A great publication is available for use in planning your career—the new edition of the Utah Adult Career Guide . It's written for people who have finished high school and want to find a good career or change careers. Packed with helpful advice on how to assess yourself (skills, personality, interests), it shows you how to make a strategic plan for a career that will meet your needs.

The “backbone” of the Adult Career Guide is the Career Chart. This comprehensive list of occupations includes the description, wages, outlook for the future, and training required for each occupation listed. It also tells which occupations require a license in Utah. The Career Chart lists the occupations that nearly 80% of working Utahns work in, making it an excellent overall source of occupational information.

One of the most interesting and helpful items in the new Adult Career Guide is on personality types. Research has shown that people are happiest in their work when they choose occupations that “fit” their personality type. The Adult Career Guide helps you determine what your personality type is, and the Career Chart organizes occupations by personality type, making it easy to focus your occupational research on jobs that suit you.

Connie Blaine, editor and contributing writer of the Adult Career Guide believes knowing your personality type is an essential piece of a successful career plan. “Imagine you had to wear one pair of shoes for the next 30 years of your life,” she says. Wouldn't you want those shoes to fit your feet as well as they possibly could? Most people will spend 25 to 30 years working at some kind of job. So it makes sense to focus your career planning, and your job search, on occupations that fit your personality. It increases the likelihood that you'll be successful and happy in your work, and your life.”

Articles in the Utah Adult Career Guide include helpful pointers on changing careers, rebounding after being laid off, re-entering the workforce after being a stay-at-home mom, how to write a winning resume, and how to wow a potential employer in that all-important interview.

The section on training lists all of Utah's public colleges and universities and applied technology centers. It gives advice on choosing a post-secondary school, and on how to get a bachelor's degree for less money and in less than 4 years. Financial aid options and sources are explained too.

A special section just for women tackles the topics of child care, balancing work with family obligations, common mistakes women make in marketing themselves to potential employers, working mothers' guilt, and legal issues facing women in the workforce.

The new edition of the Utah Adult Career Guide is now on the DWS Web site. To see it, first go to jobs.utah.gov, then under “Quick Links” (on the right side of the screen) find Economic Information and click on “Publications”. Then select “ Adult Career Guide ” from the drop-down menu. The entire publication is on the Web, and all or parts of it can be printed out from any computer hooked up to the Internet and a printer.

For a printed copy of the new Utah Adult Career Guide , visit any DWS employment center. Single printed copies are free of charge. Post-secondary schools, community groups and others can purchase multiple copies of the new Utah Adult Career Guide by calling (801) 526-9785.

8:37:07 AM