The very thought of trying to figure out your career while you're still in high school is a bit frightening. So how do you choose a career? For most of you, you shouldn't. At least not yet. What you should be doing is gathering information together. Research shows that you will probably have 5 different careers in your life. So instead of picking the one career, you should take a long term approach to figuring out your future path. Here are some guiding facors to help with that journey:

1 - First, who are you? What do you like doing? What type of personality do you have? Do you like working with people or things? A very important step in figuring out your future is to gain a solid understanding of yourself. During high school you can learn a lot about what you like by taking a variety of elective courses. In the Vancouver School District, we have Career Pathways that you can follow. Also, during your four years at Skyview, you will be given different assessments to help you. These include the colors test, multiple intelligences test, the ASVAB test and many others. Take these with the goal of learning more about who you are, it will help in the long run. If you want to take a good online assessment, the Bridges Career Explorer and the WOIS Clues Survey are good choices.

2 - Second, where are the jobs going to be in the future? Technology is changing the world of work at a very rapid pace. In fact, trying to choose a career while you are still in high school is somewhat like shooting at a moving target. You may train for a job that won't be around in 5 or 10 years. So how can you be informed about what is going to be out there in the future? Take a look at where the Job Growth is going to be in the next 7 years. Another source of good information is the different branches of the Military. They offer college tuition and on the job training for different careers.

3 - Put together your job survival kit. Most of you don't realize that your Professional Development Portfolio is your Job Survival Kit. So work hard at making that PDP high quality and complete. I would suggest you make a great Resume the centerpiece of your survival kit. A resume is a great way of keeping track of your job market skills. Make it a regular practice of updating your resume every time you have something valuable to add. This could be after an important award, promotion or completed job.