Find Your Career Path | Jamestown Community College

Explore. Reflect. Decide. Your future starts here.

Jamestown Community College offers tools and resources to help you discover who you are, learn about your career options, and take steps toward your future.

Start your self-discovery

The first step in finding the right career is understanding yourself. These tools help you identify your strengths, transferable skills, and personality traits. The more you know about yourself, the easier it is to connect to your career possibilities.

Self-discovery Assessments

16 Personalities: Personality assessment that reveals your personality type, strengths, and communication style, and suggests careers that may be a good fit.
Awato: Interactive career and education planning tool that matches your interests and values with majors, careers, and transfer options.
Career Compass: JCC’s guided tool through Career Services to help you reflect on your goals, skills, and values, and begin narrowing down your career options.
CareerZone: New York State career exploration system that lets you research job outlook, salaries, and skills needed across hundreds of occupations.
Holland Code Assessment: Quick assessment based on John Holland’s theory that matches you to six interest areas and suggests careers aligned with your dominant themes.
O*NET Interest Profiler: Career exploration tool that helps you discover what you like to do and how those interests connect to career paths.
Your career counselor can also share assessments tailored to your specific interests and possible career pathways.

Dive into career possibilities

Explore these tools to discover majors and careers that align with your passions and goals. As you explore potential paths, take advantage of virtual and real world experiences through JCC’s Career Services.

Career Exploration Websites

Big Future (College Board): Explore majors, compare colleges, and connect your interests with potential career paths.
CareerVillage.org: Ask real professionals questions about their careers and get personalized advice.
Career Zone (NYS): Research hundreds of occupations, including salary, skills needed, and job outlook.
GoGovernment.org: Learn about career opportunities in federal, state, and local government.
JCC LibGuide on career research: Collection of resources from JCC librarians to help you research careers, industries, and educational requirements in depth.
Jobs in Demand (NYS Department of Labor): Careers most in demand in New York State, including which fields are growing and where new opportunities are emerging.
My Next Move (O*NET): Browse careers by industry, search by key skills, or match your results from the O*NET Interest Profiler.
O*NET Online (O*NET): Explore job descriptions, skills needed, education requirements, and future outlook for thousands of occupations.
Occupational Outlook Handbook (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics): Detailed information on what workers do, how to become one, what they earn, and the job outlook for hundreds of careers.
Roadtrip Nation: Watch video documentaries of people’s career journeys to see how others found their path.

Browse careers by cluster to see how fields of study connect with industries:

Arts, A/V Technology, & Communications (Career Clusters Framework): Explore careers in design, media, and the arts.
Business Management & Administration (Career Clusters Framework): Explore careers in leadership, entrepreneurship, and management.
Health Science (Career Clusters Framework): Explore careers in healthcare, wellness, and medicine.
STEM (Career Clusters Framework): Explore careers in science, technology, engineering, and math.

Career Exploration Activities with Career Services

Complete an internship for real-world experience: Gain skills, build your resume, and make career connections through supervised work in your area of interest.
Connect with career competencies: Learn core skills and behaviors that employers look for in any field, like communication, teamwork, problem-solving, professionalism, and adaptability. Building these competencies at JCC will help you grow and succeed throughout your career.
Log into Forage: Free virtual job simulation platform for JCC students, where real-world employers help you explore career paths, build skills, and experience a day in the life of a specific job.
Shadow a professional for a day: Spend time with someone working in your field of interest to see what their day-to-day job is really like.
Take a workplace tour: Visit an employer, explore their work environment, and learn directly from professionals about career opportunities.
More career exploration through Career Services

Reflect & create your career action plan

Once you’ve completed assessments and explored careers, you can reflect on everything you’ve learned with your career counselor:

Review your assessments such as Awato, O*NET, 16 Personalities, etc. Look for common themes (skills, values, interests).
Reflect on your activities and notes from interviews, job shadows, and workplace tours. Which careers stand out? Which ones don’t seem like a good fit?
Compare careers by looking at education level, salary, and skills. Choose those that best match your interests, values, and strengths.
Create a career action plan:
- Map out courses that align with your career pathway(s)
- Set short-term goals (this semester/year)
- Consider long-term goals (transfer, career, graduate school)
Check in regularly with your career counselor to update your plan as you learn more and refine your direction.