Need a New Career?

August 02, 2011

My coworker recently brought one of MCPL’s Career and Education Databases to my attention at our monthly staff meeting. It’s called Career Transitions, and "is a complete, self-paced application that walks job-seekers through the entire process of assessing strengths and interests, exploring different career paths, compiling a resume, and searching job listings. Using Career Transitions can improve your chances of landing a job."

You can log on as a guest, but the site suggests creating a profile so you can save your work and come back to it later.

Career Transitions offers an Interest Assessment to help you discover what kind of jobs might interest you. It covers 60 different work activities, and takes about 10 minutes. When you are done, your score is recorded. The numbers reflect your level of interest in each Interest Category. The categories are Conventional, Enterprising, Social, Realistic, Artistic, and Investigative. My highest score was in the Conventional category. When you click on the folder, some choices for possible jobs in that category come up. I clicked on the "medium preparation needed" link. Surprise! Library Assistant is one of the Conventional job choices. Looks like I’m right where I need to be. When you click on one of the job titles, a general job description is displayed as well as some current job openings around the U.S., although you can narrow it down to your state.

Career Transitions also helps you with your resume. I tried plugging in some of my information to see how it puts it all together, and ended up with a nice looking resume. If you aren’t sure how to start a resume, this is a really helpful tool. The site also has some useful articles to help you improve your job prospects, as well as making current job openings available and giving you the option of applying right then and there.

If you are looking for a new job, try searching using Career Transitions!

Jordan P.
Edgerton Branch