Rather than an enormous list of links, below are the Career Centre's top picks for immediately useful resources to help you explore career options. We've tried to limit it to Canadian sites whenever possible. If you find a site more useful than one of these links tell us about it.

Choose resources to help you:

• assess yourself
• generate possibilities
• research career options
• understand the labour market & future trends

Links on this page were last tested & verified: SEP 2008

Resources to help you: ASSESS YOURSELF

Career Navigator Quizzes are intended to provide information to help you understand your abilities, preferences, work values and skills so that you are in a better position to evaluate career options. They will also help make your interactions with your career counsellor more focused and productive.

The Career Decision-Making Difficulties Questionnaire , which will help you locate difficulties you may be facing in your career decision-making process and allow us to direct you to relevant sources of information and help. Bring the results printout when you meet your career counsellor.

Career Development Manual is a well-established resource that includes checklists to help you evaluate personality, values, skills, interests, knowledge and entrepreneurism.

Skills Plus: Discovering Your Personal Career Assets will help you understand how your personal characteristics affect career decisions, explore personal management skills such as time management, problem solving, and organizational skills, identify your resources and determine which are most helpful to your career path, and much more.

Employability Skills Checklist allows you to rate yourself against the skills employers say are needed in today's workplace.

The assessments in this section are self-help resources. Professional career testing is available to eligible clients by meeting with a Career Counsellor

Resources to help you: GENERATE POSSIBILITIES

The National Occupational Classification (NOC) is Canada's career dictionary, with over 30,000 different job titles. Try browsing occupations by category or look up a few ideas you are considering in the index. When reading an occupational description, always remember to check out the "classified elsewhere" section at the bottom of each profile for related career options.

Career Cruising is an online service we subscribe to which provides Canadian profiles on over 450 careers. Accessible to all Sheridan students (past and current), contact the Career Centre for access username and password then login to Career Cruising, click on the "Careers" button and then on "Search by Cluster" in order to browse career options within broad groupings. [If you are currently connected to the Sheridan Network, you can access Career Cruising now, without username or password.]

OCCinfo has over 500 occupational profiles which you can browse by selecting interests from drop-down menus, or post-secondary field of study, or based on industrial sectors. This is run by the Alberta Learning Information Service (nothing similar exists for Ontario) but most info is still applicable.

Resources to help you: RESEARCH CAREER OPTIONS

The National Occupational Classification (NOC) is Canada's career dictionary, with over 30,000 different job titles. Look up options you are considering in the index then take note of the sample job titles, main duties, and employment requirements.

Career Cruising is an online service we subscribe to which provides Canadian profiles on over 450 careers. Sheridan students (past and current), contact the Career Centre for access username and password then login to Career Cruising, use the index or clusters to find occupations of interest, then take note of the detailed profile information including interviews with real people who actually those jobs. [If you are currently connected to the Sheridan Network, you can access Career Cruising now, without username or password.]

OCCinfo has over 500 occupational profiles which you can look up by occupational title, by NOC code based on industrial sectors. This is run by the Alberta Learning Information Service (nothing similar exists for Ontario) but most info is still applicable.

HRSDC has a database that lists analysis job & skill requirements specific to local areas, searchable by by job type, occupation title or NOC code.

Over 40 industrial sectors in Canada have their sites listed on the National Sector Councils list. This is a great starting point for researching a range of occupations and industries.

Best and Worst Careers ranks 200 occupations based on work environment, physical demands, income (US$), stress, and hours/week.

Still can't find the career information you need? Consult with a Career Counsellor to learn about any of the 30,000 different occupations in Canada.

Resources to help you: UNDERSTAND THE LABOUR MARKET AND FUTURE TRENDS

The HRSDC Wages & Salaries site provides data for most areas of Canada, can be narrowed down by urban/rural area, and searched by job type, occupation title or NOC code.

The HRSDC Employment Prospects page provides local information on opportunities in a wide variety of career fields, searchable by by job type, occupation title or NOC code.

Ontario Job Futures provides information on the current trends and future outlook for 163 occupations common to Ontario. Look up profiles by job title or job cluster

Canadian Labour Market at a Glance is a detailed report that presents charts and highlights of key trends in Canada's job market, nationally and broken down by region.

Recent Changes in the Labour Market contrasts labour market demands in the 1990's with those in this decade, many industries that trailed in the previous decade (e.g., real estate, mining, construction, hospitals, public administration) have experienced considerable growth so far this decade. The reverse is true for fields that were booming in the nineties (e.g., computers & electronics). The article provides detailed analysis of changes by industry and worker demographics.

STATISTICS CANADA researches, analyzes and reports a wide range of information relevant to the labout market. Keep and eye on the Labour Market News section on the Career Centre News & Events page or read our weekly StatsCan Round-Up

GENERAL CAREER RESOURCES

Ontario WorkInfoNet A portal and searchable directory of career planning, learning and employment resources on the Internet. It provides links to hundreds of other sites which offer services and information about career planning, job searching, labour market information, education, literacy, training, and other community services.

Toronto Public Library's "Career Bookmarks Billed as "more than a list of links", this site is organized into task-oriented sections that provide not only web links but also listings of print resources available at the Toronto Public Library (and, of course, many other public libraries and bookstores). Users can set up a profile and "keep" their favourite reference sources on file.