online career game, and this time it's all about two teenagers trying to start up a business in a competitive atmosphere.

Students will have to evaluate business deals, learn how to grow their business, and how to overcome financial challenges in business and in life.

4. Auction Adventures – Auctioneer Career Game for Kids

Suggested Age Range: Grades 3-5

Being paid by commission is wayyyyy different than getting a salary (or, even, being paid hourly). You have to actually sell something to make any money!

This game has your students calculate their commission rates while, at the same time, learning about how auctioneers work in a variety of different places.

Here's a set of worksheets to go along with this game.

5. The Uber Game

Like it or not, the “gig economy” where people are not full employees of companies, but still accept gigs from them and earn a small or substantial amount of money on the side, seems to be here to stay.

So, kids should understand how this can fit into their career and money plans!

The Uber Game gives your teen a scenario, such as they have a $1,000 mortgage payment due in a week, and then asks them to try and earn enough money through accepting gigs in order to pay that bill.

Can they do it? Is it hard or easy? Can they sustain themselves on a gig job?

Psst: You’ll want to check out my 31 free personal finance homeschool curriculum , as some of the resources also have free career resources.

Career Research for Students

When students research a career, they need to look at it from several different angles before deciding if it’s possibly on their “Career Hitlist”.

Here are the different things to research for a career:

• Find Income information : Salary, or hourly pay? What’s the range? Do people have this as their only job, or do they need to supplement with a second job to “make ends meet” (i.e. pay all their bills plus save money each month)?
• Ask People and Watch Interviews : Your student will want to make sure a day in the life of a potential profession is something they’d actually be interested in. Interviewing current employees in a profession, or even watching videos where professionals are interviewed can be really helpful.
• Find Shadow Opportunities : Students can go shadow a job within your school district, or with a family/friend. Or, they can take part in a Take Your Child to Work day at their parent’s/aunt’s employer. 

Psst: Have you ever heard of CareerVillage ? Students can ask career-related questions and get them answered by professionals, for free! Students of all ages are accepted, and they’ll need to create an account (for free) to ask a question.

1. How to Research a “Day in the Life”

You want your students to feel what it’s like to be on the job in a career path they’re researching.

Help them to do this by:

• Career Biographies : There are a vast number of what I like to call career biographies that help a child understand what it’s actually like to pursue a certain career field. I’ve got an article on 22 career books for kids , broken down by age and profession type.
• Career Videos : These can be really helpful, particularly when funds don’t allow for school field trips. MyAmericanFarm.org has a great collection of 3 to 26-minute videos on all different types of agricultural careers . PathSource has an impressive collection of career interview videos. Kids Work! Has a nice collection of ca r eer videos for kids (Grades 3-8). You can also search YouTube for “Day in the Life of _______”.
• Career Shadowing : Career shadowing was quite cool when I was in high school. Students should be encouraged to shadow someone at their job, whether it’s a parent/family member, or even someone within the school district. Reach out to your principal, vice principal, administrative assistants, and anyone else working at your school district to see if you can set up some job shadowing to go along with your career unit.
• Career Interviewing : You could have your students brainstorm a list of interview questions for someone in a job they’re curious about, and then actually help them find a person to interview either by email or in person. Imagine what they could learn from the experience!
• Take Your Child to Work Day : My sister and I both took turns taking the train to Washington D.C. to my aunt’s, and then she would take us into her job at NBC for a “Take Your Child to Work Day”. It was SO neat! It’s really a perfect way to get a taste for what a day in a job looks like (not to mention, motivate a child to want to do better at school so they can get some of the cool positions they get to see). Here's how you can do take your child to work day activities .
• Career Videos : These can be really helpful, particularly when funds don’t allow for school field trips. MyAmericanFarm.org has a great collection of 3 to 26-minute videos on all different types of agricultural careers . PathSource has an impressive collection of career interview videos. Kids Work! Has a nice collection of ca r eer videos for kids (Grades 3-8).
• Career Articles : CommonLit has some Day in the Life career articles, such as A Day in the Life of an Astronaut . Also, ReadWorks has some of these articles.

