PROSPECTIVE STUDENT RESOURCES

Trying to decide what to study at Sheridan? The best way to decide on a school program is to figure out what career outcome you want school to take you to. So before choosing a program of study spend time exploring career options and then make your program selection based on your career goals.

This page takes you through a basic 4 step process to making choices about careers and education. It is intended as a general guide and not a substitute for professional advice. If you need career guidance or testing, locate a practitioner under Career Counselling in the Yellow Pages or see the Additional Resources section

STEP 1 - EXPLORE whatever career fields you are considering and perhaps even browse related occupations using one or more of these up-to-date sources of Canadian career information:

• The National Occupational Classification (NOC) is Canada's career dictionary, with over 30,000 different job titles. Try browsing occupations by category or look up a few ideas you are considering in the index. When reading an occupational description, always remember to check out the "classified elsewhere" section at the bottom of each profile for related career options.
  

• OCCinfo has over 500 occupational profiles which you can browse by selecting interests from drop-down menus, or post-secondary field of study, or based on  industrial sectors. This is run by the Alberta Learning Information Service (nothing similar exists for Ontario) but most info is still applicable.
  
• Career Cruising* provides profiles on over 450 career options, including factual information as well as iinterviews with people who actually do those jobs.

*Career Cruising is subscription-based and requires a password. All Sheridan students (past & present, including continuing education) may use our subscription... contact the Advisement Centre for login information. Alternatively, check with your public library... many have their own subscriptions for general public use.

STEP 2 - NARROW DOWN your options then RESEARCH detailed information on careers you are considering. In addition to the sites above, try consulting the Reference Librarian at your local public library; they are usually very helpful. Here are some other useful web sites for career information:

• To get information on wages and salaries, try the HRSDC Wages & Salaries site which provides data for most areas of Canada, can be narrowed down by urban/rural area, and searched by job type, occupation title or NOC code.
• The HRSDC Employment Prospects page provides local information on opportunities in a wide variety of career fields, searchable by by job type, occupation title or NOC code.
• Ontario Job Futures provides information on the current trends and future outlook for 163 occupations common to Ontario. Look up profiles by job title or job cluster
• Labour Force Survey Statistics Canada's monthly retrospective on what's up and what's down in employment across the country. Including (un)employment rates for various industries and work groups.

STEP 3 - Using info from above steps, DETERMINE SUITABLE CAREER GOALS that reflect your abilities, interests, personality and values. Consider talking to people that work in the occupation(s) of interest to learn about the job responsibilities, education required and/or other qualifications needed. If you are having trouble deciding what is a good fit for your unique qualities, try these resources:

• Career Navigator Quizzes are intended to provide information to help you understand your abilities, preferences, work values and skills so that you are in a better position to evaluate career options.
• The University of Waterloo Career Development Manual is a well-established resource that includes checklists to help you evaluate personality, values, skills, interests, knowledge and entrepreneurism.
• Skills Plus: Discovering Your Personal Career Assets  will help you understand how your personal characteristics affect career decisions, explore personal management skills such as time management, problem solving, and organizational skills, identify your resources and determine which are most helpful to your career path, and much more.

STEP 4 - SELECT & APPLY TO PROGRAM(S). Once you have a career direction in mind, the final task is to identify the school programs that will take you toward it. This is a good time to return to the Advisement Centre for help with program selection. Also helpful:

• Sheridan Program Status page shows open, wait-listed and full programs.
• The Ontario college program locator allows you to select area of study and narrow down by keywords, start date, and other criteria. Search results include program status (open/closed/wait list) and links direct to program info on the colleges' sites.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Foreign-Trained Professionals & Tradespeople:

Do you have educational credentials from outside of Canada? Are you a foreign-trained professional or tradesperson? Are you a newcomer to Canada? These resources will help you assess your potential to practice your trade or profession in Canada.

• World Education Services, a private non-profit organization under contract with the Ontario Ministry of Education and Training offers both document-by-document and course-by-course assessment of degrees, diplomas and academic certificates earned abroad, for equivalency in Ontario terms.
• Foreign-trained Professionals & Tradespeople In order to work at a licensed trade or profession all foreign-trained professionals need a formal confirmation that their foreign credentials meet Canadian standards. This page has info and related links.

Locating a Career Development Practitioner:

• Search the directory of agencies, organizations and individual career development practitioners on Contact Point, a networking web site for Career Development Practitioners in Canada.
• Search the directory of certified counsellorsdirectory of certified counsellors on the official web site of the Canadian Counselling Association.

Ontario WorkInfoNet A portal and searchable directory of career planning, learning and employment resources on the Internet. It provides links to hundreds of other sites which offer services and information about career planning, job searching, labour market information, education, literacy, training, and other community services.

Billed as "more than a list of links", this site is organized into task-oriented sections that provide not only web links but also listings of print resources available at the Toronto Public Library (and, of course, many other public libraries and bookstores). Users can set up a profile and "keep" their favourite reference sources on file.