Hello, My name is Sean and I am a librarian here at the GCC Library, and today, I would like to talk
Hello, My name is Sean and I am a librarian here at the GCC Library, and today, I would like to talk
to you about some of our Career Resources available at the GCC Library.
But before we begin, let us first ask "What is the purpose of career research?"
Well, in answer, there several important benefits to researching a career:
To begin, career research can help you to understand what careers are available,
possibly even illuminating careers of which you were previously unaware.
Second, you can learn critcal information and details about these careers, including information about
the work environment (or the day to day duties of the job)
the job outlook (or the amount of positions available for the career you are researching both now and in the future)
Compensation (put simply how much the job pays and what benefits are available for the position).
and similar or related positions (or careers that are similar to the position you are
researching to give you an idea of the variety of careers within the area).
All of these bits and pieces of information can help you to develop the idea of a career that is right for you.
And so, what does the library offer to help find this information. Well, there are several key resources:
These resources, include our Online Resource Collections that provide details on a number of careers and positions.
This includes links to the Occupational Outlook Handbook and Ferguson's Career Guidance Center,
Both of which we will explore shortly.
As well, the GCC Library boasts a number of books to aid career researchers, which can be found in the Career & College Collections of
the GCC Library. And this collection not only includes books on different career pathways, but also contains books on developing quality
resumes, cover letters, and interviewing skills. And books to help match your career to your personality so if you unsure what career to
pursue, you might find a few suggestion based upon your personality and aptitudes.
So that being said, let me show you how you can find these resources starting from the GCC Library Home Page
And basically, this page will be your portal to all the career information available at the library.
To begin, you will might want to start by going to the "What are you researching?" option upon this page.
This will allow you to focus the library home page upon the discipline and subject area in which you are researching.
And so, if you click on the dropdown below the "What are you researching?" question, you can select the option for Career/College.
Now when you select this option, you will notice that the GCC Library home page
changes to highlight the different career resources available at GCC Library .
You will see featured videos, books, and research guides below that all focus upon career information.
This being said, all of the different tools we are going to be discussing today are located at the top of the page, and so let us begin by
exploring some of our online career information resources.
And these can be found at the top of the left- hand menu, through the link that says "Career Databases".
So to begin, searching these resources, you will simply click on this link just like I have now...
Now this will bring you to this page which lists all of our online career information resources. And so we have Ferguson's Career Guidance
Center and a link to the Occupational Outlook Handbook that we will explore here in a second.
As well, we have a few other good ones below including:
the Survey of American Industries and Careers which provides details about different industries and occupations.
Films on Demand: Career and Job Search - Which contains a number of streaming video titles that tend to focus on skills for job seekers
such as how to get a job, write a resume, obtain a position, and so forth.
And then there is the Phoenix Business Journal, which provides a lot of great information, particularly through their Book of
Lists, on some of the major companies and places of business in the Phoenix area that
could potentially be hiring or looking for employees.
And several other options below that also provide significant information and are worth exploring.
That being said, I would like to begin our exploration of career resources with the Occupational Outlook Handbook as this is a
really great example of the types of quality information you might uncover through career
research. And so to access this resource, you will need to simply click on it, like so...
And that will bring you to a page that looks similar to this one. Now it is important to note that this is actually a free resource that is
available not only on the GCC Libray page but also through the general web and you can access it by simply searching "Occupational
Outlook Handbook" through Google or another internet search engine.
And again, the reason why I like to begin with this resources, is the fact that it is a really great career information resource-- and on this
page, you have a number of options to really begin researching a number of careers and industries and start to learn some of the facts
and information that might really help to guide your decision upon the career that might be right for you.
Now you can search for careers in a number of different ways. For starters, if you know the career you are interested in exploring, you can
simply type the career in the search box to the upper-right. So for instance, you can type in "nurse" or something like "IT professional" and
you will likely get a lot of results based upon this search query. As well, you will see a number of different more browseable search
options below, that will allow you to search jobs by such details as median pay (or how much you will be making on the job), or also by
education required (whether that job is available with an associates or bachelors or if something more is required), as well as the
amount of jobs that are projected to be available and the growth rate of those jobs.