2. How to Research Income Information

While it used to be difficult to figure out income averages for a career or job type, it’s quite simple nowadays thanks to some seriously great, free, resources provided by the Department of Labor.

Here’s a one-stop salary finder , where you enter the occupation and your location to get an idea of the average pay.

It also offers a listing of professions, so students can click around by career cluster (or category) and just explore.

Psst: another important thing to make students aware of through research? Are career projections. In other words, is an industry or job path they want to pursue growing, or are the jobs getting scarcer? Here’s a great resource from Workforce Solutions (for just the Houston-Galveston area, though it still drives the point home about the importance of this question) that shares percentages for various careers.

3. Lessons to Understand Paycheck Taxes and Deductions

EverFI has free financial literacy lessons for kids and students, and Lesson 3 is on income and taxes .

Students will be given different ideas about careers, as well as the pros and cons to each.

Career Projects for Middle School Students

Looking for a career project your middle school students will enjoy?

1. Middle School Exploratory Tasks

Kentucky's Department of Education has a really cool resource – a group of middle school career projects, broken down by 16 different career clusters (and 80 different career pathways within those clusters).

Not only that, but they have student work samples for each one!

There are projects and exploratory tasks for careers in:

• Agriculture
• Human Services
• … and ten others
• Latest Posts

Amanda L. Grossman

Latest posts by amanda l. grossman ( see all ).

• 11 Easy Things Kids Can Make and Sell at School (Non-Food) - September 10, 2024
• 7 Fun Halloween Candy Games for Kids (from Dollar Tree) - September 5, 2024
• 7 Simple Market Day Food Ideas (from Dollar Tree) - August 27, 2024

Career Research Paper

Help your students focus on career and college readiness with a future career research paper that will guide students as they research the many different aspects of their chosen future career.

This resource includes four different assignment sheets to accommodate all of the middle school and high school grades, multiple research organizers that will help guide students through the research process, career planning and goal setting, peer editing, and grading rubrics.

Resource Page Breakdown

1. Assignment Outline Page version 1 (full assignment)

2. Assignment Outline Page version 2 (full assignment minus MLA Format requirement)

3. Assignment Outline Page version 1 (no location requirement)

4. Assignment Outline Page version 1 (no location or MLA Format requirement)

5. At-A-Glance Research Organizer

6. Research Notes Page 1

7. Research Notes Page 2

8. Researching Education and Training Graphic Organizer

9. Researching Location Graphic Organizer

10. Goal Setting Organizer (for middle school)

11. Goal Setting Organizer (for high school)

12. MLA Source Cards (front)

13. MLA Source Cards (back)

14. Peer Editing

15. Rubric #1

16. Rubric #2

*This resource contains a map of the US only.

This resource is sold as a secured PDF file.

SUBSCRIBE NOW

Career Research Paper

What educators are saying

Also included in.

Description

Help your students focus on career and college readiness with a future career research paper that will guide students as they research the many different aspects of their chosen future career.

This resource includes four different assignment sheets to accommodate all of the middle school and high school grades, multiple research organizers that will help guide students through the research process, career planning and goal setting, peer editing, and grading rubrics.

Resource Page Breakdown

1. Assignment Outline Page version 1 (full assignment)

2. Assignment Outline Page version 2 (full assignment minus MLA Format requirement)

3. Assignment Outline Page version 1 (no location requirement)

4. Assignment Outline Page version 1 (no location or MLA Format requirement)

5. At-A-Glance Research Organizer

6. Research Notes Page 1

7. Research Notes Page 2

8. Researching Education and Training Graphic Organizer

9. Researching Location Graphic Organizer

10. Goal Setting Organizer (for middle school)

11. Goal Setting Organizer (for high school)

12. MLA Source Cards (front)

13. MLA Source Cards (back)

14. Peer Editing

15. Rubric #1

16. Rubric #2

*This resource contains a map of the US only.

This resource is sold as a secured PDF file.

Questions & Answers

The daring english teacher.

• We're hiring
• Help & FAQ
• Privacy policy
• Student privacy
• Terms of service
• Tell us what you think