When you complete your assessments, you’ll get results unique to you. Both the Work Interests and Work Values Assessments provide you with a list of suggested occupations you might be interested in based on your answers. Click on those suggested occupations to learn more about them. You should especially do this if there’s an occupation on the list you don’t know anything about.

If you see an occupation on the list that you immediately think is not right for you, stop for a minute. Our opinions can often be shaped by information that isn’t totally accurate or complete. Ask yourself how much you really know about the occupation and be willing to learn more.

But what if you know what you want to do? It’s still important to learn about other occupations. By considering additional occupations, you’ll either become more interested in what you want to do or your mind will be opened to other options that might be even better. It’s worth the time to consider different paths.

Occupation ladders are also important to consider. Some occupations might be a ladder to get to the occupation that you want. For example, to become a chef, most people begin as a cook. Some occupations might also be easier to pursue initially but lead to more advanced occupations over time. For example, becoming a dental assistant might lead to a career as a dental hygienist (with additional schooling).

Here are some things to keep in mind when building your occupation library.

Try not to get overwhelmed. There are thousands of occupations out there, so it can be overwhelming trying to figure out what you want to do. But there’s help available! The tools in this site are there to guide you in choosing an occupation that’s right for you. There are also people available to help. Talk to your parents, teachers, counselors, and mentors about your options and what might be right for you. Reach out to people working in a career you’re interested in to learn more about the realities of that career.

Keep your options open. It’s better to save a lot of occupations to your library than just a few. You can always go back and remove occupations, but having many occupations saved will help you compare what you do and don’t want from a career. So don’t be afraid to save anything that you think you might be interested in.

Don’t forget to manage your library. You get to choose which occupations are in your library. Don’t forget that you can always add and remove occupations as you learn more about them. You can also rank occupations in your library as you learn more about them and narrow your options. These functions are meant to help you narrow down your list of occupations to just a few that you’re most interested in.

It can be overwhelming when you’re trying to pick the occupation that’s right for you out of a long list of options. Here are some tips for comparing your saved occupations and ultimately narrowing your list down to a few you are particularly interested in.

Use the Compare Occupations Tool. This tool was built to help you compare your saved occupations side-by-side. You can compare three occupations at a time. Ask yourself questions like: Which occupations pays the most? How much education is needed for each occupation? Do the tasks and activities of one occupation sound better than those of another? As you go through the Compare Occupations tool, you’ll evaluate these questions, and your answers will be tallied at the bottom of the page. There, you’ll see an indicator of how interested you are in an occupation based on your answers.

Review your Occupation Library. Your occupation library is where all your saved occupations are stored. Visit your library to learn more about each occupation. Again, keep in mind things like wages, education requirements, future job openings, and other information. You can rank the occupations you’ve saved by moving them higher or lower in your library.

Share your saved occupations. After you’ve researched your saved occupations and made some notes, talk to a parent, teacher, or mentor about the occupations that seem the most interesting to you. Talking with others will help you really discover what’s important to you and help you narrow down your interests.

Explore outside the box. It’s time to branch out. Consider informational interviews, job shadowing, volunteering, and internships to learn about an occupation in person. These types of experiences will teach you quickly whether something is right for you or not. The next Career Exploration step (Step 5) has information on ways to really learn more about occupations in the “Other Resources” section.

Focus on what you’ll be doing in an occupation. It’s easy to just focus on how much money you’ll make or how much education you need. While those things are important and may drive your decision on which occupation to go into, it’s really important to learn about the tasks and activities you’ll be doing. Working takes up a significant part of your life, and you want to make sure you’ll enjoy what you’re doing.