In addition, you will find options to browse occupations by the highest paying positions, the fastest growing positions, and the
positions in which the most new jobs are projected to exist in the future.
However, perhaps the most useful way to search for a position is through one of these occupation groups listed to the left. This menu
will allow you to explore the careers that are available in various industries... And so if you are not sure what you wish to do but
maybe you know you would like to do something in lets say Arts and Design, you can
begin exploring careers by clicking on this heading. Similarly, if
you know you wish to do something in IT, maybe you will want to click on this Computer and Information Technology heading to begin
exploring those careers... Or if you wanted to do something is social science or health care... you have all these options to choose
from to begin exploring careers in these industries.
And let me click on the heading for Computer and Information Technology, so you can get an idea of what I mean...
Alright, after I click on this option, I am taken to the Computer and Information Technology Occupations page, and you will see on this
page a listing of a bunch of different careers listed in this field. For instance we have Computer and Information Research
Scientists, Computer Network Architects, Computer Programmers, and really a pretty large variety of options, and
you can click on the title of each career to reveal the page on it.
In this career profile page, you will begin with a Summary of information on the career including a snapshot look on the median pay
or salary you might expect from this career, the level of education required for obtaining this position, and the job outlook for the career (or
in other words the amount of open positions you might expect to find in the career both now and into the future). For example this one says
outlook is faster than average meaning there is significant job growth in this field likely resulting in additional positions.
Now in addition to this summary page, you find a number of tabs at the top of the career profile that go into much greater detail, including the
"What They Do" section which goes into the day-to-day duties of the job.
The "Work Environment" section, which tells a little about the setting in which you will work, whether that will be in an office, outside, in a
classroom, or something else. It also shows the major industries that employ someone in such a position.
Then, we have the "How to Become One" tab which goes into the details of what you need to do to obtain this particular position. Including
information on education, work experience, internships and apprenticeships, and the
important qualities for a person to have in such a position.
Of course, there is also information on the "Pay", basically how much, in this example, a
computer information scientist will make on the job.
We also have a more detailed page on the "Job Outlook", or the amount of growth or number of
expected available careers for a particular position.
Next up is "State and Area Data", which provides links to information about the particular
opportunities available locally or within the state.
You will also find something called "Similar Occupations", which lists similar or related positions to the profile you are looking at. In
this case, since we are looking at a computer information scientist profile, you will notice a lot of similar technological and computer careers
which might also be of itnerest to you if you are exploring this position.
And finally, there is a "More Information" tab that provides additional links where you can find even more information on the career.
Now as well, just a reminder, I went through some of the navigation menus to get to this particular career profile, but you can also
simply enter a career in the search box to the upper-right and find information this way as well. For instance, you can try nurse.
This will take me to a results page, and I can click on one here that seems to match "Registered Nurse"
And when I click on this page, it takes me right to that career profile. And you will note, that it has the same basic design as the computer
information scientist profile we were looking at earlier with a summary page, listing basic facts about the career and tabs along the top
that go into these different career aspects in further detail.
Alright, so that was the Occupational Outlook Handbook... That being said, I wanted to share with you one other online resource that
we subscribe to at the GCC Library which is also extremely helpful for career research and that is Ferguson's Career Guidance Center.
Now this one has a lot of great career information similar to the occupational outlook handbook, but also features a few additional
unique tools and information systems to help you also gather additional career information.
so let me go ahead and click on this resource and give you the grand tour...
Now, again, in some ways some of the information is very similar to what you will find in the Occupational Outlook Handbook and
some of the information tools and resources will be unique. This being said, the Ferguson's Career Guidance Center is divided into several
major categories. So at the top, we have information on "Industries and Careers", similar to the Occupational Outlook Handbook, you
can browse industries and careers and get details on these careers such as outlook,
compensation, work environment and similar information.
There is also a "Plan your Education" section. And so, if you know perhaps the career you would like to obtain, this Plan your Education
Section can help you to find the college to give you the necessary education to obtain that career.
Finally, there is a "Launch your Career" section. Now this is the section for job seekers with detailed information on how to draft quality
cover letters and resumes, prepare for your interviews, and much more...
