Van Nuys High School

Career Info & Tests

Email your questions to Mrs. Giller at jbg0707@lausd.net (Those are zeros not the letter O).

Is Career Planning Important?

It is time you take charge of your life and plan to be happy. It is estimated that eighty-five percent of working people do not like their job. Considering you could spend about 12 hours getting to you job, doing your job, and going home, that is a lot of time to spend not enjoying yourself. Is that you future? Confused? Come to the Career Center for help!

Steps to Plan Your Career

1. Discover what your personality, values, and interests are. Take one of the career assessments below.
2. Evaluate what skills your have and what skills you need to learn. You can’t be a singer, if you can’t hold a tune.
3. Investigate the list of careers from your career assessment. Ask yourself:

How much schooling am I willing to complete for a career?

What salary range do I want? (Remember-the most motivated are the most successful and there is no salary guarantees.)

Are there jobs where I want to live?

How many job openings are predicted?

4. Job shadow or participate in paid or unpaid internships. Until you are in a job, you do not know exactly what it is like. Job shadowing/internships allow you to experience a taste of the job. How awful it would be to complete a 1-2-4 year educational program to discover you hate what you do.
5. Research where to obtain training or education for your career choice. Compare several places to decide which best suits you.

Remember with our global economy job here today may be gone tomorrow. Be prepared to learn for life. You must maintain up to date skills whether you stay with a company for decades or change companies several times during your career path.

Career Tests - Find careers that fit your personality!

Career Cruising
This is provided by LAUSD in the Digital Library. It allows you to create a portfolio to keep track of career results, GPA, student activities, colleges that interest you, awards, SAT/ACT test scores. It’s amazing! This link should take you to the page to select "Career Cruising";
http://notebook.lausd.net/portal/page?_pageid=33,49115&_dad=ptl&_schema=PTL_EP

OR

Go to:http://notebook.lausd.net/portal/page?_pageid=33,47493&_dad=ptl&_schema=PTL_EP
Click on "Resources" at the top of the page.
Scroll down and click on "Instructional Resources".
Click on "Digital Library" in the box titled "Featured Website".
Click on "Career Cruising" .

California Career Zone - There are 3 methods to discover which jobs suit you. The Interest profiler is the most thorough.
http://www.cacareerzone.org/graphic/assessments.html

California EDD - Has interest career test, occupational information, salary, and job info.
http://www.labormarketinfo.edd.ca.gov/?PAGEID=3

Onet - Career assessments and a complete data based of occupational information including worker characteristics.
http://www.onetcenter.org/tools.html

                                    Career Information

Schools, Degrees, and Careers
http://education-portal.com/

Onet - List of jobs in each career cluster.
http://online.onetcenter.org/find/career?c=0&g=Go

Career One Stop - Provides information on a national and state level covering most topics related to a career.
http://www.acinet.org

Bridges - Sign up for a free email providing the lastest news on careers.
http://careerpronews.bridges.com/

California Career Zone - Begin with a xplore careers and career pathways.
http://www.cacareerzone.org

Career Voyage - A site proving career exploration and information on high demand, higher pay jobs.
http://www.careervoyages.gov

Onet - A complete data based of occupational information including worker characteristics.
http://online.onetcenter.org/

ASVAB - Career Exploration
http://www.asvabprogram.com/

OOH - Occupational Outlook Handbook
http://www.bls.gov/oco/home.htm

SCANS - Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills
http://wdr.doleta.gov/SCANS

California Employment Development Department - EDD
http://www.edd.ca.gov

Labor market information for Los Angeles by industries may be downloaded below.
Labor Market Information- EDD
http://www.labormarketinfo.edd.ca.gov/

Occupations by educational level, pay, and other categories
http://www.labormarketinfo.edd.ca.gov/occguides/IndexSearch.aspx

Labor Market Information- EDD-by county
http://www.labormarketinfo.edd.ca.gov/?PAGEID=170

Labor Market Information- EDD- Los Angeles County
http://www.calmis.ca.gov/htmlfile/county/losangel.htm

Careers in the Military
http://www.careersinthemilitary.com/

                                    What to do with your major?

College Majors - Connect your interest and/or academic achievement to college majors requiring 2 or 4 years of study or explore a major.
http://www.mymajors.com

Rice University - Downloadable information on college degrees and careers.
http://career.rice.edu/ustudents.cfm?doc_id=6767

National Career Development Guidelines - Work Career Development Model Crosswlk - Download link is below.

Files: