Before you begin to work on your Career Portfolio, it is important to spend time thinking about what you like to do and exploring different career areas. The time you spend now doing career exploration and assessment will help you decide which businesses/colleges to apply to in the future. There are many tools and activities that you can use to gather some information about yourself—your particular learning style, strengths, abilities. Once you have thought about and identified this information, you can then begin to explore careers that match your personal characteristics.

Your assignment is to go to O*NET Interest Profiler and complete the Interest Profile. Upon completion of the Interest Survey, you will come to a screen that looks like this, with a print button in the lower right corner.

Print these results. This is the first of three documents you will need to put in your Career Portfolio.

When you continue with the "NEXT" button, you will learn about "JOB ZONES". Read and understand the differences between the different zones. Select the Zone you plan (hope?) to be in five years after graduating from high school. Continue until you get to the screen listing potential careers that match your interests and expected preparation level. Print this screen; this is your second of three documents you will need to print and put in your portfolio.

Read through the various careers listed. Select one career you might be interested in. Print this document and place it in your Career Portfolio. Below is an example for Cabinetmakers and Bench Carpenters.

Finally, write a reflection of this experience and put it in the Career Portfolio along with the other three documents. Although there is no specific length this reflection has to be, it should completely answer the following questions:

1. What was your overall opinion of the survey? Was it valuable? Was it a waste of time? Why?
2. Which of the six types of profiles (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising or Conventional) was your dominant type according to the survey? Do you agree or disagree? Why? Be specific.
3. What is the career you selected and why? Is it a career you could realistically could do some day?
4. What are your next steps in trying to achieve your career goals? Think in terms of broad, long term plans; think about 5-10 years from now.