Sassaman-Ch. 11

Chapter 11 was my favorite chapter thus far in the Brown textbook.  I totally understand that learning the theory is necessary, but I have been eager to learn about practical and tangible resources to use with students.  Because of my previous work as a college adviser, I am very familiar with the Occupational Outlook Handbook provided through the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  I’ve grown quite comfortable with the resource and have found it very valuable for personal use as well as for a tool for my students.  Brown (pg. 226) does emphasize the use of O*NET and point out some features that were unique, such as the ability to search for job by level of physical activity.  This future could be extremely useful for students with a disability.  Another positive that O*NET has that I do not think the Occupational Outlook Handbook has is the ability to take inventory measures (such as Holland code) on the website and search by career that way!  Very cool feature.  I will say though that I don’t think these features are obvious, and I think the Occupational Outlook Handbook is more polished and user friendly.  Perhaps O*NET can rebrand their site to make their amazing features more readily available to users. 

In practical use, I’ve relied on the Occupational Outlook Handbook for one main reason: salary.  In particular, salary per geographic area.  Many times, when working with student’s future earning potential is a very real concern for them, and I found this source to be very reliable to give student a basic idea of what can be expected of salary.  Also, the geographic specific feature was extremely helpful for students who wanted to stay close to home or those who had a specific destination in mind.  Since I was serving in a rural area, a lot of students were interested in staying as close as possible to home.  Unfortunately, there is just not a lot of jobs in the area.  This tool made it possible for use to see what jobs are in the area, or lose surrounding area, as well information about where the job they are interested in pursuing is hiring.  Brown does mention the deficiencies with these previously mentioned websites: the lacking of military in formation (pg. 226-227). In my previous work I assisted with the ASVAB (military entrance/aptitude exam) and their resources are not to be underestimated!  They have very helpful information about military careers, as well as civilian careers and connections between them. 

Brown, D. (2016).  Career information, career counseling, and career development, (11th ed.). Chapel Hill, NC: Pearson.