Explore Your Interests

Using This Website to Explore Careers

Did you see the big black button that says “Follow Here for More Content!” If you sign up for any and all career topics you are interested in, you can stay in the loop. This is part of the exploration process. Are you a biology major interested in tech, business, medicine, and social impact? Follow all of those areas to get more explore to what they are about and how you might fit.

Career Exploration is a Process

Understand Yourself

Understanding what interests you and what you are good at will help you find job satisfaction in your first position—and beyond, as your interests and skills develop over the years. Your career goals are likely to change many times throughout your life. Developing an initial focus will help you narrow your options and target appropriate employers or educational paths. It’s okay if you change your mind as you discover more about yourself, jobs, and employers—this is a learning experience!

Knowing your abilities and understanding what is important to you in a work setting and career are crucial to making a career decision. See the Assessments resource for more information.

Register now with Cornell Handshake for events/workshops.

Explore Options through Experiences

Through experiential learning, volunteering, and job shadowing, you can learn a great deal about potential career paths. Observing someone in their work environments allows you to experience the work first hand. They can answer questions such as:

• What are the daily/weekly/yearly responsibilities of this position?
• What is it like working for this company?
• What would I like about this career?
• What would I find challenging about this career?
• What questions do I have about this industry, company, position, career path? 

Job shadowing and volunteering are great ways to try out different options in a lower-commitment environment and develop valuable career-related skills. Plus, by volunteering you get the fulfillment of knowing that you are giving back to your community in a meaningful way. These experiences can help you:

1. Discover your preferences. You can also learn things about yourself and your work style. Figure out whether you prefer to be on the front lines implementing programs or behind the scenes coordinating plans, or working independently vs. with a team.
2. Identify career-readiness skills. Even through observation, you are gaining transferable skills. You will also see what skills are needed in a variety of environments—project management, teamwork, communication, marketing, and more.
3. Develop and refine skills. Regardless of whether you plan to continue working in the same industry where you gain experience, you are developing transferable skills that will be relevant in a variety of environments—project management, teamwork, communication, marketing, and more.
4. Impress employers. Not everyone makes the effort to seek opportunities to learn about an employer or position through a job shadow experience. Employers are often impressed by this motivation.
5. Expand your professional network. You may meet others during a job shadow experience. These connections can lead to future work opportunities or even just insightful informational interviews. You never know what connections you might make.
6. Increase likelihood of a job in a particular industry. The more you learn about a specific industry, employer, or position, the more likely you will be able to show your understanding during the application process and demonstrate  commitment and competency. If you apply at a related organization, your volunteer supervisor can also serve as a reference that others will trust.

Key Modules

The Self-Assessment and Exploration modules contain many activities and worksheets to help you explore your interests, values, and skills. The Fairs module will show you how career fairs can be used for exploration as well.

Career Exploration and Advising

Career staff in your college career office and at Cornell Career Services in Barnes Hall are available to guide you through exploration activities whether you are starting from a blank page or if you are fairly specialized but needing to select a sub-specialty in a specific field.