Now you will also notice at the top above the search box, a quick menu for each of these
categories with the major parts of each section.
Again, you can simply type in your careers at the top or click on the "Browse Careers and Industries" to get started.
And like with the Occupational Outlook Handbook, when you click 'browse careers and industries', you will see a left-hand menu.
In Ferguson's, this menu lists out a variety of different career industries where you can find
an overvew of each industry along with different information about specific career areas.
And so, you might begin your research of a career in which you find interesting and then browse the career areas from there. For
instance, let's take a look at the Education option under the Education and Training industry.
When I do so, I get a page like this one, with an overview of the field, an industry outlook as well as specific careers in the field listed to the
right. And when I select the career Mathematics Teacher to the right, I get even more detailed information on this career,
including some basic facts such as salary, and educational requirements to the right and a detailed description to the left.
As well, a really neat feature of this database, is the tabs located on the top. Here, you will notice two options "The Job Profile" which is
what we are seeing now and a "Find Jobs" tab. And this "Find Jobs" tab will allow you to actually search a list of available positions for
the job in which you are looking. So when, I click on this one, I get a listing of different Mathematics Instructor positions. And there
are even options where you can limit to your location to see what jobs are actually available
near you and a few other things such as salary and company and other items as well
Again, just like with Occupational Outlook Handbook, I could have also gotten to this page, by simply typing Mathematics Teachers
in the top, and would have gotten to this Mathematics Teacher profile page. Therefore, if I knew this was the position I was interested
in, I could have also found the information that way.
Now let me show you a bit on the Plan Your Education section of Ferguson's. Of course, you can access these pages through the
home page of Ferguson's. As well, you can also access this section through the quick
links at the top above the search box on all the pages.
That being said, I am going to go to the Find a School Option and select Undergraduate from this list to show you how this page works.
Alright, when I click on undergraduate, it brings me to this page here.
On this page, there are a variety of options where I can really begin to narrow down my college search.
For instance, there is a location option, where I can select the locations of the colleges I am interested in attending.
There is an institution type, where you can specify 2 or 4 year college.
Enrollment, where you can see the size of your school based upon student enrollment.
Tuition, where you can see the cost of the school.
And perhaps most important, Areas of Study, where you can determine if the colleges your are looking to attend have your area of study or
degree you are seeking to help get you the career you are desire.
Now, the Launch your Career section is also a great part of Ferguson's and is also worth exploring
as are all the different online resources listed on this careers database page.
However, I wanted to shift gears a little bit and also mention some of the great book
resources we also carry here at the GCC Library.
And so, a quick recap, there are few different types of books on college and career
information, and these books are located in the GCC Library's Career and College section.
These books include books that contain information on careers, providing lists of
different careers and industries along with important facts and information about each.
Second, we carry a number of career books to help you understand your own career interests. One good example is the "Do What You Are"
series which can help you match a career to your personality and aptitude.
Finally, we also carry a large number of books designed to help you get the job. For instance,
we have books on writing resumes, drafting cover letters, and preparing for the job interview.
This being said, to get to these awesome career and college book resources, you will want to navigate to the Find Books tab on the
library website. Once on this tab, you will click "Signature Collections", then "Career/ College".
When you do so, you will go to a page that looks like this that will reveal a searchbox into which you can begin typing search terms. Now
you can type in a career or industry or even resume or cover letter and get the books you are looking for.
So for this example, let me type the term "nurse" to see what nursing books we might have at the library if I was perhaps interested
in that career. You will, notice when I do so a number of career books on nursing pop up, such as Fast
Facts for Nursing. Job guides for nursing and much more.
now, if I didn't have a specific job in mind, I could have also typed in something like health care and gotten books on the industry.
As well, I could type in resume to get resume information as well. All these will list the different books available through the library.
Now below, each book is the shelf number where you can find it, but if you need any assistance finding a book, please let a
librarian know and we would be more than happy to help.
This being said, that is all I have for you today. I hoped you enjoyed this video on the career resources of the library. Please do not hesitate
to let a librarian know if you need any assistance. Thanks again for watching and have an excellent day!
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