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Job Investigation
Purpose: to write an informative paper which explores the skills, education, job
market, salary, benefits and drawbacks and issues associated with your career
choice.
Where to start
Within the next year or two, you will need to choose a career path, if you have not done so
already. The purpose of this paper is to help you research the possibilities. What fields interest
you? Keep in mind that just because you like to do something in your spare time doesn’t mean
you will have fun doing it all the time. For example, I liked to sketch and paint as a college
student, so I considered a career in art. Then I took an art class. What was fun in my spare
time became a chore with deadlines and production quality that surpassed anything I had done
as a casual hobby. Maybe art wasn’t for me. The best way to tell if you are going to enjoy doing
something for the rest of your life is to do it. Don’t wait until you have been through six years of
medical school only to discover you don’t deal well with disease and dying. Go to a hospital and
volunteer. Spend time in the field with a professional. Discuss the pros and cons with someone
who has been on the job for years. Investigate the marketplace to see if there will be a job for
you when you graduate.
Be realistic
Next, consider your options for achieving your dream career. A college degree doesn’t
necessarily translate into a lucrative profession. Many people struggle to find work even with
Masters and Doctorate degrees. Contrarily, a money-making career does not automatically mean
job satisfaction or quality of life. Every year people leave high-pay high-stress jobs for ones that
afford more time with family and simpler life styles. Also keep in mind that university study is
not the only way to win a career. Trade schools, community colleges, and internet programs offer
degrees and licenses as well. Many ambitious individuals start out low on the totem pole and
through hard work, integrity, and good communication skills move up to better positions without
ever having a day in a college classroom.
Choosing a career requires research, some experience, and a lot of careful, critical thought.
Step 1
Research your career Go to the career placement center in the Kimball Building
(room 244) and pick up free literature on schools, programs, and career options. Another good
source is the internet. Choose a general search engine like Yahoo.com and type in the key words
of your field of interest. Follow the hits that will take you to indexes, if possible. From an online
index, you can usually hyperlink (click) to any web sites that seems useful to you.
Occupational Outlook Handbook Or go to the library. The first floor contains
specialized encyclopedias, indexes, dictionaries, and other reference books to help you. In
addition, the first floor has job market catalogs which contain job descriptions, salaries, benefits,
and market analyses.
Step 2
Gather information from at least three sources on your career. Remember to
get all the bibliographical information you need, including a date, publisher, author, title, & page
numbers.
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Step 3
Draft a thesis that gives some direction to your report. Think of this paper as a
report you would give to someone else considering this field. What would you need to tell them
about the job? How much training and education are required? What is the job market like?
What are the potential salaries and benefits? What are some of the drawbacks? What critical
issues do workers in this profession have to contend with? Use these questions to help you
organize an essay around a central point or thesis.
Sample general thesis sentences for a Career Report:
Example: Becoming an elementary teacher requires at least four years of college in most states
and a license to teach. Although there is much work involved, the rewards of teaching kids are plentiful.
Example: A graphic arts designer faces many challenges in the workplace, including job availability
and low starting salary. But the determined graphics art student will find this career exciting and progressive.
Example: Current nursing shortages across America guarantee a job to most RN’s upon graduating.
However, students who pursue a degree as nurse anesthetists command higher pay and greater demand in
public hospitals, which is where I hope to work someday.
Your thesis does not need to be really specific in this report. But it should give some direction
and focus to your paper.
Step 4
Organize your data. Decide how you will arrange the information you found in your
research. You can organize in a variety of ways—but however you structure your paper,
remember to support the point you made in your thesis. In the above examples, the elementary
ed. student would need to discuss the requirements for becoming a teacher and the likely
rewards. The graphic arts designer would be committed to explaining the job market for his
major and give examples of how his career choice is exciting and progressive. The nursing
student would discuss the advantages to choosing anesthesiology over regular nursing programs.
Step 5
Write an introduction. You might introduce your report with some background or
history of your field of interest. When did it start? What has it evolved into today? Or you might
begin by explaining some of the challenges facing individuals in this profession. Or you could
give a detailed description of what the job is or what a typical day on the job entails. Make your
introduction catchy enough that your readers will want to learn more.
Step 6
Write the first draft of your paper. Don’t worry about editing as you go. Focus
more on arranging your material (you might want to put subtitles in your paper to show
organization, like Academic Requirements for a Degree on Social Work, or Challenges for the
Student of Business Management.
Step 7 Make sure information borrowed from sources is cited in the correct in-text
APA format (see book). Any time you summarize, directly quote or borrow specific ideas
from a text—ideas that are not already generally known, you need to give credit to the source
and include a parenthetical reference to your bibliography.
Example: According to the Handbook for Health Science Majors, market demands for occupational
therapists are expected to rise in the next several years (Belnap, 1998).
Step 8 Write the second draft of your paper. Pay attention to things like grammar,
spelling, and coherence (flow). Is the paper easy to read? Does one sentence lead smoothly to
the next? Are the ideas organized in a logical way? Are all your sources cited correctly?
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Step 9 Format a bibliography Using your book as a guide, format a reference list that
includes at least four different sources you used in your research and in your paper. Double
space it, indent 5 spaces at the beginning of each entry, alphabetize according to author and be
sure to get all of the bibliographical information in the right order. Put the bibliography on its own
page
Due date:
Format: Typed, double-spaced, 1200 words (4 pages), numbered pages, running header
Sources: 3 sources, bibliography, MLA or APA format (separate bibliography page)